Comments on: Sound off: The Language http://www.sinoglot.com/bjs/2009/05/sound-off-the-language/?&owa_medium=feed&owa_sid= Home of the Beijing Sounds Studios: productions mostly of language through foreign ears Thu, 10 Nov 2011 12:08:32 -0800 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: Pinyin news » simplified vs. traditional characters http://www.sinoglot.com/bjs/2009/05/sound-off-the-language/comment-page-1/#comment-22847 Pinyin news » simplified vs. traditional characters Thu, 21 May 2009 07:41:02 +0000 http://www.bjshengr.com/bjs/?p=635#comment-22847 [...] predictably, waaaay off-target. I’ve been trying to ignore them for the most part and not jump up and down while shouting irate things about this. But, still, the topic deserves some [...] [...] predictably, waaaay off-target. I’ve been trying to ignore them for the most part and not jump up and down while shouting irate things about this. But, still, the topic deserves some [...]

]]> By: syz http://www.sinoglot.com/bjs/2009/05/sound-off-the-language/comment-page-1/#comment-21718 syz Sun, 10 May 2009 01:42:07 +0000 http://www.bjshengr.com/bjs/?p=635#comment-21718 Zev, good to have you drop by. I was hoping one of the lead hanzi proselytes (to carry on the metaphor) would enter the fray. One thing we can fully agree on: no writing system should be designed to serve the needs of second language learners. But when you say <blockquote>learning to become literate in Chinese or Japanese is difficult and time-consuming for second-language learners </blockquote> it seems to imply that it is NOT difficult and time-consuming for first language learners. You can tell me if that's not what you meant. If it is, then we could have a more rambunctious disagreement. I'd hazard a guess that it takes three times as long (just for argument's sake) as English, which is already an enormously imperfect system. Someone has probably already tried to study this, I'm sure. And it's a very messy problem, but I'm sure you could turn it into a testable hypothesis. [Not to belabor the obvious, but just to avoid confusion for the record: this post was not intended to be an anti-hanzi screed but merely to lament a state of linguistic knowledge in which "experts" talk about writing systems and language as if they are one in the same] Zev, good to have you drop by. I was hoping one of the lead hanzi proselytes (to carry on the metaphor) would enter the fray.

One thing we can fully agree on: no writing system should be designed to serve the needs of second language learners. But when you say

learning to become literate in Chinese or Japanese is difficult and time-consuming for second-language learners

it seems to imply that it is NOT difficult and time-consuming for first language learners. You can tell me if that’s not what you meant. If it is, then we could have a more rambunctious disagreement. I’d hazard a guess that it takes three times as long (just for argument’s sake) as English, which is already an enormously imperfect system. Someone has probably already tried to study this, I’m sure. And it’s a very messy problem, but I’m sure you could turn it into a testable hypothesis.

[Not to belabor the obvious, but just to avoid confusion for the record: this post was not intended to be an anti-hanzi screed but merely to lament a state of linguistic knowledge in which "experts" talk about writing systems and language as if they are one in the same]

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