Differences of vocabulary learning

Guest   Thu Feb 21, 2008 11:58 pm GMT
There are many words which sound alike.
Guest   Fri Feb 22, 2008 12:09 am GMT
Yes, you're right, but it also borders on rude to suggest that Westerners waste their lives learning thousands of hieroglyphs.

It's basically comes down to the Chinese whether their language becomes international, the fact is no one will learn Chinese unless they get rid of characters. Now whether the Chinese even care about that is a different matter, but it doesn't change the simple truth that with characters CHinese will never be international.
Guest   Fri Feb 22, 2008 12:14 am GMT
It isn't rude at all to expect westerners (if indeed they do) to learn their language. It doesn't matter. Some people won't be good at the tones of Chinese even if they cut out characters.
Xie   Fri Feb 22, 2008 3:07 am GMT
>>>It's basically comes down to the Chinese whether their language becomes international, the fact is no one will learn Chinese unless they get rid of characters. Now whether the Chinese even care about that is a different matter, but it doesn't change the simple truth that with characters CHinese will never be international.<<<

WHO KNOWS? That's too much of a generalization.

In the long run, I suppose the nuances, esp. the differences owing to language families (i.e. few cognates to rely upon), would be the permanent hurdles for both Chinese learners of non-CJK languages (spec. western) and foreign learners of something like Chinese. Such lack of reliable carryovers might mean Chinese would be a brave new world for YOU, the foreign learner, to learn every single nuance, which form this intricate language system, all on your own.

With the proper guidance and preparation suggested by some experts (http://antimoon.com/forum/t9736.htm) (and which I do support), I do think it is possible for both the Chinese student and the Anglophone student to learn the language of one another using almost the same amount of time - the Anglophone student might even have the advantage of NOT having to learn something I call "International Chinese", since there's nothing like that. As I see it, it's very important to immerse yourself, even if you can't (ever) go to the target country, to understand the language through studying its culture. You can see how taste-less my English could be, and I'm in a desperate lack of colloquialisms you would want to see here...just like how boring [but naturally] foreign learners speak Chinese to me. You'd understand that, especially if you meet a lot of immigrants in your country who speak with millions of accents and who don't really know (or never) completely about your country.
Guest   Fri Feb 22, 2008 3:58 am GMT
That's a excellent point, Xie. Even with Chinese written as pinyin for westerners, there is no getting around the fact that the cognates are not there. This is why the characters are wonderful-they give a hint at the meaning and can help with memory.
Geoff_One   Fri Feb 22, 2008 12:24 pm GMT
<< Even with Chinese written as pinyin for westerners, there is no getting around the fact that the cognates are not there. >>

From my studies:

a. These days, the most common romanisation (latin letters) system
for Chinese Mandarin is the pinyin system.

b. The most common romanisation (latin letters) system
for Cantonese is the Yale system.

I am studying Cantonese from three text books and they all use the Yale system. In addition, all this study is self study and it is via the Yale system.
Guest   Fri Feb 22, 2008 3:34 pm GMT
I've heard that there is high illiteracy in China, due to the complexity of the writing system (unlike in Korea, which has high scores in literacy and book publishing)...It's easy to manipulate people if you keep them illiterate.
Guest   Fri Feb 22, 2008 4:00 pm GMT
<<due to the complexity of the writing system<<

Japan has even more complex writing system then China, but has literally no illiteracy. If there's illiteracy in China it has nothing to do with writing system. Nor does it with manipulation, because you can be an American and spell like hell but it doesn't help you understand the meaning of what's written.
Geoff_One   Sat Feb 23, 2008 12:21 am GMT
As detailed previously, the spoken forms of Chinese Mandarin and Cantonese are as far apart (circa) as English and Swedish. It would be a luxury to me if the difference was only the same as Spanish and Italian.
Guest   Sat Feb 23, 2008 1:09 am GMT
Geoff_One,

I wrote about pinyin, cognates, etc. I was simply thinking of Mandarin. I don't know much about Cantonese except a few words and the fact that it has more tones. I'm curious as to why you chose Cantonese.

I prefer Shanghai dialect, but Mandarin is the most practical choice for me.
Xie   Sat Feb 23, 2008 2:23 am GMT
Whatever it is, I'd only consider how much you can GET (or even give). I never met a Shanghai person, nor have I been to Shanghai, and I can only find no more than a couple of books about the Shanghai language, so there's no point of learning it at the moment, even though it should be fairly easy - from my perspective, compared to the "perceived" complexity of all those with a large Latinate vocabulary base.

Again, speaking of "complexity", it's very important to see why such languages should be considered complex even by natives (do Anglophones think English is complex, btw?). I'm afraid the reason could be fairly similar to natives who 1) live in "economically challenged" countries, such that no one would possibly bother with learning their language unless for strange reasons, 2) live in a fairly homogeneous society, such that the foreign learner almost ALWAYS seems to be so alien, 3) are often convinced when they see how foreign learners fail miserably to utter all those nuances correctly, such as always speaking with the wrong tone in a TV programme - as an expat who operates an Italian restaurant / is an actor / has married a native wife / is a professor of subjects that deal with languages, etc.

It's strange, practical and rather utilitarian, but this is the reality of learning, esp. when you are considering something that you wouldn't probably use, or use passively, anytime soon. The poor Chinese students are often struggling with all those Germanic and Latinate words (English) but neglect what their people are speaking daily completely.

Cantonese fits all the above conditions. But with the appearance of things like Wikipedia and all those e-resources (and p2p stuff), all those strange reasons have become more than possibilities. I don't know how much people are getting motivated nowadays, like about learning "Chinese", but certainly it's now possible to learn impossibles in the past. When I was a kid, it was not exactly possible to learn...English, not to say Shanghainese or Japanese or Mandarin, when it was really hard to learn anything without constant contact with native speakers and recordings (tapes). There are less reasons to say impossible when an intelligent person can find a lot of stuff...
lan   Sat Feb 23, 2008 4:59 am GMT
literacy rate si about 91% in China,go figure...