Ultraman

It's always a benefit/credit to learn/speak one more language other than mother tongue, especially we're living in a multi-cultural country.
To demolish a certain 字體 (or to establish a new type) is not as easy as said. When the time you can't change the world, it's better to change yourself la.

Ultraman

Every language have their value to exist. For example, Korean words are like plain symbols to me, how can people know the words' meaning just by looking at their outlook? Even for English, do people know the actual meaning only by looking at their spelling?

I know Chinese words are quite different, they evolved from ancient time (象形文字), and many of the words used nowadays still have the "idea" behind, but not always work.
The example of "麵" might be a good example, yet, not all 麵 made from "麥" or only from "麥" anyways.

Ultraman

That's why by reading the word, we can get into the root of the meaning of the word. That's also part of the culture. The simplified word just "kill" the culture in most cases.
Take the "noodle" word in your example, noodle comes from flour, which is also made from wheat. It makes perfect sense.
fibbi 發表於 2009-3-18 15:10

I meant, for English, people can't "guess" the meaning just by looking at the spelling of the words. According to Chinese culture, yep, we can guess/know the meaning of some of the words just by looking at them, yet, that is not a must, and not a proper way to learn/use a language.
I just quoted "麵" as further discussion, which stated by someone else but not me earlier, if someone think "麵" must be made by some kind of flour or wheat, that might be not too objective, because besides the ingredient, the word "麵" also stand for the "form" (shape) of this particular food.
Many Chinese words don't "appear" as the real meaning as they do. We have to learn their actual meanings anyways, I won't bother to "guess" their meanings just by looking at them (which might not be accurate).
I don't hate simplified Chinese, but I agree it might be inconvenience for HKese (and Taiwanees) cuz it's not popularly learnt. However, people can treat learning it as another knowledge, which could be valuable in our daily lives.
Think about, maybe more and more Western people can speak Mandarin and write simplified Chinese better than we "Chinese". lol

Ultraman

of course you can tell the meaning of an english word by reading it @_@

most of the scientific terms in fact has meaning, like fibbi pointed out, which is derived from latin. (well cuz I study scien ...
嘉嘉 發表於 2009-3-18 19:30

I don't mean to argue with you, but just by looking at the spelling of "w"..."o"..."r"..."d", how can people tell it means "文字" (one of the meanings)? Does "w" tell anything by itself? Does "o" tell anything by itself? ...... People learn the word as a whole, as "word", whenever people see this word, they can tell the meaning (of course they read the spelling and know the meaning).

Let's go back to Chinese, OK, the example is "麵". People must have knew the words "麥" and "面" first, but why not the pronunciation of "麵" is not "麥" but "面"? People still need to learn the word by itself, right?

Of course, every word has a meaning (or more). Yes, you can "tell the meaning of the scientific terms" because you already learnt them. Can you tell the meaning of a word that you never seen/learnt before just by looking at its spelling? That's what I meant.

Ultraman

I also know a little background about what you mentioned for the Chinese language, for how they were formed and made up.
However, only a portion of Chinese words you can guess out their actual meaning by those methods, not every single word is like that. And the pronunciation part is even more complicated, why you think the pronunciation of "麵" is "面" is making sense but not "麥" instead, because you already learnt the words and you "knew" the actual answer, not because of you never seen this word before but you can pronounce it correctly for the first time.

Regarding for your another example involved something "opto...". Well, if you never know the word "opto" before, how would you guess the meaning of the words that might be related to it?

More examples, "apple" and "pineapple", (providing that you only know the word apple, but the first time to see pineapple) the only hint might be, they are both fruits, but how does a pineapple look like and taste like?
You know a person who sings is a singer, then you may think a person who cook must be a "cooker" (providing that you never know this word before). That makes sense, right?
This is what I meant, "can't guess the actual meaning of the word only by looking at its spelling". At least, it doesn't work every time.

Ultraman

31# Ultraman

Anyway, back to topic, I think we should learn 繁體字 before simplified word. It's easier to switch from 繁體字 to simplify but not the other way round la.
fibbi 發表於 2009-3-19 17:14

Agree. It's like to learn the regular form of English words before their abbreviation. Haha...

Ultraman

"""why you think the pronunciation of "麵" is "面" is making sense but not "麥" instead"""

because 麥 is 部首.  there is a formula to pronoun chinese character.  of course there are exceptions, but e ...
tofu 發表於 2009-3-19 19:09

Yes, you're right. However, when do people know what is exception and what is not? As the word as simple as "助", neither it pronounces as "且" nor "力".
But on the other hand, simplified Chinese might be easier for people to pronounce (and write).

Anyways, I'm not going to discuss it any further.
I think it's up to personal preference to learn simplified Chinese. To me, to know one more language is always a benefit/credit.

Ultraman

Yes, it's the point of "basic knowledge", and thus it applies to all/most "languages". So, once you have learnt the "basic" of simplified Chinese, it's just a piece of cake for further guessing.

For the priority, there is not a must for everyone. If time for learning a new language (or any other kind of new knowledge) is limited, depends on one's daily use and need and how urgent the situation is, one can set his/her own schedule in order to fulfill his/her need/interest.
But generally speaking, if you are living in HK/Van, you can't go wrong to learn all the following three languages: Cantonese, English, and Mandarin for speaking (by alphabetical order, not the importance); and English, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese for written.