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To me, it seems to be a lot easier than Spanish so far.... |
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Well, Spanish is not a Germanic language. It's just like How I have a hard time learning French. I suppose Chinese (Mandarin/Taiwanese local Mandarin) in terms of pronunciation is much more straight forward, right? If you meant the writing part, then you might be crazy, or you are extremely interested in the Chinese writing, or that you are Japanese (the only existing country to use Han characters as their modern everyday literacy other than the Chinese areas or areas that have mostly Chinese people, which are Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and Singapore), or that you live in Singapore.
If you are interested in the Chinese history, literature, calligraphy, and Hong Kong and Taiwan, then learn Traditional Chinese. If you want to communicate with most of the Chinese people in the world, want to get benefits financially, and is planning to go to Mainland China, then learn Simplified Chinese. |
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We haven't started characters, not really. We're learning Pinyin right now this unit then moving on next unit, I think.
I picked up on Japanese easily. This might be the same. |
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Well Japanese is much more of a "Germanic" language than Chinese. I think it would be much more easier if you learn Japanese for a... native English speaker. You are one, right? Or do you know a language that you are even more fluent at than English?
If you are planning to go to Taiwan, then learning Bopomofo/Zhuyin is essential.
The punctuation are very important, too. Hope you get to learn them in the future.
Knowing how to use an ink brush to write is pretty important, too. There weren't pens and pencils back then. Ink brushes can be used to write Chinese, Mongolian, Kana (Japanese), Hangul (Korean), Arabic, Manchu, or whatever. |
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I prefer Japanese, because its kinda easier then Chinese. |
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你好！Yes, I'm also taking Madarin Chinese in school. The Pinyin is just writing the way to say it. Now, depending on how your teacher teaches, you may or may not have such an easy time writing the characters. My teacher teaches us both the simplified and traditional characters. In a way, the simplified is easier to write and it's more commonly used throughout mainland China. In places such as Taiwan or Hong Kong, they use the traditional versions. I'll give you an example to simplified/traditional characters.
Lan2
Simplifed: 兰
Traditional: 蘭
Now, not all characters are that big of a difference.
Jian4
Simplified: 见
Traditional: 見 |
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dxhardys12Top 50 PosterJoin Date: 2009-09-08
Post Count: 52245 |
I'm learning Spanish.
Only language they have available.
However I wish to learn as many languages as I can, I'm also interested in learning Gaelic/Irish |
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I'm probably gonna take spanish, 'cuz I'm already Chinese. |
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d512634Join Date: 2008-10-14
Post Count: 4050 |
Hehehe. |
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XxJimmyxXJoin Date: 2009-02-15
Post Count: 7380 |
I'm learning French at the moment, but I'd love to learn Italian! |
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What are you doing, Mandarin or Cantonese?
Pinyin is fairly easy, but characters are really hard to learn. |
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boilpoilJoin Date: 2010-04-07
Post Count: 246 |
I hope your learning Mandarin... only 4 levels of sound, Cantonese has 9 levels of sound
And... I don't know if Chinese has grammar O.e *I'm a Chinese* |
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d512634Join Date: 2008-10-14
Post Count: 4050 |
every language has its grammar
oh and Mandarin has 5 levels of sound
and the some of the sound levels sounds similar in Cantonese, and since we are foreign people, its not so important xD |
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Wait, Chinese Simpilfied, or Chinese Traditonal? I've gone to a lot of schools' and learned many languages. The hardest is probaly Arabic because it is wrote backward... Chinese Traditonal is probaly the second hardest. Maybe ask your teacher if you can take simpilified. It is much easier, and if you start to fail in tradional, take simpilified. |
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d512634Join Date: 2008-10-14
Post Count: 4050 |
Simplified Chinese doesn't have the beauty of Chinese characters :P
For instance:
愛 is in Traditional Chinese, it mean's love.
爱 is in Simplified Chinese, same meaning.
心 means heart.
爱 is lack of 心
Without a heart, how can people love? |
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kirstenyJoin Date: 2009-01-29
Post Count: 691 |
I can speak Mandarin (I'm literate with pinyins), and I know 1,500 of the 4,000 or so characters necessary to write and read Chinese texts. The tones are a little...different, but it's all pretty simple in the end. Chinese is a more primitive language (being that it has hardly changed in the past 2,000 years). |
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d512634Join Date: 2008-10-14
Post Count: 4050 |
Chinese changed a lot......
It changed from 文言 to 白話 and from 正體 to 簡體... |
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@d512634
Many simplified Chinese characters are created from cursive writings. I don't know about the character 愛 to 爱. But what you said isn't really the main case. The problem is that they modified a lot of cursive characters, semi-cursive characters, variant characters, and newly-created characters (since communist era) into standard script characters (aka. kaishu).
Generally speaking, most traditional Chinese characters in kaishu are derived from seal script (zhuan). But kaishu in simplified Chinese takes a step further and tries all kinds of methods to make characters easy to write.
Maybe 爱 is derived from a cursive script. Who knows (not me). |
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d512634Join Date: 2008-10-14
Post Count: 4050 |
Chinese writer 胡適 said something that means most of the Chinese are lazy in some ways...
They even don't want to write hard Characters
(? |
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What does that mean?
Of course saving time is better. It's the 21st century. Everyone is trying to be more efficient. It's just that they kinda threw away the Chinese tradition that has lasted for more than thousands of years (writing in traditional Chinese).
But of course, you can create your own character or an alternate character to replace a really complicated official character for simplicity. That's what some people do.
I mean, they still use traditional Chinese for many purposes such as logos and trademarks, literary purposes, historical sites, CALLIGRAPHY (which is a very significant one), and so on. It's not obsolete in China to use traditional Chinese. But most people will learn simplified Chinese at young age because it's the standard form of Chinese. It's most useful for the efficiency of the Chinese society and its economy. It's simple to write.
But maybe they'll revive it since the technological age is taking over. But not very likely though. Who knows what'll happen.
I'm pretty neutral on this matter. |
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d512634Join Date: 2008-10-14
Post Count: 4050 |
Mao Zedong made Chinese simplified, and cause a lot of people can't read.
If you see Traditional Chinese in China, it's probably written by Taiwanese or people who studied it. |
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