Quote:
Originally Posted by HansTWN
I think te whole essay is an attempt at presenting the matter in a humorous way. He is true about classical Chinese, though. I downloaded a copy of the 8th century 紅樓夢 to my Sony reader for my wife (who once taught Chinese history and Chinese linguistics) and even for her it is a very difficult excercise. I recognize every character but still rarely have any idea what the author is talking about, hehehe. Then again my favorite German book is from the 17th century and every German needs a dictionary to read it, too.
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Ah! I have you bested, Good Sir!
Hungarian books from as long ago as 1549 (
like this one) are basically readable to the layman, despite using a different alphabet with occasionally unorthodox spelling, and other archaisms.
Quote:
Originally Posted by HansTWN
Sure you could, but you never would get past words to whole sentences. The languages are too different. Let us take a whole sentence "Ma, ni hao"
"媽, 你好" Three simple words. Mother, you, and good. In this order it means "Mother, hello". Next up, "Ni ma hao""你媽好" Now it means, "Your mother is good" (better style would be "你的媽很好", before someone corrects me!, but still it makes perfect sense like this, too). And there is "你好,媽?" "Are you ok, mother?". Again, before any rebuttal comes, "你還好,媽?" or "你好不好，媽?", would be better.
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Ok... I see what you are saying. Are there any books that you would recommend *about* Hanzi (not necessarily teaching it)?
- Ahi