Quote:
Originally Posted by ahi
Thanks, Hans. Sometimes it seems the more I learn the less I understand this subject. 
Is that different then from somebody trying to learn to read Hanzi by only knowing the English meaning of the characters and character combinations, along with idioms of course? Or with some of the Chinese languages/dialects is it basically somewhat like that?
- Ahi |
Your old favorite subject. I never said that it is impossible to learn written Chinese without learning spoken Chinese. I just believe that if you miss the sound component you will find it difficult to remember. And it makes little sense to me, since you can learn the spoken language in months, but it will take many years to master the written language! And speaking it will make it much easier to learn and remember the writing. So the whole matter really doesn't make sense, if you want to learn the Chinese written language, learn both at the same time.
Just for your info, the other Chinese languages are more difficult to learn than Mandarin. The main reason they did pick Mandarin as the standard is because it is easy to learn.