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- Nov 19, 2010
Hey, os, butchering languages is a global event. If youths don't do it, governments will do it for ya.
Michelle Attends U.S. State Dinner for China President Hu Jintao
- Thread starter demarinis5
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- Mar 23, 2010
Yeah don't even get me started on the disaster that is the culture revolution. It must have set China back for decades or at least a generation. It was one of the saddest event to have transpired for politicians to gain power over the elite bourgeoisie.
I actually don't mind Youth adapting and changing it for whatever their purpose. It is natural part of growing up. It is about them empowering themself with a unique way to expressing oneself, seek their own identity. I actually think any culturally rich society, it is healthy to diversify even taking a tumble here and there.
However when they finally grow up and learn the real ways of the world and its various culture and social pressures, they will get back to the norm.
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Ha! It would have been a stampedeMichelle would have been mortified. But it would have been fun!
Nice to see that her dress got the right media attention.
I currently live in London and it was a pleasant surprise to see a fantastic picture of her from the State dinner in the "Metro" newspaper! There were only 3 pictures and she was on one of them
I think her dress impressed quite a few people!
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- Jun 3, 2008
the whole post was jawdropping, I bookmarked it!
So in primary school for example they learn one syllable words and how to pronounce them accordingly to what they want to say, instead of learning an alphabet > create syllables > words from it?So in the written speech how many words there are?
a western person is it even possible to produce these sounds?
I m also interested in the 12 course dinner
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- Jan 23, 2004
I love this board. The language explanation posts have been the most interesting and learning off topic discussion for me in quite awhile. :thumbsup:
Thank you.
Thank you.
Os168, your post was fascinating. (If your post was off topic, then the topic isn't broad enough!) I think Michelle would be pleased that her visit to the White House was the occasion for more people learning about the languages of China.
Like you, I love language, its history, and its growth. One of the things that is so amazing to me is that every culture, no matter how isolated, has a language, but that there are so many possible language structures. (One fact that always floors me: though Australia had just a small population of Aborigines, they were so isolated from one another that there were literally hundreds of Aborigine languages.)
I love the idea that there are different ways to represent language in written form. I don't just mean writing that looks different: I mean that some writing systems use ideograms, some represent syllables (Cherokee does this, as I understand it), and some, like English, Greek, and Arabic, use a small number of alphabetical symbols to represent an infinite number of words. Breathtaking, when you think if it, that these systems carry all our thoughts, poetry, aspirations, concepts.
I remember the time of the Cultural Revolution. It was frightening even from the outside, a dystopian science fiction novel come to life. It seemed so wasteful for perhaps the oldest continuous civilization in the world to dismantle itself. And to take an entire generation of minds and throw them away...tragedy. I know that you feel much time was lost, but the consolation is that the era did come to an end. It could just as easily have lasted: look at North Korea.
And I agree with you about not worrying so much when young people bend language. There are all sorts of slang expressions that were huge for a time and then died out as their speakers outgrew them and reverted to standard use. In the 1920s, if things were wonderful, people said that they were "the bee's knees" and "the cat's pajamas." In the 1950s there were hepcats. Language is resilient. Bad grammar worries me much more than expressions such as like. When a native-born speaker says "I had went," I wonder where my education tax dollars have gone.
Like you, I love language, its history, and its growth. One of the things that is so amazing to me is that every culture, no matter how isolated, has a language, but that there are so many possible language structures. (One fact that always floors me: though Australia had just a small population of Aborigines, they were so isolated from one another that there were literally hundreds of Aborigine languages.)
I love the idea that there are different ways to represent language in written form. I don't just mean writing that looks different: I mean that some writing systems use ideograms, some represent syllables (Cherokee does this, as I understand it), and some, like English, Greek, and Arabic, use a small number of alphabetical symbols to represent an infinite number of words. Breathtaking, when you think if it, that these systems carry all our thoughts, poetry, aspirations, concepts.
I remember the time of the Cultural Revolution. It was frightening even from the outside, a dystopian science fiction novel come to life. It seemed so wasteful for perhaps the oldest continuous civilization in the world to dismantle itself. And to take an entire generation of minds and throw them away...tragedy. I know that you feel much time was lost, but the consolation is that the era did come to an end. It could just as easily have lasted: look at North Korea.
And I agree with you about not worrying so much when young people bend language. There are all sorts of slang expressions that were huge for a time and then died out as their speakers outgrew them and reverted to standard use. In the 1920s, if things were wonderful, people said that they were "the bee's knees" and "the cat's pajamas." In the 1950s there were hepcats. Language is resilient. Bad grammar worries me much more than expressions such as like. When a native-born speaker says "I had went," I wonder where my education tax dollars have gone.
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the whole post was jawdropping, I bookmarked it!
So in primary school for example they learn one syllable words and how to pronounce them accordingly to what they want to say, instead of learning an alphabet > create syllables > words from it?So in the written speech how many words there are?
a western person is it even possible to produce these sounds?
I m also interested in the 12 course dinner
Hmm, I'm not quite sure if I can speak for Chinese schools in general, but I do know I was first taught Pinyin, which would be like the romanized version of Chinese. Basically, it uses English letters but there's a sign above each word that denotes how it's to be pronounced; specifically, four different possible signs since, like Os said, each Chinese syllable has 4 different ways of pronouncing it. Once you've learned that, they start you on constructing words together by giving you the pinyin form and the character. Tons of memorization right there since if you mess up a stroke by accident, you can completely change the word! Same thing w/pronounciation; even now, I sometimes accidentally say to my mom "I'm missing my eyes" and not "I'm missing my glasses" because "glasses" and "eyes" in Chinese sound very similar save for a different stress sound!
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- Jun 3, 2008
It is also so much different to learn a language with all the grammar and syntax and all, and when you apply it, it is an alien universe. It is like learning a wooden language , rules and exams cant give you exactly the language that is alive and changing. In Greece almost all children we are taking the exams held by the British Council of Cambridge lower level in primary and proficiency level in secondary school , with this paper you can even teach to a school afterwards and probably speak with the queen of england (i have it framed
) and then I came on the board where people are actually speaking English and I felt dump
You also realize the strange rules of your native language once you see the difficulties that foreign people have when learning it.
I think contemporary things learn you the language once you know its rules, like music, books, GS...
) and then I came on the board where people are actually speaking English and I felt dump You also realize the strange rules of your native language once you see the difficulties that foreign people have when learning it.
I think contemporary things learn you the language once you know its rules, like music, books, GS...
- Joined
- Jun 27, 2003
It is also so much different to learn a language with all the grammar and syntax and all, and when you apply it, it is an alien universe. It is like learning a wooden language , rules and exams cant give you exactly the language that is alive and changing. In Greece almost all children we are taking the exams held by the British Council of Cambridge lower level in primary and proficiency level in secondary school , with this paper you can even teach to a school afterwards and probably speak with the queen of england (i have it framed
You also realize the strange rules of your native language once you see the difficulties that foreign people have when learning it.
I think contemporary things learn you the language once you know its rules, like music, books, GS...
well a lot of us on here are American-English... which is different than that "across the pond"... I don't understand my friends in Great Britain half the time and we're supposedly speaking the same language!
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- Nov 19, 2010
I was at first confused at how you could confuse eyes and glasses. Then I realized it was the second word of each phrase that gave you the problem. This reminds me of an associate/friend who had been to China about 20 times but still didn't know the language so I arranged for him to exchange lessons with a Chinese business woman here. Anyway, I was curious and asked him why, of all things, he happened to know "mouse" in Chinese. Turned out he once tried to say "teacher" and got the Chinese laughing because it sounded more like "mouse"!
Both the new pinyin pronunciation system and simplified writing are Communist government's attempts to make Chinese easier to learn. Instead of traditional pinyin symbols, Roman alphabets are used. However, they don't always sound the same as what the alphabet users are accustomed to. Chinese pronunciations can be very exact and precise compared to other languages. E.g. In English "T' is pronounced differently with different words and with different emphases. The Chinese pinyin uses "D" and "T" to differentiate them. As well, other sounds are so refined that they use some alphabets uniquely for distinction, thus the use of "Q" which sounds more like "Ch" which is already assigned for a specific "Ch" sound.
As os expressed, these reforms initiated by the current Chinese government "butchered" the language. I understand what s/he means. Written Chinese is comprised of characters derived from pictograms, making written Chinese just about the hardest to learn and maintain. Spoken Chinese, however, is quite easy as long as one has overcome the intonation recognition problem, due to the simplicity of grammar and limited pronunciations. The pictogram characteristics, similar and even identical pronunciations of different words, and the simple grammar contribute greatly to the beauty of the language for literary use, such as poetry, verses and songs because there can be so many plays of words, written arrangements, implications, purposeful ambiquity, and innuendos. However, without alphabets, this is IMO a terribly non-pragmatic language. It's difficult to organize and hardly lends itself to easy typing, filing, scientific nomenclatures, etc.
Chinese is a beautiful language for literature but a very poor technical one. I guess the Communist government tries to improve it for the latter and practical reasons, but in the process also sacrifices/"butchers" the beauty and former characteristics.
Edited because even as I'm explaining the Chinese language, I need to check my English and minimize my inevitable mistakes!
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I was at first confused at how you could confuse eyes and glasses. Then I realized it was the second word of each phrase that gave you the problem. This reminds me of an associate/friend who had been to China about 20 times but still didn't know the language so I arranged for him to exchange lessons with a Chinese business woman here. Anyway, I was curious and asked him why, of all things, he happened to know "mouse" in Chinese. Turned out he once tried to say "teacher" and got the Chinese laughing because it sounded more like "mouse"!
Both the new pinyin pronunciation system and simplified writing are Communist government's attempts to make Chinese easier to learn. Instead of traditional pinyin symbols, Roman alphabets are used. However, they don't always sound the same as what the alphabet users are accustomed to. Chinese pronunciations can be very exact and precise compared to other languages. E.g. In English "T' is pronounced differently with different words and with different emphases. The Chinese pinyin uses "D" and "T" to differentiate them. As well, other sounds are so refined that they use some alphabets uniquely for distinction, thus the use of "Q" which sounds more like "Ch" which is already assigned for a specific "Ch" sound.
As os expressed, these reforms initiated by the current Chinese government "butchered" the language. I understand what s/he means. Written Chinese is comprised of characters derived from pictograms, making written Chinese just about the hardest to learn and maintain. Spoken Chinese, however, is quite easy as long as one has overcome the intonation recognition problem, due to the simplicity of grammar and limited pronunciations. The pictogram characteristics, similar and even identical pronunciations of different words, and the simple grammar contribute greatly to the beauty of the language for literary use, such as poetry, verses and songs because there can be so many plays of words, written arrangements, implications, purposeful ambiquity, and innuendos. However, without alphabets, this is IMO a terribly non-pragmatic language. It's difficult to organize and hardly lends itself to easy typing, filing, scientific nomenclatures, etc.
Chinese is a beautiful language for literature but a very poor technical one. I guess the Communist government tries to improve it for the latter and practical reasons, but in the process also sacrifices/"butchers" the beauty and former characteristics.
Edited because even as I'm explaining the Chinese language, I need to check my English and minimize my inevitable mistakes!
Lols, yeah. A bit of a shame considering I actually am Chinese and still mess it up at times (though I claim the excuse of being an ABC). The Chinese language is quite phonetically difficult just because of all the subtleties indeed :3
That's quite interesting to learn how the reformations have "butchered" the language. To a degree, I can understand why; the Chinese written language is very complex and often quite confusing, and like you said it, not exactly the most practical language. But I see the simplified system like CoP- still a work in process. The most irritating thing I'd imagine about the written language would be memorizing all the words; I remember when my grandmother taught me Chinese characters, she'd have me write one twenty times (or more) until she was satisfied!
- Joined
- Mar 23, 2010
LOL about the mouse and teacher thing. It is so true. This reminded me of my Greek friend used to say 'I love you' in Chinese by remember it as 'What' without the T (hands in the air shrugging, then point to the), 'Eye' and 'Knee'. ... because together they vaguely sound the same as the Mandarin equivalent of 'I love you'. Unfortunately he wasn't able to remember any other sentences other than Chinese food (maybe running out of body parts lol).
I have to disagree with you on the Chinese being a very poor technical language, infact I will say it is an excellent technical language but only if you have the aptitude for it. This can easily be illustrate by the fact Chinese traditional written language has thrived for thousands of years and widely adapted by neighbouring countries in despite the complexity. I still believe the motivation for the simplification since the 1950s was more politically motivated than a practical one whatever the propaganda message might has been. Approx than 10% of the China population are still illiterate today despite the simplified system been adapted for 6 decades - an entire generation. That is an incredible amount given China has a population of 1.3 billion. That is over 130 million illiterate, with the rest considered qualified for literate by only knowing '2,238' simplified characters (Chinese official literacy standard). When the average reader Traditional readers will probably have to master at least 6k-7k characters. Wiki shows the variation of characters in a dictionary, with both Korea and Japanese all have over 50k listed, and latest Chinese dictionary listing over 100k characters. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character In other words, the language has gone backwards.
Taiwan after all, has continued to thrive despite it. And the traditional characters are still widely adapted by Korea and Japan in formal use.
The language is only a technically poor one for someone having to learn it as a 2nd language because the aptitude for being considered being 'good' with the language is more severe than say the English language where each word have a specific meaning, while in Chinese, different characters combined together to form the same word but all showing different shades of the same meaning. It makes simple 4 words message possible therefore practical. That is why ancient scrolls is capable of record an entire dynasty of events on just one scroll, and the ability to interpret the scroll is just as important as how they are written. A page in formal written language (the style you write and the style you speak are very different) may require may be couple of pages in other languages like the English.
One can attest to this by reading any electronic manual when you have eastern and western languages side by side. Which language has the most pages? A formal Chinese character is approximate say 10 by 10 pixels on the screen, or 4mm by 4mm on page. So in practice you can fit far more words per page, and expressed multiple meaning in one short sentence. Therefore it makes it very easy to speed read. It also get things done faster and efficient. So while it requires greater aptitude for technical use - it is just part of master anything of refinement and quality.
Otherwise it is like saying Rachmaninov music sounds nice, but he is not very practical and unnecessarily fussy. All true, but so wrong at the same time.
(Lilith11 - haha can't believe you are complaining about writing words 20 times. All Asian kids have to practice hundreds of words more time than that everyday for home work, and unfortunately that is the only way you can learn. It can teaches you discipline and diligence as well, good side product for learning the language.)
I have to disagree with you on the Chinese being a very poor technical language, infact I will say it is an excellent technical language but only if you have the aptitude for it. This can easily be illustrate by the fact Chinese traditional written language has thrived for thousands of years and widely adapted by neighbouring countries in despite the complexity. I still believe the motivation for the simplification since the 1950s was more politically motivated than a practical one whatever the propaganda message might has been. Approx than 10% of the China population are still illiterate today despite the simplified system been adapted for 6 decades - an entire generation. That is an incredible amount given China has a population of 1.3 billion. That is over 130 million illiterate, with the rest considered qualified for literate by only knowing '2,238' simplified characters (Chinese official literacy standard). When the average reader Traditional readers will probably have to master at least 6k-7k characters. Wiki shows the variation of characters in a dictionary, with both Korea and Japanese all have over 50k listed, and latest Chinese dictionary listing over 100k characters. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character In other words, the language has gone backwards.
Taiwan after all, has continued to thrive despite it. And the traditional characters are still widely adapted by Korea and Japan in formal use.
The language is only a technically poor one for someone having to learn it as a 2nd language because the aptitude for being considered being 'good' with the language is more severe than say the English language where each word have a specific meaning, while in Chinese, different characters combined together to form the same word but all showing different shades of the same meaning. It makes simple 4 words message possible therefore practical. That is why ancient scrolls is capable of record an entire dynasty of events on just one scroll, and the ability to interpret the scroll is just as important as how they are written. A page in formal written language (the style you write and the style you speak are very different) may require may be couple of pages in other languages like the English.
One can attest to this by reading any electronic manual when you have eastern and western languages side by side. Which language has the most pages? A formal Chinese character is approximate say 10 by 10 pixels on the screen, or 4mm by 4mm on page. So in practice you can fit far more words per page, and expressed multiple meaning in one short sentence. Therefore it makes it very easy to speed read. It also get things done faster and efficient. So while it requires greater aptitude for technical use - it is just part of master anything of refinement and quality.
Otherwise it is like saying Rachmaninov music sounds nice, but he is not very practical and unnecessarily fussy. All true, but so wrong at the same time.
(Lilith11 - haha can't believe you are complaining about writing words 20 times. All Asian kids have to practice hundreds of words more time than that everyday for home work, and unfortunately that is the only way you can learn. It can teaches you discipline and diligence as well, good side product for learning the language.)
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It is also so much different to learn a language with all the grammar and syntax and all, and when you apply it, it is an alien universe. It is like learning a wooden language , rules and exams cant give you exactly the language that is alive and changing. In Greece almost all children we are taking the exams held by the British Council of Cambridge lower level in primary and proficiency level in secondary school , with this paper you can even teach to a school afterwards and probably speak with the queen of england (i have it framed
You also realize the strange rules of your native language once you see the difficulties that foreign people have when learning it.
I think contemporary things learn you the language once you know its rules, like music, books, GS...
A "wooden language"--what a great description of a new language! It's true that learning a language and then communicating in it are very different. I remember my first forays in French. As for seeing the oddities of one's own language when knowing someone who's learning it, that's certainly true. Friends of mine have the most trouble with verb tenses and prepositions. On the other hand, English has one huge advantage for learners in that it doesn't have gender for most nouns. The result is that one doesn't need to make articles or adjectives agree with a noun.
When I read posts on a forum such as GS, I'm always aware of the fact that a goodly number of the people here aren't communicating in their native language. That knocks me over. I can't imagine joining a forum where I'd have to communicate in French--and even make jokes!
And hey, Seniorita, if I ever get to meet the Queen, I'm having you come along so you can translate from American to British for me. (On the other hand, If I ever get to meet the Kween, you can just come along and faint in unison with me!)
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Where's the link to Michelle saying this? I'd like to read all of the statements she made at this event.
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When I studied Chinese in college in the 1960s they were still using the Wade-Giles transliteration into the Latin alphabet. This system made professional liguists cringe a little, but it did try to give English speakers as many phonetic clues about pronunciation as possible.
By the way, our textbook came from "Nationalist China" (Taiwan) and the first sentence that we were required to translate was, "When we return to the mainland, all will be well."
My professor (an American scholar) had actually been living in China in 1949 and was placed under mild house arrest by the communist government for several years. When he was allowed to return to America, he got in trouble with the U.S. House Unamerican Activities Committee because he refused to say that his captors beat him daily, etc.
By the way, our textbook came from "Nationalist China" (Taiwan) and the first sentence that we were required to translate was, "When we return to the mainland, all will be well."
My professor (an American scholar) had actually been living in China in 1949 and was placed under mild house arrest by the communist government for several years. When he was allowed to return to America, he got in trouble with the U.S. House Unamerican Activities Committee because he refused to say that his captors beat him daily, etc.
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- Nov 19, 2010
Years ago, I made acquaintance with pianist Fu Chong, who was not only known for his musical genius but also as a symbol of defiance and fight against the Communists for defacting to the West. Almost immediately he told me that he had left China for artistic pursuit and opportunities but he had never said anything against the Chinese government and there was no bad blood, contrary to all the Western propaganda at the time. Soon he returned to perform and has done so and taught in China often. I also met his former father in law Yehudi Menuhin but we lost touch going on with our lives.
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