A Language Rant

I don't like reading long posts unless they are informative and interesting. I can read bits and pieces of Chinese, but I seriously doubt that most people here can even do that (with the exception of Mr. J.C., and Xie.)

So why the long posts in Chinese? That's not the way to promote Chinese in my opinion. Maybe you could start with the basics. This is a tree (show character), this is "woods", this is "forest"; if you do it this way, you give people an opportunity to see that there is some hope of learning this great, ancient language. Maybe you could promote how "easy" Chinese grammar is.

Mandarin is pretty overwhelming to most people who speak a European language. If it isn't overwhelming to them, then they have probably studied enough languages to be able to take it on without fear, or they already speak a language with tones or already read Chinese characters.

Don't think that I am unaware of the growing concern people have about China and its burgeoning population. Yes, more people in the US should learn Chinese. We need to learn Chinese, Russian, Arabic, Spanish, and probably some other language, maybe Urdu/Hindi, but it isn't easy for us-it's not like we have huge opportunities to practice Mandarin or any other language.

I am learning Mandarin. It's somewhat on the back burner as I can't devote as much time to it as I should, but maybe next year I'll work on it in detail. In the meantime, think about what works in regard to language and encouraging others to learn them.

Thanks for reading my rant or part of of it.

It doesn't help that Shuimo is creating so much animosity. Many individuals on this board are quickly prone to anger and easily sucked into an argument (and I'll admit I'm one of them), so it's not much work getting a fight started.

LL Thu Apr 09, 2009 10:49 pm GMT
I don't like reading long posts unless they are informative and interesting. I can read bits and pieces of Chinese, but I seriously doubt that most people here can even do that (with the exception of Mr. J.C., and Xie.)

So why the long posts in Chinese? That's not the way to promote Chinese in my opinion. Maybe you could start with the basics. This is a tree (show character), this is "woods", this is "forest"; if you do it this way, you give people an opportunity to see that there is some hope of learning this great, ancient language. Maybe you could promote how "easy" Chinese grammar is.

Mandarin is pretty overwhelming to most people who speak a European language. If it isn't overwhelming to them, then they have probably studied enough languages to be able to take it on without fear, or they already speak a language with tones or already read Chinese characters.

Don't think that I am unaware of the growing concern people have about China and its burgeoning population. Yes, more people in the US should learn Chinese. We need to learn Chinese, Russian, Arabic, Spanish, and probably some other language, maybe Urdu/Hindi, but it isn't easy for us-it's not like we have huge opportunities to practice Mandarin or any other language.

I am learning Mandarin. It's somewhat on the back burner as I can't devote as much time to it as I should, but maybe next year I'll work on it in detail. In the meantime, think about what works in regard to language and encouraging others to learn them.

Thanks for reading my rant or part of of it.
Skippy Thu Apr 09, 2009 11:57 pm GMT
It doesn't help that Shuimo is creating so much animosity. Many individuals on this board are quickly prone to anger and easily sucked into an argument (and I'll admit I'm one of them), so it's not much work getting a fight started.
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Stop yr useless gouche!
Just give you a chance to prove yrself that Chinese is not intellectually-challenging to you!

I don't understand your message.

Very simply, if you want people to learn Mandarin you have to give it to them so they can learn it. Basically, you have to feed it to them with a spoon and sugar at first unless they are motivated to learn it.

Then you have to provide easy, but interesting material as they progress.

Hanzi scares a lot of people. It used to intimidate me years ago.

I remember reading some Chinese translations twenty five years ago. I was thrilled by the sheer foreign character of them - all the strange fairy tales with dragons and trees and characters with goals and tasks so radically different from the fairy tales from my culture. The novels were equally strange and I tried to imagine families living in quarters where the foors opened in a round common plaza where the water was available and where the vegetables were cleaned throughly and the food was just ready to be cooked. I finnaly found some familiarity in the everyday life of novel characters, but still they looked strangely lifeless and I couldn't imagine as one of them as easily as I used to do with European authors.
I had the same feeling visiting China nine years ago, in the farmer market where vendor and seller communicated in writing using the Simplified Chinese and I found the plaza of my memories when I visited one of my customer's house. The alien feeling was there, but it faded awat at the sight of the library. I will read that novel in original, hopefully sooner than later.