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Do you prefer simplfied or traditional Chinese characters?
I hear a joke about Taiwan's officials preserving traditional Chinese characters
They punish students by asking writing one Chinese chracters for 100 or 1000 times when they write one simplified chinese characters. Because of this, I am strongly anti-traditional Chinese characters.
I think to write Simplified Chinese characters can save the Earth better than to write traditional Chinese characters.
How much does the "ink" cost when priting one paper in traditional Chinese characters? I think to write simplified Chinese characters can save the ink and that's way to protect the Earth.
Think...
if priting 100000 pages of book in traditional chinese characters... how much the ink will cost?
<Guest Wed Aug 06, 2008 9:32 am GMT
Simplified Chinese characters = Chicken Scratch > Traditional Chinese characters = garbage of craps.
"I think to write Simplified Chinese characters can save the Earth better than to write traditional Chinese characters.
How much does the "ink" cost when priting one paper in traditional Chinese characters? I think to write simplified Chinese characters can save the ink and that's way to protect the Earth. Guest" Antimoon is full of radicals, lol. I'm for protecting the earth. Give me a Nobel prize! Seriously, I don't know if I can deal with this, first coffee guilt over at the English section (even though I prefer coffee from a country not even named in the debate), now guilt over my ink. I recycle and more. I'm not going to get a guilt complex over ink. You like Simplified Characters, that's fine. They were good enough for the PRC to use to educate Chinese, so they could read Mao's book, I suppose. I use Japanese characters, so my guilt is, let's say, "Medium" now.
I am a student of Mandarin Chinese, and I stick to Traditional whenever possible. When I study Traditional characters, I feel like I'm simultaneously learning something extremely useful in the here and now and something with an immense amount of background to it. All the great works of Chinese literature were written in Traditional characters, for example.
Whenever I study Simplified characters, by contrast, I just feel like I'm studying an insanely and pointlessly complex writing system which is nevertheless a sort of 'Chinese for people too dumb to learn Chinese.' The years since China adopted Simplified script have not been kind to Chinese culture, either; for the majority of the period, China has been a totalitarian dictatorship, and for ten years or so a dictatorship which actively sought to destroy traditional culture and replace it with Maoism. I would rather read 'Journey to the West' than 'Mao's book of quotations', thank you very much. Put simply, China just hasn't produced as much worth reading since they adopted simplified. Hong Kong and Taiwan still use Traditional, and for the overwhelming majority of the period since the Communists took over on the Mainland, if there was anything worth reading in Chinese, it typically came from one of those two places.
"They punish students by asking writing one Chinese chracters for 100 or 1000 times when they write one simplified chinese characters. Because of this, I am strongly anti-traditional Chinese characters."
If you're upset because higher officials are forcing people to use characters, then keep in mind people on the mainland are fined for using traditional characters in place of legally recognized simplified characters on shop signs and so forth. I can't imagine anyone being strongly anti-traditional characters. It's too absurd; traditional characters are at the very basis of Chinese history and culture.
"Ivan the Terrible Sat Aug 09, 2008 1:12 am GMT
I am a student of Mandarin Chinese, and I stick to Traditional whenever possible. When I study Traditional characters, I feel like I'm simultaneously learning something extremely useful in the here and now and something with an immense amount of background to it. All the great works of Chinese literature were written in Traditional characters, for example. Whenever I study Simplified characters, by contrast, I just feel like I'm studying an insanely and pointlessly complex writing system which is nevertheless a sort of 'Chinese for people too dumb to learn Chinese.' The years since China adopted Simplified script have not been kind to Chinese culture, either; for the majority of the period, China has been a totalitarian dictatorship, and for ten years or so a dictatorship which actively sought to destroy traditional culture and replace it with Maoism. I would rather read 'Journey to the West' than 'Mao's book of quotations', thank you very much. Put simply, China just hasn't produced as much worth reading since they adopted simplified. Hong Kong and Taiwan still use Traditional, and for the overwhelming majority of the period since the Communists took over on the Mainland, if there was anything worth reading in Chinese, it typically came from one of those two places. " The suggestion for simplifying Chinese characters came out during the end of Qing dynasty, and in 1936 the Education Bureau of Republic of China passed the law for simplifying Chinese character, so , the simplified Chinese is nothing to do with "Communists" but something to do with "KMT" here is the text as following in Chinese(quote from http://64.208.227.227/thread-2296058-1-1.html): and here is the textbook published in 1935 by the Education Bureau of Republic of China. See picture: http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk207/tt78901/a7.jpg http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk207/tt78901/a8.jpg http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk207/tt78901/a9.jpg 在這一千三百年中，中國用一成不改的漢字發展出燦爛的文化，其中又以唐詩宋詞最為人所稱道，成為中華文化的精華。中國人，誰不會吟幾首唐詩，誦幾首宋詞，唱兩句「滿江紅」？那麼，為什麼好端端用了一千三百年的文字，到了民國需要改進呢？因為中國受到立國以來前所未有的外國勢力的衝擊。 在中國五千年的歷史中，外國勢力的衝擊其實從未間斷，而且中國因此曾經兩度亡於異族。但是這些只是軍事上短期的失利，在文化上中國始終處於長期的、絕對的優勢。由於漢人的文化遠高於蒙古人和滿人，元朝很快就滅亡了，而滿人看到蒙古人的前例，一開始就主動全面漢化以求維持長久統治。所以中國文字當然沒有修改的必要。 但是十九世紀工業革命後的西方文明挾船堅砲利巨大的科學優勢入侵中國，古老的中華文化便再也抵擋不住了。清末興起辦洋務，就是以洋人的一套物質文明來對付洋人，這固然是必須的，但是不夠充分。清朝的洋務運動並沒有成功地抵擋外國的侵略和搜刮，中國有亡國滅種之憂。於是中國的有識之士開始認識到辦幾個工廠或許能夠解燃眉之急，但是對抵抗外來列強的根本問題是無濟於事的，中國必須學習和吸收老外的東西、從根本思維上改進自己的文化，才能真正超越老外、重振我漢唐雄風。 二十世紀是一個偉大的世紀，是知識爆發的世紀。高度累積性的知識成為一個國家科技發展必走的道路，也是救亡圖存的道路。知識不再是少數人的特權，而是廣大民眾的必須。民國的有識之士立刻明瞭中國文盲過多是拖住現代文明迅速發展的腳步最重要的因素。除了提倡白話文使教育普及外，中國文字的複雜也是造成學習困難的原因，於是漢字簡化的運動便在一千三百年後復活了。 漢字簡化不但是必要的，而且是迫切的。 （二）民國後漢字簡化的歷史 民國後的漢字簡化運動非常蓬勃，能說的太多，我們只在這裏敘述幾個最重要的。 １９０９年，陸費逵在【教育雜誌】創刊號上發表論文「普通教育應當採用俗體字」。這是中國近代歷史上第一次公開提倡使用簡體字。 １９２２年，錢玄同在國語統一籌備委員會上提出「減省現行漢字的筆畫案」，得到多人連署。這是近代歷史上有關簡體字的第一個具體方案，主張把過去只在民間流行的簡體字作為正體字應用於一切正規的書面語。他提出的八種簡化漢字的方法，實際上也就是現行簡體字的產生依據，影響深遠。 １９３０年，中央研究院歷史語文研究所出版劉復、李家瑞合編的【宋元以來俗字表】，反映了一千年來簡體字的發展情況。 １９３２年，國民政府教育部公布出版國語籌備委員會編定的【國音常用字彙】，收入不少簡體字，並指出：“現在應該把它（ 簡體字 ）推行，使書寫處於約易。” １９３５年，錢玄同主持編成【簡體字譜】草稿，收簡體字兩千四百多個。 １９３５年８月，國民政府教育部採用【簡體字譜】草稿的一部分，公布「第一批簡體字表」，收字３２４個。由於這是中華民國政府正式公佈實施的簡體字表，所以是一個非常重要的里程碑。我們特別把它的內容公布在下面：
"Ivan the Terrible Sat Aug 09, 2008 1:12 am GMT
The years since China adopted Simplified script have not been kind to Chinese culture, either; for the majority of the period, China has been a totalitarian dictatorship, and for ten years or so a dictatorship which actively sought to destroy traditional culture and replace it with Maoism. I would rather read 'Journey to the West' than 'Mao's book of quotations', thank you very much. Put simply, China just hasn't produced as much worth reading since they adopted simplified. Hong Kong and Taiwan still use Traditional, and for the overwhelming majority of the period since the Communists took over on the Mainland, if there was anything worth reading in Chinese, it typically came from one of those two places. " Let me see, can u suggest Greece is a totalitarian dicatorship because she abandoned "Ancient Greek" replaced by "Modern Greek"?
"Ivan the Terrible Sat Aug 09, 2008 1:12 am GMT
Put simply, China just hasn't produced as much worth reading since they adopted simplified. " Taiwan and HK haven't produced as much worth reading because they likely translate books from foreign countries... So, it's the fault for them to adopt Traditional Chinese characters, they shall adopt Simplified. |