NationStates Jolt Archive

Think about it. They have to remember a complex symbol for each word. Westerners learn 26 simple characters (for Latin alphabet countries) for every word. Westerners can sound out words they don't know how to spell; what the hell are the Chinese meant to do? And the tonal thing is just... wow. Wouldn't different sounds be easier, rather than the same sound with different tones?

Just my two cents.

Since my first language is English it's soooooo easy to be able to pick up Spanish and German and run with it.

With Japanese and Chinese I kinda just sit there and try to make sense of it.

Think about it. They have to remember a complex symbol for each word. Westerners learn 26 simple characters (for Latin alphabet countries) for every word. Westerners can sound out words they don't know how to spell; what the hell are the Chinese meant to do? And the tonal thing is just... wow. Wouldn't different sounds be easier, rather than the same sound with different tones?
Tones are only difficult if you're not used to them. I suspect speakers of syllable-timed languages think the stress-timing of English is absolutely bizarre. And wouldn't it be easier to have two different words than the same word with different stress patterns - produce (noun) and produce (verb) for example? (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stress_timing for more on linguistic timing.)

Yeah I agree that the Chinese have a complex langauge. I have some Chinese possible family members and I listen to them talk in Chinese. It sounds like they are saying the same things over yet they are on completly different topics with each sentence.

Although English words are a pain as well. We have letters and such but some words have the same sequence of letters with 2 completly different sounds.

Although English words are a pain as well. We have letters and such but some words have the same sequence of letters with 2 completly different sounds.
Now seems an appropriate time to quote this poem again:

This poem, entitled "Chaos" first appeared in Drop Your Foreign Accent - Engelse Uitspraakoefeningen, by G. Nolst Trenite (5th rev. ed., H. D. Tjeenk Willink & Zoon, 1929). Dr. Gerald Nolst Trenite (1870-1946) was a Dutch observer of English.

Dearest creature in creation
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I: Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar.
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamor
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and droll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangor.
Soul but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, knob, bosom, transom, oath.
Through the differences seem little,
We say actual, but also victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, Conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succor, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye.
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, brass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging.
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here, but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation - think of Psyche!
Is it paling, stout and spiky?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough -
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give it up!!!

Tones are only difficult if you're not used to them. I suspect speakers of syllable-timed languages think the stress-timing of English is absolutely bizarre. And wouldn't it be easier to have two different words than the same word with different stress patterns - produce (noun) and produce (verb) for example? (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stress_timing for more on linguistic timing.)

Many English words AREN'T syllable-timed, though. Some just evolved that way, some have no timing at all. Like "syllable"; no emphasis on a particular syllable.
Then again, English really is the retarded little brother of Latin, German and French.

I still say toning is weirder, though.

Also, please note that I'm not saying that Chinese is bad or wrong, I'm just saying that it's a bit unnecessarily compared to Western languages.

Many English words AREN'T syllable-timed, though.
Er... you're getting confused here. Timing is a feature of sentences, not words, and English is stress-timed, not syllable-timed.

Some just evolved that way, some have no timing at all. Like "syllable"; no emphasis on a particular syllable.
What? 'Syllable' has the stress on its first syllable.

Chinese has some awesomeness about it. No doubt. The grammar, oh man, so easy. I and the Wu Tang clan identify and represent. The intonation is a BITCH. I can nab bits and pieces. I'm sure I sound retarded speaking it, if I'm intelligible at all. But writing, that's pretty easy, at least the simplified versions. The characters are made up of symbolic parts which are frequently reused and they come together to frequently draw the meaning of the word.

Man is the picture of a person with a scythe with the rice field on his mind. Good is the picture of a family. To see is a picture of an hand shielding an eye from the glare of the sun. etc.

Not to mention being a big bearded white guy and being able to eavesdrop in on madarin conversations (I can nab bits and pieces) can be fun. If you toss in your two cents, or allude to something they'd been talking about, they shoot out of their shoes. I always do so carefully enough to maintain the illusion of fluency.

Er... you're getting confused here. Timing is a feature of sentences, not words, and English is stress-timed, not syllable-timed.

What do you mean? I stress nothing.

What? 'Syllable' has the stress on its first syllable.

Not how I say it; every syllable gets equal airtime. Carribean is a word that has stress.

Think about it. They have to remember a complex symbol for each word. Westerners learn 26 simple characters (for Latin alphabet countries) for every word. Westerners can sound out words they don't know how to spell; what the hell are the Chinese meant to do? And the tonal thing is just... wow. Wouldn't different sounds be easier, rather than the same sound with different tones?

Just my two cents.
Some good points.

In their defence, we don't learn 26 characters - we also have to learn 44 seperate sounds and the rules for knowing how to say them correctly. For eg. knowing that a_e indicates a long 'a' sound. So 'nam' and 'name' are pronounced differently, even though the 'e' is silent. We have to know silent letters (such as in Knife, Lamb, Bomb).

We have very complicated grammar rules. eg. Plurals add 's', but not always. How do we know when? We have to just learn. There's rules, but there's lot's of exceptions.
In Chinese there's no plurals (well, there is sort of). You have seven apples, you say, "I have seven apple". Why add 's', when you're already letting me know you have more than 1 with the 'seven' qualifier?

Then there's the past/present/future, Continuous/simple tenses.
In English, "I went to the shop yesterday", "I will go to the shop tomorrow"
In Chinese, "I go to the shop yesterday", "I go to the shop tomorrow" <--the last word tells us when, so why the need to change the tense of 'go'?

Much easier to learn.

And then there's this:
"A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed."
Care to explain how and why we pronounce each of those '-ough' words differently?



The Chinese are able to express complicated feelings/places with just one character.

I don't know much Chinese and aren't too good at writing it, but even I can write faster some things in Chinese than in English now.
eg. The name of my school:
In English it's, "Northern Lamma Island Primary School"
In Chinese it's, "北Y小學"

Chinese has rules for their characters and once you learn them, it is possible to work out their meanings. They combine several to make up a new word.
eg. the other day I was looking at a 'no-smoking' sign on the ferry. It has both English and Chinese. I recognised the character for 'fire' in a character, that also had the sign for 'small' and a couple of other characters mixed up there as well. I then concluded that this particular character must mean 'smoke' (small + fire = smoke. I can see that), which I just checked on BabelFish and it is.

The biggest drawback of their langauage is, as you said, there's no way to sound out a character. The sound assigned to it and the meaning are seperate.
It means that you can't just make up a word and expect everyone to know what it means. This means sometimes when translating, they end up with a character(s) that sounds similar but is nonsensical in their meaning. eg. Chinese for 'Coffee' is '咖啡' which has no real meaning, but the characters' sounds are 'Ka-fey'.
Can make it hard when translating back into english. You can come up with just bizarre shit that makes no sense, solely cause they just picked characters that sound like the english word, not the actual meaning.

What do you mean? I stress nothing.



Not how I say it; every syllable gets equal airtime. Carribean is a word that has stress.
Hmm... where are you from? The only variety of English of which I'm aware that routinely ignores standard stress is Indian English (which is syllable-timed, due to the influences of the other languages spoken in India).

What do you mean? I stress nothing.
If you speak English the way the rest of us do, then you do stress syllables differently.
English has many, many words which use schwa syllablisation. We usually schwa (displayed as ə phonetically) the ends of words when speaking, which makes it difficult for foreign-language speakers to understand what we're saying and where the pauses between words are. Kiwis and Ockers are terrible for doing this. We drop the end of the word (esp. ones ending in -er) and use a lazy-sounding long 'a' instead leading onto the next word. Conversations between Kiwis sounds like just one long mumble to anyone else.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwa

If you speak English the way the rest of us do, then you do stress syllables differently.
English has many, many words which use schwa syllablisation. We usually schwa (displayed as ə phonetically) the ends of words when speaking, which makes it difficult for foreign-language speakers to understand what we're saying and where the pauses between words are. Kiwis and Ockers are terrible for doing this. We drop the end of the word (esp. ones ending in -er) and use a lazy-sounding long 'a' instead leading onto the next word. Conversations between Kiwis sounds like just one long mumble to anyone else.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwa

Schwa is a stress? I was under the impression that it was a sound.

Kiwis and Ockers are terrible for doing this. We drop the end of the word (esp. ones ending in -er) and use a lazy-sounding long 'a' instead leading onto the next word.
Isn't this just an extension of the non-rhotic accent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhotic_and_non-rhotic_accents) (whereby British English omits the 'r' from words ending 'er' unless followed by a vowel)?

Hmm... where are you from? The only variety of English of which I'm aware that routinely ignores standard stress is Indian English (which is syllable-timed, due to the influences of the other languages spoken in India).

I don't ignore standard stress, I just don't see any stress in the word "syllable." Every syllable gets the same amount of stress, which is none.

Schwa is a stress? I was under the impression that it was a sound.
Unstressed vowels have a tendency to become schwa, and are often elided entirely (in dictionaries you often see a schwa in brackets to represent this).

snip

Mmm. Although I was comparing Chinese to Western languages in general; most Western languages, AFAIK, are mostly phonetic.

Unstressed vowels have a tendency to become schwa, and are often elided entirely (in dictionaries you often see a schwa in brackets to represent this).

Oh, I know what you mean. That's mostly an English phenomenon; continental European languages get that less often, AFAIK. Although I don't see that as a drawback, necessarily; it's just casual speaking of a language. If Chinese doesn't have a little casuality somewhere, I'd be very surprised.

Oh, I know what you mean. That's mostly an English phenomenon; continental European languages get that less often, AFAIK.
That's 'cause many of them (Spanish and French, for instance) are syllable-timed, so there's little pressure to compress particular syllables.

That's 'cause many of them (Spanish and French, for instance) are syllable-timed, so there's little pressure to compress particular syllables.

Many languages are treated as precise, too.

Think about it. They have to remember a complex symbol for each word. Westerners learn 26 simple characters (for Latin alphabet countries) for every word. Westerners can sound out words they don't know how to spell; what the hell are the Chinese meant to do? And the tonal thing is just... wow. Wouldn't different sounds be easier, rather than the same sound with different tones?

Just my two cents.

Well, think about it. When you look at a word you know, do you sound it out? You know what the word is just by looking at it. Think of the entire word as a character.

You can sound out words you havent seen before, but you would still need the help of a dictionary to know what it means. Same with chinese. Its not as hard as you think.

Of course, unless I missed something, there's more than one Chinese language. Or dialect. I'm not positive...

Of course, unless I missed something, there's more than one Chinese language. Or dialect. I'm not positive...

The written language is the same. They are only spoken differently.

The written language is the same. They are only spoken differently.

Ah. I'm still not sure whether the term is dialect or language though.

That's 'cause many of them (Spanish and French, for instance) are syllable-timed, so there's little pressure to compress particular syllables.
It is difficult, coming from Spanish, to learn to stress English properly, which can alter the meaning of a sentence. In Spanish one simply pauses after a group of words; in English it seems you have to stress at the right time.

I don't ignore standard stress, I just don't see any stress in the word "syllable." Every syllable gets the same amount of stress, which is none.

So how do you say the word.

Do you say Sil-erble?
Or do you say SilAy-ble
or possibly siler-blay?

(I bet it is the first of these, because you put the stress on the first syllable)

It is impossible not to stress one of the syllables of a multi-syllable word in English. DO you say Tomahto or tomayto?

So how do you say the word.

Do you say Sil-erble?
Or do you say SilAy-ble
or possibly siler-blay?

(I bet it is the first of these, because you put the stress on the first syllable)

It is impossible not to stress one of the syllables of a multi-syllable word in English. DO you say Tomahto or tomayto?

I say sil-a-bul. No specific emphasis on any one syllable. Although I do say to-MAH-to.

The written language is the same. They are only spoken differently.
Not entirely true. There's two official written languages - Traditional and Simplified.
Mao had Simplified created in order to increase China's literacy rate sometime back in the 50's (IIRC). Basically the same, but (obviously) much easier to write and read.
Trad is taught in Taiwan and Hong Kong, whilst Simp is taught in mainland China.

As for dialects, there's not just Cantonese and Mandarin (called Putonghua here btw) - there's hundreds. Pretty much every region has it's own dialect. Much the same way that a Scotsman has a different dialect to a Welshman, or a Jerseyite to a Texan for eg.

Some, like Tibet, have their own completely seperate language, both written and spoken (which is why Tibetans don't regard themselves as Chinese - because they're NOT).

I say sil-a-bul. No specific emphasis on any one syllable. Although I do say to-MAH-to.
If you don't stress different syllables differently, I wonder as to how would you say the following sentences, so their meaning could be understood:

He deserted his dessert in the desert.

Carefully he took the bandage and wound it around the wound.

The rubbish dump was full and had to refuse refuse.

The archer fired his bow from the bow of his boat.

Amongst the oarsmen, there was a row over how to row.

We polish the Polish furniture.

A farm can produce produce.

The present is a good time to present the present.

The dove dove into the bushes.

I did not object to the object.

The insurance for the invalid was invalid.

They were too close to the door to close it.

A buck does funny things when does are present.

They sent a sewer down to stitch the tear in the sewer line.

To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.

The wind was too strong to wind up the sail.

After a number of Novocain injections, my jaw got number.

I shed a tear when I saw the tear in my clothes.

I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

I spent last evening evening out a pile of dirt.

It is difficult, coming from Spanish, to learn to stress English properly, which can alter the meaning of a sentence. In Spanish one simply pauses after a group of words; in English it seems you have to stress at the right time.

Depends, I got the stress more easily than the have had, had had, and that kind of stuff. The polish the Polish furniture things are pretty easy to understand, actually it is easier than in spanish, but I guess I can be the exception of a rule there...

Since my first language is English it's soooooo easy to be able to pick up Spanish and German and run with it.

With Japanese and Chinese I kinda just sit there and try to make sense of it.

And assassinate spanish grammar, I guess...

If you don't stress different syllables differently, I wonder as to how would you say the following sentences, so their meaning could be understood:

I do stress syllables! But not it the word "syllable" because there's nothing to stress! Geez...

Depends, I got the stress more easily than the have had, had had, and that kind of stuff. The polish the Polish furniture things are pretty easy to understand, actually it is easier than in spanish, but I guess I can be the exception of a rule there...
Maybe I'm just tone deaf. Color blind, tone deaf... instead of five senses I have two and a half.

I do stress syllables! But not it the word "syllable" because there's nothing to stress! Geez...
uh, uh.
What do you mean? I stress nothing.

I say sil-a-bul. No specific emphasis on any one syllable. Although I do say to-MAH-to.
Any chance you could provide a voice recording of you saying it? Seriously, though, you are probably stressing the first syllable regardless of your claims to the contrary.

Maybe I'm just tone deaf. Color blind, tone deaf... instead of five senses I have two and a half.

¿En serio no ves colores o estás de broma?

¿En serio no ves colores o estás de broma?

Conjeturo que es un chiste.

Ah. I'm still not sure whether the term is dialect or language though.

Dialect. The chinese dialects are completely different. A guy who speaks Mandarin will probably not understand Cantonese, however the writing is what they have in common.

Not entirely true. There's two official written languages - Traditional and Simplified.

But this still does not differ between dialects.

Conjeturo que es un chiste.

Mexican humour is a spiky issue :D

I do stress syllables! But not it the word "syllable" because there's nothing to stress! Geez...
You must stress polysyllabic words. In syllable you stress the first syllable.

If you dont, you get silble, one mush of a word that makes no sense, that sounds like one or two syllables.

Mais la langue francaise peut prendre deux mots et lui faire un. Avec un apostrophe, naturellement. :)
Pas à la différence de la langue allemande, "anglais sans barre d'espace"

Think about it. They have to remember a complex symbol for each word. Westerners learn 26 simple characters (for Latin alphabet countries) for every word. Westerners can sound out words they don't know how to spell; what the hell are the Chinese meant to do? And the tonal thing is just... wow. Wouldn't different sounds be easier, rather than the same sound with different tones?

Just my two cents.
The ability to sound out words is a crutch, I think, that makes English speakers lazy. It also produces American spellings, which I loathe.

And English is a tonal language. We just don't seem to want to admit that, but the meaning of the same words can change based on their relative tones. That's how we get interrogatory statements that aren't phrased as questions. Or sarcasm.

¿En serio no ves colores o estás de broma?
No veo algunos tonos de color azul y verde. Los veo como grises.

Think about it. They have to remember a complex symbol for each word. Westerners learn 26 simple characters (for Latin alphabet countries) for every word. Westerners can sound out words they don't know how to spell; what the hell are the Chinese meant to do? And the tonal thing is just... wow. Wouldn't different sounds be easier, rather than the same sound with different tones?

Just my two cents.

They invented gunpowder, produced high quality steel long before Europe, have managed to maintain a massive population, survived mass famines, floods and earthquakes, colonialism, ww2 and civil war, and now have one of the fastest growing economies in the world. Somehow I dont think it holds them back too much.

The ability to sound out words is a crutch, I think, that makes English speakers lazy. It also produces American spellings, which I loathe.

And English is a tonal language. We just don't seem to want to admit that, but the meaning of the same words can change based on their relative tones. That's how we get interrogatory statements that aren't phrased as questions. Or sarcasm.
That's not tonal. That's stress and intonation. There is a difference.
With Tonal, the length of the sound stays the same, you're rising or lowering the pitch of your voice. With stress it doesn't. Which is why Asians can have a hard time with English - we can streeeeeeeeeetccchhh out some words n shrnk othas for emphasis. Mostly, they don't cause it can change the word completely.

Intonation and stress are variable, according to what you are trying to convey. With Tonal, it remains constant.

As an example,
The sentence, "I didn't say you stole my red hat" can have a variety of meanings depending on where the stress is.
eg.
"I didn't say you stole my red hat" (someone else said it)
"I didn't say you stole my red hat" (I didn't say it was you)
"I didn't say you stole my red hat" (I didn't say you stole it)
"I didn't say you stole my red hat" (I didn't say it was mine)
"I didn't say you stole my red hat" (I didn't say it was red)
"I didn't say you stole my red hat" (I didn't say it was a hat you stole)

See? Same sentence, different intonation, different meaning.

With Tonal languages the intonation stays the same regardless of what it is you are wanting to say.
eg
http://www.uebersetzung.at/twister/zh004.gif
With the above TongueTwister, you're basically saying 'shee' over and over again. It'll only make sense to a Putonghua Chinese speaker when you get the correct intonations (ie rising or lowering the sound of 'shi').

In case you're wondering it says:
4 is 4
10 is 10
14 is 14
40 is 40
44 stone lions are dead

That's not tonal. That's stress and intonation. There is a difference.
You learn something every day.

But I still don't see the phonetic crutch as a positive.

You learn something every day.

But I still don't see the phonetic crutch as a positive.
It is in that we can sound out a word.

The Chinese upon seeing a character for the first time, cannot. They need to be told what the sound is. So they have it doubly difficult when learning their language - they need to learn the characters and the sounds. There's no connection between the two. You can literally know a character and not know how to pronounce it (or vice versa)

With English (and any European language that uses the Alphabet), we can teach someone the 26 letters and the 44 sounds and with that they can sound out (and write) correctly most every word see or hear. Including (and this is important) words in another language like Chinese.
eg. 'Shay Shay' is Mandarin for 'Thank you'. Even though we have no direct contact I know that because you can speak, and sound out, English, I've just taught you how to correctly say a word in a foreign language.

Think about it. They have to remember a complex symbol for each word. Westerners learn 26 simple characters (for Latin alphabet countries) for every word. Westerners can sound out words they don't know how to spell; what the hell are the Chinese meant to do? And the tonal thing is just... wow. Wouldn't different sounds be easier, rather than the same sound with different tones?

Just my two cents.

Different 'tones' *are* different sounds. You just can't tell them apart.

You would be amazed at all there is to english phonology if you knew anything about it.

It could be argued that the sino-japanese system of writing helps build good motor skills and memory.

It is in that we can sound out a word.

The Chinese upon seeing a character for the first time, cannot. They need to be told what the sound is. So they have it doubly difficult when learning their language - they need to learn the characters and the sounds. There's no connection between the two. You can literally know a character and not know how to pronounce it (or vice versa)

With English (and any European language that uses the Alphabet), we can teach someone the 26 letters and the 44 sounds and with that they can sound out (and write) correctly most every word see or hear. Including (and this is important) words in another language like Chinese.
eg. 'Shay Shay' is Mandarin for 'Thank you'. Even though we have no direct contact I know that because you can speak, and sound out, English, I've just taught you how to correctly say a word in a foreign language.


English is actual similar, because of our morphophonemic spelling.

Like a chinese character, an english word gives hints both to the spelling and meaning.

People need to memorize how to spell words in english because our spelling and pronunciation is so irregular. It isnt like italian or spanish where a word can always be sounded-out.

It is in that we can sound out a word.

The Chinese upon seeing a character for the first time, cannot. They need to be told what the sound is. So they have it doubly difficult when learning their language - they need to learn the characters and the sounds. There's no connection between the two. You can literally know a character and not know how to pronounce it (or vice versa)

With English (and any European language that uses the Alphabet), we can teach someone the 26 letters and the 44 sounds and with that they can sound out (and write) correctly most every word see or hear. Including (and this is important) words in another language like Chinese.
eg. 'Shay Shay' is Mandarin for 'Thank you'. Even though we have no direct contact I know that because you can speak, and sound out, English, I've just taught you how to correctly say a word in a foreign language.
But then writing the language is contingent upon speaking it. And readers then tend to subvocalise, which makes them slower readers.

Plus, when spellings deviate from phonetics (as English words often do), the system creates error.

With English (and any European language that uses the Alphabet), we can teach someone the 26 letters and the 44 sounds and with that they can sound out (and write) correctly most every word see or hear. Including (and this is important) words in another language like Chinese.
eg. 'Shay Shay' is Mandarin for 'Thank you'. Even though we have no direct contact I know that because you can speak, and sound out, English, I've just taught you how to correctly say a word in a foreign language.
Except that pinyin phonetics differ from the phonetics English speakers associate with the letters - for example pinyin 'b' represents the English sound 'p' (so people were closer to pronouncing Beijing correctly when it was spelt Peking) and pinyin 'd' represents English 't' ('p' and 't' then represent aspirated equivalents of those letters):

http://www.safalra.com/science/linguistics/pinyin.html

It is in that we can sound out a word.

The Chinese upon seeing a character for the first time, cannot.

Its possible though. A chinese character consists of "radicals", which are base strokes.

http://www.euroasiasoftware.com/english/chinese/learn/grundstreckeng.html

These strokes are a word in and of themselves. If you know what the radicals are, sometimes you can make out characters.

Think about it. They have to remember a complex symbol for each word. Westerners learn 26 simple characters (for Latin alphabet countries) for every word. Westerners can sound out words they don't know how to spell; what the hell are the Chinese meant to do? And the tonal thing is just... wow. Wouldn't different sounds be easier, rather than the same sound with different tones?

Just my two cents.

We've got some of the tonality thing in our language too. We just choose not to recognize it.

If you're walking down the halls and ask someone "where's Bob?" Then that person directs you back the way you came, you might say, "oh, I didn't know he was that way."

"That way," is clearly a reference to his location.

If on the other hand, that passerby asks "did you see that shirt Bob was wearing?" and you say, "yeah, I didn't know Bob was that way."

"That way" now means something completly different.

Plus, a lot of languages have that as the basis of their vocabulary. Just not a lot of European ones.

It is in that we can sound out a word.

The Chinese upon seeing a character for the first time, cannot. They need to be told what the sound is. So they have it doubly difficult when learning their language - they need to learn the characters and the sounds. There's no connection between the two. You can literally know a character and not know how to pronounce it (or vice versa)

Not only that, but Cantonese and Mandarin are, in every practical sense, two completly different languages (the whole 'dialect' thing is just a cultural preference). Two people who only speak one each of the two cannot speak to each other. They can however understand eachother's writing because they use the same written language.

Any chance you could provide a voice recording of you saying it? Seriously, though, you are probably stressing the first syllable regardless of your claims to the contrary.

When you think about it, it's very difficult to stress the first syllable in any word. I'm pretty sure I'm not.

We've got some of the tonality thing in our language too. We just choose not to recognize it.

If you're walking down the halls and ask someone "where's Bob?" Then that person directs you back the way you came, you might say, "oh, I didn't know he was that way."

"That way," is clearly a reference to his location.

If on the other hand, that passerby asks "did you see that shirt Bob was wearing?" and you say, "yeah, I didn't know Bob was that way."

"That way" now means something completly different.

Plus, a lot of languages have that as the basis of their vocabulary. Just not a lot of European ones.

Hamsters pointed out that it's not tone, it's stress and intonation.

Think about it. They have to remember a complex symbol for each word. Westerners learn 26 simple characters (for Latin alphabet countries) for every word. Westerners can sound out words they don't know how to spell; what the hell are the Chinese meant to do? And the tonal thing is just... wow. Wouldn't different sounds be easier, rather than the same sound with different tones?

Just my two cents.

Germans have to learn 27! Because they're too damn lazy to write two ses, they had to make up a new letter. esset or something like that. Looks like a messed up capital B.

Germans have to learn 27! Because they're too damn lazy to write two ses, they had to make up a new letter. esset or something like that. Looks like a messed up capital B.

The eszett is being phased out, but it does actually have a use.

I do stress syllables! But not it the word "syllable" because there's nothing to stress! Geez...

You seem to be confused about word stress. http://www.englishclub.com/pronunciation/word-stress.htm

Unless you are speaking very oddly, you put the stress on the first syllable like this: (sĭl'ə-bəl) (http://www.answers.com/syllable&r=67).

When you think about it, it's very difficult to stress the first syllable in any word. I'm pretty sure I'm not.

Aha. I thought so. You don't know what you're on about.
As a general rule (as in almost all with a few odd exceptions), most multi-syllable nouns in English are stressed on the first syllable.

You can take my word as a professional ESL teacher (AB is as well, and possilbly others posting here too, who have corrected you on this).

Or you can check these:

http://www.englishclub.com/pronunciation/word-stress-rules.htm
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/pron/word_stress.shtml#three

Or you can continue along your merry little ignorant way. ;)

English is just as hard as Chinese if not harder. What makes it easy is when or born into it. I've asked a few people since I've been here, those that speak English at least, if learning the symbols was hard and they said no since its all they've known. English on the other hand was quite difficult.

There's no connection between the two. You can literally know a character and not know how to pronounce it (or vice versa)
Thats true. Ive learned what some of the simple characters mean like big, people, enter, middle, and so on but I dont know how to say them.

eg. 'Shay Shay' is Mandarin for 'Thank you'.
quick note, also know as Xie Xie in pinion. Everyone should learn that coming here, and also Knee how. Means hello, not sure of the pinion spelling though.

Think about it. They have to remember a complex symbol for each word. Westerners learn 26 simple characters (for Latin alphabet countries) for every word. Westerners can sound out words they don't know how to spell; what the hell are the Chinese meant to do? And the tonal thing is just... wow. Wouldn't different sounds be easier, rather than the same sound with different tones?

Just my two cents.
我学中文！不过我不会说很好。
I am learning Chinese (mandarin), but I don't speak very well. Tonal languages are definitely difficult to master if you have not been exposed to them by adolescence. However I would disagree with you (in other posts) that tonality in language is somehow unnatural for humans. Tonal distinction is quite a natural and fundamental skill humans possess. The best example I can think of is that we don't understand the first word someone says until we adjust to the tone in which they speak it in. This is why we must say 'hello' on the phone (among other reasons). Next time you phone a receptionist make your request without saying hello first. I guarantee she won't understand and will ask you to repeat. Apparently this something to do with tonal recognition in our brain.

On the Chinese language I would say it has some advantages and disadvantages.

Firstly, I find Chinese very easy to read. Just like english, I read the word as an image (yuo hvae seen tihs tset befroe, hvanet yuo? Facsniatnig...), and I am further assisted in differentiating between similar characters by 'radicals' (important components of characters that are usually linked to the meaning).

Writing Chinese is easy on the computer, thanks to MS-pinyin input. Using MSpinyin I simply type in pinyin (the most popular and contemporary romanisation of Chinese-mandarin) and the computer guesses the characters that I want based upon their relation to the other possible characters in the sentence. Occasionally this backfires, and I end up writing something nonsensical, but it is about 80% accurate. Writing by hand is somewhat harder than typing, but no more so than is english. Remembering the characters is easy enough with reference to the radicals within each character (which usually indicate the meaning). Stroke order is just something you have to get the nack of (just like english).

Listening is easier than speaking, but often confusing, because I am not fully attuned to tonal variations as of yet (meaning when someone says "hao" they could mean one of five tonal variations, each tone having ten or twenty possible meanings).

Speaking feels easy, but it is not, because I am often completely unintelligible. I translate the words I need to say from english into pinyin in my head, and then say the pinyin words in my chinese voice :p. Unfortunately I usually have difficulty remembering the correct tone for each word. Even when I do remember the correct tone, I often mispronounce it. Unlike english, though (with all of its linguistic subtelties borrowed from dozens of languages), practise makes perfect, and it is perfectly reasonable to aspire to speaking perfect mandarin in a year or two.

Grammatically Chinese is about as complicated as Spanish or possibly Italian (Not very), if not a little simpler. Tenses are easy, as is possesion and association. Words do not change to convey meaning, words are simply added.

So in conclusion, I would say that the Chinese did not get the short end of the stick linguistically. If any language were to attain that title, it would probably be english, simply for the mind bogglish inconsistencies in grammar. This combined with the ever so subtle stress-timing (impossible to teach. Have you ever put the em-phar-sis on the wrong syll-ah-ble? ) basically makes our language impossible to learn perfectly unless you began before the age of 12. On the flip side, english is great for complicated expression due to the very chaos I have criticsed it on. Two proficient english speakers can entertain themselves for hours with word play, dancing around the jumble oddities and idiosyncracies that is their language. Such an expansive vocabulary sourced from so many 'real languages' has created a vast mongrel-breed of a language that has a different pronounciation and grammatic syntax for each word (sometimes according to it's original source language, sometimes in conflict with it). In the end, english is the best language in the world if it is your first, but the worst if it is your second.

If you speak English the way the rest of us do, then you do stress syllables differently.
English has many, many words which use schwa syllablisation. We usually schwa (displayed as ə phonetically) the ends of words when speaking, which makes it difficult for foreign-language speakers to understand what we're saying and where the pauses between words are. Kiwis and Ockers are terrible for doing this. We drop the end of the word (esp. ones ending in -er) and use a lazy-sounding long 'a' instead leading onto the next word. Conversations between Kiwis sounds like just one long mumble to anyone else.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwa
Whaddya tryin' t' say 'bout 'straylians accen' ?

As I understand it, tonality helps distinguish words. If the language had to use other means to increase the number of possible syllables, there would be far more sounds necessary. As it is, the syllables that do exist have to work overtime in order to keep words distinct and there are a lot of homophones. Of course, I'm speaking metaphorically as the Chinese didn't literally design the language so. Rather it evolved that way in a kind of tug of war between ease of pronunciation and a need to disambiguate words.

The complex writing is apparently kept because it works across a large area. People in one part of China can't necessarily understand people in another part. What we call dialects of Chinese are for all practical purposes languages. A common writing system based on meaning rather than sound helps bind them together. Also, the writing is supposed to be useful for distinguishing the large number of homophones.

Chinese has some awesomeness about it. No doubt. The grammar, oh man, so easy. I and the Wu Tang clan identify and represent. The intonation is a BITCH. I can nab bits and pieces. I'm sure I sound retarded speaking it, if I'm intelligible at all. But writing, that's pretty easy, at least the simplified versions. The characters are made up of symbolic parts which are frequently reused and they come together to frequently draw the meaning of the word.

Man is the picture of a person with a scythe with the rice field on his mind. Good is the picture of a family. To see is a picture of an hand shielding an eye from the glare of the sun. etc.

Not to mention being a big bearded white guy and being able to eavesdrop in on madarin conversations (I can nab bits and pieces) can be fun. If you toss in your two cents, or allude to something they'd been talking about, they shoot out of their shoes. I always do so carefully enough to maintain the illusion of fluency.
heh, yeah. Take the "wise man say little" approach :D

Oh, I know what you mean. That's mostly an English phenomenon; continental European languages get that less often, AFAIK. Although I don't see that as a drawback, necessarily; it's just casual speaking of a language. If Chinese doesn't have a little casuality somewhere, I'd be very surprised.
Chinese are real whores with casualty. They change the tone, Thus creating a new dialect. I hate them for this, and this alone. Incidentally, you cannot 'schwa' chinese. They don't get it. I initially tried to do this to sound more fluent than I am. The result was not dissimilar to the firebombing of dresden. Each word must be very clearly and seperately distinguished from the others, there can be no gliding between words. I don't like the feeling of it though, because I feel like a tool whilst over articulating each word. But when in Rome...

The ability to sound out words is a crutch, I think, that makes English speakers lazy. It also produces American spellings, which I loathe.

And English is a tonal language. We just don't seem to want to admit that, but the meaning of the same words can change based on their relative tones. That's how we get interrogatory statements that aren't phrased as questions. Or sarcasm.
It's true that no-one 'misspells' in Chinese. The character is either right or wrong. Comprehensible, or incomprehensible. Further, there is no local 'take' on spellings. There is only one way to write a character (within the simplified/traditional boundaries), and no disputed variations. Locales may use different words, but not different spellings.

It is in that we can sound out a word.

The Chinese upon seeing a character for the first time, cannot. They need to be told what the sound is. So they have it doubly difficult when learning their language - they need to learn the characters and the sounds. There's no connection between the two. You can literally know a character and not know how to pronounce it (or vice versa)

With English (and any European language that uses the Alphabet), we can teach someone the 26 letters and the 44 sounds and with that they can sound out (and write) correctly most every word see or hear. Including (and this is important) words in another language like Chinese.
eg. 'Shay Shay' is Mandarin for 'Thank you'. Even though we have no direct contact I know that because you can speak, and sound out, English, I've just taught you how to correctly say a word in a foreign language.

I wouldn't say correctly, but I catch your drift. Phoentic languages are more versatile. Thank you in pinyin is 'xie xie' phoenetically that should be something like ‘shie shie' or 'sheh sheh'. However, even that would not make the word correct without tone-marks.

Except that pinyin phonetics differ from the phonetics English speakers associate with the letters - for example pinyin 'b' represents the English sound 'p' (so people were closer to pronouncing Beijing correctly when it was spelt Peking) and pinyin 'd' represents English 't' ('p' and 't' then represent aspirated equivalents of those letters):

http://www.safalra.com/science/linguistics/pinyin.html
You reckon?! My laoshi pronounces beijing as "bay-jing", further, d is very much pronounced d. My experience with chinese is the exact opposite of what you're saying, in that they will pronounce 't' and 'p' as 'd' and 'b' respectively.

The original Mandarin was intended for official government use and made as hard as possible for "commoners" to learn it to keep the peasant illiterate. Anyone who could learn it, was deemed as smart and could progress as a Chinese official further up.

The modern Mandarin is simply a simpler version of CHinese Imperial Mandarin and a hell of a lot easier to work out.

It is in that we can sound out a word.

The Chinese upon seeing a character for the first time, cannot. They need to be told what the sound is. So they have it doubly difficult when learning their language - they need to learn the characters and the sounds. There's no connection between the two. You can literally know a character and not know how to pronounce it (or vice versa)

Kind of true. Chinese characters have key components which are called 'radicals'. These radicals usually allude to the meaning of the character, and sometimes the sound. When confronted with a new character, most experienced chinese speakers would have a good shot at the pronounciation based from the radicals present, and the new characters similarity to other characters, though this isn't always the case. However, to compensate for this, chinese characters communicate the meanining in their form. So if I presented an english speaker with a new word, while they may know how to say it, they would probably have no idea what it meant. It all balances.

Thats true. Ive learned what some of the simple characters mean like big, people, enter, middle, and so on but I dont know how to say them.


quick note, also know as Xie Xie in pinion. Everyone should learn that coming here, and also Knee how. Means hello, not sure of the pinion spelling though.
Are you in China? Where? 你会说中文吗？Anyway, it is 'pinyin', and 你好 in pinyin is nihao, though I do not have the tone marks.

Thats true. Ive learned what some of the simple characters mean like big, people, enter, middle, and so on but I dont know how to say them.
I'm the same. I know a couple of hundred characters but only a handful of sounds. But then I'm far, far better at remembering what I see than what I hear. And being mathematically-inclined, I can remember the structure of some Chinese characters easily. Like 'West' looks like the pi symbol halfway up out of a square.
Also, simple Chinese words that relate to physical objects are very easy to learn because it's a pictorial language. eg. Person looks like a stickman with no arms

quick note, also know as Xie Xie in pinion. Everyone should learn that coming here, and also Knee how. Means hello, not sure of the pinion spelling though.
It's pinyin incidently. I was just using that as an example of how we can teach a word over the internet if we both know english. In English there's only one way to say 'Shay' so I can be confident that Llewdor now knows how to say 'Thank you' in Mandarin, even though I hadn't the opportunity of saying it to him personally.
I wasn't about to start teaching pinyin or phonetics! Though they are very handy in learning another langauge.
Btw, pinyin for 'Hello' is Ni hao.

Ah. I'm still not sure whether the term is dialect or language though.

If the Chinese writing system did not exist and each dialect was written in a phonetic alphabet there would be no hesitation in refering to them as separate languages. But one of the unifying features of the Chinese nation (especially in times before people from different regions would ever meet) was that something that was written in Manchuria could be read by someone in Szechuan and vice versa.

It's pinyin incidently. I was just using that as an example of how we can teach a word over the internet if we both know english. In English there's only one way to say 'Shay' so I can be confident that Llewdor now knows how to say 'Thank you' in Mandarin, even though I hadn't the opportunity of saying it to him personally.
I wasn't about to start teaching pinyin or phonetics! Though they are very handy in learning another langauge.
Btw, pinyin for 'Hello' is Ni hao.
Your right, it is pinyin. I just forgot how to spell it so I thought of the closest thing:p ah, Ni hao, that makes sense.

Are you in China? Where? 你会说中文吗？Anyway, it is 'pinyin', and 你好 in pinyin is nihao, though I do not have the tone marks.
I am as my location indicates, in the People's Republic of China. I am in the south of the mainland.

Western alphabets vary from the teens to the 30s. Only the Roman alphabet is 26. Latin used 24 I think. No J and U definitely. K was rare and W was a U at the front of a word, but shown like a V. I'm not sure certainly, but my limited LAtin lknowledge and the intro to my LAtin dict says so in different words.

Think about it. They have to remember a complex symbol for each word. Westerners learn 26 simple characters (for Latin alphabet countries) for every word. Westerners can sound out words they don't know how to spell; what the hell are the Chinese meant to do? And the tonal thing is just... wow. Wouldn't different sounds be easier, rather than the same sound with different tones?

Just my two cents.

As someone who deals with the Chinese written language with great frequency, I'm going to say when you learn Chinese you gain more than a language skill.

The old lessons in Chinese culture are embedded in these characters, its almost like they tell stories between sentences!

For example, the word 'Crisis' is composed of two characters. One imply "Danger", the other opportunity "Opportunity".
My interpretation: "With each dangerous endevour there are opportunities worthy of exploitation."

When you think about it, it's very difficult to stress the first syllable in any word. I'm pretty sure I'm not.
Oh, you are. You just have no concept of what stress is, or how to hear it. I say this as an amateur linguist.

I wouldn't say correctly, but I catch your drift. Phoentic languages are more versatile. Thank you in pinyin is 'xie xie' phoenetically that should be something like ‘shie shie' or 'sheh sheh'. However, even that would not make the word correct without tone-marks.
Depends where you are in China as well.
In Taiwan, it sounds pretty close to 'shay shay', but when I was in Shanghai a couple of weeks ago it was completely different pronounciation. More like 'shie sheh', with emphasis on the first character.
And of course down here in Cantoland, it's totally different. And to add to the problems, Cantonese have two ways of saying thank you, depending on the situation:
"Ng Gooi" for when someone does something for you. Phonetically, it's kinda 'Mmm goy' (rhymes with boy)
"Doh jeh" for when someone gives you something (eg. a gift or even your change back from a shokeeper). Phonetically, it's sorta 'dor jey' (rhymes with hey)
I always get the two confused myself so usually just say 'thank you'. Plus saying 'thank you' is pretty much a reflex I do without thinking, so I've invariably said it before I've even started to think about the correct Canto phrase to use.

Think about it. They have to remember a complex symbol for each word. Westerners learn 26 simple characters (for Latin alphabet countries) for every word. Westerners can sound out words they don't know how to spell; what the hell are the Chinese meant to do? And the tonal thing is just... wow. Wouldn't different sounds be easier, rather than the same sound with different tones?

Just my two cents.
I know how the Chinese must feel, i can't speak ther language!:eek:

I know how the Chinese must feel, i can't speak ther language!:eek:
You could if you tried.

First of all, Chinese can't be all that hard to learn - after all, more than a billion people are speaking it! :D [common joke around here when talking about the Chinese language(s)]

Also, please note that I'm not saying that Chinese is bad or wrong, I'm just saying that it's a bit unnecessarily compared to Western languages.
While Chinese might be harder to master than other languages, the use of adverbs vs. adjectives ain't that hard to understand in English, now is it? :rolleyes:

While Chinese might be harder to master than other languages, the use of adverbs vs. adjectives ain't that hard to understand in English, now is it? :rolleyes:

Typo.

Then again, English really is the retarded little brother of Latin, German and French.

Dutch, or more accurately Frisian.

I am as my location indicates, in the People's Republic of China. I am in the south of the mainland.
In Guandong? Can you speak cantonese as well?

Western alphabets vary from the teens to the 30s. Only the Roman alphabet is 26. Latin used 24 I think. No J and U definitely. K was rare and W was a U at the front of a word, but shown like a V. I'm not sure certainly, but my limited LAtin lknowledge and the intro to my LAtin dict says so in different words.
Not sure about latin, but the Italian alphabet is 20 letters. They make no use of 'k', 'w', 'q', 'j', 'x', and 'y', I think...

Depends where you are in China as well.
In Taiwan, it sounds pretty close to 'shay shay', but when I was in Shanghai a couple of weeks ago it was completely different pronounciation. More like 'shie sheh', with emphasis on the first character.
And of course down here in Cantoland, it's totally different. And to add to the problems, Cantonese have two ways of saying thank you, depending on the situation:
"Ng Gooi" for when someone does something for you. Phonetically, it's kinda 'Mmm goy' (rhymes with boy)
"Doh jeh" for when someone gives you something (eg. a gift or even your change back from a shokeeper). Phonetically, it's sorta 'dor jey' (rhymes with hey)
I always get the two confused myself so usually just say 'thank you'. Plus saying 'thank you' is pretty much a reflex I do without thinking, so I've invariably said it before I've even started to think about the correct Canto phrase to use.

You're in Canto-land! Awesome, Cantoland as in Guandong, or HK? Yeah, Translation of 'terms' and 'phrases' is not always word for word between 中文 and 关东华. Do you read simplified or traditional?

First of all, Chinese can't be all that hard to learn - after all, more than a billion people are speaking it! :D [common joke around here when talking about the Chinese language(s)]


While Chinese might be harder to master than other languages, the use of adverbs vs. adjectives ain't that hard to understand in English, now is it? :rolleyes:
Are you ok? I hope you didn't suffer any burns from that irony-bomb :D

In Guandong? Can you speak cantonese as well?
Im actually slightly north of Guandong. And no I can't speak cantonese, but I can write it as well as I can Mandrid:p :D

You're in Canto-land! Awesome, Cantoland as in Guandong, or HK? Yeah, Translation of 'terms' and 'phrases' is not always word for word between 中文 and 关东华. Do you read simplified or traditional?
I'm in Hong Kong. Lamma island to be exact. Been here for just over two years now.
Can read a little Traditional Chinese. Just what I've picked up from all the signs everywhere. Maybe a couple of hundred characters. Been meaning to actively learn it but just been too lazy.

Im actually slightly north of Guandong. And no I can't speak cantonese, but I can write it as well as I can Mandrid:p :D
*grins*, I suppose I can write in cantonese too :p 你是美国人吗？

Im actually slightly north of Guandong. And no I can't speak cantonese, but I can write it as well as I can Mandrid:p :D
For God's sake, are you ever going to tell us where you are?
Is it Jiangxi?
If it is, go on, just say it.
The PLA ain't going to break down your door tonight if you do. They're far too busy oppressing Tibetans (shut down a Beijing blog last week for wishing the Dalai Lama a happy birthday) or rounding up Falun Gong supporters to harvest them for their organs (true story - they have been doing that).

*grins*, I suppose I can write in cantonese too :p 你是美国人吗？
I didn't realise the direct translation of America is 'Beautiful Country'.
Kinda ironic really, considering whenever Mao et al denounced it, they were literally denouncing the 'Beautiful Country'.

I didn't realise the direct translation of America is 'Beautiful Country'.
Kinda ironic really, considering whenever Mao et al denounced it, they were literally denouncing the 'Beautiful Country'.
I think it was a phoenetic translation. If not it is just ironic that USA is being called the beautiful country at all. Most probably propaganda vs USSR, (Which Mao hated), that way in all of the news you have the USSR vs the beautiful country. Or maybe a mixture of the above.

Are you ok? I hope you didn't suffer any burns from that irony-bomb :D
Sure am! Oh, the irony... :p