How to hard sell China's soft power

[eddieInUK]

Just a short introduction to languages used in China.

Mandarin is standard chinese, which is developed through Beijing accent. Cantonese is a province language, mainly in Canton province, Hongkong is part of Canton before. Different province has different local language, there are more than 100 languages in China. Apart from the general Chinese, there are 10 millions people speaking the original Turksh, 6 million Mongolians speaking Mongolian, also 2 million Chinese Korean speaking traditional Korean and so on. But we all understand mandarin. In terms of formal wrting, all language are with the same grammar with same character. Pronunciation is quite different.

Some neighbour countries of China, for example, Japanese has some similarities with Chinese, without learning Japanese, I can understand about 40% of Japanese document (writing). I dont know much about Korean language, but I have seen some koreans majoring in History in Taiwan doing language study, they told me they have to learn Chinese then to learn the original document of Korea history books, I guess maybe some similarities are there between Chinese and original Korean language.

I think Indians can understand this situation better, mandarin performs as standard language in China, like Hindi or English in India. Also Indians have many language within, the same to China but Indian languages are more diverse.

For koreans, a small country many be not that diverse. Compare N. Korea and S. Korea may show some difference.

 

[jayron]

I line movies like hero ,crouching Tiger and banquet for their music and visual splendor .I also like Jackie chan movies. Though most are produced outside mainland China, I view it as a Chinese movie and nothing else.

 

[eddieInUK]

I line movies like hero ,crouching Tiger and banquet for their music and visual splendor .I also like Jackie chan movies. Though most are produced outside mainland China, I view it as a Chinese movie and nothing else.

I also like them a lot. Most movies you saw is marketed by Hollywood. Bollywood movies are also good, I like the visual and musical stuff in it. Art is an easy thing, why people here are so serious and relate it to nationalism and politics.

 

[eddieInUK]

Here is a link talking about linking between Chinese and Korean languages.
For over a millennium, Korean was written with adapted Chinese characters called hanja, complemented by phonetic systems like hyangchal, gugyeol, and idu. In the 15th century, a national writing system called hangul was commissioned by Sejong the Great, but it only came into widespread use in the 20th century, because of the yangban aristocracy's preference for hanja.

From Korean language - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Korean]

Mandarin is standard chinese, which is developed through Beijing accent. Cantonese is a province language, mainly in Canton province, Hongkong is part of Canton before. Different province has different local language, there are more than 100 languages in China.

But your fellow Chinese insist they are dialects, not languages. By that his brain-washing master CCP shows it doesn't understand the difference between a language and a dialect.

Pronunciation is quite different.

And mutually not comprehensible.

Some neighbour countries of China, for example, Japanese has some similarities with Chinese

Japanese language is completely different from Sinitic languages, except for the use of kanji in some nouns. It's like the use of loan word "cup" or "hamburger" in Mandarin. Just because Mandarin has foreign loan words doesn't make it a relative of English.

they told me they have to learn Chinese

No one learns Chinese in Korean school, except as an elective foreign language in high school where one can choose among several. Interestingly, Arabic is popular because the Arabic language test is ridiculously easy in college entrance exam.

I guess maybe some similarities are there between Chinese and original Korean language.

There is zero similarity between Korean and Chinese. Instead, Korean and Japanese grammars are 95% identical and it is possible to learn the other merely by word for word exchange. Likewise, Koreans and Japanese learn Mongolian easily and vise versa.

 

[eddieInUK]

There is zero similarity between Korean and Chinese. Instead, Korean and Japanese grammars are 95% identical and it is possible to learn the other merely by word for word exchange. Likewise, Koreans and Japanese learn Mongolian easily and vise versa.

Thanks for your information, things have changed a lot. Mongolians use russia letter now. Just some Koreans told me what I stated, I am not aware of the real reason behind it.

 

[eddieInUK]

Also some information from Wiki talking about Chinese and Japanese.

The Japanese language is written with a combination of three scripts: Chinese characters called kanji (漢字?), and two syllabic (or moraic) scripts made of modified Chinese characters, hiragana (ひらがな or 平仮名?) and katakana (カタカナ or 片仮名?). The Latin script is also often used in modern Japanese, especially for company names and logos, advertising, and when entering Japanese text into a computer. Arabic numerals are generally used for numbers, but traditional Sino-Japanese numerals are also commonplace (see Japanese numerals).

Although Japanese is written using Chinese characters, and has historically imported many words of Chinese origin, the two languages are not considered to have a genealogical relationship.
From Japanese language - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Korean]

Thanks for your information, things have changed a lot. Mongolians use russia letter now.

What I am talking about is learning the spoken language. If you can speak the language, mastering the written form is not hard as long as it is using some kind of phonetic alphabet and not Hanzi.

Koreans/Japanese can pick up Mongolian easier than Mongolians picking up Korean/Japanese as Mongolian doesn't have complex honorific system, but only a slight additional difficulty. For Koreans/Japanese/Mongolians/Turks, picking up Mandarin is a nightmare, not because grammar is hard but tones are impossible to master as an adult. Altaic people are genetically "tone-deaf" and cannot pick up different tones easily. Written form of Chinese have very simple grammar even if it has thousands of characters and this is the reason it has been used widely in the past, before the introduction of alphabet systems upon which they ditched Hanzi with the exception of Japanese.

 

[Juice]

Movies about the latest "glorious five year plan" aren't a hit on the international scene...who woulda guessed? (not a fan of martial arts flicks, but saw a couple of decent Chinese films....but lost some impact because the CCP didn't wanna look too bad. One had scenes from the cultural revolution...but instead of hunger the director showed everyone eating like pigs...perhaps an underhanded jibe that the locals would get)

 

[theniubt]

LOL, a bunch of mainlanders in a desperate denial of the truth!

Don't get mad just because you found out how silly you were by arguing that "中文" only stands for Chinese characters, but not language

You mainlanders don't understand that foreigners do not find the Chinese explanation on anything to be credible at all, and you are the examples of why that is.

This is exactly what happens when you can't accept the truth, generalizing crap then vent is not going to help

And all of the sudden, mainlander explanations became not credible at all to foreigners according to a Korean.

According to your logic, Taiwan has already declared independence for a long time, if the UN were to treat mainlanders' explanations as a joke

 

[JSCh]

Both Korean and Japanese culture are strongly influenced by Chinese culture. Traditionally, Chinese language/character are revered as a language that is exclusively used by learned person much like the status what Latin/Greek language enjoyed in the west.
How did China projected her soft power to this two nations? Not similar to gangnam style I hope.

 

[Obambam]

中文 = Chinese characters, not languages.

Wrong.

中文字 = Chinese characters.
中文 = Chinese, referring to the language.

中文 can be used in various of ways:

看中文 = Read Chinese
說中文 = Speak Chinese (It does not mean "speak Chinese characters")
寫中文 = Write Chinese
唱中文 = Sing Chinese (It does not mean "sing Chinese characters")

In your case, you need to:

學中文 = Learn Chinese.

Just because two languages use same writing system doesn't mean they are same languages

I hope you don't get "dialect" and "accent" mixed up in a blender now.

LOL, a bunch of mainlanders in a desperate denial of the truth!

Keep spinning and don't trip over

 

[Plexyre]

Japanese language is completely different from Sinitic languages, except for the use of kanji in some nouns. It's like the use of loan word "cup" or "hamburger" in Mandarin. Just because Mandarin has foreign loan words doesn't make it a relative of English.

There is zero similarity between Korean and Chinese. Instead, Korean and Japanese grammars are 95% identical and it is possible to learn the other merely by word for word exchange. Likewise, Koreans and Japanese learn Mongolian easily and vise versa.

While it's true that Japanese and Korean languages are not Sinitic, they are Sinoxenic, a lot of the vocabulary is similar. Yeah I know, it must hurt for you to know the truth

Sino-Xenic - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

What I am talking about is learning the spoken language. If you can speak the language, mastering the written form is not hard as long as it is using some kind of phonetic alphabet and not Hanzi.

Koreans/Japanese can pick up Mongolian easier than Mongolians picking up Korean/Japanese as Mongolian doesn't have complex honorific system, but only a slight additional difficulty. For Koreans/Japanese/Mongolians/Turks, picking up Mandarin is a nightmare, not because grammar is hard but tones are impossible to master as an adult. Altaic people are genetically "tone-deaf" and cannot pick up different tones easily. Written form of Chinese have very simple grammar even if it has thousands of characters and this is the reason it has been used widely in the past, before the introduction of alphabet systems upon which they ditched Hanzi with the exception of Japanese.

Now where did you get that idea?

Japanese language uses a pitch accent system. In fact even Korean language uses it, albeit to a limited extent.

Pitch accent - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

With regards to phonetics, mainland China has pinyin as an aid for learning hanzi while Taiwan has bopomofo.

 

[Developereo]

Movies about the latest "glorious five year plan" aren't a hit on the international scene...who woulda guessed? (not a fan of martial arts flicks, but saw a couple of decent Chinese films....but lost some impact because the CCP didn't wanna look too bad. One had scenes from the cultural revolution...but instead of hunger the director showed everyone eating like pigs...perhaps an underhanded jibe that the locals would get)

Chinese cinema actually makes some excellent movies. I recently saw Aftershock (2010) - IMDb which is a Terms of Endearment type of chick flick, but also weaves in a bit of Chinese history and culture. Movies like that go beyond the stereotypical martial arts genre and should appeal to a wider audience.

 

[eddieInUK]

What I am talking about is learning the spoken language. If you can speak the language, mastering the written form is not hard as long as it is using some kind of phonetic alphabet and not Hanzi.

Koreans/Japanese can pick up Mongolian easier than Mongolians picking up Korean/Japanese as Mongolian doesn't have complex honorific system, but only a slight additional difficulty. For Koreans/Japanese/Mongolians/Turks, picking up Mandarin is a nightmare, not because grammar is hard but tones are impossible to master as an adult. Altaic people are genetically "tone-deaf" and cannot pick up different tones easily. Written form of Chinese have very simple grammar even if it has thousands of characters and this is the reason it has been used widely in the past, before the introduction of alphabet systems upon which they ditched Hanzi with the exception of Japanese.

We have more than 100 languages in China, and nobody's mother tongue is Mandarin. But all the languages are based on Hanzi, are there different Korean language within Korean ?