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Allow me to reproduce another famous quotation (Kipling): "East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet." European languages do have their o

by xiaoma 17y ago

Allow me to reproduce another famous quotation (Kipling): "East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet." European languages do have their own cultural metaphors and stories from which phrases are drawn, but they are similar to each other. Regardless of whether the language is English, French, or Finnish, there's a host of common culture to draw from-- Christian stories, outdated alchemical humors (choleric, melancholic, sanguine and phlegmatic), Grimm's fairy tales, etc... Chinese, on the other hand, requires learning an almost completely separate set of shared stories. Regardless of any purely linguistic issues, this makes learning Chinese a much larger task than learning a European language for an English speaker.

patio11 17y ago
That is more defensible than the "Chinese is based on cultural metaphors [in a fashion that English is not]" claim, but it still vastly overstates the case. For example, your explanation implies that Chinese speakers find English freakishly difficult when you're studying it, because they don't have the Bible, a few thousand years of Christian theology and a smattering of fake Latin, and Grimm's fairy tales to work with. But do you really believe that? I'm going to guess "no". But most people who think that Chinese (or Japanese, or Arabic, or another of "those exotic languages which are totally unlike anything in our experience after you ignore all the ways they're pretty darn similar") is freakishly difficult for English speakers don't say the reverse is true, even when their supposed rationales for it being difficult are logically reciprocal.
- endtime 17y ago
  >But most people who think that Chinese (or Japanese, or Arabic, or another of "those exotic languages which are totally unlike anything in our experience after you ignore all the ways they're pretty darn similar") I think you might be getting off track a bit - I specifically mentioned Hebrew in the comment that started this thread, which is very similar to Arabic. I also mentioned Tagalog (Filipino). I don't have some misperception that non-European languages are mystical and impossible for English speakers to learn. I just thought Chinese, in particular, was a special case.
- xiaoma 17y ago
  I didn't mean to imply that English is freakishly difficult for Chinese speakers, but this one aspect is difficult. I'll expand on my comment a bit. First of all, I've spent nearly my entire adult life living in Taiwan, after growing up in the US. I'm a reasonably comfortable reader of Chinese and work as a co-owner/academic director of an English cram school here. Consequently, I have a pretty keen interest in the challenges facing Chinese students of English. In some senses, English is the easiest language in the world to learn. Hollywood movies are readily accessible nearly everywhere, as are English newspapers, textbooks, magazines and music. The wealth of learning materials available for English far outstrip those for learning Spanish or French, or especially Chinese. English is also necessary for speaking with most native English speakers. The vast majority of Americans, Brits, Australians or especially Canadians I've met here in Taiwan speak very little Chinese. It's neither expected nor required of them to learn it. As a result, it's possible for more and more young people here to pick up a fair amount of English before ever going abroad. And when they do go abroad, they'll likely be using English all the time. English is a bit difficult phonetically, with its relatively large number of vowel sounds and rhotic R. Spelling is also less phonetic than most romance languages. That said, Chinese is tonal, which presents a serious challenge to most speakers of non-tonal languages. And any orthographic challenge of learning to handle "eigh", "tion", "ture" or other spelling patterns absolutely pales in comparison with the challenge of learning about 5000 characters, many of which are semi-phonetic at best. So, no. English isn't "freakishly difficult" for Chinese speakers in the same sense that Chinese is for English speakers. It is much more work than learning Thai, which shares more cultural stories and religion, or Vietnamese, which has a large number of cognates with all widely used Chinese topolects, or Korean or Japanese, each of which have the above advantages plus the use of familiar Chinese characters. In my experience, a lot of high-intermediate students do struggle with phrases that derive from biblical or historical sources that native speakers routinely use without even realizing it. It is at just the point at which European languages start getting easier that these idioms start popping up all over the place. Phrases such as preaching to the choir, beauty is more than skin deep, actions speak louder than words, a gray area, out of the blue, call someone's bluff, rock the boat, bread and butter, have your cake and eat it, don't count your chickens, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, and the blind leading the blind are common in dozens of languages, but Mandarin isn't one of them. This is slowly changing with exposure to western culture, though.

by xiaoma 17y ago

patio11 17y ago

That is more defensible than the "Chinese is based on cultural metaphors [in a fashion that English is not]" claim, but it still vastly overstates the case. For example, your explanation implies that Chinese speakers find English freakishly difficult when you're studying it, because they don't have the Bible, a few thousand years of Christian theology and a smattering of fake Latin, and Grimm's fairy tales to work with. But do you really believe that? I'm going to guess "no". But most people who think that Chinese (or Japanese, or Arabic, or another of "those exotic languages which are totally unlike anything in our experience after you ignore all the ways they're pretty darn similar") is freakishly difficult for English speakers don't say the reverse is true, even when their supposed rationales for it being difficult are logically reciprocal.

endtime 17y ago
>But most people who think that Chinese (or Japanese, or Arabic, or another of "those exotic languages which are totally unlike anything in our experience after you ignore all the ways they're pretty darn similar") I think you might be getting off track a bit - I specifically mentioned Hebrew in the comment that started this thread, which is very similar to Arabic. I also mentioned Tagalog (Filipino). I don't have some misperception that non-European languages are mystical and impossible for English speakers to learn. I just thought Chinese, in particular, was a special case.
xiaoma 17y ago
I didn't mean to imply that English is freakishly difficult for Chinese speakers, but this one aspect is difficult. I'll expand on my comment a bit. First of all, I've spent nearly my entire adult life living in Taiwan, after growing up in the US. I'm a reasonably comfortable reader of Chinese and work as a co-owner/academic director of an English cram school here. Consequently, I have a pretty keen interest in the challenges facing Chinese students of English. In some senses, English is the easiest language in the world to learn. Hollywood movies are readily accessible nearly everywhere, as are English newspapers, textbooks, magazines and music. The wealth of learning materials available for English far outstrip those for learning Spanish or French, or especially Chinese. English is also necessary for speaking with most native English speakers. The vast majority of Americans, Brits, Australians or especially Canadians I've met here in Taiwan speak very little Chinese. It's neither expected nor required of them to learn it. As a result, it's possible for more and more young people here to pick up a fair amount of English before ever going abroad. And when they do go abroad, they'll likely be using English all the time. English is a bit difficult phonetically, with its relatively large number of vowel sounds and rhotic R. Spelling is also less phonetic than most romance languages. That said, Chinese is tonal, which presents a serious challenge to most speakers of non-tonal languages. And any orthographic challenge of learning to handle "eigh", "tion", "ture" or other spelling patterns absolutely pales in comparison with the challenge of learning about 5000 characters, many of which are semi-phonetic at best. So, no. English isn't "freakishly difficult" for Chinese speakers in the same sense that Chinese is for English speakers. It is much more work than learning Thai, which shares more cultural stories and religion, or Vietnamese, which has a large number of cognates with all widely used Chinese topolects, or Korean or Japanese, each of which have the above advantages plus the use of familiar Chinese characters. In my experience, a lot of high-intermediate students do struggle with phrases that derive from biblical or historical sources that native speakers routinely use without even realizing it. It is at just the point at which European languages start getting easier that these idioms start popping up all over the place. Phrases such as preaching to the choir, beauty is more than skin deep, actions speak louder than words, a gray area, out of the blue, call someone's bluff, rock the boat, bread and butter, have your cake and eat it, don't count your chickens, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, and the blind leading the blind are common in dozens of languages, but Mandarin isn't one of them. This is slowly changing with exposure to western culture, though.