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.
Comments
Yaaas...I wouldn't go switching so fast, if I were you.
Sure, with 900 characters you'll be able to look at 90% of the content of media publications and say, "Ooh, I know that hanzi! And that one. And, ooh, that one, too!" Just don't forget that, as in Japanese, most hanzi are used in combinations of at least two to form various words. You'll still have to learn a whole buncha combinations (words).
电话，电报，电影，电视，电脑，电子
I've caught a case of gogatsubyo from my students; had to rain on someone's parade! (Lucky you!)
Posted by: Ibadairon | May 24, 2006 3:35 PM
Of course you have to know the combination of hanzi, but don't you also need that for kanji? On top of that, for the kanji you need to know in a lot of cases several on-yomi, then several kun-yomi and then how to use those yomi when combined with other kanji!
Don't get me wrong, I love me the kanji, but with (I've been told) only one way to pronounce each hanzi, and then them being limited to 900, doesn't that seem easier?
Posted by: Justin | May 24, 2006 5:04 PM
Maybe I was missing your point earlier. My bad.
Anyway, there are several hanzi which have more than one pronunciation. The only one I can think of at the moment is 行, which as the verb "go" or in 路行 "travel" is pronounced xing (lüxing The fist hanzi might be suss...memory fails) but in 银行 "bank" is hang (yinhang). The number of these is very small, though, so your point is valid.
Posted by: Ibadairon | May 24, 2006 7:37 PM
I think you're slightly misinterpreting the article, like a lot of blogs lately have been.
900 hanzi account for 90% of characters used in the Chinese media, but the article doesn't say this is a reduction. In truth, knowing 90% of the characters in a sentence doesn't mean you understand 90% of its meaning if the unknown wordrs are important.
Anyone learning Chinese still needs to know more characters than someone learning Japanese! :)
Posted by: Paul D | May 31, 2006 12:23 AM
Yeah, 900 characters is for children and pussies. Real men learn 3000-5000 characters and they do it in traditional script, like me. Hey Justin, it's James. I just got a job in Hong Kong. You should come visit, I'm a professor. And maybe we can get someone to help you learn to read ...
Posted by: James | June 12, 2006 1:30 PM