4 ms·
Ah yes, another hack who believes math is all about memorization and fast arithmetic. Who cares if our 7 year olds can add slower? We all add the same speed o
by Dilpil 18y ago
Ah yes, another hack who believes math is all about memorization and fast arithmetic. Who cares if our 7 year olds can add slower? We all add the same speed once we lift the calculator ban. And once you start doing real (abstract) math, this memorization advantage becomes completely useless. I'll believe the "Chinese Math Dominance" story when I see it.
- mechanical_fish 18y agoYou're not reading the hypothesis correctly: Asian children, by contrast, don't face nearly that same sense of bafflement... maybe that makes them a little more likely to enjoy math, and maybe because they enjoy math a little more they try a little harder and take more math classes and are more willing to do their homework, and on and on, in a kind of virtuous circle. The argument is not that the clarity of the Chinese-language numbers is, in itself, that big of an advantage once kids grow beyond four, five, or seven years of age. The argument is that kids who are comfortable with math at age four are more likely to remain happy with math throughout the rest of their schooling, whereas loss of confidence at an early age results in loss of future confidence. Obviously, while you can test the difference in math skills among seven-year-olds, this stronger hypothesis is hard to test rigorously, because you can't easily control for all the other cultural differences. But it's a very interesting idea, nonetheless. One of the most amusing things about this hypothesis is that it mirrors the difference between the English and Chinese written languages: Chinese writing is badly designed compared to alphabetic systems, to the point where there are serious effects on the literacy rate. See Moser at http://www.pinyin.info/readings/texts/moser.html http://www.pinyin.info/readings/texts/moser.html and DeFrancis' The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy, linked from http://www.pinyin.info/readings/chinese_language.html http://www.pinyin.info/readings/chinese_language.html
- xiaoma 18y agoPinyin.info is largely devoted to an anti-character crusade that doesn't represent mainstream academic thought. Mark, if you're reading this, I don't mean any disrespect to the work you've put into making the resource it is. I've sent many people there for the rules on pinyin punctuation and spacing. DeFrancis was the undisputed pre-eminent sinologist of his time, however many of the literacy claims are unfounded. The truth of it is, China is a huge country, full of people speaking dozens of different languages and the Chinese writing system has helped its cohesion. As a 6-year resident of Taiwan, I feel I have some capacity to comment on this. Here we use traditional characters, which are more complex than those currently in use in China, and despite not being as economically developed as the US, Taiwan has a higher literacy rate. Japan does, too. For that matter, China's literacy rate is higher than other countries with similar levels of economic development, such as Brazil. Using characters entails some disadvantages, but also allows for some benefits, such as increased reading speed and clearer differentiation of homonyms. FYI Moser has long since conquered his difficulties and become a literate Chinese reader.