Chinese may replace English in this century

[zozzen]

To be honest I'm not really sure, there are so many different versions around. I have one friend who started his child out on the comic versions of 西游记 and then moved him on to the modernized version, and then the summarised version with more classical language and accompanying explanation, and then on to the original text (the kid is currently in middle school, and all of this happened over a number of years). My friend's purpose was to introduce his son to the classics first by getting him interested in the story, and then gradually giving him a deeper and deeper understanding of the text, so that by the time he reached the original text he would be able to understand and appreciate it at a far greater level.

All that aside though, my point was more that if you're going to be comparing languages, and say that English speakers have trouble reading older texts, whereas Chinese children can read older texts with hardly any problems, then in order to do a fair comparision you need to be comparing original texts with original texts, not original texts with modernised/summarised versions.

Yeah, that's the basics for the comparison, but as a late joiner in this thread, I'd say these comparison aren't even meaningful.

For one thing, most learners actually won't spend time on these classics texts. How many learners here ever read classic texts in the language they're learning? One or two, or none.

And after seeing many "comparison" in this forum, I've begun to believe that there's no such thing as "easier language" in the world. As a european learner, you may find a measure word difficult to learn, homophones are too much and chinese character is hard to write, but as a Chinese, I never find it difficult to write in Chinese, but i do find it extremely hard to study English. Learning Japanese and Vietnamese seems easier for me than English, just like English should be easier for Germans.

But no matter which one is "easier", they're spoken by a billion of people who include both genius, scholars , illiterates and gangs.

[tanklao]

I've begun to believe that there's no such thing as "easier language" in the world. As a european learner, you may find a measure word difficult to learn, homophones are too much and chinese character is hard to write, but as a Chinese, I never find it difficult to write in Chinese, but i do find it extremely hard to study English. Learning Japanese and Vietnamese seems easier for me than English, just like English should be easier for Germans.

Probablly it is true,as the simplicity I listed here has few echos. The alternative explanation, I guess, may lies in that English speakers are unwilling to admit the simplicity of Chinese.

[zozzen]

i take it for granted. Here's a Chinese-language learner's forum. If you post a thread "English is god damned easy!" in Chinese forum, people would respond so differently. In Asia you probably meet thousands of people who've spent more than a decade on English and still struggled to speak acceptable level of english. Go to Japanese bookshop to see how many English language learning books are there, see their proficiency and you know what i mean. It is just a learners' syndrome.

[imron]

The alternative explanation, I guess, may lies in that English speakers are unwilling to admit the simplicity of Chinese.

Actually, if you are talking about spoken Chinese, then in general I would tend to agree with you that Chinese is simpler than many European languages.

What I would disagree with is that this will help it to replace English as the world language.

The reason being that looking at the spoken language alone is not enough. You need to look at the language as a whole, and the complexity of the written system, added to the length of time it takes for a non-native speaker to become productive in the language, more than offsets any gains in simplicity and make it overall a comparatively more difficult language to learn. Although perhaps difficult isn't the right word, "time-consuming" is probably more apt.

See here for information regarding a study done regarding the amount of hours required for a native English speaker to reach a certain level of proficiency in different languages. Granted the study is quite old (1973), however as the webpage mentions, it's unlikely that the figures would have changed much during that time. It also only reflects the time required for native English speakers, so the numbers will of course be different for learners from other countries, but it does still serve as an illustrative example.

[tanklao]

It is just a learners' syndrome

Yes, it's probably true. As a Ph D student of Biology in Chinese Academy of Sciences, I should pass hundreds of English Tests. Beside the common used words,there are thousands of terms I should at least regnize and some of which I should even memorize. We are studying on fish. Everyone will be bored if he or she is asked to memorize so many English words about fish. What's worse, most of the words doesn't give any hints that they has something to do with fish. This is the direct reason why I wrote this article.

[zozzen]

It also only reflects the time required for native English speakers, so the numbers will of course be different for learners from other countries, but it does still serve as an illustrative example.

In my experience, Group I from Chinese perspective could be Japanese, Korean, Thai and Vietnamese. I guess Burmese and Khmer (sharing many commonalities with Thai) should be fairly easy too. These can't actually illustrate which language is "objectively" easier, but it only shows you which language is closer to your mother tongue.

[gougou]

Every Chinese speaker knows that they are fish or fish-related things as the Characters has told them.

I used to think that was an advantage of Chinese, until I ordered 田鸡 in a restaurant... Oh, and the hibiscus crab without hibiscus was quite a disappointment, too!

[renzhe]

I personally think that most languages are more or less equally hard. We are all humans, after all, with similar average intelligence, and kids everywhere start speaking around the same age.

The difficulties in learning languages are, in my opinion, cultural. The Europeans are not accustomed to learning huge amounts of data by heart, something more common in East Asian cultures, at least it's the way it seems to me. So we struggle with characters. On the other side of the globe, poor Chinese students struggle with writing the same English words over and over and over again thousands of times, as if they were characters. I struggled with Chinese before I decided to simply dedicate a lot of time to it and brute force it for a while. Something I never do, and have never needed for any language, but it worked for Chinese.

Add to this the fact that different languages are difficult in different ways, and you get a lot of people convinced that one language is much easier/logical/convenient than the other.

[tanklao]

I used to think that was an advantage of Chinese, until I ordered 田鸡 in a restaurant

With 田鸡, at least you know that this is a kind of animal that lives in 田 instead of 山, although it may mislead you to think that it is a kind of chicken. I have pointed out that every racial language has something illogical. Do you agree with me that the name of fish in Chinese is easier to memorize than that in English? That easiness is also true to the names of, say, flowers, trees, clothes, scientific terms...

Can you answear my questions directly I asked in the post I listed lots of fish?

It seems that you are somewhat 钻牛角尖.

[gougou]

Do you agree with me that the name of fish in Chinese is easier to memorize than that in English?

Tanklao, I actually agree with you on many of the points you're making - there are many aspects where Chinese is very simple. However, I also agree with many of the points Moser is making in the paper I linked to earlier - at the same time as having many simple aspects, Chinese is very complicated as well.

[atitarev]

Some logic (never even 60% clear) about the meaning of a word based on the character look doesn't make Chinese an easy language. I like Chinese very much and have enough motivation but the aspects that make Chinese difficult are quite serious.

Even on intermediate level missing word boundaries forces me to look up possible combinations of characters instead of just looking up words I don't know. True, the more words and grammar the easier it gets, since what you haven't recognised are the new words.

It's true that English has a huge number of non-intuitive words. It's because it's absorbing words from many other languages! The 250,000 and more words in English are hardly used even by a very educated and advanced speaker but they are still part of the language. It's just a matter of preference - what is better - 1) coining new words based on existing components or other words (Chinese) or 2) borrow and invent new words, sometimes also using Latin or other language components (English). The fact that Chinese didn't go that way - borrowing words from other languages - was a choice of governments, writers and linguists. Many languages are either heavily influenced by others or stay very pure.

If new words are created using existing words - it makes it easier for speakers and learners to memorise but in my opinion, foreign words add flavour and make a language rich phonetically.

Look at Japanese or Korean, they borrow layers of English words, which don't make any sense to native speakers! (Not that I am encouraging to do the same with Chinese).

--

English spelling is non-intuitive either but you can learn to spell in English at 15-30% of time you spend writing Chinese characters! Many Chinese complain that English is difficult but they speak it so well.

--

English is a bad example to compare with Chinese - it's a huge language used in all the spheres of science, which accumulated too many words from many languages. Let me give you a better example - overseas students in Russia master Russian in one of preparation courses and go to universities together with native speakers - they are able to follow the lectures, discuss and study like any other student, it's similar to the situation in other European countries with students from all over the world, including China. How long does it take to get to this level in Chinese if you study in China?

[liuzhou]

The fact that Chinese didn't go that way - borrowing words from other languages

Chinese has many words borrowed from other languages.

[tanklao]

After quite a bit of discussions here I would like to conclude that the simplicity of Chinese is based on the regnizing of its Characters (or even their Pinyin). But the regnizing of Characters is quite hard to westerners. So for the wsterners to lean Chinese, the ABC is very difficult. Once you learn the ABC, things are much easier.

[atitarev]

Chinese has many words borrowed from other languages.

Many? If you remove geographical and personal names, all borrowings into Chinese can fit on a couple of pages and I mean the phonetic transliterations into Chinese (e.g. 浪漫), not the Sinicised words (e.g. 乌托邦) (I include modern borrowings from Japanese in this category - they can be explained by Chinese components). Those few words in the first category make Chinese words less logical, therefore are not so popular, but there is little choice for foreign names, in most cases they have to be transliterated phonetically.

So for the wsterners to lean Chinese, the ABC is very difficult. Once you learn the ABC, things are much easier.

By the time you learn the ABC, you have mastered the Chinese language - writing and the language are kind of very integrated in Chinese - you learn new words by learning new characters or their new usage. You can only learn to READ fluently in Chinese when you also know the words and characters.

[tanklao]

Let me give you a better example - overseas students in Russia master Russian in one of preparation courses and go to universities together with native speakers - they are able to follow the lectures, discuss and study like any other student, it's similar to the situation in other European countries with students from all over the world, including China.

I know that overseas students can follow the lectures in English. I myself have attended lots of international lectures in English. The fact is that the lecturers prefer to using plain Enligh, and nowadays most of lectures are aided by slide shows. So there is not so much difficult for oversea students to follow. The other aspect is also true that scientific papers are not published in plain English. There are lots of terms that sometimes even scare the native speakers. If these terms are translated into Chinese, it is not that case. Of course, most of scientific terms are from Latin or Greek, but aren't they a part of English?

How long does it take to get to this level in Chinese if you study in China?

In my Lab, there is a Croatial student whose mother toungue is Croatial. It took him only three months' language training in China and he can almost follow the lectures in Chinese. Sometimes lecturers give lectures in Chinese but using English slide-shows, which makes it quite easy for him to follow. He can also discuss with us in almost Chinese, just in very little English. After one year's study in China, he can type Chinese on computer or cellphone, although he sometimes make mistakes that are toleratable. Chinese is not that hard for western students. When I asked him to compare the complexity of English and Chinese, he told me that in some aspect Chinese is really simple but it took him quite some time and energy to memorize the 500 common used characters, which was quite worth. And he also complained about the spelling problem of English which, he told me that, is far far worse than his mother toungue--Croatial.

Here is one message he sent to me to ask me the place where he can go to watch IMAX 3D movie. The exact message is

你能告诉我那个地方，你们去了看3D电影? 我也想去。

All the characters above is among the 500 top common used. In fact above 80% of daily used Chinese are based on these 500 top common characters. So it is worthwhile learning them and mastering them. Once you master the 500 top characters and 50 top radicals of characters, I am sure that you can understand more than a half Chinese.

[atitarev]

Thanks for your answer, Tanklao. I can see your point. OK, here's another challenge for you - how long does it take for a language student to read newspapers in Chinese or English? You need up-to 4,000 characters to be able to read newspapers and short novels in a non-electronic form.

[renzhe]

All the characters above is among the 500 top common used. In fact above 80% of daily used Chinese are based on these 500 top common characters. So it is worthwhile learning them and mastering them. Once you master the 500 top characters and 50 top radicals of characters, I am sure that you can understand more than a half Chinese.

I'm sorry, but I have to disagree again.

It took me a few months to learn 500 characters, and you can't understand ANYTHING with that.

The fact that the top 500 characters make up 80% of all the printed characters doesn't mean much because most of the WORDS that are commonly used are composed or one of these characters and another one, that is less common.

Even now, knowing over 2000 characters (over 95% of all characters you encounter) and several thousand words, I struggle with simple TV shows, and I mean SIMPLE. With subtitles under them.

With 500 characters, you can ask someone if they want to go to the movies, or a restaurant and what country they come from. That's about it

P.S. As a native Croatian speaker, I can assure you that it is far easier to read and pronounce than English. English spelling is horrendous. However, since my girlfriend (Chinese) is learning Croatian right now, I can assure you that it is a far more difficult language to learn than English.

The other aspect is also true that scientific papers are not published in plain English. There are lots of terms that sometimes even scare the native speakers. If these terms are translated into Chinese, it is not that case.

That's because they are specialised papers, written by experts, for experts. You can't understand these things without knowing the field. You can replace the word "algorithm" with "a list of instructions for solving a problem" and the word "computer" with "electronic brain" and the word "stochastic" with "involving chance or probability", and you still wouldn't understand a computer science paper.

[tanklao]

That's because they are specialised papers, written by experts, for experts. You can't understand these things without knowing the field.

Chinese is more suitable for inter-discipline communication. In the article I gave an example about microcystin vs 微囊藻毒素。it seems that it is easier for a layman to understand 微囊藻毒素 than microcystin. the same is true to the 25 words I've listed, eg,

tampon 	棉球 	mianqiu, 	 	
flask 	烧瓶 	shaoping, 	
exarticulation 	脱臼 	tuojiu, 	
nephrolith 	肾结石 	shenjieshi, 	
schizophrenia 	精神分裂症 	jingshenfenliezheng,
senile dementia 	老年痴呆症 	laonianchidaizheng,
cuboid 	长方体 	changfangti, 	
rhombicosidodecahedron 	二十面体 	ershimianti, 	
saleratus 	小苏打 	xiaosuda, 	
selenium 	硒 	xi, 	
theostat 	变阻器 	bianzuqi, 	
manostat 	稳压器 	wenyaqi, 	
sturgeon 	鲟鱼 	xunyu, 	
pheasant 	野鸡 	yeji, 	
drone 	雄蜂 	xiongfeng, 	
ozonosphere 	臭氧层 	chouyangceng, 	
troposphere 	对流层 	duiliuceng, 	
monsoon 	季风 	jifeng, 	
flute 	长笛 	changdi, 	
granite 	花岗岩 	huagangyan, 	
mutatis mutandis 	作必要的变化 	zuobiyaodebianhua,
epistemology 	认识论 	renshilun, 	
metaphysics 	形而上学 	xing'ershangxue, 	
bourgeoisie 	中产阶级 	zhongchanjieji, 	
proletaria 	无产阶级 	wuchanjieji.

I'm a biologist, but I found it much easier for me to read the specialized paper or books in non-bio field in Chinese than in English. One reason may lies in that Mandaren Chinese is my second language and I use it all the time. But English is my third language and I used it all the time as well. Everyday I read more specialized papers in English than in Chinese. And most of my reports should have an English version and sometimes only English version. I learnt Mandaren Chinese at the age of 8 and English at the age of 12 (taught by my elder sister who begun to have English lesson in secandary school), before that I know nothing about both Mandaren Chinese and English, as I was born in a remote village in middle-southern Fujian and TV was not availible unti I was 13. All people around me speaks Minnanese, and people seldom use Characters. What was more I spent more time to learn English than Mandaren Chinese. I used to read China Daily and 21st Century in English almost everyday when I was a high shool student and college student. After that I read more specialized paper in English than in Chinese. The other reason may lies in that Chinese is more suitable for inter-discipline study.

[renzhe]

Chinese is more suitable for inter-discipline communication. In the article I gave an example about microcystin vs 微囊藻毒素。it seems that it is easier for a layman to understand 微囊藻毒素 than microcystin.

but the layman CANNOT understand it. Maybe have a vague (and possibly completely wrong) idea, but they cannot understand what microcystin is without having studied it.

I know all the characters in 微囊藻毒素, and I have no clue what it is, just like I have no clue what microcystin is, because I'm not a biologist. I would guess from the English that it's small and comes from a cyst. Possibly the fluid inside a small cyst. The Chinese name doesn't tell me any more than that either.

And, while I understand that you're not a native Mandarin speaker, Mandarin and Minnanese are infinitely more similar to each other than either one is to English. When I see a German who prefers to read Chinese scientific papers to reading English ones, I'll be convinced

[liuzhou]

I'm a biologist

Well, we knew you weren't a linguist.

I think I'll write an essay about biology. It'll be drivel.