HSK computer based exam has no value

[hedwards]

@Silent, that's perfect validation for not learning it. If something takes years to master and provides little or no benefit in daily living, the only other reason to learn it is if you like doing so. The fact that something is on a test is one of the worst reasons to learn something.

 

@Shelley,  the original poster was going on about how the new "HSK computer based exam has no value" it's the title to the entire thread, if that's not ridiculously off base, then I don't know what is. It sounds like somebody who is trying to force the way things were done with them on other people regardless of whether there is any good reason to continue the old ways.

[Silent]

 

that's perfect validation for not learning it.

Sorry, I've the impression you turning things around. Yes if it takes years to learn and has little added value there's that's fair enough a justification not to learn it. That's my plea.

 

The simple fact that people manage to get by without the skill, as you stated, is by no means a justification that it's not important. Many people manage to get by without  certain (basic) skills, but that says little about the value of those skills. Sure those skills are not essential for life, but that's about the only conclusion you can draw from many people getting by without it.

[MPhillips]

I'm surprised so many foreign learners think learning to write is a waste of time, I should think whatever effort one puts into writing characters is paid back in terms of passive recognition of characters (especially when it comes to those characters which differ only slightly one from the other).

[Aphorisme]

Hi everyone!

 

Thank you for your answers which are really interesting. I would like to apologize for my post being too direct...I didn't round the angles on purpose, in order to get straightforward answers. But i was not trolling at all; next time I will moderate my words.

 

I will just add that IMHO learning chinese language without learning handwriting is more being interested in what you can do with chinese (adding a line on your resume, making more money, picking up chinese girls) than being interested in chinese itself; it's neither bad nor good, but I can't see how an individual can claim himself interested in chinese language -or even culture, since language is part of the culture- if he has no handwriting skills.

 

Okay, this answer has no link with the initial topic...but that is what your answers inspired me.

[Shelley]

@MPhillips I agree 100%.

 

Even if I never write anything in Chinese by hand ever again, it is and will be worth learning to write characters. The many hours I have put into it have been a combination of pain and pleasure but it is not something I will stop doing.

 

But it is horses for courses, some people will and some people won't learn characters. IMHO the ones who don't are the ones who are missing something but its not the end of the world.

 

If you want to, then do it , if not, then don't, simples

[Silent]

 

I should think whatever effort one puts into writing characters is paid back in terms of passive recognition of characters.

Sure, handwriting practice helps in recognition, however to be able to hand write goes well beyond recognition. Active use requires more practice then passive recognition. In the same way that recognition in context tends to be easier then recognition in isolation. I doubt anyone will seriously debate that being able to hand write is better then not being able to hand write. The question is merely what is the added value of being able to hand write, what is the investment in time, money and effort needed to add that skill, and what could be gained with a comparable investment elsewhere.

 

The answer is personal. If you learn Chinese to be able to read research papers and patents while living and working in a western scientific environment requirements are different from living and working in China with a partner who only knows Chinese. It's horses for courses, no point in being judgemental about it.

[MPhillips]

I sympathize with your point of view Aphorisme, back when I started learning Chinese none of my fellow students complained about having to write characters, as there was no economic incentive to studying Chinese, if you studied the language at all it was because you loved it, characters & all (for a lot of my classmates characters were what fascinated them the most). Had I been doing a rigorous cost-benefit analysis back then, I'd have opted for medicine (of course something about cutting up cadavers kind of puts me off).

[JustinJJ]

I will just add that IMHO learning chinese language without learning handwriting is more being interested in what you can do with chinese (adding a line on your resume, making more money, picking up chinese girls) than being interested in chinese itself;

 

Maybe you could enlighten us to the relationship between handwriting skills (or the lack of) and picking up Chinese girls, making more money, etc. Perhaps you might think that someone who can't write but can read 红楼梦 and interpret at conferences is less interested in Chinese than than someone who has studied a term of Chinese and can write a bunch of characters - I Doubt it.

 

I suspect that for a lot of people the decision not to learn to physically write (as opposed to character recognition) has more to do with trying to learn more efficiently e.g. spending that time reading, listening, than not being interested in Chinese itself. 

[MPhillips]

I don't doubt that it's quite possible to be able to read 紅樓夢 and yet not be able to write, but to someone from my generation it just seems very odd for a person who wants to do the former not to care about the latter. Of course here in the US (at least where I live), I'm told they don't teach cursive handwriting in public schools anymore (!).

[Basil]

MPhilips,

 

While it is commendable to be able to write beautiful cursive longhand, you're forgetting to what extent input methods affect thought processes and resultant style and legibility of texts. Nietzsche commented on it when he first moved to the typewriter.

 

Several years ago I could write pretty good Chinese and frequently did. Now I can't write a sentence, being as reliant as I am on my trusty keyboard.

 

For those who exclusively use computers, to then have a purely written test is just unfair. It's the equivalent of asking somebody who desires to become a roof tiler to first complete an assessment on his ability to thatch a roof. The latter ability is more commendable than the first, but otherwise just an anachronism.

 

Whether the HSK is fit for purpose, computer based or not, is another question.

[hedwards]

@Basil, that's certainly a valid point to make. about the thought processes. However, I don't think that really applies to people who haven't mastered the basics of the language they're trying to use.

 

There's a really awkward bit where you know how to speak and listen, but don't yet have the reading and writing down. Being able to type and read those is actually quite a bit harder than folks here seem to think. What's more, folks are going to pick up the grammar bits and vocab far more effectively like that. Learning to write the characters afterwards is also easier than if you're starting for scratch.

 

In an ideal world people would learn to handwrite as well, but it's clearly not as useful as the other things that one could be doing with their time until they've gotten fairly advanced as the ability to infer meaning is greatly reduced if you don't know how to properly communicate verbally or with typing.

 

And yes, you're absolutely correct about the purpose. Unless a person is applying for a job where there's a lot of handwriting, chances are typing will be the limit of most use anyways.

[MPhillips]

As I don't want to offend anyone I avoid saying this but I've been won over by the DeFrancis/Mair position--Chinese characters are in & of themselves an anachronism. That said, when I was young my biggest heroes were people like Champollion, Schliemann & Ventris. I guess I think for a foreigner, trying to learn Chinese well isn't all that practical an undertaking to begin with, so why would someone impractical enough to devote himself to the ten or so years of study it takes to reach the level required to read "The Dream of the Red Chamber" care whether learning to write Chinese is justified by a "cost-benefit analysis" or not? Of course I've probably forgotten how to write (without resort to intense cogitation at least) half the characters I once was able to write after about 10 years of studying Chinese (besides about 5 of Japanese).

[Basil]

A cost-benefit analysis is not done once prior to commencing study then never done again. It's a thought game that has to be done periodically. What makes sense at the start of a learning process might become silly further along.

 

But really, anyone who could actually do a proper CBA would never choose to learn Chinese. They'd learn banking instead. Someone once said that learning mandarin is a 5 year lesson in humility; meaning that the language is so tricky that after which the learner never gets the opportunity to be proud of her new found humbleness... they just become accustomed to feeling humbled again and again...

 

I used to be pretty proud of my writing, no more. My speaking goes up, my reading goes down; my reading goes up yet I still can't write for toffee.

[MPhillips]

"But really, anyone who could actually do a proper CBA would never choose to learn Chinese. They'd learn banking instead."

My sentiments exactly Basil.

[Basil]

More on some Chinese learners not being able to do CBA:

 

Going back to the first post:

 

 

 

Yes, I believe so. Since you can type, it kills the main difficulty of chinese language.

 

The sheer difficulty of learning Chinese leads to people performing these kinds of weird mental gymnastics. 

 

I've been guilty of this. Revelling in the masochism of learning something so time consuming and of little practical worth... not because I am, or presumably many other learners, a masochist, but because it's so hard and time consuming that any reason, no matter how unbalanced it is, is grabbed and wielded as justification for the investment of emotion, days, months and years.

 

Chinese is a tool. It's a more difficult tool than many others. It's also one that is hard to grasp and often hard to monetise.

 

Once someone starts saying that those who don't do such and such a thing are not real learners... blah blah blah, they've lost sight of any real world usage of their skill and if they keep it up will likely before long, baring very good luck, find themselves staring into the abyss of mediocrity and insolvency.

 

There are a hell of a lot of Chinese out there who have a 'good enough' i.e.. fit for business grasp of English. They are frequently the competition, not your mate down the pub who thinks you're well smart for being able to write florid love letters without use of the alphabet.

 

The OP would be well advised to wake up.

[imron]

Someone once said that learning mandarin is a 5 year lesson in humility;

 

Someone once said that learning Chinese is "a five-year lesson in humility". I used to think this meant that at the end of five years you will have mastered Chinese and learned humility along the way. However, now having studied Chinese for over six years, I have concluded that actually the phrase means that after five years your Chinese will still be abysmal, but at least you will have thoroughly learned humility.

[Source]

[JustinJJ]

"But really, anyone who could actually do a proper CBA would never choose to learn Chinese. They'd learn banking instead."

My sentiments exactly Basil. 

 

 

It depends on what benefits you are talking about. If you are doing anything for a hobby, you derive a benefit from it. I think your CBA analysis isn't too fair on Chinese. I think Chinese wins, but I'm biased because I used to be an investment banker. 

 

Banking: 

• Costs - working 80 hours a week with no life, high stress
• Benefits - not nearly as good as people assume, unless you are in a very small minority who work up to MD level without burning out, having shaved years off your life from stress/pressure. Otherwise the rewards are pretty average and probably not any better than the minimum wage on an hourly rate basis.

[MPhillips]

Wow, I guess things are rough all over.

[ZhangKaiRong]

It depends on what benefits you are talking about. If you are doing anything for a hobby, you derive a benefit from it. I think your CBA analysis isn't too fair on Chinese. I think Chinese wins, but I'm biased because I used to be an investment banker. 

 

Banking: 

• Costs - working 80 hours a week with no life, high stress
• Benefits - not nearly as good as people assume, unless you are in a very small minority who work up to MD level without burning out, having shaved years off your life from stress/pressure. Otherwise the rewards are pretty average and probably not any better than the minimum wage on an hourly rate basis.

Yes, it is true, but IB is a bonus-heavy industry. And the bonus at the end of FY usually takes up to several months of your salary, as a compensation for your long hours. Bonus is quite OK at big4's M&A departments, so I couldn't believe it would be worse in IB.

 

And generally, grinding two or three years in IB will take you to much better positions than your Chinese skills would ever take, because let's be honest, it is not a useful skill in your professional career. This is why - as your post implicitly suggested - we are learning it for fun, and not consider it as a cash cow. 

[Elizabeth_rb]

David Moser said

 

Someone once said that learning Chinese is "a five-year lesson in humility". I used to think this meant that at the end of five years you will have mastered Chinese and learned humility along the way. However, now having studied Chinese for over six years, I have concluded that actually the phrase means that after five years your Chinese will still be abysmal, but at least you will have thoroughly learned humility.

I just wanted to say that I SOOOO wish this was true of everyone. I know those (one in particular who gets my goat to no mean degree) who have engaged with Chinese (I won't say 'studied', because they are usually of the type that consider actual study unnecessary) for several years and have got such an over-inflated opinion of their abilities that I wish I could find some ladylike way to introduce some humility into their being....

Sorry, that was a rant and I needed it!!!

Edited October 14, 2014 at 11:23 PM by imron
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