Comments on: Chinese is fascinating and exciting, not weird and stupid

By: Olle Linge

Olle Linge — Sun, 24 Mar 2024 15:50:46 +0000

In reply to Ciprian.

The whole point is that all languages can be fascinating and exciting, or weird and stupid, depending on your perspective. You only think Romanian is reasonable because it’s your native language; Chinese people who learn Romanian surely have at least as many things to grip about, just like you do with tones in Mandarin.

For the record, there’s no reason to believe that Mandardin would harder to communicate in if you have a cold compared to other languages. And no, native speakers of Mandarin do not need subtitles to understand their own language on TV. There are many reasons news broadcasts typically have subtitles, but that’s not one of them. You have to remember that only a minority of Chinese people speak Mandarin as their first language.

By: Ciprian

Ciprian — Sun, 24 Mar 2024 12:36:08 +0000

no. my language does not have stupid things. a ton of homonymes homophones and the tones make chinesse stupid. Tones exist for showing emotional charge not changing the meaning of the word. You are strangled or got a cold? good luck communicating in chinesse or japanesse. I am romanian btw. Consider spoken chinesse is so hard chinesse people need subtitles.

By: Training your Chinese teacher, part 1: Introduction - Hacking Chinese

Training your Chinese teacher, part 1: Introduction - Hacking Chinese — Mon, 03 Oct 2022 12:35:05 +0000

[…] enjoyable and effective. Embrace the oddities in the Chinese language; don’t reject them. Chinese is fascinating and exciting, not weird and stupid. When your teacher gives you feedback, be grateful; it’s one of the most useful things you […]

By: Kunal

Kunal — Mon, 22 Nov 2021 07:06:57 +0000

I come from India. Trust me hindi, devnagri, bengali , marathi or any of the languages originated from Sanskrit is scientific, logical and makes complete sense. To know the complete language all you need to know is the alphabets and phonetics of albhabets, that is it, rest everything follows. There are not even pronunciation related mess like the English language.
The more you will know about the logical integrity of Sanskrit the more you get in awe of it. It is limitless.
There are so many things other important to do in life. I wonder why somebody has to stick to a languages which have no logical foundation (including English) and waste precious hours of life.
I understand that there is a legacy associated with a language. But it is equally important to understand the need of time, the age and language is an outcome of human consciousness. So language must evolve with time and it is imperative to get into choices if it leaves us to spend more time in other important things in life.
These are my personal views , not to be taken offensively.

By: Olle Linge

Olle Linge — Mon, 12 Oct 2020 12:51:40 +0000

In reply to Andrew1267. I included this in the new, updated version of the article! :)

By: Kaohongshu

Kaohongshu — Thu, 30 Apr 2020 12:23:28 +0000

“It’s not that your learning becomes more efficient, but that students with a positive attitude are more likely to expose themselves to the language and engage with it, which in turn certainly does lead to improved proficiency.” I strongly agree. I noticed that people who identify themselves with the culture at some level, tend to be more motivated on the long-term. I once taught someone who needed the language skills for his management job. He neither liked that job nor the company he worked for, he also had his problems with the culture that he associated with the language, so to no one’s suprise he started missing classes and never got very far.

By: Del Rey

Del Rey — Wed, 29 Apr 2020 05:30:31 +0000

Thanks Olle, that was just the pep talk I needed. I was feeling so discouraged this week and my “shine” was plumb wore out. Thanks for reminding me of the things I find so interesting about trying to understand and remember Chinese characters.

By: Andrew1267

Andrew1267 — Sat, 18 May 2019 12:38:50 +0000

It’s so true that every language can be weird and stupid sometimes! People start to understand that about their mother tongues too when they start learning foreign languages.

For those who is interested in learning more about how strange English could be sometimes, I highly recommend a book called “Crazy English” by Richard Lederer.

A couple citations:

“There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren’t invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat.”

“How can a “slim chance” and a “fat chance” be the same, while a “wise man” and “wise guy” are opposites? How can overlook and oversee be opposites, while “quite a lot” and “quite a few” are alike? How can the weather be “hot as hell” one day and “cold as hell” another?”

By: Ryan

Ryan — Sat, 05 Jan 2019 03:16:57 +0000

My girlfriend is Chinese (but incredibly good at English) but the one place she does mess up is uncountable nouns and I can never actually explain when to use either (she wants to refer to the shade in a forest as shades, listen to music vs musics, …). Learning Chinese has made me enjoy pointing out what stupid rules we have in English

By: Fen Ma

Fen Ma — Sat, 10 Nov 2018 17:51:23 +0000

This is the only article mentioning measure words (or classifier). Some books recommend to learn nouns with their measure word. Sounds reasonable, but even most of this books don’t give the nouns with their measure words or they are only on a beginner level. I didn’t find an online list nouns with correct measure word, so I have to follow a role or find it in context. Do you now a source of such a list?
Is it even your recommendation to learn this pairs, or is it better to stick with ge 个 and the rules, until one knows better?