The beginning of the end for Traditional Chinese characters?

[ccht]

Seems like I'm not expressing myself clear enough since a lot of what you write is not what I said.

1) You used a sarcasm in your first post and I replied to it: nobody thinks it is impossible to learn it. "...awful traditional characters that NO ONE CAN LEARN..." So, I'm not saying you cannot learn it, I said no one said you cannot learn it but it takes more effort.

Facts must be admited even if in your opinion that fact is incorrect. Is a fact that you learn something faster when it is easier in structure and you can test it if you want with a nonspeaker trying to memorize 個 or 个.

個 was one of the first traditional characters I learned by just seeing it in a subtitle. That was like my first semester learning mandarin. I guessed it because of its grammar position, the radical 人 and the part with 固 'gu4' must be the sound related similar to that of 'ge4'. At that time i didn't even know the 古 character.

So pardon me if I say and you don't like it because you consider it incorrect: yes, it is easier to learn faster 个 than 個, because to retain 個 you need to memorize more details. 个 is a very important character for first time learners, because of its importance in grammar and it is an introduction to the thorny subject of chinese classifiers, so it is important to master it the faster you can and be able to read fast. I had a lot of classmates that will struggle to learn 個 in their first semester.

2) Is a political subject, so I will skip it, since is a waste of time. I will say that both sides have their part in that mess. I just mentioned it to give context to the mainland situation and his HUGE (read it in Trump style) population and poverty. If you think the situation was bad in Formosa, you should know that was worst in mainland and in that context you still want to use a less pragmatic approach to learning chinese characters by a mass of illiterates. Since ROC tried to introduce the simplified system, they recognized the pragmatic perspective of it in an post feudal China. Why they didnt continue it? Maybe political reasons and pressure from educated elites.

3) The 人 and 入 was just a personal example of how tricky can be chinese characters when trying to learn it and if someone like me or my classmates that got at least some base in education and struggle with it, I wonder how difficult it was for a post feudal non educated chinese farmer to memorize characters and write like a scholar.

4) It was Complicated using chinese characters and that is why they, koreans and japanese, created systems better suit for their language needs. Before that, they were using chinese characters and that take a toll when trying to educate its people. These were just examples of how when you get so strict in rules and that kind of erudite snobbism can make education hard to reach the masses. Maybe I'm not a Korean, japanese speaker or linguistic erudite as you, but I know that they wanted to use less ancient traditional characters because of its complexity and not suitability. So they were being flexible enough to be more pragmatic to reach a goal. The same idea and logic is applied in simplified chinese.

5) Are you implying that because Vulgar mean Common they didnt had contempt, disdain for it? Since ancient times, people linked common things with negative implications because the society was structured around the UN-common. So yes, Latin erudites indeed had disdain for Vulgar Latin and things like the Catholic Church kept praying in Latin even if the people couldn't understand.

6) You can say that it is banned, but for a foreginer to be able to learn to recognize and learn traditional characters, means that is not something like The Inquisition or the Sharia. If I want to buy a Traditional chinese character book, just need to go to JD, TaoBao and so on; every mainlander can do it, I can do it. What I think that law is for unifying the education system. Is ok if you don't like it, but take a second and imagine if suddenly some teachers teach in simplified and some teachers teach in traditional and use books written in traditional characters. That doesn't make sense and will be confusing for educational purposes.

Let me be more clear, since your sarcasm seems to be not what I tried to express when I said "this disdain is politically motivated". As an outsider, I don't understand that disdain towards Simplified characters from traditional characters users and the unique explanation I find is some sort of political implications. Like "You use simplified characters, therefore you are part of the evil-not-to-be named-party". I really don't care, they are just tools for communication and education and for me is meaningless if it is simplified or traditional. Like when I chatted to a taiwanese and he only used traditional, and I was flexible enough to use a dictionary to help me and even installed a keyboard with traditional database but he didn't even tried to use simplified sometimes as courtesy.

You think of Simplified characters as messing up a writing system. I really don't understand this purist approach. Traditional characters are still being studied by teachers and Chinese language scholars. Yes, the government discourage it at a normal education level and you maybe don't like but from a education perspective, you need to be consistent. You can't be teaching with simplified and use traditional in formal documents. Is like UK teaching in modern English but using Shakesperean english in formal documents.

 

[feng]

"I really don't care, they are just tools for communication and education and for me is meaningless if it is simplified or traditional."
OK, you don't care about totalitarian governments imposing things people don't want. I know, China was and is a benign state.

"Like when I chatted to a taiwanese and he only used traditional, and I was flexible enough to use a dictionary to help me and even installed a keyboard with traditional database but he didn't even tried to use simplified sometimes as courtesy."
It's his language (written in Chinese characters) and culture. Why does he need to do anything for you?

My issue with PRC forms (again, it is different from saying simplified) is not some purist ideology. I have explained that they seem more difficult to me to learn if one wants to learn 5,000 characters. There is no proof of PRC forms being easier, except when individual characters are examined in isolation. An educated native reader knows a minimum of 4,500 characters. I find traditional much easier in the context of knowing 5,000 characters as a group. But, yes, as individual characters in a vacuum, simplifications are always easier. Also, I can write Chinese characters (and enjoy doing so), so unlike many learners these days who only want to recognize (sorry, Pleco OCR), I want to be able to write the words I know.

BTW, Shakespeare is in Modern English, though in the earlier part. Modern English starts around 1500 and any native speaker who can't understand English from even the early 1500s should hang their head in shame (though of course some words have different meanings, but that is true of some words from one generation ago; and grammar is not the same as today). The problem with Shakespeare is his references that we moderns, even native speakers, either can't understand or that go over our heads entirely. You know the line from Hamlet "Get thee to a nunnery!" ?
He's calling her a whore, and there are specific historical reasons for that (and many of Shakespeare's plays were paid propaganda pieces for the crown).

EDIT: I am done with this thread because it is difficult to talk with beginning and intermediate language students who don't know much about Chinese history (or have a childish view of authoritarian societies), and won't listen.

 

[ccht]

Please, lets be realist, if the ROC had implemented the simplified system and didn't stop its development, many traditional character users wouldn't care because the root of their argument is more political than anything. They make a link between simplified characters and CCP, therefore everything related to CCP is bad no matter what, and that is wrong because the simplified characters movement began way before CCP and KMT, as a revolution against the remains of the feudal education system.

2) Why does he need to do anything for me? Well, let's give you the context: using a mainland chinese app, taking the initiative to talk to me and it is me that need to adapt to him? No, i don't have problem with it, because I'm a very flexible person. In my country if a tourist talk to me in english, I will make my best effort to reply the better i can in english; once a russian needed help but his english wasn't good and I just opened Google translator. I don't see the problem with it, but uh... If you go to USA or France, they will just ignore you or give you a bad look if you don't use the local language. Don't try to deny it, because I know it is that way.

So, if you are taking the initiative to talk to me in an app that is mainly aimed for mainlanders but maybe you are using the traditional character version, and know that i don't have enough knowledge of it but see that I can try being nice and reply in your system, it is expected some sort of courtesy, at least I expect it because that is communication.

3) It seems more complicated for you to memorize simplified characters. Ok, is your personal situation and maybe for some other people that like traditional characters and think must not be changed 'artificially'. But for many koreans, indonesians, vietnamises, central asians, europeans, africans, arabs and so on that study in my university, they can appreciate the beauty of traditional characters and learn to write it if they have time, but they will prefer use simplified in tests because of Time.

Is not like simplified system will create a drawback. In fact, it can help to speed up your rate of learning when dealing with a language as a whole, characters are just a small part of it. Today a vietnamise classmate got her HSK 6 results and passed with a surprising score for someone that had only studied chinese for 2 years. That means she can handle from 4k to 5k words. Her worst part was reading with 66 points and for a lot of people, that is the hardest part because of Time. I wonder how many points she had gotten if it was in traditional characters. And is not a matter of capacity because I'm sure she is very able to learn traditional characters but is a matter of Time, because she needed HSK 6 as soon as posible to proceed with his master in chinese medicine.

About the English example, the point is... Are there any contemporary document like treaties, newspapers, lawsuits, contracts and so on written in Shakespearean style? Is the education system structured around medieval english? You can take a PhD in English literature and similars, but hardly a common primary teacher will use that kind of English to teach a child and if she/he does will be counterproductive for a child's education. This example was meant for the Consistency part; you can't be teaching general education in a way and dealing with the real world with another.