Why are Chinese characters still used?

Shuimo   Mon Apr 13, 2009 10:22 am GMT
Skippy Sun Apr 12, 2009 5:53 pm GMT
It's not that the Chinese should give it up, but I really think teachers of Chinese (especially in the West) need to remove it from the curriculum until you get to be more advanced. It's a huge turn off having to learn a new alphabet, much less a pictographic system.

I'd argue the same for Japanese, although being a phonetic script, it hardly presents the same complications as Chinese
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stupid fellows should have such probs!
Skippy   Mon Apr 13, 2009 2:50 pm GMT
English certainly could use some sort of reform. But as for foreign language learners, they may have to take the initiative and start learning English using their own alphabets and THEN try to learn the orthographic system.
LeoXiao   Tue Apr 14, 2009 2:42 am GMT
Chinese characters aren't prohibitively hard to learn, and once you master the first few hundred most essential characters, the other ones become easier. Also, Chinese can be read much faster than English or the other Asian phonetic systems, not to mention that since Chinese is based primarily in the ideas rather than sounds (so many words and concepts sound identical), a phonetic system (such as pinyin or zhuyin) would make the reading the language a complete pain and such an action would only be to appeal to Westerners.

In fact, when people read Romanized languages, they don't read the words as a group of letters but instead we memorize each word (particularly the larger ones) as a picture-type thing. It happens naturally and helps us read faster.
LeoXiao   Tue Apr 14, 2009 2:44 am GMT
Chinese characters aren't prohibitively hard to learn, and once you master the first few hundred most essential characters, the other ones become easier. Also, Chinese can be read much faster than English or the other Asian phonetic systems, not to mention that since Chinese is based primarily in the ideas rather than sounds (so many words and concepts sound identical), a phonetic system (such as pinyin or zhuyin) would make the reading the language a complete pain and such an action would only be to appeal to Westerners.

In fact, when people read Romanized languages, they don't read the words as a group of letters but instead we memorize each word (particularly the larger ones) as a picture-type thing. It happens naturally and helps us read faster.
CANadian   Tue Apr 14, 2009 5:14 am GMT
I would love to see Japanese kanji-free... it would be lovely if it was all written in hiragana or katakana, but then the ambiguity problem comes up unfortunately... but then again:

I just finished learning 한국 and it's so easy... Chinese pictograms are slowly becoming extinct in South Korea, and have been phased out in North Korea since the 1950's... so I wish Japanese could go through the same experiment.


Alphabetus:

<< They may be hard to learn and hard to type by machine, but how inefficient are Chinese characters when written by hand? A whole word can be written in just one or two characters. >>

It might be a true that a whole word could be written with one character, HOWEVER, that could be very misleading... what really matters and counts (literally) is the number of strokes.

For example, the word "LOVE" is written using a maximum of 5 strokes, 1 for (L), 1 for (O), 1 for (V), and 2 for (E).

Now, how many strokes does it take to write the same word in Chinese (爱)?

I'm not sure exactly how many, but by looking at the character, I would say 4 to 5 strokes... so, the same word ends up taking about the same time in both scripts... in other words, Chinese characters don't always save us time and are not necessarily a faster way of writing words...
CANadian   Tue Apr 14, 2009 5:18 am GMT
Sorry, I meant to say that it would probably take 5 to 6 strokes, not 4 to 5.

And by the way, in terms of looks, I do have to concede that Korean doesn't look as nice as Chinese... however, it is more practical/easier/more machine-friendly.
Original Guest User   Tue Apr 14, 2009 8:02 am GMT
(...)the word "LOVE" is written using a maximum of 5 strokes(...)

LOL...I got to find me the lotion...I've got to try this! NOW! LOL...
Patrick   Fri Apr 17, 2009 12:42 am GMT
Well I just started learning Chinese last september... From the point of view of a Westerner, I actually like the characters. I think they are not only interesting but also, as someone above said, are helpful in distinguishing the many homophones. I have been learning to write traditional characters by my choice the whole time, and I really don't think it's that hard....

I agree with the point that reading the characters is faster too.

Finally, I think it would be a very poor choice on the part of China, Japan, or Taiwan to use an entirely phonetic system like pinyin, zhuyin, or one of the kanas so it would be easier for Westerners/ foreigners. Why should that be of their concern?
CANadian   Fri Apr 17, 2009 12:45 am GMT
<< I think it would be a very poor choice on the part of China, Japan, or Taiwan to use an entirely phonetic system like pinyin, zhuyin, or one of the kanas >>

But North Korea is doing just fine without them, and South Korea rarely uses them nowadays and there doesn't seem to be a problem... so I don't see why couldn't Japan replicate.
Mo Shui   Fri Apr 17, 2009 1:36 am GMT
<<But North Korea is doing just fine without them, and South Korea rarely uses them nowadays and there doesn't seem to be a problem... so I don't see why couldn't Japan replicate. >>

Switching from Chinese characters to phonetic writing is like switching from colour TV to black and white TV.

Colour TV may be a lot more expensive, but it's really worth it.

The Japanese are smart people. There is no way they will give up their colour TV and watch black and white TV instead.

The Korean are becoming smarter. That's why they're talking about switching back to colour TV.
Guess Who   Fri Apr 17, 2009 1:50 am GMT
I think Chinese characters are interesting and very beautiful. On the other hand, I do find all these untranslated articles in Chinese a little odd considering the readership of Antimoon/regular posters at Antimoon.

It isn't against the rules to post in Chinese, or French no matter how much it annoys some of the posters.

My challenge to Shuimo is to take his most interesting article and break it down for us like a Chinese lesson. This would be interesting to some of us.

I used to try to link interesting articles in Italian on an English-language website. The articles were all related, scholarly articles about the subject we we discussing on the site. Of course, there wasn't a single person (in spite of Italian's popularity) who was able to read them because I didn't translate them. I guess I overestimate people, just like Shuimo might be doing now.

I think Chinese would lose a lot if Pinyin became the way of reading it. Although Japanese can be written in the romaji, hiragana, or katakana
symbols, it's helpful to see the Kanji. It breaks up the confusion that can occur with homophones. I hope that's the word I want.
;(   Fri Apr 17, 2009 2:04 am GMT
"CANadian Tue Apr 14, 2009 5:14 am GMT
I would love to see Japanese kanji-free... it would be lovely if it was all written in hiragana or katakana, but then the ambiguity problem comes up unfortunately... but then again:

I just finished learning 한국 and it's so easy... Chinese pictograms are slowly becoming extinct in South Korea, and have been phased out in North Korea since the 1950's... so I wish Japanese could go through the same experiment."

Are you back here again-cussy canadian barbarian? My knowledge of Korean suggests to me that you just learned how to write the stacking characters. Good for you! They are very easy. Although some Japanese favor this, it would strip considerable beauty and meaning from Japanese. It's borrowed meaning from Chinese, but still worth something.

So, Dekiru-chan, Nihongo ga dekiru?
CANadian   Fri Apr 17, 2009 2:35 am GMT
Mo Shui said:
<< Switching from Chinese characters to phonetic writing is like switching from colour TV to black and white TV. >>

Here's another idiot who is blinded by ethnic pride.

For your information, Korean characters represent an almost linguistic perfection in their depiction of sounds. Each letter is drawn to resemble the actual shape of the tongue and lips when producing the sound of that letter.
Considering that the Korean alphabet was created back in the 1400's, it was absolutely revolutionary in conveying advanced linguistic phenomenons even back then, such as place of articulation (labial, coronal, velar, glottal) and manner of articulation (plosive, nasal, sibilant, aspiration) for consonants... each stroke is meaningful and tell something about the sound of that letter.
The Korean alphabet is a genius and logical linguistic achievement, and it is actually smarter and conveys more information than the Chinese characters, which could be really arbitrary and random at times.

The fact remains that Chinese characters are essentially sounds represented by drawings, while letters represent the next stage of linguistic evolution by assigning symbols to those sounds.

To give you a metaphorical analogy between drawings and symbols when it comes to the representation of numbers, Chinese characters are like a "tally" while Korean (and all other alphabets) are like Arabic Numerals.
In other words, to represent the number SIX, it would be IIIIII in Chinese and 6 in Alphabets, since IIIIII is a drawing while 6 is a symbol.

Do you get the difference? Do you see which one is better?
;(   Fri Apr 17, 2009 2:45 am GMT
You really think a lot of yourself, don't you, Dekiru-chan?
CANadian   Fri Apr 17, 2009 3:00 am GMT
Another thing I forgot to mention, Mo Shui:

There is a reason why printing started in Europe (using alphabets) and not in China (using characters.)
With alphabets, you can make an almost infinite number of permutations to produce new words with the same number of letters, while with characters, you're forced to make up a new one for each word.


Also, while it's true that certain concepts are represented by linking two different characters together, those two characters each represent something else, and it will be up to the reader to decipher the meaning by translating each of those characters seperately and then search for the concept that links them together. This could be very random and confusing and backwards.

A perfect example of that is: 网球 which is made up of two character:

网 - which means NET
球 - which means BALL

Together, then mean TENNIS.

While this makes sense, it still leaves a great room for error. What about basketball and volleyball, they're both games that involve a net and a ball...