May 24, 2006
Chinese gets even "easier?"
As if learning the Japanese language, with its 3 character systems and sometimes countless ways of pronouncing just a single character, wasn't hard enough, they just made Chinese that much more attractive.
I've heard you need a working knowledge of 2500 kanji characters in Japanese to get by at a fluent level. Whether or not that is true is unknown to me, but it sure as hell makes 900 characters enticing. If I could learn just 900 characters and be able to read 90% of media publications ... that would be awesome.
Of course, it does make things easier when said media is controlled by the iron fist of the State.