学 and 学习

[Ah-Bin]

I have been wondering for a while. Is the phrase “我学习汉语”unnnatural? I have only ever heard it from learners and read it in textbooks, but everyone who I have ever heard say "study" or "learn" uses just“学” and not “学习”. Perhaps it is because I live in the south, but I can't help wondering whether “学习汉语”isn't more typical of textbook or "foreign learner talk" than natural conversation.

[skylee]

Personally I would not use 我學習漢語. There is something missing in this sentence. I suppose it is the time indicator. Say if I am learning French, I would say 我正在學法語. Or if I studied French 10 years ago when I was a student, I would say, 十年前我學過法語.

I suppose you don't say "I eat biscuits" very often in English. It is usually "I am eating some biscuits", or "I ate biscuits at breakfast today", "I have eaten these biscuits before". For stative verbs, such as "like"/ "hate", I think it is ok to say "我(很)喜歡/討厭漢語".

My grammar knowledge is very poor so the above may be totally wrong and misleading.

[HashiriKata]

Is the phrase “我学习汉语”unnnatural? I have only ever heard it from learners and read it in textbooks, but everyone who I have ever heard say "study" or "learn" uses just“学” and not “学习”.

The example you gave may (or may not) be unnatural but the word 学习 itself is fine. Due to the fact that it's a two-syllable word, as opposed to the monosyllabic “学”, it has its use and can sound awkward if replaced by “学”. For example:

我喜欢在图书馆学习。

[mr.stinky]

i'm thinking 学 is just a general term for study, whereas 学习 implies both

study and practice. does this get into passive versus active studying?

[muyongshi]

Maybe in some theoretical sense (I think I heard a person actually go on a tangent about that saying that it did, but most people would never think of it)

The thing that I see mainly as the difference is 学习 doesn't take object at the end (not that it can't but in usage it normally doesn't) and 学 does.

[HashiriKata]

The thing that I see mainly as the difference is 学习 doesn't take object at the end (not that it can't but in usage it normally doesn't) and 学 does.

No, I don't think this is a difference, not to mention it being the main difference. The choice of one or the other is mainly infuluenced by factors such as rhythm, balance, level of formality, etc.

[optical]

My teacher wrote this sentence up on the board yesterday and it seems to just make me even more confused about 学习/学 differences

你在北京大学学习汉语学了多长时间?

This sentence actually uses both 学习 and 学(了)... yikes.

[82riceballs]

I suppose you don't say "I eat biscuits" very often in English.

Well, actually English speakers do say this quite often. "Eat" by itself signifies habitual action (just like in Japanese where saying "食べる" by itself purely denotes a habit). Sometimes, people get in the habit of including adverbs such as "usually," "normally," "from time to time," etc.

Pretend scenario:

"What do you [optional: normally] eat for snack."

"I eat biscuits."

[skylee]

Well, actually English speakers do say this quite often. "Eat" by itself signifies habitual action (just like in Japanese where saying "食べる" by itself purely denotes a habit). Sometimes, people get in the habit of including adverbs such as "usually," "normally," "from time to time," etc.

Pretend scenario:

"What do you [optional: normally] eat for snack."

"I eat biscuits."

That I understand. Thanks for mentioning it.

[Han-tiger]

“学” is short for “学习”, while “学习”is more formal. In my understanding, there is no so much difference between 学 and 学习. They have the same meaning and function in similar way.

For example:

A.你在北京大学“学习”汉语“学习了”多长时间?

B.你在北京大学“学”汉语“学了”多长时间?

C. 你在北京大学“学习”汉语“学了”多长时间

Any of these three sentences is both understandable and acceptable, and has no grammatical error.

In spoken Chinese, “学”is more often used by native speakers. I am guessing a possible explanation to this can be that in oral communication, “习”seems redundant in term of pronunciation. To me, “我正在学开车” sounds better than“我正在学习开车”.

[Ah-Bin]

In spoken Chinese, “学”is more often used by native speakers. I am guessing a possible explanation to this can be that in oral communication, “习”seems redundant in term of pronunciation. To me, “我正在学开车” sounds better than“我正在学习开车”.

Haha! Just as I suspected! Using 学习 with an object is a bit of a case of "foreign learner talk" after all:D

I remember the old Practical Chinese Reader (the dreaded "green book") had lots of sentences of the second type.

[studentyoung]

The thing that I see mainly as the difference is 学习 doesn't take object at the end (not that it can't but in usage it normally doesn't) and 学 does.

I think the mainly difference between 学 and 学习 is 学 can express the meaning of “get some bad habits” or “be affected by baddies”, while 学习 is seldom used in these cases.

你怎么跟他们学赌钱了? Why do you learn gambling from them?

跟那些人在一起，他学了满嘴的粗话。Among those guys, he learned a lot of bad language.

学坏: be affected by baddies

Cheers!

[nipponman]

I remember learning in the beginning that only one of them can be used intransitively.