Which reads faster, Chinese or English?(persquaremile.com)
persquaremile.com
Which reads faster, Chinese or English?
http://persquaremile.com/2011/12/21/which-reads-faster-chinese-or-english/
69 comments
>> most learners learned more Chinese from overseas residence than from taking university courses in Chinese
I have a friend who took a course in Japanese, went to Japan, then mistook a hospital for a train station. He documented the whole experience, and you could watch as he went from American university fluent to real world fluent. Seeing the difference between school and the real world so clearly helped me get the most out of my two years of community college.
Most Europeans learn English (as a foreign language) without a "constant background exposure". And in my country, most people learn German and French (two popular choices for a second/third language) without constant background exposure, too.
So the fact that "most learners learned more Chinese from overseas residence" is a surprise.
So the fact that "most learners learned more Chinese from overseas residence" is a surprise.
Simply living in the modern world gives you a constant background exposure to English.
Not really --you have to tune in to that, too.
I personally met people in California that speak spanish (mexican immigrants), who don't seem to care about learning english all that much, despite living in the US for a decade or so. That is because of the large spanish speaking community there. Even more so in a country where english is not the native language. You can just ignore the "constant background exposure".
It's not like Lady Gaga being in the charts means people also pay attention to what exactly she sings. Even for US movies European countries either use subtitles or have the dialogs spoken in the native language (the second option sucks, btw).
I personally met people in California that speak spanish (mexican immigrants), who don't seem to care about learning english all that much, despite living in the US for a decade or so. That is because of the large spanish speaking community there. Even more so in a country where english is not the native language. You can just ignore the "constant background exposure".
It's not like Lady Gaga being in the charts means people also pay attention to what exactly she sings. Even for US movies European countries either use subtitles or have the dialogs spoken in the native language (the second option sucks, btw).
Yes. I "learned" French for four years in high school with no constant background exposure. Of course, I can't actually speak it, or read it, or write it, or understand more than very basic conversation in it (though as it turns out I have actually understood a smidge of French "in the wild"). But I did pass a test in it, once.
On my eternal TODO list is to use a spaced-repetition drilling program to buff up my French vocabulary since I do pretty much have everything else I need to at least read it, but, well, like many around here my TODO list is quite long....
On my eternal TODO list is to use a spaced-repetition drilling program to buff up my French vocabulary since I do pretty much have everything else I need to at least read it, but, well, like many around here my TODO list is quite long....
"""Yes. I "learned" French for four years in high school with no constant background exposure. Of course, I can't actually speak it, or read it, or write it, or understand more than very basic conversation in it (though as it turns out I have actually understood a smidge of French "in the wild"). But I did pass a test in it, once."""
That maybe happens with Americans and high school foreign languages.
In Europe --and certainly in my country--, most people speak the foreign language they were taught just fine, without "constant background exposure". It could be a cultural / motivational thing. I don't think many Americans care to learn foreign languages, despite being forced to do so at high school.
(As an aside: how many foreign language movies do American's watch? We do tons --and not only Hollywood films).
Here where I am, the median family actually PAYS for extra-school language courses. It used to be just english, in the eighties, but since the nineties most children study TWO foreign languages.
That maybe happens with Americans and high school foreign languages.
In Europe --and certainly in my country--, most people speak the foreign language they were taught just fine, without "constant background exposure". It could be a cultural / motivational thing. I don't think many Americans care to learn foreign languages, despite being forced to do so at high school.
(As an aside: how many foreign language movies do American's watch? We do tons --and not only Hollywood films).
Here where I am, the median family actually PAYS for extra-school language courses. It used to be just english, in the eighties, but since the nineties most children study TWO foreign languages.
>> Most Europeans learn English (as a foreign language) without a "constant background exposure"
Aha! "The World's Writing Systems" looks suspiciously like another book I have, "Grammatology" (not the one by Derrida). Published in the 90s and similarly priced, but out of print as far as I know.
Who wrote the chapter on Chinese?
Who wrote the chapter on Chinese?
Who wrote the chapter on Chinese [in The World's Writing Systems]?
http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Linguistics/?v...
I'm pretty sure it's by William G. Boaltz
http://depts.washington.edu/asianll/people/faculty/boltzwm.h...
whose papers about ancient Chinese are full of surprising details, with insight into how the current writing system developed historically.
http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Linguistics/?v...
I'm pretty sure it's by William G. Boaltz
http://depts.washington.edu/asianll/people/faculty/boltzwm.h...
whose papers about ancient Chinese are full of surprising details, with insight into how the current writing system developed historically.
I'm interested in reading the articles, but $200 to get ahold of them in an out-of-print-book is a bit steep.
Any other sources that you could recommend by chance?
Any other sources that you could recommend by chance?
The book's not out of print, here's the link to OUP: http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Linguistics/?v.... You can get it used from Amazon or wait until OUP has their seasonal sales, which happened 3-4 times a year. I bought my copy at one of these sales for around $60.
This is an excellent, authoritative resource on the subject.
This is an excellent, authoritative resource on the subject.
All written languages are essentially logographic in the eyes of a literate user of the language.
Given his "dragon" example, A literate native speaker of English, who is familiar with the word "dragon" would not read "d. r. a. g. o. n.", then put them together, but would see "dragon" as an atom.
Given his "dragon" example, A literate native speaker of English, who is familiar with the word "dragon" would not read "d. r. a. g. o. n.", then put them together, but would see "dragon" as an atom.
龙 takes up less space than "dragon" on a page or screen, though.
You can have both. 용 in Korean spells (with three letters) "yong", means "dragon", and fits in one box.
But 龍 (simplified as 龙) by itself always means dragon. 용 does nothing to disambiguate homophones.
Counterexample to the statement
* 龍 (simplified as 龙) by itself always means dragon *
In the Chinese character compound 水龍頭 , which is the usual Chinese word for "faucet," there is an etymological reason why the character 龍 is there, but a Chinese person, just like an English-speaking person, thinks of the object as "faucet" (one semantic unit, spoken in three syllables) rather than as "water dragon head."
Other examples can be multiplied by anyone who has paid careful attention to the details of the Chinese writing system. The compound 車床 (lathe) is completely opaque to a native speaker of English, who might guess that "cart bed" means "chassis," but would never guess that it means "lathe."
* 龍 (simplified as 龙) by itself always means dragon *
In the Chinese character compound 水龍頭 , which is the usual Chinese word for "faucet," there is an etymological reason why the character 龍 is there, but a Chinese person, just like an English-speaking person, thinks of the object as "faucet" (one semantic unit, spoken in three syllables) rather than as "water dragon head."
Other examples can be multiplied by anyone who has paid careful attention to the details of the Chinese writing system. The compound 車床 (lathe) is completely opaque to a native speaker of English, who might guess that "cart bed" means "chassis," but would never guess that it means "lathe."
That's not a counter example to the point I brought up.
A counter example would be an example of 2 Korean words that are ambiguous in regards to homophones when written in Chinese characters but non-ambiguous when written in Hangul.
Actually I'd be very interested to see any Korean, Japanese or Chinese words that are more ambiguous when rendered with characters than phonetic syllabaries (i.e hangul, hiragana, zhuyin...).
A counter example would be an example of 2 Korean words that are ambiguous in regards to homophones when written in Chinese characters but non-ambiguous when written in Hangul.
Actually I'd be very interested to see any Korean, Japanese or Chinese words that are more ambiguous when rendered with characters than phonetic syllabaries (i.e hangul, hiragana, zhuyin...).
The beauty of hangul: the benefits of a phonetic alphabet system with the compactness of a logographic writing system.
Limited by the resolution to some extent though. Hi-res screens help a lot. With realistic text sizes on low res screens there is much less in it.
It's still faster to recognise it in a language like Chinese/Japanese though.
For instance, I see your nick and I can remember you from TechReport many years ago. But if it was in Chinese the match would be faster, and especially so if it appeared surrounded by other text (alphabet-based text looks more self-similar).
For instance, I see your nick and I can remember you from TechReport many years ago. But if it was in Chinese the match would be faster, and especially so if it appeared surrounded by other text (alphabet-based text looks more self-similar).
Disclaimer: I'm Chinese-American (can read both).
The example he gave is not a good one. I instantly recognized both words because the Chinese word for dragon is a single character and in English, words are separated by spaces.
Often times, words in Chinese are made up of 2 or 3 characters, or even 4.
Take for example this word [set?]
可口可樂
This means Coca-Cola in Chinese. In an English sentence, Coca-Cola is unmistakable as it's a word surrounded by spaces. In Chinese, we don't use spaces, we must decide for ourselves when words start and words end.
Furthermore, 可口 means thirsty. So it wouldn't be until I got to the third character that I would know I'm not reading thirsty (though more realistically context should have defined it for me already).
I find Chinese sentences involve much fewer syllables than English though, so perhaps there is some merit to that.
The example he gave is not a good one. I instantly recognized both words because the Chinese word for dragon is a single character and in English, words are separated by spaces.
Often times, words in Chinese are made up of 2 or 3 characters, or even 4.
Take for example this word [set?]
可口可樂
This means Coca-Cola in Chinese. In an English sentence, Coca-Cola is unmistakable as it's a word surrounded by spaces. In Chinese, we don't use spaces, we must decide for ourselves when words start and words end.
Furthermore, 可口 means thirsty. So it wouldn't be until I got to the third character that I would know I'm not reading thirsty (though more realistically context should have defined it for me already).
I find Chinese sentences involve much fewer syllables than English though, so perhaps there is some merit to that.
Sorry for being a Chinese grammar nazi, but "可口" (ke kou) means tasty, and "口渴" (kou ke) means thirsty.
Why are the symbols for "ke" different depending on the order in which the syllables appear?
Not sure if serious, but consider English "to", "too", and "two".
Disclaimer/explanation: I actually studied Japanese, but I'm assuming the same principle applies. If so, the symbols would be different because of the differing meanings, and the pronunciation is coincidental.
Disclaimer/explanation: I actually studied Japanese, but I'm assuming the same principle applies. If so, the symbols would be different because of the differing meanings, and the pronunciation is coincidental.
可 means "able to" (so 可口 could be sort of literally translated as "mouth-able"), whereas 渴 actually means thirsty ("mouth thirsty").
可口 means tasty though.
Your example is not very good either, because 可口可樂 is an intentional translation aimed to invoke positive association by using existing words, it could totally go by sound and be 考卡考樂.
Similar effect can be achieved translating Chinese to English too, there are plenty spelling confusions for Chinese family names such as Wang, Dang etc.
Your example is not very good either, because 可口可樂 is an intentional translation aimed to invoke positive association by using existing words, it could totally go by sound and be 考卡考樂.
Similar effect can be achieved translating Chinese to English too, there are plenty spelling confusions for Chinese family names such as Wang, Dang etc.
With the advantage of phonetic languages, that you can read new words that you have never seen before. Impossible in Chinese. (Probably the reason that everybody but China has made the switch from symbolic to phonetic at some point in the past few milenia).
Have you heard of "radicals"? You can guess what a Chinese character means without being able to pronounce it.
I have heard this claim. But in practice, with real Chinese people trying to read an unfamiliar character, I've never seen it actually work.
In English, we'd try to break out prefixes and suffixes, and come up with "some kind of disease", or "something to do with the heart". But in my experience watching Chinese people, unfamiliar characters just get a "dunno".
Could it be that the difference I'm seeing is because of the use of simplified characters rather than traditional? Maybe simplified characters have cleaned out some of the clues.
In English, we'd try to break out prefixes and suffixes, and come up with "some kind of disease", or "something to do with the heart". But in my experience watching Chinese people, unfamiliar characters just get a "dunno".
Could it be that the difference I'm seeing is because of the use of simplified characters rather than traditional? Maybe simplified characters have cleaned out some of the clues.
No, that's right. The best you can hope for is that you recognize the phonetic (typically the right or lower element of the graph), and match it to a word you already know from context. At best the radical is just a hint, a way to distinguish between multiple uses of the same phonetic character.
One other thing is that the character gives no clue as to intonation. (EG. "ma" can be "mother", "horse", "to scold" or other meanings depending on the tone.)
That's OK. My voice gives no clue as to intonation, either. This is extraordinarily difficult for westerners to master (or to even hear at conversational tempo, in my opinion).
You're a native speaker, right? Can you really see a new character and be confident about your guess? I usually think "This is probably a Zhi, but it might be a Ji, too, or something else entirely." Granted, some characters, like animals, are easier.
Yes, native Chinese speaker, though English is my best language. I think you can guess based on context as well. Not precise as you'd like, but not a blank slate either.
Sure, but you can't call up your friend on the phone and ask him what it means. (Not without having to explicitly describe the glyph, anyway.)
Yes you can. Complex characters are usually made up of many foundation characters, so you could describe it to your friend that way.
Check out http://www.spreeder.com/app.php?intro=1 where they take a sentence or paragraph and "play" each word in the same spot on the screen, eliminating the need to move your eyes.
It would be interesting to see if there are any significant differences in the max WPM (words per minute) between English and Chinese readers under this context where information density is no longer a function of space.
It would be interesting to see if there are any significant differences in the max WPM (words per minute) between English and Chinese readers under this context where information density is no longer a function of space.
Interesting app. AFAIK it's hard to chunk Chinese text to words since they don't use spaces (In the case of Japanese, I know for sure that perfect automated chunking is impossible). But it's not quiet right for English, too, because it shows short words like "a" and "it" individually, while for an advanced reader "I have to" and "I don't think so" or even longer strings are a single chunk.
Really interesting app! So it's possible to read up to 1000 wpm using that, pretty incredible. I guess an implication there is that we should in theory be able to 'produce' a lot more wpm, using better tools than a keyboard. Do you know of any research in that area?
Thanks for the link, that site came to mind when I was reading the article but I couldn't think what it was called.
That's a fascinating topic for me, for two reasons:
1) At the local Hebrew lessons I met a minister of the embassy of South Korea. He told me that Korean is a praised language all over the world (it was news to me - make of it what you want) for its simplicity and therefor speed for typists. He elaborated and said that both the layout (keyboard, I assume) would be very sensible and every 'character' is actually a combination of consonant-vowel-consonant and thereby simple (triplets, always) and carrying a lot of information. Since then I'd like to learn more about this idea and confirm or bust that claim.
2) Learning Hebrew is hard. A real quote from a coworker was "It's an easy language! We only have 22 letters, after all". Reduce your alphabet (alephbet?) from 26 to 22. Note that of these letters, 5 are only special versions of other letters and replace those in the last position of the word. Which leaves 17 letters for most words/the meat of the language. And most words are rather short (okay, okay.. I'm not comparing to German here, that would be pointless. Even compared to english it seems to be the same or shorter to me).
Bottom line: I still have a bet going that I can generate Hebrew line noise (following the rules of going with the 17 letters and adding the required sofit/end letter if required. Gibberish ending in נ would be 'fixed' to end in ן) and will hit word after word. On my list of possible weekend projects I have an entry 'Hebrew or not' to crowd-source this.
1) At the local Hebrew lessons I met a minister of the embassy of South Korea. He told me that Korean is a praised language all over the world (it was news to me - make of it what you want) for its simplicity and therefor speed for typists. He elaborated and said that both the layout (keyboard, I assume) would be very sensible and every 'character' is actually a combination of consonant-vowel-consonant and thereby simple (triplets, always) and carrying a lot of information. Since then I'd like to learn more about this idea and confirm or bust that claim.
2) Learning Hebrew is hard. A real quote from a coworker was "It's an easy language! We only have 22 letters, after all". Reduce your alphabet (alephbet?) from 26 to 22. Note that of these letters, 5 are only special versions of other letters and replace those in the last position of the word. Which leaves 17 letters for most words/the meat of the language. And most words are rather short (okay, okay.. I'm not comparing to German here, that would be pointless. Even compared to english it seems to be the same or shorter to me).
Bottom line: I still have a bet going that I can generate Hebrew line noise (following the rules of going with the 17 letters and adding the required sofit/end letter if required. Gibberish ending in נ would be 'fixed' to end in ן) and will hit word after word. On my list of possible weekend projects I have an entry 'Hebrew or not' to crowd-source this.
"[Hebrew] only has 22 letters, after all. [...] Reduce your alphabet (alephbet?) from 26 to 22. Note that of these letters, 5 are only special versions of other letters and replace those in the last position of the word"
That's incorrect. All 22 letters are actually letters, the special versions of letters for the ends of words are not counted towards the full 22.
Also, I think Hebrew words tend to be shorter because they lack vowels. There are ways to add something similar to vowels to words, by adding pronunciation guides to each letter. These are usually not included in most Hebrew writing, but this trusts that the reader already knows how to pronounce the word.
I'm not a linguist, so I'm not sure this vowel thing matters, but that's my guess as to why Hebrew words are shorter.
That's incorrect. All 22 letters are actually letters, the special versions of letters for the ends of words are not counted towards the full 22.
Also, I think Hebrew words tend to be shorter because they lack vowels. There are ways to add something similar to vowels to words, by adding pronunciation guides to each letter. These are usually not included in most Hebrew writing, but this trusts that the reader already knows how to pronounce the word.
I'm not a linguist, so I'm not sure this vowel thing matters, but that's my guess as to why Hebrew words are shorter.
Ugh. Thanks for pointing out my counting mistakes. Mea culpa.
Vowels: You're right, of course. My bet originated during lunch talks. My intuition (in other words: more stupid mistakes ahead, maybe..) says that by leaving out the vowels and overloading letters (b or v? f or p? u, o or v? etc. pp.) the language loses a lot of error correction margin [1] and leads to more collisions/a denser field of 'actual words' [2].
1: That refers to the ability of taking western languages and removing all vowels there. Or stripping out random letters etc. I'm certainly _far_ _far_ from an adapt reader here, so I'm musing about things that interest me although I lack the required experience.
2: Which leads to my 'Hebrew or not' idea. My gut says that randomly pounding the keyboard results a lot more often in 'real words'.
Not bashing hebrew. I even like the script by now (in the beginning hand-written text looked especially random to me).
Vowels: You're right, of course. My bet originated during lunch talks. My intuition (in other words: more stupid mistakes ahead, maybe..) says that by leaving out the vowels and overloading letters (b or v? f or p? u, o or v? etc. pp.) the language loses a lot of error correction margin [1] and leads to more collisions/a denser field of 'actual words' [2].
1: That refers to the ability of taking western languages and removing all vowels there. Or stripping out random letters etc. I'm certainly _far_ _far_ from an adapt reader here, so I'm musing about things that interest me although I lack the required experience.
2: Which leads to my 'Hebrew or not' idea. My gut says that randomly pounding the keyboard results a lot more often in 'real words'.
Not bashing hebrew. I even like the script by now (in the beginning hand-written text looked especially random to me).
I hope a linguist will chime in here, it's an interesting subject and I'm wondering if my guesses on the vowel-less nature of Hebrew are correct.
I'm not sure how much this will change your "random pounding on keyboard" idea, but English has a much larger vocabulary than Hebrew.
P.S. I see you're in Israel now, hope you're enjoying your time in Tel Aviv.
I'm not sure how much this will change your "random pounding on keyboard" idea, but English has a much larger vocabulary than Hebrew.
P.S. I see you're in Israel now, hope you're enjoying your time in Tel Aviv.
Tel Aviv: My first winter wearing t-shirts. Cannot complain. :)
vowel-less: (I don't need to repeat the 'I suck at hebrew' disclaimer, right?) Kind of. From what I know:
There are no explicit letters for 'a', 'e'
You can represent an 'o' or an 'u' with a ו (otherwise used as consonant, 'v'). I know for a fact that words with 'o' can be written without a 'vowel' letter (לא for example: no). I don't know if 'u' is always represented as a letter of it's own.
'i' is often used as 'ij' or 'ji' and teams up with 'י = j' in that case. It can be represented without a letter just as well though.
Bottom line: Except for 'u' (no idea about that one? maybe just as well?) you can have all vowels 'hidden' in plain sight.
Would love to have someone from IL chime in here though and correct all my mistakes.
vowel-less: (I don't need to repeat the 'I suck at hebrew' disclaimer, right?) Kind of. From what I know:
There are no explicit letters for 'a', 'e'
You can represent an 'o' or an 'u' with a ו (otherwise used as consonant, 'v'). I know for a fact that words with 'o' can be written without a 'vowel' letter (לא for example: no). I don't know if 'u' is always represented as a letter of it's own.
'i' is often used as 'ij' or 'ji' and teams up with 'י = j' in that case. It can be represented without a letter just as well though.
Bottom line: Except for 'u' (no idea about that one? maybe just as well?) you can have all vowels 'hidden' in plain sight.
Would love to have someone from IL chime in here though and correct all my mistakes.
I'm from IL :) [1]
You're right about the י and ו replacing vowels much of the time. Inspired by this discussion, I went and read a little more about the history of Modern Hebrew, and stumbled on this page in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ktiv_male
The idea of writing vowel-like signs into the letters is called Nikkud. But apparently, since most people don't write Nikkud, the Academy of the Hebrew Language wrote a set of rules explaining how to exchange Nikkud for letters that will serve as vowels. I had no idea it was so deliberate, but this explains why there are many words which people here write differently.
I still think there is more ambiguity in Hebrew. Or, as you put it, less "error correction margin". Even with "Ktiv Male".
[1] I lived abroad for a few years, so I wasn't in Israel from the 2nd grade to the 7th. This means I missed a lot of the "traditional" learning process of learning about the language, grammar, etc. So I'm a native Hebrew speaker, but I have some gaps in my knowledge about the correct way to do things, etc.
You're right about the י and ו replacing vowels much of the time. Inspired by this discussion, I went and read a little more about the history of Modern Hebrew, and stumbled on this page in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ktiv_male
The idea of writing vowel-like signs into the letters is called Nikkud. But apparently, since most people don't write Nikkud, the Academy of the Hebrew Language wrote a set of rules explaining how to exchange Nikkud for letters that will serve as vowels. I had no idea it was so deliberate, but this explains why there are many words which people here write differently.
I still think there is more ambiguity in Hebrew. Or, as you put it, less "error correction margin". Even with "Ktiv Male".
[1] I lived abroad for a few years, so I wasn't in Israel from the 2nd grade to the 7th. This means I missed a lot of the "traditional" learning process of learning about the language, grammar, etc. So I'm a native Hebrew speaker, but I have some gaps in my knowledge about the correct way to do things, etc.
I learned a bit of Korean script and could touch type in it on a US keyboard. It's a fairly nice system, although there seems to be a fair bit of non-rational pride in it, too. Woe to anyone that points out any similarities to previous writing systems...
But it's not just triplets. You can have 2, 3, or 4 components per character (Wikipedia says 5, but I'm not sure how that works). The first component must be a consonant, but there's a null consonant too, allowing you to create syllables with just a vowel sound.
I don't see how the writing system itself helps typists. If words are shorter, that's a function of shorter words, not the writing system. A syllable still requires several keystrokes each.
That said, it's very simple to learn. I learned it in a week. But, I also learned the Japanese scripts (hiragana/katakana) in a week as well using James Heisig's awesome book[1]. So, perhaps learning alphabet scripts is just not an overly difficult task in general?
1: http://www.amazon.com/Remembering-Kana-Hiragana-James-Heisig...
But it's not just triplets. You can have 2, 3, or 4 components per character (Wikipedia says 5, but I'm not sure how that works). The first component must be a consonant, but there's a null consonant too, allowing you to create syllables with just a vowel sound.
I don't see how the writing system itself helps typists. If words are shorter, that's a function of shorter words, not the writing system. A syllable still requires several keystrokes each.
That said, it's very simple to learn. I learned it in a week. But, I also learned the Japanese scripts (hiragana/katakana) in a week as well using James Heisig's awesome book[1]. So, perhaps learning alphabet scripts is just not an overly difficult task in general?
1: http://www.amazon.com/Remembering-Kana-Hiragana-James-Heisig...
From what I understand, the Korean written language was pretty much invented wholesale by one man (the king at the time, I believe). As such it's a lot better designed and internally consistent then other written languages (which accumulated naturally over time).
That said, while it may be easier to learn, I imagine people still read it at about the same speed they would read English or Chinese. I don't remember where but a while back I read an article saying that basically all spoken languages impart information at roughly the same rate (e.g. languages with higher information density are spoken slower, languages with lower information density are spoken faster). And from the OP's article it sounds like this applies to written languages as well.
That said, while it may be easier to learn, I imagine people still read it at about the same speed they would read English or Chinese. I don't remember where but a while back I read an article saying that basically all spoken languages impart information at roughly the same rate (e.g. languages with higher information density are spoken slower, languages with lower information density are spoken faster). And from the OP's article it sounds like this applies to written languages as well.
One of the things I've noticed with my very limited knowledge of Chinese is that it's a fantastic language for poetic expression. Each Chinese character is a single syllable, so you can have a poem that consists of 4 lines, each with 6 syllables, and convey a huge amount of meaning.
In a language like English, 6 syllables won't get you nearly as much meaning.
I've noticed that Chinese pop music seems to have much more expressive, poetic lyrics, even in stuff aimed at a mass audience. A good example is Faye Wong's song "Sky". For a puff pop song the lyrics are quite poetic when translated into English. It's hard to think of an equivalently poetic English language song aimed at such a large audience.
In a language like English, 6 syllables won't get you nearly as much meaning.
I've noticed that Chinese pop music seems to have much more expressive, poetic lyrics, even in stuff aimed at a mass audience. A good example is Faye Wong's song "Sky". For a puff pop song the lyrics are quite poetic when translated into English. It's hard to think of an equivalently poetic English language song aimed at such a large audience.
I'd add that the composition of Chinese characters makes possible poetic structures that are impossible in other languages. A famous poem by Tang dynasty poet Li Bai:
床前明月光 疑是地上霜。 舉頭望明月， 低頭思故鄉。
(Apologies if you can't see the characters on your system.) The key radical "月" (moon) repeats itself as a character on its own and also as a radical making up other characters. Thus, Chinese poems can have a measure of visual resonance as well as audible.
A sad fact is that the PRC government altered the written language to make it easier to learn writing and a lot of this subtle beauty was lost. Today, kids learn to type on a computer phonetically, so the complexity of the traditional characters is no longer an issue.
床前明月光 疑是地上霜。 舉頭望明月， 低頭思故鄉。
(Apologies if you can't see the characters on your system.) The key radical "月" (moon) repeats itself as a character on its own and also as a radical making up other characters. Thus, Chinese poems can have a measure of visual resonance as well as audible.
A sad fact is that the PRC government altered the written language to make it easier to learn writing and a lot of this subtle beauty was lost. Today, kids learn to type on a computer phonetically, so the complexity of the traditional characters is no longer an issue.
Great example! Here are ~40 translations of his "Drinking Alone with the Moon" poem, one of my personal favorites: http://clatterymachinery.wordpress.com/2007/01/26/li-bai-dri.... The image of the moon and loneliness always reminds me of a well-known fragment of Sappho: http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/usappho/sph49.htm. About 1400 years and thousands of miles apart, yet resonating with the same emotion.
On the funnier side, the famous Lion-Eating Poet must be mentioned: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion-Eating_Poet_in_the_Stone_D.... Hilarious and beautiful example of constrained writing.
On the funnier side, the famous Lion-Eating Poet must be mentioned: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion-Eating_Poet_in_the_Stone_D.... Hilarious and beautiful example of constrained writing.
You could probably do something similar in English by using words that incorporate smaller words - "the sum of summer" or something like that.
I'm sure there must be examples of poems that do exactly that.
I'm sure there must be examples of poems that do exactly that.
You bring up a very interesting point. In addition to the syllable feature you mention the fact that Chinese (i.e. Mandarin) lacks many grammatical features (e.g. past tense) creates a timeless quality, praised by many translators to English.
Off topic: I started learning Chinese a few years ago when I was already an adult, and my Chinese reading speed is still stuck below 150 WPM, while my English, also non-native language, is around 500 WPM. Any tip to increase it? Recently tried flash reading exercises like the aforementioned spreeder.com, seems to help a bit.
IMHO, the best way to improve reading speed is to read more and more. Once you know more words and can tell their meanings in shorter time, you read faster. There is a chinese idiom for it: 熟能生巧
Thanks! Although over time I've also come to accept that I will never be near as fast as the natives (or people who learn to read from when they were a child).
Number of words in the vocabulary is also important for nuance: English has loads more words than any other language.
While not the same thing as reading, I have noticed that Chinese is quicker to scan for a phrase you're looking for. I'm a native English speaker and have learned to read a bit of Chinese. I'm at the level where I can interpret some signs, but far from being able to read a newspaper.
Where I notice this is on a bilingual Chinese/English menu. If there's a particular dish I want, I find it is far quicker to find the Chinese characters.
It was mentioned that English readers will read words (like "dragon") as an atom, rather than letter by letter. In that case, the Chinese character is more unique and recognizable. I suspect that there is more variety in the shape of Chinese characters making them quicker to recognize and scan quickly.
Where I notice this is on a bilingual Chinese/English menu. If there's a particular dish I want, I find it is far quicker to find the Chinese characters.
It was mentioned that English readers will read words (like "dragon") as an atom, rather than letter by letter. In that case, the Chinese character is more unique and recognizable. I suspect that there is more variety in the shape of Chinese characters making them quicker to recognize and scan quickly.
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" This means someone reading Chinese must dig into the structure of each character to decipher its meaning."...
A pineapple is a lot harder to draw than a banana, but it doesn't make it harder to recognize
A pineapple is a lot harder to draw than a banana, but it doesn't make it harder to recognize
Similarly, an American Sign Language sign takes longer to articulate than an English word (because signing uses larger, slower muscles than speech), but to compensate, a great deal of ASL grammar is carried by facial expression, posture, rhythm, etc., so the actual rate of communication is the same.
Both languages read at similar "words per minute" speeds but it might be that one of them can express the same meaning in less words. This would make it faster in practice.
IANALinguist, but it seems to me that the chinese and english versions of 'dragon' are equally complex. Sure, the chinese character takes less width, but it takes 16 strokes (being generous). 'dragon' takes 11 strokes if you're being really harsh. My gut feeling is that while the english word is wider, it's of similar complexity to the chinese word. Gut feelings don't make good science, though :)
Reading a Chinese character means decomposing its sub-parts into sub-meanings. It's not that there are 9 or 10 strokes in the character for dragon that make it complex to read, it's that the outer 4 strokes might signify "beast", the inner strokes "fire", and the cross strokes "immortal".
(Note: I don't actually know how to read this character this is just an illustration)
(Note: I don't actually know how to read this character this is just an illustration)
> The answer is neither.
no need to thank me :)
no need to thank me :)
The late John DeFrancis, who through his innovative textbooks was the first teacher of a whole generation of Americans who succeeded in acquiring Chinese as a second language, was a co-founder of the Journal of the Chinese Language Teachers Association, and author of a fascinating article titled "Why Johnny Can't Read Chinese." The Chinese writing system (no matter which form of the spoken language, ancient or modern, it is applied to) is full of ambiguities and other partially cued information that slows down reading--as is every other writing system in the world. By dint of much practice, I can read Chinese comfortably for information on a variety of subjects. By test, I was one of the most proficient readers of Chinese among second-language learners who participated in the norming rounds for a Test of Chinese as a Second Language in the mid-1980s (which I think was never rolled out into regular use, perhaps because it showed that most learners learned more Chinese from overseas residence than from taking university courses in Chinese).
Hacker News readers who would like to learn about English, Chinese, or other writing systems would be well advised to read the specialized articles in The World's Writing Systems
http://www.amazon.com/Worlds-Writing-Systems-Peter-Daniels/d...
edited by Peter T. Daniels and William Bright. The article on Chinese is very good, and the overview articles that discuss general features of writing systems are also very good.