What a splendid thread. Mightygoobi and Zydor, you are among the most articulate posters I have seen on the net; thank you both for filling a few quiet minutes at work with a great deal of pleasure.

I feel compelled to speak a word or two in defence of the Magna Carta. 13th century England was NOT a '和谐社会'！ Similarly, the status of Jewish people in Europe was complex, as owing to the Christian prohibition on moneylending at high interest ('usury') they were the only major source of credit and thus were both vital and unpopular at the same time. Song nobles and bureaucrat-gentry were, I suspect, every bit as likely as their English counterparts to demand forgiveness of their loans. Note also the "Debts owed to persons other than Jews are to be dealt with similarly" that someone sneaked in at the end of that clause.

The point is, perhaps, that equal opportunities policies were still some eight hundred years down a line of political thought that MC can be said to have started, or at least significantly to have developed.

Anyway, Mightygoobi, being totally frank I'm amazed. Having lived and worked in Beijing, and being pretty well acquainted with its academic and professional worlds, I do not often see a native Chinese speaker with your fluency of argument in written English. Of two dozen or more Chinese colleagues in the law firms I've worked in over the years, each a graduate of at least Bei Da/Qinghua/Zheng Fa and often also of at least a Masters' program overseas, yours is the best by quite a clear distance. I may be waiting a while before my Chinese friends quote Magna Carta at me!

Grateful thanks for that, I never realised China had a Constitution, of any nature. To a degree its content is not relevant - initially. Its importance lay in the fact that it exists, and therefore is able - at some point in time - to be challenged. It seems from what you are saying, the latter process has started, albeit with some difficulty, but it has started ..... I believe in the concept that the "glass is half full", not "the glass is half empty"



Well said, we dont live in Utopia where wishing something to be true makes it suddenly happen, however "Noble" or "Just" the cause. Real life has a nasty habit of getting in the way of such Grand Schemes.



Thats one of the baaaaad things of those times. There was Huge prejudice against the Jews at that time, some would say there still is .... They had no homeland nor even remotely viewed as entitled to one (end result a few hudred years later you are aware of, but that's for another thread me thinks ;)). Many people at the time viewed them as a collection of religious individuals who had the reputation of being good at financial matters. Arabs were viewed as great horse riders, Jews as Bankers and Lenders, English Aristocracy had castles, Attila The Hun had Zillions of Horses ..... it was "the way it was", silly though it seems by today's standards.

There in lay the problem, "viewed as Bankers and Lenders", not a popular collection of people if you owed money and could not pay it back. Also not popular as they were perceived as getting "rich" off other peoples money. The end result of all that prejudice ended up being expressed in the Magna Carta as an attempt to get balance back into the way people dealt with the Jews. Not surprisingly, that aspect of the document failed miserably in its long term goals.



Many in "The West" could learn much from that one ..... we do have a habit of wanting instant change, in place "by yesterday". The latter is one of the penalties of free speech; the ability to express a view no matter its foundation good or bad, and no matter is practicality good or bad. I never want to let go free speech - that's for sure - but I sometimes wonder if we could "massage" that a bit with some the daft decisions that come out.

But its all part of life's sweet pattern

I've noted the reports of the floods you are getting - my sympathies - that's a real kick in the teeth after what you guys have been through. ....

Regards
Zy

Tell them you know of a great guy in Beijing who could Manage a knock out Field Office for them

Regards
Zy

Re: Articles regarding Jewish people in the Magna Carta

Thank you to Arbitrator and Zydor for clarfying this for me. I found it odd for a few reasons - why was there this special thing about Jewish people at all in a document about government? And why was it not very nice to Jewish people? You've helped me understand this a lot.

Another thing that is odd to me is the part that Arbitrator cited : "Debts owed to persons other than Jews are to be dealt with similarly" . Doesn't that mean these articles apply to everyone and not just Jews? Seems a strange way to describing it. e.g. All blue beans must be put in the cup. All other beans must also be put in the cup. Why highlight the thing about blue beans at all?

Anyway - back to China

Arbitrator said:



You are kind Arbitrator - and I think you praise me a bit too highly I just put quote marks around a link that Zydor sent... not quite the same as ACTUALLY understanding the Magna Carta.

Though you do raise an issue that is on my heart - the need for us to improve our English. Many Chinese post regularly on our own Chinese forums and BBS that western media is biased against China, what human rights have we destroyed today, who died in Tian Men Square etc. Whether media is biased or has an agenda is one issue (and an issue which Zydor has written some powerful point).

Another issue is for why we write about these things? If it is to relieve inner frustration and tell other Chinese about what's said about us in overseas media, I suppose writing in a local forum is ok. But if the reason is to change overseas perceptions, then writing in Chinese in a Chinese forum is not helpful. No one really from outside China is going to go to a Chinese BBS to read what Chinese people are saying in Chinese.

So why don't we post in international forum? I imagine most of stardock posters are regulars elsewhere. How many Chinese regular posters do you know? Almost none I think.

I've see Chinese posters say "they won't listen so it is useless". Maybe - but if we don't talk, there is no one to listen to.

In my thinking, I believe the deeper reason is that we don't debate well in English. Frequently, if a Chinese person dares to posts something positive of China in any international forum, there will immediately be 10 very passionate postings saying Tian An Men, Free Tibet, Democracy and Human Rights. And one or two 'die you nazi communist Chinese bastard' (and that's only the polite words). The Chinese person is stuck because we don't know what to reply in English. We are insulted, frustrated, angry, upset - and respond in unhelpful ways. The thread becomes angry. And China has a bad name.

To be honest, I have often been one that responded in unhelpful ways in the past. And slowly, I am trying to change in a way that I hope is helpful.

I agree with you completely that even our top graduates from top Universities in fancy law firms are not able to debate strongly in English. It doesn't matter how brilliant you are, if you can't speak the world common language, then you are immediately behind.

I have never met, nor probably will ever meet Zydor or Ghostwes or Spacepony. And purely on the basis of the words they write, I think they are very intelligent, articulate and well-versed people. Even when I don't agree - I am impressed and might even change my mind. Killa_Chain shows that people from Asian countries can learn English well with powerful meanings and thoughtful and conscise words.

I see the improvement of English right now as a BIG key in us getting better name. Not just the elite professors at Universities or big bosses of companies. I mean ordinary netpersons, people that post on forums. We talk so much. We write so much. We say so much. But until we do it in English, we are a voice with no audience.

Theazninvasion68 said:



Thank you for your post azninvasion68. I believe that being ABC is both wonderful and challenging. I have a close Canadian Chinese friend who explains that it is great to be able to have 2 birthday's every year and celebrate Happy New Year twice a year. He also says it's frustrating always having to answer the question "if Canada and China went to war, who would you fight for".

The way I see it, you are blessed by being home to two cultures.

Nequa said:



Hi Nequa. You asked this question a while back and I missed it. I'm afraid I can not help much though - never been to the Gobi dessert. I know there is a big tree planting campaign going out there to stop the growing of the sand - but other than that, I don't know anything about it. As you say, it's a dessert... I'm sure it is very hot

mightygoobi

good to see you on here again. the news here about the aftermath of the earthquate has stopped... I am sure however that it is still very big news there... How are things going? is there anything that you folks in china feel we outsiders might be able to do to help that we are not yet doing?

I may be on the other side of the worlfd and we always have our differences with china but one thing that is something we like to call an "american Value" is that we always seem to want to be the ones who help the most... Not that we do, we just like to try...

and again... good to see you on here.

Spacepony said:



There is 24 hour coverage of the earthquake here. As Zydor mentioned, we've now got a lot of rain. I like the phrase "kick in the teeth" - it really feels like such a terrible run of events in a row. From the snow storms last year, to the torch relay incidents, to the earthquake and now the flooding and typhoons. I am waiting for the plagues of locusts, frogs and snakes... I believe they come next (although my bible studies is poor... all I know is when the death angel comes I should have lots of goat blood ready).

I am not an expert on how else to help disaster. But your warm words are comfort to me. And I thank you for your thoughtful.



I know the big government officials are always talking about 'tension' and 'competition'. But at a grass shoots level, I think most Chinese people think America is pretty ok. Your red cross has helped a lot with the earthquake for example. We all want to go to your Universities. The US dollar is much more flexible than the Chinese RMB. You have exciting, charismatic political leaders. Your values, though sometimes different to ours, are generally things we think are good and make sense to America.

We get frustrated and upset by criticism - especially when I feel that many of which is written about China are different from my reality. In my work, I often greet foreign friends who come to China for the first time and keep telling me that China is not what they were expecting. It is not surprising to me to hear these words.

But despite some difference, you'll find few Chinese people who would turn down the opportunity to go to America for a visit or an education or simply to learn and share.

A sideways point - there is some very strong words in the 'Should America bomb Iran' thread. I stayed out of it - I don't know enough about America or Iran to comment.

As to the Chinese media position on America and middle east issues, the way I read it, China did not support the Iraq regime change. We said we're not going in with you, and we can not and will not stop you. But, to my understanding, we don't seem to criticise you much either. So it's a 'gentle' opposition.

Occasionally, we will see a story of bombs and soldier deaths. I remember the burning of some soldier bodies and dragging in the streets about a year ago. It was really awful. But the stories of 'America did it for the oil'. 'Dick Cheney is making money with Halliburton'. 'Extraordinary rendition, water board and guantanamo bay' very rarely enter our media at all. I need to read international press to get that. So some of what I read in that thread was big news to me. From the diversity of opinions and contributions, I presume this news is very big in other parts of the world.

So this might be part of the reason why we... well, at least I, react badly to criticism of China - because to me, we don't seem to criticise or report the bad things of other countries so much. In Chinese media, I find it easier to find that Goldman Sachs is booming than Citibank is shedding jobs. Or that Obama and Hillary are friends than Nader talking about Obama talking white. Or the advances being made in Iraq rather than the negatives. Zydor made a point that I find myself more and more agreement - that perhaps 'the West' is not quite as good as we sometimes think it is.

And even so, I think we could follow many of the good things you do (and I hope that eventually, America might look beyond our many negatives and also see our many good things).

Perhaps I'm just reading the wrong news. Arbitrator, Gallant Dragon and other's living in China... please feel free to tell me I'm reading the wrong papers.

The reason goes back to the basic situation, there was extreme prejudice against the Jews due to the (grossly unfair) perception that "all Jews are money grabbing people who dont care". Easy to see how that started when most peoples contact (as such) was when they were in debt, so they lashed out at the Jews. The Magna Carta tried to bring balance back into the equation by explicitly saying "no-one is different, others whoi are non-Jewish lend money, they will also be subject to the same rules". Common sense these days of course, but back then such was the feeling on this issue, they had to be real clear else the non-Jews would think "well they dont apply to me of course because I am not one of THEM". Its the kind of thinking that today would get into some serious hassles both inside and outside the Law.



Absolutely - and the worse form of Communication for expressing feelings, intentions, opinions and the like, is the written word. We miss out on the eye to eye contact, tone in the voices, appearance of confidence, body language etc etc - all the things that tell us about who is talking. End result is often a total misconception and mis-understanding.

I've always believed that the communication issue above is key to resolving many many disputes. Its Human Nature to base one's views on our own personal knowledge. Later we then come across someone who has a completely different view, based on their experiences, and the "fun" can start ..... I have often found myself living in ignorance of various facts that could have made my life simpler. The only way to discover those is to Communicate .....

I have had misconceptions about China, and learnt much on this thread. We all base our opinions on what we see, hear, feel, touch, experience. At times it therefore seems inconceivable - even with the most serious and calm thought - that we could be wrong. Often resulting in thoughts like "thats silly, its simple, all you have to do is ...... ". To quote an extreme to illustrate, that reaction is likely with computers, its easy to over simplify (not a bad thing in itself), and we then draw the wrong conclusions on cause and effect because we dont have the depth of knowledge of - say - a hardware technician.

Human Beings draw conclusions on what they "know", the problem with that is we cant know everything - the end result is "enlightenment" as we learn, or a slugging match as we refuse to listen and live in denial because the reality we have just discovered zapped a large part of our core beliefs - and the latter is a hard pill to swallow for many people.

All that is I believe at the Core of many arguments between not only people, but as you point out, between Cultures - each is "arguing" from their perception and belief they are "right". The truth is often that both are "wrong". I sometimes feel that if we could get rid of excess ego from Human Beings, life would be much simpler...


Thats a good way to approach a solution. People get too Jingoistic, and blind to the fact that perhaps they dont have all the solutions, and perhaps it really is the case that others just might have some good ideas..... Open minded thinking would solve many many problems.

Lets start a new campaign - mightygoobi for Party Chairman

Then there would a chance we just might start talking to each other - instead of yelling suspiciously about each other ....

Regards
Zy

I secound the motion... Mightygoobi for Chairman!

Oh lord, I hope that the Committe on unamerican activities dosnt get ahold of that remark... I might not be able to work in Hollywood for the next fifty years... Ah, salt of the earth.

Been thinking re the whole perception "thing" and the knock on effects it has re "East V West". I come across the basic principle behind the issue of Perception many many times in my work as a Business Coach (thats helping business owners to understand the real fundamental concepts of business, and how they can apply that to their own business to make more money and get more free time in their personal lives).

As you can probably imagine, push backs on Business Coaching are common along the lines of "I've been in business for over 20 years, what can you tell me about how I run MY business" - usually said through clenched teeth and a frothing mouth

My favourite way of getting across the point without upsetting people even more - easy to do when they are already of the mindset I am just "on the make" - is relate the tale of the Orange.

What are the reasons most of us use selecting an orange at the grocers, and finally get us to buy? Most people will answer that the most important aspect is the look and feel of the skin, in particular a good deep colour of orange in the way it looks. Few will pick up a pale dull yellow coloured orange, the brighter and deeper the colour of the orange, the happier they are.

Few even today, realise that the colour of an orange is totally irrelevant, as its not their natural colour. On orange's natural colour is in fact green, go find a picture of an orange grove - they are all green, and not because they have not yet ripened. The fruit, Orange, has a natural colour of green, Period, end of story.

Try selling green oranges and see what happens..... but that is their natural colour. What's happened is that over the Centuries, people have realised that if it looks bright and cheerful, things sell better. Pale insipid green does not exactly look great. So they use food dyes or chemical dyes (depending on where they are in the world) to artificially colour the orange's skin, to what we see in the shops.

Yet most of us will swear on our grandmother's grave that "of course an orange is coloured orange, dont be silly" .....

Perception is all, and in communication an open minded mindset is critical if we are ever going to be able to understand each other and improve our lives. Just because we believe something is "so", does not mean it always is. A pause for thought, or time out to check out the validity of opposing opinions, is always a good, if not vital thing in enhancing all our lives.

Regards
Zy

The tale may be helpful in your work, but the oranges we know and love (some hybrids in use today date back largely unchanged more than 500 years) most certainly gain their orange color naturally on the tree

The most common orange in the US is the Valencia orange.

As Valencias oranges ripen on the tree they will first turn a yellow-orange color and then regain a green tinge near the stem end of the fruit, resulting from chlorophyll returning to the peel. This "regreening" of the orange is not a sign of immaturity or considered a blemish on the skin. Florida and Texas growers will sometimes use a dye to enhance the appearance of their fruit in the marketplace. All fruit treated with dye will be stamped "color added" to notify people with food allergies that dye has been added to the fruit.

Other orange types do have an "orange" skin, many do not. There are even "white" oranges, which are treated with food dyes. In the Mediterranean countries, a common type of orange that is grown, has a green skin - until they Dye it. So yes, there are some types that are "orange", there are also many that are green, red, white etc. What is very common in the "orange" world is food dyes so they are presented with a common image no matter the variety that is grown.

Ring any Orange grower in Florida or Texas. The belief that all oranges are "orange" in their natural state is far from the truth. The widespread use of food dyes in the industry makes it a fallacy to judge an orange purely by skin colour, the use of dyes is so widespread and has been for a long time.

Regards
Zy

Turning a bit green at the top (the occurrence of which varies by climate, and seems to only apply to Valencias among the 'standard' orange varieties) is a far cry from being entirely green then painted orange. Moreover, dying was stopped by the FDA in 1955--orange producers now just expose the fruits to ethylene, which is the industrial equivalent of putting bananas in a paper bag.

Zydor said:



Spacepony said:



ssssshhhhhh! Spacepony, you think YOUR going to have problems getting a job in Hollywood? How hard will it be for me to be Party Chairman now that two Americans are supporting me? I'm sure the secret agents hiding in my toilet will be reporting me immediately There disappears my dream of joining the government

  

On a more serious note, some details about our government (I'm very interested in politics so these things fascinated me. I'll be seeing a doctor to get my brain checked.)

1. Actually, we don't have a 'chairman of the communist party' any more. We removed that title in 1982.

2. The 'boss of China' has three titles. He (at the moment, it's only been men) is the:

i) Chairman (usually translated in English as the President) of the People's Republic of China (big boss of the country)
ii) General Secretary of the Communist Party (big boss of the Communist Party)
iii) Chairman of the Central Military Commission (big boss of the military).

I think this is very similar to America right? The President of the country is automatically the big boss of the leading Party and the big boss of the army right? I am thinking this is similar to the system in everywhere of the world.

Mandarin is usually said to be the hardest language in the world to learn. I think it is hard - but a large reason is that it is very different to English and so English speakers find it hard. I have a guess that Japanese and Korean speakers (whose language is coming from Mandarin) find it easier.

Anyway, taking a break from all the politics for a while, I thought I'd posting some thoughts about our language.

1. Chinese people find many of the English grammar hard. One reason is its very different to ours. We don't have plurals, genders, case or tense like you. We don't have suffix or prefix. We don't have irregular verbs. A couple of examples that always drive us crazy:

i) The most 'classic' verb is the word 'to be'. English has 'to be' which becomes I AM, you ARE, he/she/it IS, we ARE etc.

If something happened yesterday then I WAS, you WERE etc.

If it happened tomorrow, it is I WILL, you WILL etc.

All of this am, are, was, were, will looks VERY different to the original 'to be'.

We have one word for 'to be'. 是。　Whether it is me or you, whether it is one person or two people, whether it is yesterday or tomorrow - it is 是。And every single one of our verbs work like that. So the changing verbs is very hard for us.

ii) In English, if you want to have more than one, you sometimes add 'S' and sometimes add 'IES'. In Chinese, we have no plural form.

iii) In English, there are many suffix and prefix even more normal verbs. I walk, yesterday I walked or was walking, tomorrow I will walk or will be walking. In Mandarin, we have none of those changes. Today I 走, yesterday I 走, tomorrow I 走.

iv) In some of the European languages like German, French, Spanish etc. there is the added complex of every noun having a gender. French, Italian and Spanish have male and female for tables, chairs and banks. German has male and female and neutral for extra fun.

For us, gender means boys and girls - like whether you stand or sit to go to toilet. It's hard to understand why in German an apple is male but a green plant is female. And then working out how the verbs, nouns, adjectives, suffix and prefix all change based on noun gender and timing is dizzy.

zum beispiel:
Heute kaufe ich einen roten Apfel
Gestern kauften Sie eine Grünpflanze

iv) A great bonus of western language is the alphabet - you can just put letters together to make words. It is very practical.

One thing that I miss when using western language is the 'poetry' of the word. We don't have alphabet and that makes our language hard for alphabet used to people. On the other hand, it is beautiful to see how words are made from pictures.

Example:

山　- mountain.
木　－ wood. (it looks a bit like a tree)
森林　－forests (its lots of trees)
大　－ big (its a man standing with his legs split apart)
小　－　small (its a man standing with his hands and feet together)
田　－rice field
力　－strength (with some imagination, you can see a flexed arm with fist pointing down. Ok.. a LOT of imagination)
男　－male (some who uses his strength in the rice field).
女　－female (use your imagination, its a woman crossing her legs, sitting down and carrying a child)
子　－child (this one has changed so much from the original picture, difficult to see history)
好　－good (a woman caring for a child is a very good thing)
安　－peace (a woman under the roof makes for a peaceful place).

I think that's enough for now - going through all 45,000 of our characters might take a bit long time

*Psst* - *looks around furtively* - I'm English.

You know, those guys who let loose a boat load of people 250 years ago to start a new "Colony". We then promptly let go of what turned into, what is arguably, the most powerful Nation seen in the last two Millenium , but I guess we all have our bad days



Interesting, never knew that re Party Chairman, one more thing learnt from the thread. Yup on a wide overview basis, it is similar. The Devil is in the detail as always. I will leave it to our Colonial Cousins to hit the detail, which no doubt is about to come. There are many more key appointees in a Democratic system at the top end of the structure, so influence is more widely spread and not so concentrated in the hands of a few individuals.


Ouch! And I thought as a child it was a pain learning the letters of the English alphabet ...

How is that all taught to a child in the education process in China? From where I sit, learning the use of 45,000 "letters" (acknowledging they are not "letters" in the context of Mandarin) seems the ultimate nightmare for young children. In the same way as its difficult for Chinese to wrap their head around the concepts of 'tense' 'plurals' 'verbs' etc, its hard for me to get into the concept of a language based - essentially- on pictures(?) - if thats the right way to describe it.

Regards
Zy

Ummnot quite. The President is the commander in chief of the Military that is correct. He is not the leader of his party however. When He assumes the role of president he is removed from any position of power within his political party structure. That does not mean that he cannot wield a lot of influence, it just means he has no official power and cannot tell the party what to do about anything.

Remember also that even though he is the commander in Chief of the military it is congress that controls the money, so if we ever really wanted to stop a president from using our military we could cut off the money to the armed forces. also Congress can pass laws that forbid the president from doing certain things, for instance, We could forbid the president from invading a country, at that point our military commanders would, by law, refuse an order from the president that violates the will of congress.

Our military takes an oath to the constitution, not to the President, in fact the oath in part reads that they will follow the LAWFUL orders of their commanders, they have the right and the duty to refuse to follow unlawful orders. Also each branch of the Service has its own commander. And as an additional safety to prevent the misuse of the military each state maintains it's won military (The National Guard). The Guard units answer to the Governors of their respective state. They can be nationalized by the President but only if the governor agrees.
In our History we have had times where the governors have refused to allow the National Guard units to be federalized. I think the last time was back in 1963 or sometime around then.

The President really has very few powers other than commanding the military. He can veto bills passed by congress but congress can overrule his veto if they can muster 67% of each house.

If he causes too much trouble than the House of Representatives can impeach him, if they do, then the Senate will decide one of two things; Either do nothing which is referred to as a censure, it has not effect but to embarrass the President and tell him off, or remove him from office, at which time the Vice President assumes the office of President.

Our Vice president has only two things to do while in office and they are; if the Senate is tied in a vote the vice president will cast the tie breaking vote. If the President dies, the Vice president assumes the office of president.

In the event that the Executive branch and the Legislative branch cant agrees on what is law, then the issue is sent before the Supreme court, The supreme court has the absolute final say on what is or is not legal. The end… If they say you can’t do, you can’t! The only way to change what they say is to make a new law and any law they pass has to conform to the constitution. The court cannot however, impose any ruling, if no one who has a standing on a law challenges a law then it remains law.

This separation of power helps to prevent anyone from becoming too powerful. In The United States we have a saying “The people should not fear the government. The government should however, fear the people”

It is the reason why our second amendment allows firearms for the people and for each state to have its own army. One of our driving principals is to maintain fear, when our government fails to fear us we always end up in trouble.

I would say that is a bit different then in China would you not agree?

Zydor said:



I'm sorry. I'm an idiot. You've mentioned your English many times in this and other threads   (:( 

Here's something I've always thought interesting. To me, the difference between seeing a Chinese, a Japanese and a Korean is extremely obvious. But the difference between an American, an English, a French, a Swedish - though my European friends tell me this is very clear.

Similarly, the Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taiwan accent is almost like night and day to me. But I have very hard to seperate Boston from Bronx or Queen's Oxford from Cockney, although I am told it is too obviously.



Good questions

1. I think there are very few people on the planet who actually know all 45,000 characters of Mandarin. You need 2000 to read a newspaper. I think once you know something like 3500 your considered literate. Everything beyond the 10000 range is rare words like 'the name of the sword used by Prince X when he killed Warlord Y during the Z dynasty' or the 'smell of the favourite form of silk used by the special tailor of XXX province' or the 'chemical compound made from mixing X with Y under deep heat'.

2. It's true that our 'picture' system is very different to the 'alphabet' system. I think this is probably where we find each other's languages so hard to learn. One of the advantages of your system is that each word has more context. If a noun is a plural, I instantly know there are more than one. If a verb is past tense, I know the event happened yesterday. In Chinese, we don't have that context. On the other hand, we find it simpler to just add the word 'yesterday' to convey time meaning or 'two' in front of the noun to convey plural meaning.

3. Although we don't have 'letters', we do have 'radicals' (it's the official English translation... I think it is very odd since radical seems to translate to 'extremism' so I don't know why they chose this). Each character is made up of a series of radicals.

For example, we have the radical called '3 drops of water'. Characters that has something to do with water usually has the radical '3 drops of water'. It's literally three 'dots' on the left, each dot on top of another dot.

River 河
Lake 湖
Ocean 海
Sweat 汗
Tears 泪

Another radical is 'symbol of fire'. It looks like this 火

Roast 烤
Burn 烧

And so on. I'm not sure how many radicals there are - not TOO many... (maybe 60 or 70?) Other radicals include 'sign of the mouth', 'related to animals', 'covered by a roof' and so on.

So when we teach children, we usually teach the very basic characters (big, small, sun, moon etc.) and the very basic radicals (3 drops of water, symbol of fire etc.). One by one, we then add more complicted characters and more complicated radicals. Since most complicated characters are just combinations of basic characters plus basic radicals, you get up to 2000 pretty quickly.

Spacepony:

Thank you - very helpful. The system of separation of powers I think is very interesting and I need to read it more.

I never knew each State had its own army, that is indeed very different to what we have here.

I will take a bit of time to understand your posting more deeply. From your words, the President has a lot less power than I thought which makes me have a lot of questions - and I want to be clear on a few things before I ask them.

Dont give it a second thought, its not an issue - in any case you are far from being an idiot .....

Regards
Zy

mightygoobi,

I will send you some links via your private email so that you can do some research on the subject..

@mightygoobi

Mandarin is the hardest language to learn. I speak mandarin, cantonese (chinese dialect), english and some french. I thought Korean was hard to learn or arabic. I read somewhere as far as for language learning goes, arabic and korean are two languages that people have to spend more classroom hours on in order to obtain fluency. As far as a tonal language goes, mandarin is pretty easy, it has only 4 tones.

There was an interesting historical story about how mandarin became the offical language of china. After the fall of the Qing dynasty, there was a vote to decide which dialects of chinese will be the offical language of the country. To make a long story short, Cantonese as the choice for china national language was lost by one vote to mandarin.

In Cantonese, there are 9 different tones, well 8 tones, plus one half tones. If i were a foreigner, i would not want to learn cantonese in comparison to mandarin, because it is harder. But then, cantonese has more colorful curses and million times more colourful adjectives and slangs. In a nutshell, mandarin is more refine and gentle a language in civilized discourse and conversations.

As far as reading goes, it depends on where you are learning and using your chinese. In Taiwan, and Hong Kong, the amount of characters that one needs to know to be able to read everything and anything is around 4000, but this is becuase the writing system used is the traditional system where as in mainland china, it is only 2500-3000 characters. There is this big debate still about how china should not have screw around with the writing system as in simplifying it. My mainland friends find this debate really weird, outdated and sometime funny. While my Taiwan and some Hong Kong friends finds this issue infuriating.

Why this is..well that is another story all together. I will let someone else to explain this.

Hmm, after reading that post I'm inclined to go learn a little Mandarin, as I know quite a bit of Japanese and a lot of it seems similar (there's limited tonality there too, but the copula, plurals, suffixes, and of course the kanji are all quite alike).

I absolutely love Chinese characters as there's such intuitive and beautiful meanings behind not only the shape of each character but how they compound. Of course, the multiple sounds for each character can be a pain, but it's also kind of neat how you can choose a name from the character and have it pronounced all sorts of different ways, or find a nice pronunciation in the first place and work our its written form.

Carobn016 said:



As I believe, Japanese has three 'alphabets' - one of which is Chinese characters. I also believe that the Koreans once used Chinese characters before they developed their own alphabet. It is interesting to me that we can't talk each other's language, but we can still write to each other.

Elias001 said:



Regarding Korean - since it is a phonetic alphabet, I guessed that it would be similar to learning any of the western languages that follow A B C. Is there a reason it is so hard? As far as I know, they just fit the C, A and T symbols together to make 'cat'. ( I speak no Korean beyond 'kimchi' and 'Grace Park').

Regarding Mandarin is the hardest language to learn. Just query - is it the same for all cultures? Is Mandarin the hardest for 'Asian' cultures as well as 'western' ones? I have no scientific proof, but I just get the feeling that Japanese, Korean people might find Mandarin language easier to learn than German or French language.



Hehe... I'm glad to hear you say it... and I have a feeling that the Hong Kong people might have a different view We in Beijing are forever being told our tongues are too fat when we speak compared to the soft delicate tones of the Hong Kongese.

Also, when it comes to the 'colour curses', I think Hokkien must be close to the trophy. It's quite amazing to have a dialect with so many references to your mothers body, bad smells and interactions between humans and animals.



I wonder - how many English words I need to know to read a newspaper?

Actually, on the interaction between traditional and modern writing style - something interesting from my point of view. Taiwan and Hong Kong use the traditional system of Chinese. Mainland uses the modern form. Since we've been using the modern form for about 2 or 3 generations, our parents / grandparents maybe use modern form. But these days, influence from Taiwan and Hong Kong is large on the young people. I've posted before, our nightclubs, karaoke bars, comic stores, internet cafes are filled with Taiwan hip hop, Hong Kong techno, Hong Kong comics and Taiwan MMPORGs - which all use the traditional form. So the young people are learning a lot of 'traditional' Chinese in order to keep up with the latest dance tracks or play the best computer games. I think we must be one of the few cultures in the world where the young people may even know more 'traditional' words than the older generation

Good question, I've never really thought of it in those terms - I have no idea no doubt there is some esoteric calculation along those lines somewhere, but its purely theoretical as the English language is not constructed from pictures, purely single letters. Although they have changed a lot over time - see the Wiki on the English Alphabet. There are "rules" on how you pronounce the words when speaking, so many will initially be able to pronounce the written words before they know its meaning.

As you indicated we just string together letters from a collection of 26 to form a word. There is no other motivation behind that, no deep meaning, just an accepted collection and order of letters. Its true that many words are a derivative of older words, extracts from other languages (French and Latin for example), but even then the original source had the same logic, just a common accepted order of letters. "Cat" could just as easily have been spelt "Wxk" as weird as that seems now.

There is even a legitimate case for naming a new language "American" as the common use of the original English has changed over time, and many words although spelt the same have different meanings in the UK and the US.

We are often referred to as "Two Countries separated by a Common Language"

Regards
Zy

roughly 2000 words are needed for basic conversation, but once you get into more technical reading the prescribed number goes up quite a bit. For academic fluency in English you need to know about 14,000 words, however, this is for fluency across subjects. If there is a certain subject you are particularly interested in it might behoove you to learn the technical words of that field and just use a good dictionary for the rest