How hard is it to learn Chinese?

[iGas]

Probably the hardest language for a non Asian person to learn.

I'm Asian and I found it is hard as hell. And, not all Asians are Chinese.

 

[PowerYoga]

There is no good evidence that traditional characters increase literacy. However, there is a correlation between the introduction of simplified characters and increased literacy in China. You can't necessarily say simplified characters are the sole or even main reason for increased literacy because there are other factors as well, but the point is there's a far better argument supporting simplified characters.

No, better school systems increase literacy. Simplified chinese is not that much harder to learn than traditional but it fucks up all connotations of the word and butchers the language and actually makes it harder to understand for the people who are already illiterate and are trying to learn the language.

For example, "face" and "noodle" use the same character. WTF????

The main argument against simplified characters IMO is they don't look as pretty, and it's harder to link some characters to their historic roots. Well, maybe some have been oversimplified, but that's probably better than overcomplicated.

No, the main argument against simplified characters is that the individual characters completely lose their meaning and thus make absolutely no sense by themselves. Chinese is a language where every character is important and simplified characters actually make the characters harder to understand because now a single character can have 10-15 meanings. Again, "face" and "noodle" use the same character. Make any sense to you?

That's why if you compare the "old" simplified characters in the late 50s and 60s versus the ones more commonly used in every day business today, you'll see a resurgence of characters that look more and more like traditional characters. China is actually moving AWAY from the old style of traditional characters that came about from the cultural revolution (genocide), which is actually a good thing.

Personally I think that teacher's argument is kind of an odd (and biased) one. That's like saying we should stick with Old English spellings because it's easier to link Old English spellings with our historic roots of English.

The more proper way of linking this is saying "hey, there are too many words in the english language, lets just take 200 of the most commonly used words and call it "english" and use that as the de-facto language.

Also, it should be noted that 75 years ago, some Chinese universities used to require some liberal arts papers to be written in classical Chinese. Not only did you have to know the traditional characters, you also had to know the classical writing styles. So the analogy in English is not only did you have to know the Old English spellings, you had to write in the Old English style as well, even if the paper wasn't for an English class. For example, if you were writing a paper on the American Revolution, you'd have to write in Chaucer's English. I'd say that's just dumb.

Not at all the same comparison. Traditional chinese and simplified chinese READ and SOUND the exact same way, just the characters are different. Chaucer's English is completely different from modern english.

BTW, remember I mentioned the ancient Chinese characters in a previous post? If people are so concerned with historic meaning, why don't they just use those? Why draw the line at traditional characters? Instead of writing 山, why not just draw a picture of three mountains? Cuz that's the original way of writing mountain, and actually looks like one (or three).

That's a really dumb example. Writing traditional chinese isn't about "beauty" and "elegance". It's about making sense so that you don't accidentally buy face cream instead of noodles in the market because you have no idea what your wife wanted.

 

[Eug]

No, better school systems increase literacy. Simplified chinese is not that much harder to learn than traditional but it fucks up all connotations of the word and butchers the language and actually makes it harder to understand for the people who are already illiterate and are trying to learn the language.

For example, "face" and "noodle" use the same character. WTF????

You might have a point for individual cases, but not simplification in general.

Also, you forget to mention that face and noodle have the exact same pronunciation in Chinese, yet people don't confuse these words in real world conversation, because of context.

And like I said, there is no evidence that traditional characters help with learning the language. The objective evidence only links increased literacy with the introduction of simplified characters. As you say that may be due to better schooling in large part but interestly there is some evidence saying that in the same socioeconomic classes, there is still slightly better literacy in places using simplified Chinese (although that's debatable).

No, the main argument against simplified characters is that the individual characters completely lose their meaning and thus make absolutely no sense by themselves.

You're being overly dramatic. They are simplified, but often are based on the traditional for their derivation. For example, the radical for horse is simplified, but it's still there when necessary. It's a heluvalot easier to write the radical for horse in the simplified version, and thus a lot easier to learn.

There is a case to be made that in some instances things have been oversimplified, but that's a criticism for individual words, not simplification in general.

Chinese is a language where every character is important and simplified characters actually make the characters harder to understand because now a single character can have 10-15 meanings. Again, "face" and "noodle" use the same character. Make any sense to you?

Yes, because the pronunciation is exactly the same. This is actually not a very good example, because meaning from context here is obvious, since those two meanings are so different.

You also forget to mention the fact that with the traditional characters, some of them are so complicated that one complicated character may differ from another complicated character by just a couple of small lines, which may not be obvious on casual first glance, esp. to a new learner. Plus they're damn hard to write.

In English that'd be akin to having two different words that are 15 letters long, differing by only two letters.

Idiosyncracies vs. Idlosynoracies

That's why if you compare the "old" simplified characters in the late 50s and 60s versus the ones more commonly used in every day business today, you'll see a resurgence of characters that look more and more like traditional characters.

That is not correct. The official language is maintaining simplified characters (although there is consideration for individual case-by-case modifications). However, there is increased usage of old characters unofficially in some advertisements, etc. because they do look nicer, and it helps if you're targeting say a partially Taiwanese customer base.

The more proper way of linking this is saying "hey, there are too many words in the english language, lets just take 200 of the most commonly used words and call it "english" and use that as the de-facto language.

Not true at all. It'd be like keeping all the English words, and simplifying their spelling. Instead of having say "honour", it'd be "honor". In fact that example has already happened for the US.

 

[PowerYoga]

Also, you forget to mention that face and noodle have the exact same pronunciation in Chinese, yet people don't confuse these words in real world conversation, because of context.

An illiterate bum can still ask for cigarettes or talk to you about the socio-economic policies of the current president. Of course in conversation this is not an issue, it never was. The phonetics don't change from simplified chinese to traditional. The issue always comes in when you're writing and reading, which is the key determination factor of "literacy".

When you're learning the word, the first thing you learn is the meaning and how to write it. When you have 4-5 common yet completely different meaning for the word, the word itself becomes confusing in a language like chinese where individual characters have important distinctions.

And like I said, there is no evidence that traditional characters help with learning the language. The objective evidence only links increased literacy with the introduction of simplified characters. As you say that may be due to better schooling in large part but interestly there is some evidence saying that in the same socioeconomic classes, there is still slightly better literacy in places using simplified Chinese (although that's debatable).

Simplification has its merits, but on the case of Chinese since it was a political move so many years ago as part of the failed "great leap forwards" movement. It was part of an attempt to drum up nationalism in a nation that has been ravaged by war and a huge rift between the democrats and the communists.

It's been stated and correlated time and time again that increased access to public school system is the reason why people are learning chinese faster, and the prevalence of more reading materials in general as the nation industrialized. If you really want to, there are plenty of resources out there comparing literacy rates before and after simplification that shows the whole movement is useless. Anecdotal proof of the "merits" of simplified chinese has been discussed to death in Asian literary papers for years, and it has NEVER been proven that simplified chinese is "easier to learn". If you can learn how to write "horse", you can write "horse" with a few more strokes with no problems.

I can totally understand simplified chinese being easier to learn for college students, but that does not factor into literacy rates at all for the chinese population.

You also forget to mention the fact that with the traditional characters, some of them are so complicated that one complicated character may differ from another complicated character by just a couple of small lines, which may not be obvious on casual first glance, esp. to a new learner. Plus they're damn hard to write.

No offense, but to a native chinese speaker, 1 or 2 strokes in a character is easily distinguishable from another set of strokes and is very rarely an issue. This might come across as a problem with complicated characters that you are not familiar with, but that's an issue every language faces.

You're being overly dramatic. They are simplified, but often are based on the traditional for their derivation. For example, the radical for horse is simplified, but it's still there when necessary. It's a heluvalot easier to write the radical for horse in the simplified version, and thus a lot easier to learn.

There is a case to be made that in some instances things have been oversimplified, but that's a criticism for individual words, not simplification in general.

The horse example is not relevant because the structure is in fact, parallel to the traditional version and kept intact. "easier to write" has absolutely nothing to do with it. The "face" and "noodle" example I gave were 2 distinctly different words being merged into the "easier" version to write, and if a child were to learn the word, he wouldn't be able to understand the traditional version of "noodle" which looks nothing like "face".

There are a LOT of cases where things have been oversimplified or changed. Most simplified characters are still readable because they retain the original traditional structure, but there are many characters where the radical look up has changed because of the "simplification".

That is not correct. The official language is maintaining simplified characters (although there is consideration for individual case-by-case modifications). However, there is increased usage of old characters unofficially in some advertisements, etc. because they do look nicer, and it helps if you're targeting say a partially Taiwanese customer base.

Won't argue with you about that since it's getting off topic, but Taiwan looks to China to advertise, not the other way around.

 

[Baked]

someone was telling me the chinese character for "trouble" is 2 women in 1 house.

not sure if serious.

It's mad. As in you're mad because 2 dudes are banging your gf/wife.

 

[Bee4945]

LOL the only difficult thing for me is to read the chinese character , as for speaking not really hard if you have basic

 

[FearoftheNight]

Google: Fluent in 3 months. It's a good site about languages and he recently wrote an excellent entry about Chinese.

 

[maziwanka]

someone was telling me the chinese character for "trouble" is 2 women in 1 house.

not sure if serious.

From another board:

I know this is an old thread, but since it pops up to the top of some google searches, just thought I'd explain.

The character people are thinking of is the very uncommon one 奻 (nuán). There's no roof, but they are together and the meaning is "quarrel, quarreling, foolishness, foolish, etc..." It's by no means the common Chinese word for trouble (烦, 问题, 等等...), but it's not non-existent either.

Some others
㚣 (xiáo*) 一 very archaic for "pretty; cunning; lewd"
姦 (jiān) 一 "wicked, wickedness; debauch, debauchery" (i.e., more about the man's misdeeds than the women's; bizarrely simplified to 奸, [woman] + [dry &/or f*ck])
好 (hǎo/hào) 一 the most common word for "good" is [woman] + [child]
安 (ān 一 the common name & a word meaning "peace, peaceful" is (1) [woman] under a [roof]
如 (rú) 一 [woman] + [mouth] = "if"
嬲 (niǎo) 一 a [woman] btwn 2 [men] is "flirt"
嫐 (nǎo) 一 a [man] btwn 2 [women] is "fool, tease, prank"
妧 (wàn) 一 [woman] + [money] is an (archaic) word for "good-looking"

 

[Koing]

IMO Rosetta Stone is horrible. It can get you speaking and understanding some spoken phrases, but it never goes through the basics of WHY things are the way they are.

I tried Rosetta Stone to learn Spanish. It just goes through phrases and different mixes of words they've gone over. But I had no idea why I was saying "to drink" in one way in one phrase but differently in another. And it offered no explanation. Infuriating. Right now I'm just fucking confused with the different tenses because RS offers no explanation. The best I can do is observe differences and make a guess as to what the rule should be, but with no real confirmation on if my guess is even correct...

I met an Israeli guy whilst traveling central america and he learnt fluent spanish by RS. He was a very smart guy though. This other girl I met had good spanish and she learnt all she knew from those tv dramas she use to watch in spanish in Israel.

I spent 3months traveling the area and my spanish is pretty much existent

Koing

 

[Koing]

So like illiterate Asian red necks?

I am surprised even Chinese people that can Speak Chinese don't know how to read/write the language. The writing system for it must be really something. 0.0

Shit.. I wonder if I can become more artistic by learning Chinese.

My mum can speak about 3 dialects of Chinese but can't read or write due to no formal schooling being poor in Cambodia.

My dad can speak 2 dialects of Chinese, but not as well as my mum, but can read and write to a basic level. He has formal schooling in Cambodia but slacked in school LOL.

Both parents are half Chinese (both grand fathers are Chinese) and half Cambodian (both grand mothers). I know more Spanish, French, German than Chinese. I even went to a Chinese weekend school for about 5 terms when I was younger. I just sucked at it and learning languages in general

I do wish I was fluent in Chinese.

It's always impressive when you hear a non asian person speak fluent Chinese though
Koing

 

[tokie]

Latin alphabet best alphabet.

One alphabet gets you several languages.

 

[UncleWai]

Even Jesus couldn't speak Chinese

 

[kage69]

Mandarin is hard. Period.