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"Do you find it to be something with the vocabulary, the grammar? What about the writing system?" All the above. In everything. There are no tenses in Mandarin

"Do you find it to be something with the vocabulary, the grammar? What about the writing system?" All the above. In everything. There are no tenses in Mandarin for example. The writing system is hell. Most Chinese have different levels of analphabetism because it has so many words. "I've always wondered how the Chinese language writes loan words" They have different transcription methods for that. They standardized in Pinyin: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin It is not for loan words, but THEIR OWN ones. They need this in order to know how something sounds!!. Most of them use memory, but you study pinyin if you are educated. In fact, the same Chinese character sounds different in different Chinese languages, and even in the same language in different parts of the country!.

nopinsight 11y ago
Chinese does not use formal tenses but they add words to tell time when it's useful to. The same can be said about the lack of grammar for social relationships and politeness levels in English compared to Japanese. Would you say that it is English's weakness? Languages are rooted in culture and express by default what the culture values. One can claim that an aspect of a culture is more amenable to modernization than another, but to say one language is better than another in an absolute sense does not seem logical.
- Htsthbjig 11y ago
  "The same can be said about the lack of grammar for social relationships and politeness levels in English compared to Japanese. Would you say that it is English's weakness?" Yes. :-) My native language is not English. So I don't believe English is perfect by any means, because I know other languages are better for other things. For example, English way of writing is terrible for expressing sounds. Japanese or the korean ways are much better Or Spanish by the way. Any country has a propaganda system in order to make people believe their system is the best, and you can't fight against it. I know there is no way I could convince a Chinese person that the language they speak is outdated, because it is not rational fact but emotional. There are no rational facts against nationalistic dogmas people are feed since they are born. In fact if it is the only language someone speaks this person is heavily invested in believing their system is the best. If you go to North Korea all people there feel pity for the rest of the world, mostly because they don't know better. "but to say one language is better than another in an absolute sense does not seem logical." I had never said that one language is better than another in absolute sense. I have said that Chinese is outdated. I have said that it is a better language for reading ancient works, but it has not evolved like other languages. This is not something I say, this is something Chinese emperors' counselors agreed while having knowledge of other cultures, and their own(there were alphabetic systems inside China Like Mongol's). It was a conscious decision not to evolve the language, because of different reasons. It is certainly not politically correct in China just the idea that if you force children to learn thousands of symbols in order to properly read, or the order of hundreds of groups in order to properly write, that there are simpler, more evolved ways. Just comparing a system that requires high levels memory and five years of learning with another that requires one for doing the same is not something I wanted to do.
  - Jimmy 11y ago
    >For example, English way of writing is terrible for expressing sounds. Japanese or the korean ways are much better Or Spanish by the way. Just wanted to point out that the style of syllabary that Japanese uses wouldn't be practical for English. Japanese has around 150 possible syllables, English has almost 16,000 [1]. [1] http://semarch.linguistics.fas.nyu.edu/barker/Syllables/index.txt http://semarch.linguistics.fas.nyu.edu/barker/Syllables/inde...
  - smil 11y ago
    >Any country has a propaganda system in order to make people believe their system is the best, and you can't fight against it. I know there is no way I could convince a Chinese person that the language they speak is outdated, because it is not rational fact but emotional. There are no rational facts against nationalistic dogmas people are feed since they are born. After your authoritative explanation of the Chinese language(s), and other Asian cultures, in this thread, the above begs the question: What about your own ideology? Which propaganda have you been subjected to in your upbringing, and continuously in your daily life as an adult, that makes you say the things that you say here? Or is what you say the objective truth?
- notahacker 11y ago
  I would say that not requiring politeness grammar is a major strength of English. Same goes for not requiring articles being a strength of the Japanese language and many other [mostly non European] languages. I'm less persuaded that tense isn't usually a useful distinction, but the irregularity of tense is a weakness of English (as is its vestigial subjunctive that most speakers barely ever use)
  - sukilot 11y ago
    English has politeness grammar, dude; it is just highly nonstandard dialectical.
eva1984 11y ago
>> There are no tenses in Mandarin for example Yes and No. You can explicitly state the time if that is what you need. >> Most Chinese have different levels of analphabetism because it has so many words I am sure not every people can remember all the words from the dictionary, which in the age of internet, is constantly evolving every day. In fact, this is one advantage of Chinese, you don't need to remember words one by one. Instead, you learn characters, the basic building blocks of word, many of which have its own semantic meanings.Then you can infer the meaning of a 'word'---a combination of characters on the fly. The core character set is about 3,000, and with that you could read newspaper without too much hassle. >>"I've always wondered how the Chinese language writes loan words" Depends. Some words are imported as it is, e.g. 'NBA'/'DNA'/'MapReduce'. Some are being translated, like 'Frontend' -> Front(前)+end(端) -> 前端 'Memory' -> Internal(内) storage(存) -> 内存 'Compiler' -> Put-together(编) translation(译) machine(器) -> 编译器 I would say the direct-import kind of loan words is more popular right now, ever since the era of internet, because there is simply no abundant time to come up with a good translation, and more people are familiar and comfortable with English nowadays.

nopinsight 11y ago

Chinese does not use formal tenses but they add words to tell time when it's useful to. The same can be said about the lack of grammar for social relationships and politeness levels in English compared to Japanese. Would you say that it is English's weakness? Languages are rooted in culture and express by default what the culture values. One can claim that an aspect of a culture is more amenable to modernization than another, but to say one language is better than another in an absolute sense does not seem logical.

Htsthbjig 11y ago
"The same can be said about the lack of grammar for social relationships and politeness levels in English compared to Japanese. Would you say that it is English's weakness?" Yes. :-) My native language is not English. So I don't believe English is perfect by any means, because I know other languages are better for other things. For example, English way of writing is terrible for expressing sounds. Japanese or the korean ways are much better Or Spanish by the way. Any country has a propaganda system in order to make people believe their system is the best, and you can't fight against it. I know there is no way I could convince a Chinese person that the language they speak is outdated, because it is not rational fact but emotional. There are no rational facts against nationalistic dogmas people are feed since they are born. In fact if it is the only language someone speaks this person is heavily invested in believing their system is the best. If you go to North Korea all people there feel pity for the rest of the world, mostly because they don't know better. "but to say one language is better than another in an absolute sense does not seem logical." I had never said that one language is better than another in absolute sense. I have said that Chinese is outdated. I have said that it is a better language for reading ancient works, but it has not evolved like other languages. This is not something I say, this is something Chinese emperors' counselors agreed while having knowledge of other cultures, and their own(there were alphabetic systems inside China Like Mongol's). It was a conscious decision not to evolve the language, because of different reasons. It is certainly not politically correct in China just the idea that if you force children to learn thousands of symbols in order to properly read, or the order of hundreds of groups in order to properly write, that there are simpler, more evolved ways. Just comparing a system that requires high levels memory and five years of learning with another that requires one for doing the same is not something I wanted to do.
- Jimmy 11y ago
  >For example, English way of writing is terrible for expressing sounds. Japanese or the korean ways are much better Or Spanish by the way. Just wanted to point out that the style of syllabary that Japanese uses wouldn't be practical for English. Japanese has around 150 possible syllables, English has almost 16,000 [1]. [1] http://semarch.linguistics.fas.nyu.edu/barker/Syllables/index.txt http://semarch.linguistics.fas.nyu.edu/barker/Syllables/inde...
- smil 11y ago
  >Any country has a propaganda system in order to make people believe their system is the best, and you can't fight against it. I know there is no way I could convince a Chinese person that the language they speak is outdated, because it is not rational fact but emotional. There are no rational facts against nationalistic dogmas people are feed since they are born. After your authoritative explanation of the Chinese language(s), and other Asian cultures, in this thread, the above begs the question: What about your own ideology? Which propaganda have you been subjected to in your upbringing, and continuously in your daily life as an adult, that makes you say the things that you say here? Or is what you say the objective truth?
notahacker 11y ago
I would say that not requiring politeness grammar is a major strength of English. Same goes for not requiring articles being a strength of the Japanese language and many other [mostly non European] languages. I'm less persuaded that tense isn't usually a useful distinction, but the irregularity of tense is a weakness of English (as is its vestigial subjunctive that most speakers barely ever use)
- sukilot 11y ago
  English has politeness grammar, dude; it is just highly nonstandard dialectical.

eva1984 11y ago

>> There are no tenses in Mandarin for example Yes and No. You can explicitly state the time if that is what you need. >> Most Chinese have different levels of analphabetism because it has so many words I am sure not every people can remember all the words from the dictionary, which in the age of internet, is constantly evolving every day. In fact, this is one advantage of Chinese, you don't need to remember words one by one. Instead, you learn characters, the basic building blocks of word, many of which have its own semantic meanings.Then you can infer the meaning of a 'word'---a combination of characters on the fly. The core character set is about 3,000, and with that you could read newspaper without too much hassle. >>"I've always wondered how the Chinese language writes loan words" Depends. Some words are imported as it is, e.g. 'NBA'/'DNA'/'MapReduce'. Some are being translated, like 'Frontend' -> Front(前)+end(端) -> 前端 'Memory' -> Internal(内) storage(存) -> 内存 'Compiler' -> Put-together(编) translation(译) machine(器) -> 编译器 I would say the direct-import kind of loan words is more popular right now, ever since the era of internet, because there is simply no abundant time to come up with a good translation, and more people are familiar and comfortable with English nowadays.