In Defence of Japanese Culture

[DaShi]

God yes.

[Lonestar]

Bah. The only thing good about Japanese culture is that they are a clean people.

After I become Lord Protector of the World I'm going to order the destruction of all Anime.

[DaShi]

Sounds like an anime plot.

[Lonestar]

That's my point, really.

[Geronimo]

How is typing done using so many characters in an ideographic language? I don't suppose there are keyboards with one key for every possible character.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Geronimo
How is typing done using so many characters in an ideographic language? I don't suppose there are keyboards with one key for every possible character.

There are various sorts of "input methods," which fall into these general categories (in order of popularity):

1. A root/radical system that breaks down characters into component blocks. Each input method uses its own (slightly different) system.

2. Phonetic markings, including pinyin (PRC), BoPoMoFo (Taiwan), and Cantonese.

3. Stroke order.

4. A numeric coding system, such as the "four corners telegraphic code."

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


There are various sorts of "input methods," which fall into these general categories (in order of popularity):

1. A root/radical system that breaks down characters into component blocks. Each input method uses its own (slightly different) system.

2. Phonetic markings, including pinyin (PRC), BoPoMoFo (Taiwan), and Cantonese.

3. Stroke order.

4. A numeric coding system, such as the "four corners telegraphic code."

Four systems? Is there no effort to standarise on one of these approaches? Surely one is proving a lot more workable than the others.

[Urban Ranger]

Not that I know of. Each system has its own strengths and weaknesses.

1. The best way for people who know written Chinese, but it doesn't help if you can't remember how to write a character. Also, no two input methods use the same breakdowns, and none are the same as the standard dictionary one.

2. This system requires the users to learn another system of phonetic notations, and you can't input whole ci's (character combinations) like #1. Also, if you don't know how to pronounce a word, it can't help.

3. Probably easiest to learn, but you need to choose from a large list of possible candidates for each character, resulting in the slowest speed.

4. Probably on the way out, leaving three other major systems.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger

Not quite. Words like "through" and "thru", "light" and "lite" have different forms but the same meaning. The words in a phonetic language is based on sounds, not visual cues.

Not a very good example: the words you single out are the same words, spelt inaccurately.


You would be better off showing how English has words that sound the same but mean different things:

threw and through

or the same letter formations that are pronounced in widely different ways:

cough

though

thorough

enough

plough

slough

ought

drought

and so forth. Or fourth. Ore sew on. Ewe sea watt eye mien?

Inn the mane, aye find this two bee the aspect of English that speakers of eh foreign language fined the hardest part too master.

The relatively simple English grammar is a blessing, as is the lack of word endings, prefixes and suffixes- no more vast tables of nouns and noun endings and adjectives and adjectival endings...


It could be much worse- it could be an agglutinative Amerindian language with all those delightful consonantal clusters.

[Urban Ranger]

[MRT144]

BoPoMoFo...

boston police mother ****ers

[Q Classic]

mrt144
ted striker
snowflake
honghu
honghu after i found out she was 96.

[mindseye]

Sorry for the long post, I'm just now returning to this interesting thread after a while away ...

Originally posted by Snowflake

But are't western students required years of studying to learn all these English words?

I believe western students spend a less time studying to reach the same level of proficiency.

I'd almost guess a fifth grader in China knows a higher percentage of Chinese words then the percentage of English words a fifth grader here knows.

That may well be true, but the western student will be equipped with better tools to identify new words. While it is true you can guess the pronunciation and meaning of some Chinese words, from what I've seen it's really not many, and the chance of error is enormous. On the other hand, even someone with minimal proficiency in English can usually pronounce an unrecognized word correctly, or at least come pretty close.

And being able to prounce a new word before you don't know it IS a plus for English although it may not mean much if you can pronounce it but still don't know its meaning.

What it means is that you can ask someone what an unrecognized word means. The closest equivalent in Chinese is the "watch while I pantomime writing on my palm" routine.

Originally posted by Urban Ranger

That's speed reading.

I think you are mistaken. I believe this is how native speakers typically read common words. A quick glance at the shape is all that's needed.

You do that by taking a phonetic system and hammer it into - you guess it - a ideographic system. Thus proving the advantage of ideographic systems.

Phonetic system gives you the best of both worlds - quick recognition and phonetic data if you need it. Seems like little rational argument can be made on this point.

If you take a book and compare the English (or French, German, even Japanese) original and the Chinese translation, the Chinese version is always thinner. That means the Chinese representation takes up less space.

No, it means the Chinese version is censored, like the homosexual bits in "Dream of Red Mansions" ...

Seriously, your comparison doesn’t really work because it depends too much on font size and spacing, not to mention style of translation. I've tried to decide this very question, but after seeing so many examples either way, I really can't say.

That's not that much extra information. In English, you have to remember how to spell a word, how to pronounce it, and the word's meaning(s). In Chinese, you remember how to write a character, how to pronounce it, and its meaning(s).

But as I said before, in English the spelling and pronunciation reinforce each other, which makes learning easier, i.e. less dependant on brute-force memorization.

Though a normal person doesn't need more than 3,000 Chinese characters to be literate. For English, you need to know 10,000 words.

You don't need 10,000 English words for literacy. These kinds of figures are notoriously subjective, but I suspect the number would be roughly comparable for both languages.

Originally posted by pchang

I am an American born Chinese and I think written English was easier than written Chinese but spoken Chinese was a bit easier than spoken English

That's my take on it as well.

However, when I tell Chinese that I think spoken Chinese is easier than spoken English (due to English's grammatical chaos), they usually express great surprise that I can feel this way. Many Chinese are fond of believing that everything Chinese is far too complicated for "foreigners" to grasp.

Originally posted by DaShi

Some of the foreign teachers have begun an interesting experiment here. We've found that if you try to speak clearly in proper Chinese, taxi driver won't understand you. However, if you deliberately slur your words, they know exactly where you want to go.

I have also found this to be true!!! If I speak quickly and barely even use tones, I'm often understood better than when I try to speak very precisely! I assume that speaking less distinctly allows the listener to more easily hear what they expect, instead of hearing my mistakes in all their painful detail.

Originally posted by Urban Ranger

Not quite. Among all my friends I had when I was studying in the US, less than 5% read by looking at the word shape. More than 95% read by mentally pronouncing the words.

Are you talking about native speakers? If so, I can only ask, were you studying in the Appalachians? I don't think native speakers mentally sound out most words when they read. Christ, it would take all day to read something!

BTW, I didn’t know you studied in the US, now I know why your English is so good! Actually, I'm a bit less impressed now that I know that.

Originally posted by Sikander

Finally you have neglected to mention the one real advantage of using an ideographic system of writing, particularly for a country like China. Simply put people of varying dialects can all understand the written word

Good point, having the written and spoken languages divorced does allow for other languages to be mapped onto the same set of characters, as long as the basic grammar is the same. Huge advantage for a nation like China with it's vast number of languages and dialects.

Originally posted by Snowflake

Then again, harder to learn language may in fact stimulate more brain development in children, so who can say what is really the best.

Good point, however, if learning the language requires vast amounts of rote memorization, and this then shapes your entire education system, that may be a serious disadvantage.

I see this all the time in my students. For years they have invested enormous amounts of time and effort memorizing huge lists of English vocabulary, yet many of them struggle with even simple conversation ("My mother, yesterday he go to store."). They need to spend less time memorizing, and more time using the language for ... communicating!

[Evil Knevil]

Re: Theben

Yes he does have a few traumas, in fact I think he has Aspergers. He also had a Chinese g/f, which is probably why he's so biased in China's favour. This still doesn't excuse his pathological phobia of all things Japanese.

Oh, and thanks for your help everyone. When I speak to him next I'll fight the good fight (and tell you the result).