Which way is it better to write in Chinese? Chinese charaters or pinyin?

[Superboy]

And with a space between words or without a space between words? Currently with Chinese characters there is no space between words. With pinyin there are spaces between words.

2D writing with characters http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_character

1D writing with alphabet letters http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin

 

[Chinese-Dragon]

Chinese characters are obviously better than Pinyin.

If I wrote "Kaihuo" how would you know I was asking you to open fire or start serving meals?

The tones are the same for both.

 

[Superboy]

Chinese characters are obviously better than Pinyin.

If I wrote "Kaihuo" how would you know I was asking you to open fire or start serving meals?

The tones are the same for both.

with context of course

 

[tranquilium]

with context of course

Funny story, the current Korean language is essentially Pinyin style sound symbol used to replace the original Chinese characters. It run into some problems since too many words have identical sound. Depending on context is fine if only a few occasion calls for it, but if you replace the Chinese characters with Pinyin you are gonna have to use quite a lot of content just achieve the same thing as before.

 

[Superboy]

How about mixing and mashing Chinese characters and pinyin in writing? Seems pretty cool to me.

 

[armchairPrivate]

Godforbid no pinyin.

If pinyin is used, Chinese will lose one of the four treasures - Calligraphy.

Plus who wants to go the Korean's route having to write Chinese characters in brackets to make clear what they were trying to say?

 

[Chinese-Dragon]

with context of course

Context is important, no doubt.

But with writing, you want something to stand on its own and be understood just by itself.

Even if there is no context available.

With characters, it is very easy to see the difference.

 

[Chinese-Dragon]

How about mixing and mashing Chinese characters and pinyin in writing? Seems pretty cool to me.

Why would you write the Pinyin instead of any specific characters?

There is no reason to do so. You just end up with less information and more doubt, whereas you could just write the character and be certain.

 

[Edison Chen]

such a stuipd thread.

脑残吧。

 

[StarCraft_ZT]

There are different Chinese characters with different meaning only with same Pinyin spells.

Why would you suggest we use Pinyin?!!! Hanzi is our most valuable culture!!

 

[Arya Desa]

Write Chinese in Devanagari. That will really screw with everyone.

 

[Tractor]

Seriously this is a good question.I pefer Pinyin but unfortunatelly it is illegal to use it in common communication.
Even simplified Chinese charactors are too difficult to write and in good shape for the strokes in random directions with regulation complicated.

 

[armchairPrivate]

*** I wouldn't know what the hack you were talking about if you wrote in pinyin.

 

[Tractor]

Nǐ yīnggāi zhīdào wǒzài shuō shénme.

 

[tranquilium]

How about mixing and mashing Chinese characters and pinyin in writing? Seems pretty cool to me.

Then you would essentially have Japanese. However, the Japanese people usually stick with Kanji (which are basically adopted Chinese characters), especially when they need precise wording, such as scientific terms.

As far as a language goes, Chinese is very good at expressing concise and clear ideas. The way the characters and sounds can be combined also means you have a powerful language for literature and poems. Personally, I think the main draw back of Chinese is that it is more difficult to learn than most of the language.