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To this day, English is difficult for my parents, who have a hard time keeping gendered pronouns straight. But at least the irregularity of the numerical system

by qiqing 8y ago

To this day, English is difficult for my parents, who have a hard time keeping gendered pronouns straight. But at least the irregularity of the numerical system isn't as weird as French. Chinese is considerably easier and English considerably harder if your first language is an Asian language.

clairity 8y ago
> “...have a hard time keeping gendered pronouns straight.” ha, i see that in the english captioning sometimes when watching chinese dramas. at least gender is only in the pronouns, rather than (nearly) every word via gender suffixes (like the romance languages).
FabHK 8y ago
How can they write Chinese if they can't get gendered pronouns straight? (他 vs. 她) Chinese numbers quite logical and straightforward, true, though French (and German etc.) numbers pose small hurdles only, I'd say. > Chinese is considerably easier and English considerably harder if your first language is an Asian language. That really depends which language you're talking about. I'd bet most Indonesians, for example, would disagree. However, granted, a language will be easier when you are familiar with a language that has many cognates.
- qiqing 8y ago
  他 vs. 她 was invented in order to maintain compatibility with Western languages, and using 他 in place of 她 is not considered grammatically incorrect, and you don't learn to write both of them until you start to read and write in school, not when you're a baby learning to talk. For instance, when my birth certificate was translated into English, there are male pronouns littered everywhere because the inexperienced translator didn't give it a second thought, even though the gender field was clearly marked as female. French, though is particularly brutal for Chinese native speakers, because not only do you have to consciously track each human speaker's gender and whether they are in groups of mixed males and females or all females, but also track the arbitrary genders of objects.
  - FabHK 8y ago
    Ah, interesting! Try German, with 3 genders. :-) Having said that, learners of Chinese need to memorise which measure word goes with any given noun, and there are more than 3 of those!
  - monocasa 8y ago
    > but also track the arbitrary genders of objects. That's still better than having to keep track of measure words in Mandarin. : )
    - chillacy 8y ago
      As a learner of both I have found French speakers to be far less forgiving of mistakes in gender, probably because it’s unavoidable. In mandarin you can use a catch all counting word and people still understand. In French it seems to really confuse speakers when you mess up gender.

by qiqing 8y ago

clairity 8y ago

> “...have a hard time keeping gendered pronouns straight.” ha, i see that in the english captioning sometimes when watching chinese dramas. at least gender is only in the pronouns, rather than (nearly) every word via gender suffixes (like the romance languages).

FabHK 8y ago

How can they write Chinese if they can't get gendered pronouns straight? (他 vs. 她) Chinese numbers quite logical and straightforward, true, though French (and German etc.) numbers pose small hurdles only, I'd say. > Chinese is considerably easier and English considerably harder if your first language is an Asian language. That really depends which language you're talking about. I'd bet most Indonesians, for example, would disagree. However, granted, a language will be easier when you are familiar with a language that has many cognates.

qiqing 8y ago
他 vs. 她 was invented in order to maintain compatibility with Western languages, and using 他 in place of 她 is not considered grammatically incorrect, and you don't learn to write both of them until you start to read and write in school, not when you're a baby learning to talk. For instance, when my birth certificate was translated into English, there are male pronouns littered everywhere because the inexperienced translator didn't give it a second thought, even though the gender field was clearly marked as female. French, though is particularly brutal for Chinese native speakers, because not only do you have to consciously track each human speaker's gender and whether they are in groups of mixed males and females or all females, but also track the arbitrary genders of objects.
- FabHK 8y ago
  Ah, interesting! Try German, with 3 genders. :-) Having said that, learners of Chinese need to memorise which measure word goes with any given noun, and there are more than 3 of those!
- monocasa 8y ago
  > but also track the arbitrary genders of objects. That's still better than having to keep track of measure words in Mandarin. : )
  - chillacy 8y ago
    As a learner of both I have found French speakers to be far less forgiving of mistakes in gender, probably because it’s unavoidable. In mandarin you can use a catch all counting word and people still understand. In French it seems to really confuse speakers when you mess up gender.