How difficult is learning Chinese characters?
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Quest -
Quote:
I don't remember ever memorising a single English word when I was at school. Vocabulary was simply
acquired naturally through speaking and reading.
chinese kids acquire new vocabulary through speaking and reading, too. you probably dont believe
me when i say learning to write chinese as a native kid is almost effortless in a sense and does
not take away much of the kid's time to do other things.
i understand it is quite difficult for adults to learn them, but it's not impossible. i think if
you chose to learn the language, learn it in its entirety. or would you rather china throw away
chinese and use english as its national language that would make everybody happy.
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Tsunku -
I think its interesting that the ability to write characters can atrophy with disuse. My
boyfriend, a Chinese English major, spent 4 months living with me, during which we spoke almost
exclusively English, and he was reading novels in English rather than Chinese. He told me he had
started making more frequent mistakes in his written Chinese, and had forgotten completely how to
write some characters. He remarked that he needed to start reading more in Chinese again to keep
his vocabulary up.
In a language like English, you can't really forget how to write or read. Your handwriting can
become more sloppy, but you're not going to completely lose your ability to express yourself in
writing. In Chinese, if you do not practice, you will forget characters, a fact which alone gives
it a degree of difficulty. You cannot be lazy with Chinese and maintain a good written vocabulary.
wix -
Quest, I more or less agree with what you are saying with regards to Chinese children learning the
language.
Another point is that even after all the effort invested in learning Chinese characters they can
sometimes be forgotten. Working with my Taiwanese boss, it is surprising how often he forgets how
to write a character. (I am sure he still knows how to read them).
The difference between characters and words written using an alphabet is that it is possible to
completely forget how to write a character while in an alphabetical language you can always guess
and at worst spell the word incorrectly.
Haizi -
Quote:
Originally Posted by Quest
Quote:
I don't remember ever memorising a single English word when I was at school. Vocabulary was simply
acquired naturally through speaking and reading.
chinese kids acquire new vocabulary through speaking and reading, too. you probably dont believe
me when i say learning to write chinese as a native kid is almost effortless in a sense and does
not take away much of the kid's time to do other things.
i understand it is quite difficult for adults to learn them, but it's not impossible. i think if
you chose to learn the language, learn it in its entirety. or would you rather china throw away
chinese and use english as its national language that would make everybody happy.
First of all, I'd like to make it clear that saying the written system of Chinese language is not
one of the most efficient systems in the world does not necessarily mean we would rather throw it
away. People do things for different reasons. Efficiency is only one of the reasons. It's not like
that accepting Chinese characters are difficult is the beginning of the end of the written system.
It seems to me that there is little difficulty for everyone here to accept that Chinese characters
are difficult for foreign adults to learn. What then about native speakers? I don't currently have
any numbers with me but my impression is that it takes years for a Chinese adult to learn enough
characters from scratch to become functional in reading Chinese. That's why when China wanted to
improve the literacy level of its population, there were so many shi2zi4ban1 (character
recognizing classes) popping up all over the country. The biggest obstacle in becoming literate
was to learn enough Chinese characters.
I do have some numbers that can illustrate how Chinese kids learn Chinese characters in their
primary schools. It is said that in a 200-hour semester, Chinese kids only learn about 200
characters. In the 1950s, there was a comparison study between what a former Soviet Union student
would learn and what a Chinese student would learn in their respective primary schools. It was
found out that the Chinese student would read only about 300,000 characters in six years; while
the former Soviet Union student would read about 800,000 characters in four years. One of the
headaches of textbook compilers for grade one and two students in China is that the content
selection is severely restricted when the compilers have to come up with something intelligent and
meaningful with just a few hundred characters that the students can possibly absorb.
roddy -
I've deleted about half this thread. I thought about just deleting the entire thing as it would
have been much quicker that way, but decided the above discussion is very interesting, and
deserves to be continued.
Participants are welcome to start NEW threads entitled 'Effect of Chinese Characters on Chinese
culture', 'Brainwashing in Chinese Education' or anything else, if they wish to.
Comments on this decision can be sent to me by private message.
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