Re: The pitfall of Chinese/Mandarin

On Sat, 8 Dec 2001, [iso-8859-1] Cheng Zhong Su wrote:

>  --- Patrick Dunn wrote:
> > Take Chinese, for example.  One of the most annoying
> > things about Chinese
> > is the writing system (at least, for those of us
> > learning the langauge as
> > a second or third language).  Yet it's this very
> > frustrating, illogical,
> > seemingly random writing system that gives rise to
> > much of the power of
> > Chinese poetry, which is what -- for me -- makes the
> > language worth
> > learning.
> >
> > Ambiguity in language is not a flaw, and all
> > languages with ambiguities
> > can avoid them if necessary.  If you manage to
> > remove ambiguity, you
> > create a language incapable of playful poetry, and
> > therefore -- to my
> > mind, at least -- devoid of fun.
> >
> > --Patrick
> Answer:Yes, it's a trouble for the Chinese writing
> system. It was improved by simplified characters, in
> mainland China. Yet I don't agree that leave the
> ambiguities alone. The fun of mind is to compose some
> thing not to remember words. For poetries may be not
> important but for a scientific student, things will be
> different. For instance, the chemical element table,
> must be learn by heart in chinese school, for it's not
> to hard to do it, and if you learn it by heart, you
> know the most property of all those elements. While in
> English school, students don't need to learn it by
> heart, whenever you need it just find a book and look
> what is the position of that element. I think in most
> case students just guess the property of that element
> by an ambiguous image.
> Su Cheng Zhong
People in the United States do memorize the periodic table of elements.
Protracted use of the thing will pound it into your head with or without
it being in Chinese.

And no one guesses at the properties of an element in  chemistry.  Have
you ever studied chemistry?

How old are you, anyway?  If you don't mind my asking.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Prurio modo viri qui in arbore pilosa est.
                        ~~Elvis

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Reply