Simplified or Traditional Chinese?

L

Lintuperhonen

New Member
airsuperiority said:
What is the Koine dialect?
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Koiné is an artificial dialect made up by mixing the natural dialects of a language. For example, the standard (Classical) Greek of ancient Greece was a Koiné of the various dialects of the language then spoken. A Chinese Koiné would not be especially hard to learn to any Chinese people, unlike the Standard Mandarin which poses some serious challenges to those who speak Yue, Kejia, Min or Ping as their native languages. The reason for this is that, naturally, the Southernmost Chinese dialects are very different from the Northernmost Chinese dialects on which the Standard language is based.

A Koiné of Chinese dialects would be rather close to the Late Middle Chinese as far as pronounciation is concerned. There would however be some even older structures, as the Min (Hokkien) dialects diverged already during the Old Chinese period. The vocabulary and grammar of a Chinese Koiné would certainly not be as sophisticated as that found in Classical Chinese, but would also be very different from any one of the currently spoken dialects.

Finally, many of the current Simplified Characters would not be ideal for writing the Koiné, as the simplifications in which the phonetic part of the character was changed only reflect the phonology of Standard Mandarin and completely neglect the other dialects and the Historical varieties of Chinese. Therefore, the Simplified Characters would either have to be completely discontinued or be modified to beter reflect the pronunciation of the new Standard language. The worst difficulties for the current Simplified Characters would be with the syllables with voiced initials (preserved in Wu and Old Xiang), entering tone (preserved completely in Yue, Ping, Min, with some reductions in Gan and Kejia and as glottal stop finals in Wu, Jianghuai Mandarin, Jin and Minjiang dialect of Southwestern Mandarin) and final -m (preserved in Yue, Ping, Kejia and some dialects of Gan).
 
N

no_name

Colonel
solarz said:
Chinese writing is an exercise that needs to be maintained with regularity, or you simply forget how to write the words. With the proliferation of electronic input devices, from laptops to tablets and smartphones, people will have less and less need for handwriting.
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That is very true, if you don't write you lose it.

I did first three years of primary in Chinese system, my sister finished first year of intermediate before we moved.
Neither of us can write very much Chinese because there is simply no need and little opportunity to practice.

But it doesn't seem to prevent us from reading though.
I think each character is like a picture, you have to learn to 'draw' each one of them.

It's like how you can remember a picture or the brand of a car when you see it, but won't be able to draw it out of your head.

Adults who has been in society and write often don't have that problem though, neither one of my parents have difficulties writing chinese even though they don't often write it now.
 
Maggern

Maggern

Junior Member
For everyday use simplified. No question. I agree traditional might be more artistic and poetic in calligraphy etc, but simplified is just a lot more tidy and pleasing to the eye. Much more practical if you only want to convey content.

The studies I've read show that the time it takes to learn characters doesn't change either way, but it might take -slightly- longer to actually write traditional. So there's no reason to choose on that basis.

Also, being able to read contemporary Chinese sources are much more important than reading Confucius.
 
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Equation

Equation

Lieutenant General
Either way is fine with me, I need to get back on the saddle when it comes both reading and writing Chinese.
 
SteelBird

SteelBird

Colonel
Equation said:
Either way is fine with me, I need to get back on the saddle when it comes both reading and writing Chinese.
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Since I learnt how to use computer, I type more than write. Nowadays, I really hesitate to write seriously but this doesn't mean that I can type super fast :p.

For Chinese typing, I use Changjie (仓颉), a built-in input method for Traditional Chinese in Microsoft Windows. However, I mostly type Simplified Changjie which needs a third-party plug-in. The input method breaks down a Chinese word into main-part and sub part, then the sub part is further broken down into main and sub part again in which main part takes two strokes (the first and the last strokes) and sub part takes one stroke (the last strokes). So a Chinese word takes 5 strokes at most in Changjie. Mainland Chinese people use Wubi (Five-Strokes) input method. The Wubi takes only 4 strokes to type a word but its analysis is much more complicated and troublesome compared to Changjie. However, it's faster due to the support of phrase-input.
 
A

ahho

Junior Member
Though it is not hard to learn traditional Chinese from simplified or the other way around, I would prefer simplified over traditional Chinese due to the ease of recognition and writing. For sure, traditional Chinese does keep the meaning of the word within the character, but it contains unnecessary amount of strokes for current day usage. Simplified Chinese does not take away the meaning of the words, where scholars supporting traditional Chinese argues about. If you put the word in a sentence and you still don't understand the meaning, it does not matter if the word is simplified or traditional.

As for Mandarin, I would say standard Mandarin pronunciation is better than any dialect including Beijing. Even though there exist different dialect across China. A lot of migrant workers speaks "standard Mandarin" with a little bit or a lot of dialect, but it is understood by everyone that speaks Mandarin. The current generation of students in China are learning to speak standard Mandarin and most of the TV channels and shows use the standard pinyin pronunciation. I do not feel that standard Mandarin is a strip down version of any dialect.

The following may be offensive to Beijing Mandarin speakers. I used to work in a call center and had to use Mandarin on some of my calls. I have to learn from experience that Beijing Mandarin speakers pronounce the number 1 as "yao" instead of the pinyin "yi", which I myself pronounce it pronounce it "yi". One day I got fed up in "correcting myself" because the callers kept pretending to not understand me when I am using standard pronunciation, so I have to speak to them in English letting them and said: "I do apologize but my Mandarin is not good enough, I would need to speak with you in English. If you would prefer, I can transfer you to a proper Mandarin agent and they will be able to assist you" and right after I said that, they miracly understand the number 1 "yi"
 
A

airsuperiority

Captain
ahho said:
Though it is not hard to learn traditional Chinese from simplified or the other way around, I would prefer simplified over traditional Chinese due to the ease of recognition and writing. For sure, traditional Chinese does keep the meaning of the word within the character, but it contains unnecessary amount of strokes for current day usage. Simplified Chinese does not take away the meaning of the words, where scholars supporting traditional Chinese argues about. If you put the word in a sentence and you still don't understand the meaning, it does not matter if the word is simplified or traditional.

As for Mandarin, I would say standard Mandarin pronunciation is better than any dialect including Beijing. Even though there exist different dialect across China. A lot of migrant workers speaks "standard Mandarin" with a little bit or a lot of dialect, but it is understood by everyone that speaks Mandarin. The current generation of students in China are learning to speak standard Mandarin and most of the TV channels and shows use the standard pinyin pronunciation. I do not feel that standard Mandarin is a strip down version of any dialect.

The following may be offensive to Beijing Mandarin speakers. I used to work in a call center and had to use Mandarin on some of my calls. I have to learn from experience that Beijing Mandarin speakers pronounce the number 1 as "yao" instead of the pinyin "yi", which I myself pronounce it pronounce it "yi". One day I got fed up in "correcting myself" because the callers kept pretending to not understand me when I am using standard pronunciation, so I have to speak to them in English letting them and said: "I do apologize but my Mandarin is not good enough, I would need to speak with you in English. If you would prefer, I can transfer you to a proper Mandarin agent and they will be able to assist you" and right after I said that, they miracly understand the number 1 "yi"
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Actually it depends. There are some characters which I recall I have hard time understanding the sentence on, simply because I don't recognize that character. This is especially if the simplified character is a verb, which on itself alone could be sufficient to dictate the entire sentence.

However, I do wonder if Taiwanese, Nanjing, Tianjin, or Shanghai version of speaking Mandarin would resemble closer to the "standard" we are talking about. For one, Beijing's tongue-curling is ridiculous
 
T-U-P

T-U-P

The Punisher
Staff member
Super Moderator
Registered Member
If I have to hand write something, definitely simplified. I'm fine with reading either, although I still lean towards simplified because they look less clustered. This debate really shouldn't have been political at all in the first place, it's just language progression. Even in mainland, people still write traditional if they practice calligraphy, so it's not like traditional is a lost art or anything.

Did I mention the revelation I had back in high school when I finally realized why taiwan people always have pens with very thin tips? (Initially I thought it was a girl's thing) xD xD xD
 
A

airsuperiority

Captain
T-U-P said:
If I have to hand write something, definitely simplified. I'm fine with reading either, although I still lean towards simplified because they look less clustered. This debate really shouldn't have been political at all in the first place, it's just language progression. Even in mainland, people still write traditional if they practice calligraphy, so it's not like traditional is a lost art or anything.

Did I mention the revelation I had back in high school when I finally realized why taiwan people always have pens with very thin tips? (Initially I thought it was a girl's thing) xD xD xD
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The last part is funny lol.
 
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