Divided by a common language

[no_name]

I find traditional characters more beautiful to look at.

 

[Chinese-Dragon]

I find traditional characters more beautiful to look at.

Yes, same here. Traditional characters also have more historical and cultural connection to Ancient China and to historical Chinese literature.

Ideally the best thing would be to speak Mandarin, while writing in Traditional characters.

(Yes I know, they already do that in Taiwan).

Look at the Traditional character for Dragon 龍 compared to the simplified version 龙. The Traditional one has more historical significance, and it looks better. That is how they wrote it in Ancient Chinese literature.

 

[Patriot]

How can you guys remember and write these characters on paper..too much effort.You'd need good art skills.

 

[Chinese-Dragon]

How can you guys remember and write these characters on paper..too much effort.You'd need good art skills.

LOL you're right, it's difficult to memorize the thousands of different Chinese characters.

The bonus is that if you can read Chinese, then you can communicate with any Chinese person in any region of China, regardless of their native dialect. Just write it down and they can read it.

In fact you can even communicate with Japanese people... because they also use Chinese characters, they call it "Kanji". In Korea they call it "Hanja".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji

It's hard work, but I think it's certainly worth the effort.

 

[CardSharp]

Mudra.tv : Russell Peters - Racist People in China

 

[Tractor]

I find traditional characters more beautiful to look at.

As you know the common language in China is Putonghua.
I agree you that Putonghua(national language or mandarin) sounds better than Cantonese but I don't think traditional characters is better than simplified characters as well.

For example,the word "Taiwan"(as Taiwanese is the traditional characters user) in traditional characters is too complicated.
That is why traditional characters is called complicated-characters in our real lives.

 

[below_freezing]

As you know the common language in China is Putonghua.
I agree you that Putonghua(national language or mandarin) sounds better than Cantonese but I don't think traditional characters is better than simplified characters as well.

For example,the word "Taiwan"(as Taiwanese is the traditional characters user) in traditional characters is too complicated.
That is why traditional characters is called complicated-characters in our real lives.

繁体字 = 烦体字

 

[lcloo]

I like simplify writing because I can not remember how to write so many complicated chracters, but I also like traditional writings because when I read and if I don't know what it's exact 100% meaning or it's pronounciation, I can still guess its rough meaning.


I dislike the most are mian 面 and zhi 只，if you just write a single character mian 面, I will never find out is that face or noodle. Using zhi 只 for numerical quantity for animals seemed to make animals looked like lifeless still objects.

 

[no_name]

I find that you can usually guess the meaning of simplified text if you can read traditional, but the reverse is harder. If you study chinese history/culture in university in china, do they teach you traditional chinese characters?

 

[DESERT FIGHTER]

Hey no offence but how do u read those simple lil lines or boxes"?I mean all of em look the same!!

 

[below_freezing]

Hey no offence but how do u read those simple lil lines or boxes"?I mean all of em look the same!!

习惯了就行，哈哈！我们还觉得英文单词都差不多呢。

or it may be your browser does not display chinese.

关于一些”过度简化”的汉字：我们可以根据上下文来判断它的意思。一个单独的“面”字确实没有什么意义，但是在日常生活中我们永远也不会遇到一个单独的“面”字。这就考验一个人对语言的基本掌握。例如，我们不会说“面粉”是face powder“，同理，在英文中我们不会说“saw" 在 "saw the chair leg" 中的意思是”看”。

 

[no_name]

Chinese is something best learned when you are young. Kids are more efficient at picking out pictoral patterns, it's like learning music when young.

Chinese characters are like arabic numerals, you can read them in different languages but they mean the same thing.

 

[below_freezing]

也不一定，那只是一种很粗略的说法。。。其实语言这东西太神奇了，很难一概而论。我们只能说，中文的字数庞大，文章结构优美，历史悠久。

 

[no_name]

A factor that contributed to the development of chinese characters is the use of a brush as a writing equipment, so you may say part of the characters' form is affected by brush strokes. These then become features of the writing system.

Actually the japanese hiragana characters came from the chinese 'grass script' during the Tang dynasties, when I first saw examples of these work I thought they were made by japanese authors. It is not until later that I found out that it was the other way round.

You can almost draw chinese characters as if they were pictures. In fact despite some people complain about it being an abstract expression the chinese language is not abstracted away like the alphabetical systems used by most languages today.

 

[Tractor]

Chinese is something best learned when you are young. Kids are more efficient at picking out pictoral patterns, it's like learning music when young.

Chinese characters are like arabic numerals, you can read them in different languages but they mean the same thing.

Sounds you mention the weakness of Chinese that it keeps our way of thinking just as kids level.