Should Chinese Characters be Abolished?

[nz]

@Liam_Og

@nz

The only reason foreign people in Taiwan are obsessed with zhuyin is that it sets them apart from people who properly learned pinyin in China or elsewhere.

Just bear in mind that zhuyin is from China

The Chinese language is also from China.

[Liam_Og]

A little bit like “British English”

I’ve spoken to people who think that traditional characters are from Taiwan

[Whatevah]

@nz

You can’t get rid of tones. Chinese is a tonal language. Meaning is carried in the tones.

I don’t condone forcefully changing the whole language but that is technically incorrect. Korean and Japanese were both tonal at some point but they evolved in a way that they lost the tonality.

[Whatevah]

@nz

Characters are not just made up

You say that but then again only a few make sense in that way. Everyone loves to mention 木，林，森 and other similar cases but those are far and few between.

Don’t even get me started on loanwords.

[OrangeOrganics]

Traditional Chinese characters are the most attractive part of Taiwanese cities.

[Whatevah]

@OrangeOrganics

Traditional Chinese characters are the most attractive part of Taiwanese cities.

You don’t have to lose them. Ideally I would do something similar to Japanese. Keep some Hanzi for the common words and use Pinyin/Zhuyin for the rest.

These are all academic anyways. Forcing lingual overhauls aren’t a thing anymore.

[Dr_Milker]

@OrangeOrganics

Traditional Chinese characters are the most attractive part of Taiwanese cities.

Other than the ladies, yes.

[Marco]

@Whatevah

@OrangeOrganics

Traditional Chinese characters are the most attractive part of Taiwanese cities.

You don’t have to lose them. Ideally I would do something similar to Japanese. Keep some Hanzi for the common words and use Pinyin/Zhuyin for the rest.

That’s ugly if you ask me, and still forces people to learn Chinese Characters, defeating the point of abolishing them.

[Gain]

Why should native speakers abolish their script for foreigners who don’t matter at all?

[lostinasia]

@nz

At first, I thought characters were fun to write and a pain in the butt the read. By the end of the first semester, I couldn’t even understand the pinyin-only versions of the text because the characters provide too much meaning that pinyin lacks.

I’ve been reading this thread and was wondering if it was just me who feels this way. Surely a bunch of us have had the experience of learning pinyin/zhuyin first, and it’s fine, but then as soon as we start to learn characters, they are SO much easier to read than the phonetic version?

I dunno, I suppose it’d get easier with time, but whenever I have to read pinyin I have to really say it, sometimes more than once, to figure out what’s going on.

Of course, one dumb foreigner’s dabbling with the language is a very minor anecdote, but if even I find reading characters a heck of a lot easier than reading pinyin, then I’m not going to question others who say the same thing.

[Liam_Og]

@lostinasia

easier to read

I think there problem is more on the easier to write end. Although in the current age most of the production of written language is by typing

I have personally given up on being literate in Chinese. I don’t believe that Chinese should be abolished. Neither do I believe that my kids should be subjected to hours of mindless repetition. Like some kind of literary labour camp for kids, lol

So yes, learn to write Chinese but don’t let it interfere with your daily routine

[OysterOmelet]

@Liam_Og

I think zhuyin is a little better because it can be written beside the character

just put pinyin above the character

I learned zhuyin as a kid and didn’t learn pinyin until I was an adult.

I can still type Pinyin 10X faster because of my mastery of the Latin alphabet.

[Liam_Og]

Yes I think zhuyin is better as a reading aid, but I’d never type with it

[OysterOmelet]

@Whatevah

Don’t even get me started on loanwords

What about loan words?

Chinese has relative few.

But Mandarin is a terrible language for transliteration due to its limited number of syllables.

[OysterOmelet]

@nz

At first, I thought characters were fun to write and a pain in the butt the read. By the end of the first semester, I couldn’t even understand the pinyin-only versions of the text because the characters provide too much meaning that pinyin lacks.

People who study Chinese and Japanese in grad school often get obsessed with the characters they don’t study anything else about the language.

[Liam_Og]

@OysterOmelet

People who study Chinese and Japanese in grad school often get obsessed with the characters they don’t study anything else about the language.

Whereas some other people get everything else except the characters.

[OysterOmelet]

@Liam_Og

Whereas some other people get everything else except the characters.

Yup!

[OrangeOrganics]

I just loved the whole process of learning this ancient script and culture, really was a great experience. Sometimes wish could go back to those days rather than it just being another language and struggling with weird business terms. Endlessly writing characters all day or being curious about a new character or chengyu was one of the happiest times in my life

I just don’t think learning Chinese would be as enjoyable without the characters and I think most who learnt Chinese as an adult feel the Same

[Andrew]

@OrangeOrganics

I just loved the whole process of learning this ancient script and culture, really was a great experience. Sometimes wish could go back to those days rather than it just being another language and struggling with weird business terms. Endlessly writing characters all day or being curious about a new character or chengyu was one of the happiest times in my life

If you can figure out the technological aspects, I’d be willing to have your understanding transplanted into my head to give you the opportunity to learn it all over again.

[topofan]

Yeah I’m all in for getting rid of characters. But I don’t think it will ever happen. With computers writing is as quick as latin, and reading not much different either.

Writing by hand or typewriter age was the time when it would have needed to be abolished. Now it’s sadly too late.
(From someone not being able to read more than 100 or 200 characters but speak pretty fluently, understand most drama without subs, maybe another 6 months before I can understand news on TV without subs. I just plain freak out each time I try to learn characters. Really hate those inefficient pictures)