Characters are objectively harder, even for Chinese

[sunyata]

gosh, this thread is getting too long!

but let me make it longer:

The reason for the difference is that the basic, fundamental organizing principle of the Chinese writing system makes is harder, HARDER to retrieve the symbols that stand for the sounds of the language. That's my only point. Sheesh.

Ok, point taken. So what exactly is point B and what happened to your previous arguments?

Quite possibly, I may even agree with you on points B, C, D, etc...whatever they may be. However, somehow that does not make me worried about litteracy problems in China nor does it trigger 20 more questions in my mind. To me, Chinese is just a completely different language, which has already gone through tremendous changes throughout the centuries. Yes, it's still difficult and sometimes illogical and frustrating, but so what? Yes, even well-educated Chinese adults may forget characters of basic words and expressions, but why is that such a serious problem? There are always dictionaries they can use (when they really need to write that "sneeze" or "dustpan" in a letter) to remind themselves. And of course with the dawn of the computer age, they don't even need to worry about that too much.

What's more important is that they can recognize the characters. In English, I may not remember how to write "diarrhea" (in fact I often want to write it as diahorea or something like that), but if I see it, I can certainly recongnize it. Although the principle is not exactly the same in Chinese (it being a non-alphabetical script), this is still true - after continuous exposure to a character, one will be able to recognize it, even if one can't remember how to write it. Of course, English is "superior" in the sense that one can hear a new word and make an educated guess at its written form.

What's attractive about Chinese and has been overlooked in this thread - is the relative ease with which the basics of the spoken language can be mastered - especially correct grammar and sentence structure. I've known many foreigners, who came to China speaking no Chinese and after one or two years were quite fluent. Such cases are quite rare in other countries (unless the languages are quite similar to begin with - i.e. German and Dutch; Spanish and Italian;) Many foreigners come to the US and even after several years their spoken English is still quite poor.

[beirne]

I said:

Be able to get meaning out of letters/characters that you know: Unsure. I would guess an alphabet because less symbol discrimination is needed, but the meaning inherent in the characters might help.

It turns out that this is being discussed in a different thread. No scientific comparisons but reading Chinese sounds like it is faster than I expected.

[bathrobe]

39 is correct that there are different aspects to literacy.

I agree.

Reading speed is an issue according to Chinese native-speakers on this thread (characters are faster to scan and read).

The ability to write concisely: I know that theoretically speaking pinyin should be able to substitute painlessly for characters, but you just have to read tracts of living Chinese (not necessarily even books; try bulletin boards and short pieces on the Internet) to see that characters really are used for their pithiness and conciseness -- if all that stuff were somehow magically transformed into pinyin overnight, I'm sure intelligibility would suffer.

Eco-friendliness: Perhaps this is a trivial point, but some of the forest plantations on the planet would possibly be in favour of a script that takes less space and uses less paper!

When reading, be able to get meaning out of words you know in speech but not in written form: Alphabet. Since one already knows the word in spoken language, seeing it written down in an alphabet lets the reader base their understanding on the sound of the word.

True, the alphabet is probably easier, but it's not cut and dried. I will give you a trivial example from my own experience. I heard the word 'surfactant' in an agricultural context before I ever saw it written. I was surprised when I saw it written because my mental image was something like 'sefactin'. So English spelling is actually more than just 'writing down the pronunciation'; the spelling carries information that helps structure understanding of the word ('sur' = on, 'factant' = acting). This is a little like the function performed by characters.

[beirne]

sunyata said:

Yes, even well-educated Chinese adults may forget characters of basic words and expressions, but why is that such a serious problem? There are always dictionaries they can use (when they really need to write that "sneeze" or "dustpan" in a letter) to remind themselves. And of course with the dawn of the computer age, they don't even need to worry about that too much.

It isn't a problem having to look up basic words in the dictionary in order to write them? Also, lots of people still don't have computers, and many of the ones who do still have to write from time to time.

sunyata said:

What's attractive about Chinese and has been overlooked in this thread - is the relative ease with which the basics of the spoken language can be mastered - especially correct grammar and sentence structure. I've known many foreigners, who came to China speaking no Chinese and after one or two years were quite fluent. Such cases are quite rare in other countries (unless the languages are quite similar to begin with - i.e. German and Dutch; Spanish and Italian;) Many foreigners come to the US and even after several years their spoken English is still quite poor.

This is depressing. I'm still having a tough time after five years. I've had to do my learning in the US, though, except for a two-week trip to China.

The point has been overlooked, though, because it does not pertain to the topic, which is that the characters are objectively harder, even for the Chinese. This deals with a specific aspect of the Chinese language and its ease of use for native speakers. The idea is not to analyze the entire language, but rather a specific part, the character system.

[ala]

Yes' date=' once you have learnt Chinese characters they allow you to infer with a degree of accuracy what the meaning of a new word may be, but Chinese is not unique in that respect. For instance, you can tell from German Fernsehgeraet that you are dealing with a piece of equipment that allows you to 'see far', which is just as good as 电视 ('see electronically').

Vietnamese is an even better example: it is quite possible to guess what the meaning of a word is from its Chinese roots without knowing the Chinese character.....The main argument against this is that Vietnamese has a lot more distinctive sounds than Mandarin, so it is not such a problem. True, but this is not a decisive factor; if you write in words the problem is much reduced. [/quote']

Exactly! And just to prove that it's possible to identify roots in a phonetic system, I'll use my Shanghainese wordlist again (Shanghainese has far less phenomes than Vietnamese and Mandarin when you include tones). Again, all nouns are capitalized, words are partitioned according to natural tone sandhi phrases (NOT arbitrarily). The hyphen is used to form a compound word. Tones are marked (acute accent: high pitch, falling toneme pattern).

bathrobe, I need to get back to you on the morphemes and characters issue (precision, abstraction, creativity), will go dig out some hard data, but quite busy this week. The issue has a lot to do with cognitive science. I can't just find a trivial anecdotal example, although some basic ones are like black car vs blackboard, etc.

[beirne]

bathrobe said:

True, the alphabet is probably easier, but it's not cut and dried. I will give you a trivial example from my own experience. I heard the word 'surfactant' in an agricultural context before I ever saw it written. I was surprised when I saw it written because my mental image was something like 'sefactin'. So English spelling is actually more than just 'writing down the pronunciation'; the spelling carries information that helps structure understanding of the word ('sur' = on, 'factant' = acting). This is a little like the function performed by characters.

I would say that this helps prove my point, though. While it was spelled differently than you expected, it sounds like you were still able to figure it out once you got over your surprise. If you don't know the characters that form the word it will be much harder to sound it out in Chinese. Your description of the breakdown of the word also shows how one can derive meaning from a words parts, although I'll admit I never thought about the breakdown of surfactant.

[sunyata]

It isn't a problem having to look up basic words in the dictionary in order to write them? Also' date=' lots of people still don't have computers, and many of the ones who do still have to write from time to time.

[/quote']

You call "sneeze" and "dustpan" basic and useful words? I would not be surprised if the frequency of usage of such basic words is quite low. If it is, then who cares that they are basic? The words "clit" or "fart" may be basic too, but that doesn't mean they are very useful.

As for my comment about spoken Chinese - yes, I am aware it is not in sync with this thread. But when you are looking at the weak points of a language, you cannot simply overlook its strong points in order to strengthen your own aruments.

5 years? - yes, it's quite depressing indeed...you should go to China immediately, get married and try to search out educated Chinese who forget how to write "sneeze" and "dustpan"...

[bathrobe]

You call "sneeze" and "dustpan" basic and useful words? I would not be surprised if the frequency of usage of such basic words is quite low. If it is, then who cares if they are basic.

I don't see what you're trying to achieve here. 打喷嚏 is definitely pretty basic in Chinese and used commonly enough, at least in speech. I would suggest that most Chinese learn 打喷嚏 well before they learn 大城市!

As for the point about looking words up in dictionaries, I think it has been mentioned in this thread already that Chinese tend not to look up dictionaries (and in my experience asking many ordinary Chinese if they've got a dictionary so you can look up a character can be a frustrating exercise).

[beirne]

sunyata says:

As for my comment about spoken Chinese - yes, I am aware it is not in sync with this thread. But when you are looking at the weak points of a language, you cannot simply overlook its strong points in order to strengthen your own aruments.

Let me make this clear. No one is saying Chinese is a bad language. I'm pretty sure that the learners among us are all here because we find the language very interesting and worthy of our efforts. Your topic on learning Chinese as a second language is a good one, it just belongs in a different thread.

5 years? - yes, it's quite depressing indeed...you should go to China immediately, get married and try to search out educated Chinese who forget how to write "sneeze" and "dustpan"...

[sunyata]

I don't see what you're trying to achieve here. 打喷嚏 is definitely pretty basic in Chinese and used commonly enough, at least in speech. I would suggest that most Chinese learn 打喷嚏 well before they learn 大城市!

I don't see what you are trying to achieve either. 打喷嚏 may be a commonly used expression, but in spoken Chinese, not written. Otherwise, why would people forget how to write it? Think of how many times you have had to use this word in writing in English (excluding this post). Now, imagibe it was spelled like "snzxjdshfikeeze." Would you remember how to write it? Probably not, but does that mean you are not fluent in the language?

As for dictionaries - of course they don't need or have them. There is always a nerd around who can remind you how to write 打喷嚏 if such a need arises

[bathrobe]

Sunyata wrote:

Otherwise, why would people forget how to write it?

Maybe because it's difficult to write?

Sunyata earlier wrote:

Ok, point taken. Quite possibly, I may even agree with you on points B, C, D, etc. However, somehow that does not ... trigger 20 more questions in my mind. To me, Chinese is just a completely different language... Yes, it's still difficult and sometimes illogical and frustrating, but so what?

The 'so what?' appears to sum up your thinking on this thread. You don't appear to have any logical grounds for opposing dmoser's analysis, only the philosophical ones that (correct me if I'm wrong'): 'I accept Chinese for what it is. I can't see the point in nitpicking at someone else's language.'

Sunyata also wrote:

As for dictionaries - of course they don't need or have them. There is always a nerd around who can remind you how to write 打喷嚏 if such a need arises

This contemptuous statement seems to sum up your attitude to people who take an interest in matters like 'difficult characters'.

[39degN]

Learn to read for pronunciation: Alphabet. English has lots of funny rules, but Pinyin is pretty easy to learn, as are other languages like Spanish and Italian. Even French is pretty easy to learn once you know which letters to ignore.

Yes, easy to read, hard to remember.

Learn to write: Alphabet. You learn the rules for pronunciation and you are most of the way there.

For me, an English as third foreign language learner, I got the rules for pronunciation then I got most of them there? you think the alphabet system is simple simply because your mother tongue is English, you have had a long journey on English learning already.

Be able to write unfamiliar words: Alphabet. You can make closer guesses with an alphabet, and you are not hindered by words containing unfamiliar characters.

I m so ignorant, I don't know there's such a word, why I should to guess the spelling and use it? otherwise in Chinese at least there are so many homophones, choose one as substitute(not that kind of substitute ) is ok.

Be able to write infrequently used words: Alphabet. Since spelling tends to follow pronunciation rules, the rules will keep you from having to remember the spelling as a series of stokes.

But are you sure you can make it 100% correct? I don't see there's any difference between 5% correct and 90% correct. They are all incorrect. hope you know this idiom"以五十步笑百步".

Be able to get meaning out of letters/characters that you know: Unsure. I would guess an alphabet because less symbol discrimination is needed, but the meaning inherent in the characters might help.

The fact is you don't have to take care of every stroke with your eyes to distinguish a character, because every character is so different, experiences told us the more difference there, the easy to quickly distinguish. that's why somehow character reading is faster than pinyin reading.

When reading, be able to get meaning out ofc: Alphabet. Since one already knows the word in spoken language, seeing it written down in an alphabet lets the reader base their understanding on the sound of the word. There are two cases here regarding Chinese. The reader may know the sounds of the characters and infer the word. In this case the ease of understanding is the same as with an alphabet. If the characters are unfamiliar, however, the reader will have to guess based on radicals, significs, context, etc. This will be harder than reading the word rendered in phonetics. Because of the issue of unfamiliar characters I rate the alphabet better in this situation.

Obviously characters, since almost 98% articles written by 3000 characters, tho some vocabularies you could have never written it, but their components among those 3000 characters, so it's not surprise you realizing some words you know in speech but not in written form are all characters you know after all.

Be able to get meaning out of words you don't know: Unsure. If you don't know the characters for the word, you are forced to guess the meaning based on components and context. This situation is not significantly better than seeing strange words in an alphabet and may well be worse. If you do know the characters but not the word, the characters provide important semantic hints to help guess the meaning of the word. In alphabetic languages, though, many words are formed from parts of other words, so there are often clues even there. Admittedly in Chinese, however, because of the small number of distinct syllables it would be harder to get the clues out of Pinyin than it would be with the alphabets of other languages.

Characters may well be worse, really? pls read my answer above for your reference.

Meanwhile pls give a guess of the meaning with below:

Nitrobenzene, P-nitrochloro benzene, p-Chloroanilne,

Now, check your conclusion again.

[ala]

Meanwhile pls give a guess of the meaning with below:

Nitrobenzene' date=' P-nitrochloro benzene, p-Chloroanilne,

Now, check your conclusion again.[/quote']

nitrobenzene = 硝基苯

4-chloronitrobenzene = 4-氯硝基苯

p-chloroaniline = 对氯苯胺

What was your point in raising the chemistry nomenclature? Certainly the alphabetized system is in no disadvantage here.

I was a college chem major. I always prefered the International names (IUPAC) over the Chinese. They are just as clear as the Chinese (actually far far clearer IMO). Both systems are just as nonsensical to any layman (Chinese or English speaker). But the alphabetized system is much easier to index and search through catalogs and references than the Chinese. It is also easier to write.

[39degN]

Sunyata wrote: Quote:

Otherwise, why would people forget how to write it?

Maybe because it's difficult to write?

fist of all, i will try to say 喷嚏 100 times every day since today.

second, temporarily, lets consider 嚏 is difficult, so we can get a conclusion the whole system is harder?

[bathrobe]

fist of all, i will try to say 喷嚏 100 times every day since today.

second, temporarily, lets consider 嚏 is difficult, so we can get a conclusion the whole system is harder?

No need to go to that extreme!

All we need is for Sunyata to come out of denial as to whether this poor, innocuous, well-picked-over example is a part of 'basic vocab' in Chinese and admit that it deserves a simpler character!

[39degN]

I was a college chem major. I always prefered the International names (IUPAC) over the Chinese. They are just as clear as the Chinese (actually far clearer IMO), and just as nonsensical to any layman (Chinese or English speaker). But the alphabetized system is much easier to index and search through catalogs and references.

thanks, ala, but i regret to say that not everyone is/was chem major.

and except these, we have so many other examples there.

we search chinese data through alphabetized system too, can that prove characters are abjectively harder?

[beirne]

I said:

Learn to write: Alphabet. You learn the rules for pronunciation and you are most of the way there.

39degN said:

For me, an English as third foreign language learner, I got the rules for pronunciation then I got most of them there? you think the alphabet system is simple simply because your mother tongue is English, you have had a long journey on English learning already.

I am not suggesting that English spelling system is a paragon of alphabetic writing. While I think it is still more efficient than the Chinese character system, I also mentioned Spanish, French, Italian, and even Pinyin in my previous example. Those are all spelled much more phonetically than English. I studied Spanish and French as second and third languages and never had any problem spelling. But in any case, the topic is whether the writing system is harder for native speakers.

I said::

Be able to write unfamiliar words: Alphabet. You can make closer guesses with an alphabet, and you are not hindered by words containing unfamiliar characters.

39degN said:

I'm so ignorant, I don't know there's such a word, why I should to guess the spelling and use it? otherwise in Chinese at least there are so many homophones, choose one as substitute(not that kind of substitute Wink ) is ok.

OK, I stated this poorly. I should have said "Be able to write words that you have never seen written or otherwise been instructed on how to spell". The assumption is that you have heard and maybe used the word in speech but not in writing.

I did wonder when I wrote this if the issue of misspelling via homophones would come up. I don't have a real good answer on this one. If a character that sounds the same but has a different meaning can be used, though, doesn't that imply that the important part of a writing system is conveying pronunciation?

I said:

Be able to write infrequently used words: Alphabet. Since spelling tends to follow pronunciation rules, the rules will keep you from having to remember the spelling as a series of stokes.

39degN said:

But are you sure you can make it 100% correct? I don't see there's any difference between 5% correct and 90% correct. They are all incorrect. hope you know this idiom"以五十步笑百步".

There is a big difference between spelling a word 5% correct and 90% correct. The word spelled 5% correct would likely be unrecognizable, where as the one spelled 90% correct would likely be easily recognizable. As dmoser has said earlier, the issue is that if you don't know the character you are stuck, where as one can still write the word in a recognizable fashion in alphabetic languages. I don't have much problem writing in Pinyin and my Chinese isn't that good.

39degN said:

Meanwhile pls give a guess of the meaning with below:

Nitrobenzene, P-nitrochloro benzene, p-Chloroanilne,

They are chemicals. Various combinations of nitrogen, benzene, and chlorine (I don't know what aniline means. I only had one year of high school chemistry). Unless I'm dealing specifically in chemistry that is all I need to know. Are the Chinese equivalents of these any clearer? Do they indicate what these chemicals do? In an alphabetic language one can at least read and pronounce these names without difficulty. I could have spelled them is taking dictation, too.

[pazu]

Vietnamese is an even better example: it is quite possible to guess what the meaning of a word is from its Chinese roots without knowing the Chinese character.....The main argument against this is that Vietnamese has a lot more distinctive sounds than Mandarin, so it is not such a problem. True, but this is not a decisive factor; if you write in words the problem is much reduced.

Are you sure of this? I wouldn't be so sure as you if I were you. How many times I went to a Vietnamese temple (usually with a Chinese name in Hanzi and Quoc Ngu) and asked my friend, "what does that mean?" My friends couldn't tell me unless I gave them some clues. Even a simple name like Vĩnh Trường Pagoda can cause some trouble, while I'm quite sure the Hanzi version is easy for everybody who know Chinese to understand.

There're simply something missing.

[39degN]

I am not suggesting that English spelling system is a paragon of alphabetic writing. While I think it is still more efficient than the Chinese character system, I also mentioned Spanish, French, Italian, and even Pinyin in my previous example. Those are all spelled much more phonetically than English. I studied Spanish and French as second and third languages and never had any problem spelling. But in any case, the topic is whether the writing system is harder for native speakers.

Nothing is absolute hard, to judge if things hard you have to choose something as frame of reference, no matter you chosen Spanish or French or some language else, you have to compare their whole systems with character writing system, not only pronunciation and spelling or some little detail, but also the expressions(and wording and grammar, i believe the grammar of spanish and french will drive you crazy, russian did the same to me for sure, as every one knows chinese has the almost easist grammar in the world) and so on, you have to focus on the whole pic. having no problem with spelling, but only know 100 vocabularies, would you call that mastered the writing system? As I have mentioned mastered the regulations of a system doesn't mean mastered the whole system, and alphabetic system's spelling regulations maybe easy to learn, but it doesn't mean the course of mastering enough vocabularies to be able using the language to write something is easy tooooooooooo. contrarily alphabetic system's less characteristic of every vocabulary than character will certainly increase the difficulty to study new words. i hope I made myself clear.

OK, I stated this poorly. I should have said "Be able to write words that you have never seen written or otherwise been instructed on how to spell". The assumption is that you have heard and maybe used the word in speech but not in writing.

Yeah, I see what you mean, but I think I have answered that already, we only have 3000 common characters, even some vocabularies we have never been writing down, their components belong to those 3000 characters, you will been able to get a general pic if you have a basic training of writing.

I did wonder when I wrote this if the issue of misspelling via homophones would come up. I don't have a real good answer on this one. If a character that sounds the same but has a different meaning can be used, though, doesn't that imply that the important part of a writing system is conveying pronunciation?

Sure the conveying pronunciation is important, do you mean characters doesn't deserve the honor to delivery it?

There is a big difference between spelling a word 5% correct and 90% correct. The word spelled 5% correct would likely be unrecognizable, where as the one spelled 90% correct would likely be easily recognizable. As dmoser has said earlier, the issue is that if you don't know the character you are stuck, where as one can still write the word in a recognizable fashion in alphabetic languages. I don't have much problem writing in Pinyin and my Chinese isn't that good.

Ok, it could be, but homophones can finish the job in a recognizable fashion too.

you mean your Chinese isn't that good is because Characters are too hard? Pin yin right now is not a writing system, it can't carry all the Chinese language information yet.

They are chemicals. Various c of nitrogen, benzene, and chlorine (I don't know what aniline means. I only had one year of high school chemistry). Unless I'm dealing specifically in chemistry that is all I need to know. Are the Chinese equivalents of these any clearer? Do they indicate what these chemicals do? In an alphabetic language one can at least read and pronounce these names without difficulty. I could have spelled them is taking dictation, too.

If you don't know nitrogen, benzene, and chlorine, can you figure out that they are chemistry terms?

But in Chinese, 硝基苯 and so on, all easy characters. In character language one can not only pronounce these, but also get the general meaning of the words. i.e. they are combinations. Even tho he is not so familiar with chemistry.

[nnt]

Even a simple name like Vĩnh Trường Pagoda can cause some trouble

Vĩnh as in vĩnh viễn (everlasting, eternal)

trường = dài (long) as in "Vạn Lý Trường Thành" (Great Wall)

Even if a Vietnamese doesn't know Chinese characters, he should understand this explanation, without characters, unless these are rare characters.

Besides, a Chinese character need not be very complicated to be unguessable... Something like [女巽] , for example (I'm still searching)