2000 vs. 26. Which Do You Think Is Easier?
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I first wrote the below as a reply to an ignorant westerner. At some news site, he commented on an article about globalization and language. He argues that English should be the common language for business since Chinese, the second candidate, is too difficult. He says that to read newspapers in Chinese, you need to learn at least 2000 characters and that is too much.
Hold on! 2000 characters as compared with 26 characters, you mean?
How ignorant. I was going to to post a reply, but I didn't. Instead, I will write it here. Most people learning either Japanese or Chinese should know this. Sorry about my rant, if you are offended.
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Chinese characters are more like roots of words. I speak Japanese as my native language and know 5000-6000 Chinese characters since we borrowed the writing system some millennium ago from China. You think thousands of characters are too much for a learner? No. Because once you get a grip of basic 2000 characters, you would automatically be able to understand technical terms that are just combinations of these 2000 characters. That is not the case in English. Science, medical jargon, legal documents,,, all those big words. I probably have memorized more than 12,000 words in English, however, I still have difficulty guessing the meaning of a word that I have never encountered. You need to know some Greek, Latin, French and old English as roots of modern English words. To me, memorizing 2000-3000 characters, each with a basic concept seems far more effective than to learn 10,000 words that are just a random mixture of a bunch of different roots. There are even research papers that state educated young people in English speaking countries have more difficulty to learn technical terms that are afar from their study area than the counterparts in Japan.
I will give you two examples.
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rodents = 齧歯類 (ge-sshi-rui)
'Rodere' in Latin means to gnaw. Thus, they are called rodents. Now, I am going to break down the Japanese counterpart 齧歯類.
齧: to gnaw
歯: teeth
類: type
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Even if you didn't know the word 齧歯類, it's easy to guess what kind of creatures they are. Here's another one.
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osteoporosis = 骨粗鬆症 (kotsu so shou shou)
Break down:
骨: bone
粗: sparse (rude, untidy)
症: symptom
In modern English, this ailment should be called 'sparse-bone-symptom', not osteoporosis, and that is exactly how we call it in Japanese with Chinese characters.
I know that 'poro' has something to do with holes, like 'porous'. And now, checking out 'osti-' and 'oste-' in a dictionary, I learned that these prefixes imply bones, however, neither osti- or oste- are in the basic 2000 English words for learners. Japanese kids learn the character 骨 at age 11. By the time a Japanese native speaker graduates from primary school they should have learned around 1000 characters just like these.
To be honest and fair, I don't know what the hell this 鬆(shou) means. I believe this characters is only used in this word....(Now, I checked it out on the web and leaned that it's actually not so uncommon to use 鬆(su) in cooking. I knew it, sort of...)
We, Japanese, have been losing a lot of Chinese characters for the sake of ease of daily use. We limited the number of characters so everyone could read and understand newspaper. Lately, we tend to write phonetic alphabets named kana instead of Chinese characters where the use of kana seemed completely inappropriate, say 30 years ago. I believe all these effort to alleviate the difficulty in Chinese characters will have a negative impact in the future on the contrary to the intention. Young Japanese kids probably can't read 齧る(かじる: to gnaw) , since we restricted the use of the character 齧. It was a bad decision. Just like westerners might think it's difficult to learn these complicated characters, imprudent authorities have restricted these characters and we almost lost them. There are tons of examples. We could easily understand 齧歯類 once before, but now, we write this word like げっ歯類. Who in the hell could guess the sound げっ means かじる(to gnaw)? On surface, it looks easier to read(pronounce), but we are losing something really essential to the language.
Koreans abandoned Chinese characters altogether, and they also lost a lot of vocabulary used to discuss abstract notions and academic problems. I heard that university students cannot read textbooks well other than those written for their own major due to technical jargon specific to the research area. Those words used to be represented in Chinese characters. Similarly, the Japanese language can't stand still without Chinese characters. To sustain it, we can't simply eliminate Chinese characters. It is too late. Probably 1000 years too late. We had lost Japanese words (和語 wago).
Well, the discussion above does not matter. The fact that very few people from the West have this basic understanding of the characteristics of the Asian character makes me shrug. You could spend a couple hours to read a thin introductory book on either Japanese or Chinese while we spend thousands of hours on English.
This is exactly the reason why you have to "learn" foreign languages and cultures as well before dismissing something foreign to you offhand. 2000 vs 26 characters? If you spouted out this ignorant comparison in front of me, I would be totally disgusted and put a bunch of Chineses character stamps into your mouth to shut you up.
I'm not saying learning 2000 characters is easy. I'm just saying that stating that English is easier just because there are only 26 characters is nonsensical.
Hold on! 2000 characters as compared with 26 characters, you mean?
How ignorant. I was going to to post a reply, but I didn't. Instead, I will write it here. Most people learning either Japanese or Chinese should know this. Sorry about my rant, if you are offended.
---
Chinese characters are more like roots of words. I speak Japanese as my native language and know 5000-6000 Chinese characters since we borrowed the writing system some millennium ago from China. You think thousands of characters are too much for a learner? No. Because once you get a grip of basic 2000 characters, you would automatically be able to understand technical terms that are just combinations of these 2000 characters. That is not the case in English. Science, medical jargon, legal documents,,, all those big words. I probably have memorized more than 12,000 words in English, however, I still have difficulty guessing the meaning of a word that I have never encountered. You need to know some Greek, Latin, French and old English as roots of modern English words. To me, memorizing 2000-3000 characters, each with a basic concept seems far more effective than to learn 10,000 words that are just a random mixture of a bunch of different roots. There are even research papers that state educated young people in English speaking countries have more difficulty to learn technical terms that are afar from their study area than the counterparts in Japan.
I will give you two examples.
---
rodents = 齧歯類 (ge-sshi-rui)
'Rodere' in Latin means to gnaw. Thus, they are called rodents. Now, I am going to break down the Japanese counterpart 齧歯類.
齧: to gnaw
歯: teeth
類: type
---
Even if you didn't know the word 齧歯類, it's easy to guess what kind of creatures they are. Here's another one.
---
osteoporosis = 骨粗鬆症 (kotsu so shou shou)
Break down:
骨: bone
粗: sparse (rude, untidy)
症: symptom
In modern English, this ailment should be called 'sparse-bone-symptom', not osteoporosis, and that is exactly how we call it in Japanese with Chinese characters.
I know that 'poro' has something to do with holes, like 'porous'. And now, checking out 'osti-' and 'oste-' in a dictionary, I learned that these prefixes imply bones, however, neither osti- or oste- are in the basic 2000 English words for learners. Japanese kids learn the character 骨 at age 11. By the time a Japanese native speaker graduates from primary school they should have learned around 1000 characters just like these.
To be honest and fair, I don't know what the hell this 鬆(shou) means. I believe this characters is only used in this word....(Now, I checked it out on the web and leaned that it's actually not so uncommon to use 鬆(su) in cooking. I knew it, sort of...)
We, Japanese, have been losing a lot of Chinese characters for the sake of ease of daily use. We limited the number of characters so everyone could read and understand newspaper. Lately, we tend to write phonetic alphabets named kana instead of Chinese characters where the use of kana seemed completely inappropriate, say 30 years ago. I believe all these effort to alleviate the difficulty in Chinese characters will have a negative impact in the future on the contrary to the intention. Young Japanese kids probably can't read 齧る(かじる: to gnaw) , since we restricted the use of the character 齧. It was a bad decision. Just like westerners might think it's difficult to learn these complicated characters, imprudent authorities have restricted these characters and we almost lost them. There are tons of examples. We could easily understand 齧歯類 once before, but now, we write this word like げっ歯類. Who in the hell could guess the sound げっ means かじる(to gnaw)? On surface, it looks easier to read(pronounce), but we are losing something really essential to the language.
Koreans abandoned Chinese characters altogether, and they also lost a lot of vocabulary used to discuss abstract notions and academic problems. I heard that university students cannot read textbooks well other than those written for their own major due to technical jargon specific to the research area. Those words used to be represented in Chinese characters. Similarly, the Japanese language can't stand still without Chinese characters. To sustain it, we can't simply eliminate Chinese characters. It is too late. Probably 1000 years too late. We had lost Japanese words (和語 wago).
Well, the discussion above does not matter. The fact that very few people from the West have this basic understanding of the characteristics of the Asian character makes me shrug. You could spend a couple hours to read a thin introductory book on either Japanese or Chinese while we spend thousands of hours on English.
This is exactly the reason why you have to "learn" foreign languages and cultures as well before dismissing something foreign to you offhand. 2000 vs 26 characters? If you spouted out this ignorant comparison in front of me, I would be totally disgusted and put a bunch of Chineses character stamps into your mouth to shut you up.
I'm not saying learning 2000 characters is easy. I'm just saying that stating that English is easier just because there are only 26 characters is nonsensical.
ちょっと書きすぎたので、後からこれを日本語で書くのはつらすぎるということで今回は英語だけ。書き散らしでスミマセン。気になるところがあれば、ピンポイントでもご指摘いただけると嬉しいです。あ、ふつうにコメントも歓迎です！
Like David below says, I don't think Japanese is easier nor English is easier. It all depends on what you already know or use.
Still, there might be a difference among languages in terms of consistency, which would reduce the learning cost as a second language in advanced level. I have a feeling that German and Chinese might be consistent though I don't have much knowledge about these.
On the surface, it looks easier to read(pronounce), but we are losing something really essential to the language.
If you spouted out this ignorant comparison in front of me, I would be totally disgusted and put a bunch of Chineses character stamps into your mouth to shut you up.
I don't believe any language is very hard by nature - People learned them effortlessly somehow.
One thing I will say is very hard about Japanese kanji for foreigners is the number of readings. Learning how to write kanji and knowing their meaning isn't that hard, but one kanji may have five or more readings, so I may understand the meaning of the word, but not be able to say it aloud as I don't know the meaning. But of course, it is as you say too late.
There are usually 2-3 ways to read a Kanji in Japanese, which is not good. This situation is a mess, at least it seems so to me(probably I'm an exception). Some pronunciations are dying out, getting replaced with others and older people tend to be upset about these 'simplifications'. One such example is: 重複 (chou-fuku -> juu-fuku).
Thank you for sharing your observation and opinion. Yes, learning curve, it's a good way to put it in perspective. Hmmm. I heard that Chinese kids use some sort of pronunciation annotation to learn letters. If that's the case, phonetic letters are necessary either ways.
It's interesting that you should have mentioned variety of foreing language choice in class. In Japan, too, when people say 'foreing', it usually means American. In terms of variety, Japanese foreign language education system should be improved to open up kids' eyes for wider diversity. I learned French in University as my third languge, and even today, people tend to choose either German or French because they are the most useful ones.
Not so many English speakers admit as honestly as you did that they like English just because they already speak English. There's nothing wrong about that. Considering you are lucky to be born with the most dominant language is not childish. Taking it for granted is. Come to think of it, I have to admit that I like English because I already have advantage over others who don't speak English at all.
When people say that English is the most suitable language for business because English is such and such, I just can't help but laugh. English has no specific characteristics any other language doesn't have that makes the language so special. Or, at least, most arguments are not strong enough to explain its prevalence.
While I agree that it's ignorant to simply say "26 characters are easier to memorize than 2000," I think it's important to take into consideration how each language "works." You see, people simply won't tolerate an inefficient language if it doesn't meet their needs. That's why Japanese developed Hiragana and Katakana to supplement the former writing system that used nothing but Kanji. Look at Okurigana- in 休む the む sits outside because Kanji can't conjugate to meet grammatical needs, at least not without adding other characters (which is what Chinese does). In Chinese it wasn't a problem, but Japanese required verbs and adjectives to conjugate, and thus the present system was developed. In other words, the Japanese people made Kanji work for them, see?
Likewise, English simply didn't accept all the unnecessary baggage from its lingual influences. In Latin, every noun has gender, and every verb conjugates extensively across the first, second, and third persons. In essence, it had several features that English simply didn't need. As the Latin words were passed down, English eventually ended up discarding the unnecessary elements, and preserving what was left as roots that ended up influencing other words. "Ventus" meant "wind," and you can see that same root reflected in words like "ventillation." Of course, there's one key fact to be aware of: Latin-based words tend to carry an air of education with them, and thus, they're hardly ever used in colloquial speech unless the word itself is in common usage. You used "osteoporosis" as an example, so I'll go off that. You see, only doctors or people suffering from the condition would actively use that word in casual conversation. It goes back to that air of education that I mentioned earlier- no self-respecting doctor would call the condition "Bone-sparse symptom" simply because those words reek of casual conversation. Now, if your average person described the condition to someone, they'd use the word "bone" quite frequently. In other words, while both mean the same thing, "bone" is used without any implications, while the "osteo" prefix carries the aforementioned feelings of refinement and education. Thus, in casual conversation, English speakers largely steer clear of words with Latin roots unless absolutely necessary.
You can see this same phenomenon reflected in Japanese. Which sounds more formal to you? 食べる or 食事する? 食事 was a Chinese word to begin with, which is exactly why it uses する to form verbs. Chinese-based words sound a bit more formal compared to 和語, don't you think? It's just like English. You have words that are used colloquially, and those that aren't. They can mean the same thing, but they carry different implications.
I've said all that to say this: A culture will bend a language to its needs. Japanese made Kanji work for it, while English has made all of its influences work for it. Would Kanji work for English? Would Romaji work for Japanese? It's a solid "no" to both. Both languages have developed their own system that "works," and it stands to reason that without them, both languages would be sorely lacking.
Japanese is a pain to read in all Hiragana and Katakana. If you give a speech in English using only commonplace words, you'll sound like an uneducated twit. It's a simple fact: if you strip an existing language of its features, you're left with nothing more than an empty shell.
All in all, I'm just saying that you have to be willing to consider why a language works the way it does. It might seem like it doesn't make sense at first, but dig a bit deeper, and you'll find plenty to the contrary. When I first started Japanese, I was every bit as ignorant as the person you quoted. I couldn't understand why people would actually still use such a clunky, tedious writing system. Now, having studied the language for two years, I can honestly say that Japanese NEEDS Kanji- it simply wouldn't be Japanese without it. Likewise, English wouldn't be English if the distinct relationship between colloquial and formal language didn't exist. In the same way that Japanese needs Kanji, English needs this same lingual divide.
So, taking cultural, historical, and orthographic standards into account... can't we all agree that all languages are equally efficient at relating information?
Thank you for your response. You made a good point. 'A culture will bend a language to its needs.' Yes, I agree that each language works to meet people's needs. I can understand that doctors need to talk like a doctor like you pointed out. It is true. There's necessity.
Also, I believe in any language, or among any people there must be some sort of big words that only educated people use. I learned this through evolutionary psychology. Our brain is too big to have just enough capacity to communicate effectively with basic words. As some researches revealed, we only need 2000 words in English while an average English native speaker knows somewhere between 30,000 to 60,000 words. For instance, we don't need to use, say, 'azure' to say 'blue'. Why do we have such a French word in English? Because we have a need to show off our capacity to attract women(men). More capacity indicates good genes because brain is so susceptible to damage. Language for humans serves as a means to mate effectively. It's a fitness indicator. Art, like poetry, is a pure form of this showing off. Our brain has evolved enormously just like the huge peacock feather. It is easier for female peacocks to spot a blemish in the spread-out feather than to detect a deficit in his genes.
Ok,,, I don't know if this is trur or not. I'm no scholar.
Anyways, I think I have to agree with you that English has two relatively distinctive ways to say things for certain needs.
Yes, you are right. 'Westerners' is too wide a range of people to group. Again, sorry about my rant.
I will definitely take a look at Vietnamese!
骨 looks a bit scary to me when I think of the original form. Oh, do you know what's more scary? 県 means 'prefecture'(like a state in the US) in Japanese. To me, it's been just a symbol for ages.
But, I lately learned that this character depicts a dead and cut-off head hanging down from a tree. It's upside down. Can you see the 首 (head) in the letter? It was a letter to mean an ancient Chinese punishment. I have nopoo ideas why it ended up being used as the way we use it in Japan...
イタリアに行った時、出発する前にちょっとイタリア語を学んでおいて片言のイタリア語で自己紹介などをしてみたら、ゴンドラの船頭さんは機嫌よく話をしてくれたし、お店の店員さんもおまけをしてくれました。自分の国の言葉を外国の方々が一生懸命に修得しようとしてくれるのはうれしいものですよね。