Do you prefer simplfied or traditional Chinese characters?

>You ignore the true fact:

>Simplified Chinese was adopted by KMT initially.

I feel bad for simply copying and pasting exactly what I wrote before in response, but...

"It has everything to do with the CCP, as regardless of whether it was their idea or not, the CCP were the ones who carried out the actual major 'reforms.' More importantly, they are the ones who assured China was a complete cultural void until the end of the Cultural Revolution, and therefore the reason why most things worth reading in Chinese are in 繁體."

I'm really not sure how you think pointing out the KMT suggested simplification before the CCP refutes the above paragraph, given that it's mentioned in the first sentence.

>Besides, China has 9 political parties. One ruling party + 8 co-operative parties

Yeah, and the police state of East Germany was officially the 'German Democratic Republic.'

If 'co-operative parties' = powerless political non-entities, then in effect you have a one-party state. None of them can challenge the ruling party. The CCP controls China. No one else.

Incidentally, this is another reason to prefer 繁體; diversity of opinion and critical thinking skills tend to be much more common in open societies, and as of now Hong Kong and Taiwan are much more open. China is opening up somewhat, but RIGHT NOW arguing with a typical mainlander about a controversial subject will still typically result in fewer interesting debates and more knee-jerk reactions. Witness the above nonsense about Tiananmen; I didn't even mention my opinion on the subject beyond saying that it's controversial, but I knew what the response would be the moment I brought it up. I could provoke a similar, utterly predictable and unexamined knee-jerk response by mentioning '台灣獨立', '新疆', '法輪功', or who knows how many other subjects ranging from Yasakuni Shrine to China's treatment of North Korean refugees.

How hard is it to refrain from attaching politics to linguistics?

Ivan the Terrible Sat Aug 09, 2008 5:42 am GMT


"Yeah, and the police state of East Germany was officially the 'German Democratic Republic.'

DDR only had one party, but China is different.
At China's parliament, the other non-communist parties occupie 2/3 seats



"Incidentally, this is another reason to prefer 繁體; diversity of opinion and critical thinking skills tend to be much more common in open societies, and as of now Hong Kong and Taiwan are much more open. "

There's no doubt in HK, but in Taiwan, it's different.

I hear my roommate coming from Taiwan who mentioned Taiwan preserving traditional Chinese is based on punishing students by asking write 1 chinese characters for 1000 times when they write a simplified chinese character... Is it open? Ridiculous!



"China is opening up somewhat, but RIGHT NOW arguing with a typical mainlander about a controversial subject will still typically result in fewer interesting debates and more knee-jerk reactions. Witness the above nonsense about Tiananmen; "

I think you ignore the fact of Hong Kong 1967 Anti-British Revolution. Brits are worse, then why don't u mention it? Ridiculous!


"I didn't even mention my opinion on the subject beyond saying that it's controversial, but I knew what the response would be the moment I brought it up. I could provoke a similar, utterly predictable and unexamined knee-jerk response by mentioning '台灣獨立', '新疆', '法輪功', or who knows how many other subjects ranging from Yasakuni Shrine to China's treatment of North Korean refugees. "


Let me think of Spain's Basque. The congress of Spain has passed the law stated that Basque pro-independence are terrorist.
If China is democratic as Spain, then no doubt that Taiwan pro-independence shall be terrorists approved by democracy!

I know Taiwan teachers like to torture students by asking them to write one Chinese characters for 1000 times because they "only" write one simplified Chinese...


open?

That's the way for being open?

ridiculous!

法輪功 (Falun Gong) is an evil cult just like Aum Shinri kyo. No doubt!

李洪志 (Li HongZhi) is absolutely a son of bitch, his believers are STUPID!

HK teachers never torture students, but Taiwan teachers do.
Is it human rights?

Daniel J, in this case, very hard. Very likely there wouldn't even BE a debate between traditional and simplified script without politics.

「Chinese characters can hardly be changed into phonetic alphabets such as "Latin/Greek alphabet", Hiragana/katakana, or something just like Hangul.」
I don't agree because Kanji INDEED became a totally phonetic system in Japan and Hiragana CAN and ARE used instead of Kanjis. They are much more practical and would make Japanese a language easier to learn if kanjis were abolished (Specially because readings for Japanese characters are much more difficult than in Chinese due to the large number of readings for each letter). Hangul letters also work perfectly and Koreans might even study Hanja but in everyday life the Korean native alphabet is the authority.

「Perhaps Homophony is only one of the reasons which appear, to a certain degree, to have some problems on reforming Chinese writing system. And the fact, that Japanese people still cannot take KANJI away from its writing system, fully proves the importance of Chinese characters (KANJI/HANJA).」

Well, Vietnamese TOTALLY abolished kanjis and I see no reason for that not to happen in Japan since Chinese letters might be beautiful but since many concepts are totally abstract, that could be a burden to foreign students. It's no wonder that Japanese and Chinese are not so popular...I really doubt that Chinese will become an international language...
Even though one might distinguish many words such as 「橋、箸、端」,「雨、飴」、「正義、盛儀、精義」、「湖上、古城、弧状」、「上記、蒸気、常規」, that will make no difference in spoken language since the context says it all.
I really love Chinese characters but they are a burden for learners and a reason for languages that use them not to spread.

Back to the question of using traditional or simplified characters, if one is thinking in dealing with China it's better to learn characters that have less strokes and are easier to learn since many are abstract anyway. I don't see any difference in writing 龙 or 龍, 发展 or 發展, 会议 or 會議 for instance since one must MEMORIZE these concepts since they're totally abstract, as much as the alphabet is but at least one can start studying any language with alphabet right away, instead of studying characters for years and years...(They're cool but not very practical)

J.C.

You must have studied Japanese hard for some time, I also guess that, you might know some Mandarin Chinese. Have you ever had a try that, you just write hiragana and katakana, from start to finish, in any Japanese articles and without spaces between words, and then read them through smoothly.

And I ever learned a little Japanese and some Korean just a few years ago, I also found that sometimes Japanese chooses 2 different KANJI to give expression to the same meanings, such as [寂しい] & [淋しい] (both mean lonely). In fact, the formal KANJI shoul be [寂しい], and some other words have the similarity too, I don't know clearly why this phenomenon exists.

When it comes to Korean Hangul, yes, it almost abandoned HANJA (KANJI) successfully, but have you noticed that, (if you got to know some Korean), in some governmental, literary, historical, classical, and pharmic books, as well as Korean Dictionaries (國語辭典), sometimes HANJA (KANJI) are often remarked in order to avoid different meanings. So, Actions speak louder than words.

J.C.

Sorry for my poor English, maybe something I said does not sounds very clearly or accurately, if you can not understand it well, please let me know.

Yes, the Japanese love to use many different kanji to write a single native word of theirs.

These are all ways of writing the native Japanese word とる (toru).

取る
撮る
採る
獲る
摂る
奪る
録る
盗る
捕る
執る

《Yes, the Japanese love to use many different kanji to write a single native word of theirs.

These are all ways of writing the native Japanese word とる (toru). 》


I guess, perhaps, some different KANJI usually have different meanings,
the following writing methods should, at least, have some different meanings, although they have the same pronunciation.


取る
撮る
採る
獲る
摂る
奪る
録る
盗る
捕る
執る

Yes, they do have different meanings, but it's easy to tell which meaning is meant from context without kanji. The word usually translates roughly to the English word "take", which also has many meanings. We don't need kanji to disambiguate them in English, though.

This would be like writing:

Please 取ake (take) your change, sir.
The criminal 盗ook (took) his bike.

...in order to distinguish the different meanings.

Actually, we, Chinese people, can immediately tell apart different meanings, as soon as I see the related KANJI, because the KANJI parts are usually the same with or similar to Chinese Characters, except for a few irregularities.

Maybe it's mainly due to the fact, Chinese character seems much more distinctly and abstractly than Latin alphabet or something alike.

「You must have studied Japanese hard for some time, I also guess that, you might know some Mandarin Chinese. Have you ever had a try that, you just write hiragana and katakana, from start to finish, in any Japanese articles and without spaces between words, and then read them through smoothly. 」
JIAJIA先生：Thank you so much for your comment and for replying so kindly. As for your question, I do agree that kanjis can make it easier to read but hiragana and katakana can work PERFECTLY without 漢字。
When I was studying Japanese I was given a very typical example of what you said:にわにはにわにわとりがいる, which can be more easily read when written 「庭には二羽鶏がいる」but that doesn't mean that it is IMPOSSIBLE to read without kanji. Without spaces it could be hard but how about putting some commas and stops? By the way,「すもももももももものうち」is totally understood without writing 「李も桃も桃のうち. By the way, I started learning Chinese with Taiwanese teachers and continue my studies in Japan with books I bought in China some years ago.

「And I ever learned a little Japanese and some Korean just a few years ago, I also found that sometimes Japanese chooses 2 different KANJI to give expression to the same meanings, such as [寂しい] & [淋しい] (both mean lonely). In fact, the formal KANJI shoul be [寂しい], and some other words have the similarity too, I don't know clearly why this phenomenon exists. 」

Thanks for the insight with the kanjis 寂しい、淋しい. In my view 寂しい is more widely used and is included in the 常用漢字, whereas 淋しい is more literary. About the Korean Hanjas, I studied Korean for one year in Japan and never felt the need to use Chinese characters since ALL WORDS can be written perfectly in 한굴.



「When it comes to Korean Hangul, yes, it almost abandoned HANJA (KANJI) successfully, but have you noticed that, (if you got to know some Korean), in some governmental, literary, historical, classical, and pharmic books, as well as Korean Dictionaries (國語辭典), sometimes HANJA (KANJI) are often remarked in order to avoid different meanings. So, Actions speak louder than words.」

I still agree that hanjas(kanjis) can be used to clarify a lot of misunderstandings but one can also live without them, specially because the Korean language is so distant and different from Chinese. I do repeat that I LOVE CHINESE characters, but they are not very practical to learn.
再見！