Re:The Chinese character system is a brake on development
by arien on Friday January 22, 2016 @04:02AM
(#10951620)
Complex doesn't mean awful. Impractical and slow for our fast-paced life, sure. But the characters are beautiful and the etymology, shape and composition is fascinating.
I'm currently learning Chinese (using Remembering Simplified Hanzi from Heisig [0] for characters and Iknow [1] for words/pronunciation) and I find it a lot easier than I initially thought it would be. It helps a great deal to know that all these characters that look so complicated are mostly made of the same 200-some radicals [2], suddenly it's a lot less daunting and the characters even make sense most of the time. And sure, one might forget characters with lack of use, but the same can be said about other languages. Grammar is a hot topic on the internet, isn't it?
I'm currently learning Chinese (using Remembering Simplified Hanzi from Heisig [0] for characters and Iknow [1] for words/pronunciation) and I find it a lot easier than I initially thought it would be. It helps a great deal to know that all these characters that look so complicated are mostly made of the same 200-some radicals [2], suddenly it's a lot less daunting and the characters even make sense most of the time. And sure, one might forget characters with lack of use, but the same can be said about other languages. Grammar is a hot topic on the internet, isn't it?
[0] http://www.amazon.co.uk/Remembering-Simplified-Hanzi-Meaning...
[1] http://iknow.jp/ (originally for Japanese, but Chinese course is excellent, too)
[2] https://sensiblechinese.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Radic...