I was flying back from Chongqing recently when I was reminded of the very frustrating problem of reading Chinese. There was a movie on the cabin TV and it had a particularity: it carried subtitles in Chinese and English in parallel, in two lines of comparable font at the bottom of the screen.

As I watched I kept forcing my eyes to stick to the Chinese subtitles in order to exercise my reading (the sound was off) but it was pointless. Every single time, before I had finished reading the Chinese I already knew the meaning of the line anyway. The words in English just seemed to transmit their meaning even if I was not looking at them.

Reading Chinese

We already spoke last year about the problem of Reading Chinese functionally. It is very important for advanced students of Chinese, because progress beyond a certain level depends largely on this ability. Many foreigners are able to read slowly and even do good translations of Chinese texts with the help of a cursor dictionary. But to read functionally, in my definition, is a completely different thing. It means to be able to read all sorts of general texts as quickly and reliably as an average native.

I have observed that this reading fluency is extremely difficult to attain for readers who were not educated in the Chinese system. And I know from personal experience that this is not a common problem of learning foreign languages; with practice, reading fluency comes parallel to speaking in languages with alphabetic script. This problem is unique to Chinese characters, and I have the impression that it has been largely ignored by educators.

The Reading Test

I want to differentiate very clearly the reading skills from the acquisition of new vocabulary/characters. Obviously when you need to look up words in the dictionary, reading is slower, but that is not what we want to measure. We can define a test to measure the reading speed :

The index is the time you take to read a 500 character text divided by the time taken to read a similar text (the next 500 character section in the same book) in your native language, with the premise that you are familiar beforehand with all the characters/words/expressions contained in the text, and no preparation prior to reading is allowed. The test is easily performed with a bilingual book, although it takes some trial and error until you find a section where there are no unknowns.

Since there is no vocabulary or missing character issue, the indexed difference in speed is mostly due to the difficulty in parsing the message, what I call the pure reading skills.

Parsing Chinese

I am beginning to suspect that this index is very difficult to decrease, even with long periods of daily reading. I scored about a 3 in the test last year, and almost one year later (pending careful testing) I am afraid I am not far from where I was. Actually, I might be cheating slightly because I was using an Obama book that I had already read before.

Let’s see all the possible reasons why it is so difficult to parse the message when we know all the elements inside it. As far as I can think, there are 3 main complex processes that we do when we read: 1- Recognizing the characters 2 – Parsing them into words 3- Parsing the words into sentences.

Step 1 – Recognizing the characters

It is understood that when we read English, we normally don’t read letter by letter to make out a sound, but rather we recognize whole words or even chunks of them at a glance. This allows us to read very fast, and I am sure the same kind of phenomenon happens when Chinese read their language. They see a 中央政治局常务委员会 in one beat of the eye.

I see here the first big obstacle to our reading. We have not developed the skills to make out these complex shapes automatically, and we are forced to consciously recognize each character before we move on. Even for the very basic characters in the previous paragraph, I still cannot take in all of it as immediately as I take “Politburo Standing Committee”.

What do you think? This is the Step 1.

Step 2 – Parsing the Words from Characters

One thing is to recognize a chunk of characters at a glance, but a different thing is to identify the words that they form. This step is extremely easy in Western languages, because the words are clearly separated by spaces, and proper nouns have Capital Letters. But written Chinese doesn’t offer this help, so there is an added parsing step in figuring out where are your units of meaning.

See for example the expression 发展中国家, I can tell you in no time that it means “developing country”. But now check out this random section of text I just copied from the internet:

前四个会议分别讨论了现有生物技术在发展中国家粮食和农业领域中的作物

Is it 在发展-中国-家粮食？Or is it 在-发展中国家-粮食? Obviously it is the second one, but if we read character by character and follow the statistically economic approach, our first tentative parsing would be the first one. A native reader sees the whole 5 character chunk at once and detects the word, but due to the difficulty of characters, most foreign readers see in small chunks of 2 characters, which forces them into a process of trial and error.

In fact, the example given above is very elementary, but consider introducing into a text longer words, fixed phrases and foreign names like this one: 圣文森特和格林纳丁斯 (special prize of the jury to the foreigner who gets this). It is easy to see that the Chinese are adding a whole step of parsing that is practically inexistent in our languages.

In case you are skeptical, it is easy to do a realistic simulation of what that added step would mean if we had it in English. Just see how long you take to read this text, taken from this article:

karunanidhiwaslividthatdayanidhiandbrotherkalanidhihadbecometooambitious holdingpopularitycontestsagainstalagiriintheirnewspaper,whoseofficewas burntdown.rajadidnottakechargeofthetelecomministryalone.kanimozhiwas toremainhis”guide”.hewasfocused.hisallegedundersellingofthe2Gspectrum(a designatedpartoftheairwavesforusebymobilephoneoperators),whichcaused alossofRs22,466croreaspertheCBI’sestimate,surfaced.

Good luck! It is almost difficult to believe that Chinese actually read their language at normal speeds (and believe me, they do).

Of course, there is not an exact equivalence, because Chinese characters combine in different ways from English letters/words. But it gives a good feel of this tricky parsing step that is unique to Chinese. Native minds have developed since childhood to accomplish this in an instant, but this step involves some process that is quite different from what we are trained to do. Is it possible to acquire that ability? This is what I mean by the Step 2.

Step 3 – Parsing the Words into Sentences

The parsing of sentences once we have the words is overall similar to what we do in Western languages. In fact, Chinese grammar is not all that different from English grammar at the level of the sentence structure. Those tricky long sentences usually have a similar order, and the clauses are marked with commas (ideally) in a similar way to English. This step is much easier, in my experience, than parsing long sentences in agglutinative languages like Basque, where a good part of the grammar information is only given at the end of the sentence in the form of a verb declension.

Conclusions

This is only a 1.0 issue and it will be improved/completed in further posts. I wanted to share these points and get some feedback and ideas before I continue.

This subject is important because it can help us understand how the Chinese reading process works, and perhaps also develop a method to help all those students who are stuck in the advanced (but not functional) level. As more people decide to learn Chinese seriously, the number of students stumbling on this block will increase – it is already large even today.

For the moment, it seems clear that these Step 1 and Step 2 that I describe above are the main obstacle to fluent reading, but I want to find more ways to quantify this. In particular, I have the following ideas that we could try to do if someone is interested:

• Do a larger scale test for the Reading speed.
• Test the reading Speed of Natives in their own language and in English.
• Do a test to quantify Step 2 (by comparing word-spaced character reading speed with normal reading speed of a similar text)
• Answer to the question: is it actually possible to improve in Steps 1 and 2, or is it some automated process you need to learn as a child.
• Think of possible exercises to improve Steps 1 and 2.

Any ideas on this points will be welcome, and any links to previous research as well. Nothing of what I say here is written on stone, and I would very much appreciate other suggestions.

This week I have little time to do the Language post, partly because I have been busy writing a short story, partly because I have already discussed a good deal about language in other blogs. I take advantage of this to do the post with my final views on Shanghainese after the long discussion we had on the Wu blog.

The discussion started with an unrelated comment on a language learning site. But what really got me heated up is the painful realization that many Shanghainese speakers – or more precisely Wu speakers – not only don’t protect their beautiful language, but they are in fact actively destroying their rich cultural heritage out of pure ignorance.

If you have been reading me for a while, you probably know that I feel very strongly about languages, and particularly about disappearing ones. Perhaps part of the reason is that I come from a culture where we spend a significant amount of our resources to promote a minority language, so small and useless that it has about 1% of the speakers of Shanghainese. Stupid perhaps, but it is our language.

Now, I don’t say that everyone has to do the same. A language belongs to its speakers, and Chinese are free to abandon their languages if they chose to do so. But I can’t avoid feeling upset when not only Wu is abandoned, but also it is deliberately mocked and destroyed by those who say they are “protecting” or “teaching” it.

Wu and Shanghainese

First of all, a very brief introduction to these notions which I am using interchangeably. You can see more on the wikipedia articles, but essentially Shanghainese is one of the dialects of the Wu language [1]. Modern Shanghainese is not the original Wu dialect spoken in Shanghai, but rather a result of the combination of the various Wu dialects from immigrants that came to the city around the end of the 19th century.

In the context of this post I am using the word Shanghainese loosely to refer to the Wu language as a whole, because Shanghainese is today the main standard of the language. Like most languages that haven’t been subject to political unifying pressure, there is significant variance between the different versions of Wu, but that doesn’t make it less of a language.

Wu and Mandarin

For various reasons, mostly involved with “protecting” the language or just for the fun of being different, there is a trend today by Shanghainese netizens to exaggerate the difference between their language and mandarin. They do this, among other ways, by choosing to transcribe Shanghainese in nonsensical Chinese characters based on the mandarin pronunciation. For example, using 它 to represent 太, because in Shanghainese the word sounds similar to the mandarin 它.

The ignorance is so extended even among natives, and some comedians and other “linguists” following this approach have been so successful, that there is an extended notion among many foreigners that Shanghainese is a completely different language from Mandarin.

The fact is that Shanghainese is extremely similar to mandarin, they both derived from the same Middle Chinese language, they evolved most of the time under a single political unit, and the speakers  always used the same characters to represent it on paper. It is not unlike the difference between Portuguese and Spanish, both coming from the same original vulgar latin, and becoming deformed over time.

The vocabulary in these two languages is identical in the majority of cases. There are a few differences in grammar, but most of the difference comes in the pronunciation of what are essentially the same words. These are called cognates by linguists because they belong to different languages, but in most cases their meaning is identical; it is simply the same word with a different accent.

It is silly of Shanghainese to feel that their language needs to look “more different” to be really a language. This is not what makes a language strong. An ancient cultural tradition and a knowledge and respect for it, that is what makes the culture – and the language – strong. As I try to explain below, writing Wu incorrectly is just accelerating its destruction.

Chinese Characters and the Writing of Wu

One of the first objections people do to my points is that “anyway, there is no standard spelling rules for Shanghainese, so there is no such a thing as correct or incorrect”.

This is in my opinion absurd, and worthy of incorrigible prescriptivists who need to have an authority stamp a document to see how a language should be written. Writing should be based on established use, and the tradition of Wu languages during all their existence (until the government of modern China decided to dump Wu) is to write in correct Chinese characters.

Indeed, it is a great mistake to consider the characters are “mandarin characters” and foreign to Wu. They are not. The Chinese characters are as Shanghainese as they are Beijinger. Arguably they are more Shanghainese, as the Wu people were already using them long before anyone thought of doing a capital in Beijing. In fact, the speakers in the Wu region were using the characters long before Wu even split from the other Chinese languages.

From the annals of the kingdom of Wu to the famous Kunshan opera, there is a massive corpus of Wu or pre-Wu literature in standardized post-Qin characters.

Obviously a large part of that is in Classic Chinese, so many Wu elements are excluded. But there is also a tradition in vernacular Wu, such as the 19th century 海上花列传, which was translated to mandarin by Eileen Chang. There is more than enough material to constitute a standard, and the only reason why it is not used is the complete ignorance of the subject by native speakers – caused mainly by the education system.

The proper way to write Wu is with the correct Chinese characters for the majority of words that are in common with Chinese, and to use established solutions from tradition for the few cases where there is no correspondence.

Admittedly, the only people using Shanghainese in writing today are the same netizens that I criticize here. Credit should be given to these people for at least using the language, it is obviously not their fault that nobody taught them how to write it. I just hope the government will take more serious action when they say they want to protect Shanghainese, and I hope Wu people are given a bit more of education on their local culture.

Then they can decide to dump it if they want, that is up to them. But at least they should know how and what it is they are abandoning.

1. language: whether Shanghainese is really a language or a dialect is another interesting discussion that I will leave aside for today.

UPDATE: I have reposted this on Tianya to give it some air time among Chinese readers. By now the post has stabilized at around 3000 reads and 50 comments, I don’t think it will go much further. It was a nice experiment in Chinese BBS propagation, I will analyze the results soon.

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译不达意

帮助迷失于中文中的老外找回爱之路

卖抠是我的好朋友。我们在美国老家是小学同班。虽然好几年没见面，但是我们的关系还是很密切。所以上个星期收到他的求救信让我很惊讶。他居然在中国！ 还说他一个人无友可靠！

我马上回邮请他来上海我家住几天，看看能不能帮助他。

他写的让我太诧异了。更奇怪的是，居然我发现他会中文。我迫不及待的要他说这是怎么一回事。他说一年前，在我们美国的老家，因为那个金融风暴他的公司倒闭了。他失业了不知道该怎么办，有一天在路上看到了一个广告说“学会中文掌握未来！”就决定了报名上中文课。谁想到卖抠爱上了他的老师曹晓琳，一个来自江西的留学生。不到三个月他们就谈了恋爱。

当然，有了中国的女朋友，卖抠的水平也进步很快。卖抠彻底爱上了曹晓琳，下定决心在她学年结束回国的时候一起去中国留学。为了尽快过语言关他每天从日出学到日落，做练习，甚至阅读中文的经典文学作品。到年末，他的中文已经好得不得了。只不过是，由于他大都分是从书里面学的，还缺了一点口头语能力。他讲得很书面，发音也不分声调，听起来怪怪的。

卖抠到我家的时候很难过，到中国以来他没办法联系晓琳。他还说不会再信任中国人，没想到这里的人会这样去欺负老外。我感到很奇怪，在中国住了好几年没碰到过什么问题，肯定因为文化差距有了个误会！ 我逼迫他立刻说出来到底发生了什么事，还要他仔细的描述所有的细节，看有没有什么地方他误会了晓琳。他告诉我下面这个故事：

*  *  *

卖抠是三天以前到达中国的。原来的计划是他到南昌机场时，晓琳来接他，带他去父母家介绍介绍。谁能想到偏偏那天下班之际，晓琳的老板找她加班到很晚。卖抠在飞机上没收到她的信息，到南昌他很难为情地发现不是晓琳而是他素不相识的曹爸爸来接机。

到了曹家，等待晓琳回家的只有他们仨：爸爸妈妈和卖抠。卖抠听不太明白他们的江西的口音，不了解晓琳在哪里，感到很寂寞。但是他怕第一次上门留下不好的印象，只好微笑地听着而不开口。不过一会儿，晓琳的妈妈端上了晚饭。

“卖抠，你先吃一点我们特色豆腐,” 曹妈妈说, “你们美国是不是没有豆腐吃的？”

“是的，基本上我们更喜欢芝士。”

“啊，真的吗？” 曹妈妈奇怪地说。

曹爸爸打破了一时的沉默：“卖抠，你们这几天在江西有什么计划，想去什么地方玩？”

“随便吧，我们美国最喜欢搭便车去自由自在地享受。”

“天哪!” 妈妈说, “你们真喜欢那个！”

“对，只要有司机接受，我们就很高兴随着他去”

曹妈妈的脸变得煞白，难过的说：“那么，我们晓琳也要参加那种活动吗？”

“对啊，她最喜欢，在美国的时候习惯了！”

曹爸爸打断问卖抠：“那到底你们要去什么地方？”

“我们去看什么地方要留学？”

“怎么留学？“

“对啊，我很想去上海她那边，她更喜欢北大，我们大家要解决留学的问题。”

“卖抠！你的父母叫什么名字！？”曹爸爸严厉地大声说。

“Tamara, Ben Seller, 晓琳没有告诉你们吗？”

曹妈妈吓了一跳道：“她说过，说过，只不过是我们忘记了，你先别急了。”

“你父母到底给你什么样的教育呢！” 曹爸说。

“这个。。。 基本上都是新教的教育”

“天哪！”

“对啊，老子也想跟晓琳一起了解一下。曹太太放心，虽然晓琳说没经验，但只要细读细读道德经都可以掌握了！”

突然曹妈妈站起来哭着离开房间，卖抠没有太理解她是怎么一回事。

“真是！” 爸爸喊起来， “你真不要脸！看你把我女儿弄成这样！我告诉你，我们这家可能是落后，不了解西方流行的习惯。但至少我们有道德！我的女儿万万不会接受这种对待！！”

“曹先生，我们大家可不是很好吗？”

“这里是个文明的家庭！你给我滚出去，否则我叫警察。你个流氓，你有严重的心理毛病，先回国看病，别赖着我们女儿！！！”

“可是。。我。。曹先生，晓琳到底在哪里啊！”

突然曹爸爸站起来，把可怜的卖抠推出去，没有再回答他的问题，而用力甩上了门。卖抠只好打车回南昌市中心试试联系晓琳，但是打电话打了半天都打不通。他最后想起来，他美国的老哥们儿在上海，就给我写了个邮件。以后的故事你们就知道了。

真奇怪！谁能帮助我把这件事情搞明白？

研究研究但还是没希望

听完卖抠的故事，我觉得晓琳的父母肯定对他的计划感到不高兴。我跟卖抠解释不要随便说话，中国的家庭比较保守，肯定不喜欢他这么“自在自由的”旅行的计划。卖抠还不懂为什么晓琳不接他电话，我说她是为了孝顺，父母说不要接她就不接。我说先要去了解她的父母有什么问题。

即然卖抠没有办法和他们沟通，再说他最怕再回去南昌面对曹爸爸，毕竟我只好提出我直接联系晓琳，和他见面了解一下到底发生了什么事。

她电话里面听起来很愤怒，一听到我是卖抠的朋友就要赌气挂断了。我马上说卖抠是多么好的个小伙子，他多么绝望，整天哭泣想着她。她终于松口同意解释一下，到底那个不幸的晚饭中发生了什么。她告诉我从妈妈听来的故事，弄我目瞪口呆。真是一个莫名其妙的对话，满口脏话的，甚至我不敢在这里写下来！

我回家花了很多心思分析她所说的故事，但不管怎么样还是没法搞明白。晓琳讲得这么厉害，不会是个简单的误会！除非曹家人都疯了我想不出来一个符合逻辑的解释。我开始嫌疑卖抠没有告诉我所有的细节。。。我家里面的气氛变得很闷。

过几天，卖抠最后放弃了，说反正他和晓琳的思想差距太大了。他已经买好了回美国的飞机票。最后一天他都没有情绪说话，我为了让他高兴给他说一下“Chinglish”的笑话，这是，中国人讲英文的搞笑的小故事。。。突然那个时刻我来了灵感，想起来了答案。我马上拿一张纸再记下来他描述的那个对话记录。

最后时刻找到了答案 !

我居然了解到的是这个：卖抠和曹父母之间的问题原来不是文化差距，而是语言不通！卖抠在江西的时候无知无觉得讲了很奇怪的个语言，只有我们老外能听懂的：老外话，Laowainese。我把卖抠说的话都翻译成中文再写下来了。结果让我很惊讶！怪不得小林的爸爸发火！！

要是读者会“老外话”的话，你肯定早就搞明白了。为了帮助那些没学过“老外话”的中国朋友，下面考配过来了我的翻译。你可以把鼠标箭头放在划线的词语上，看看“老外话”的翻译。

这就是曹家人那天在吃晚饭当中听到的不可思议的谈话：

“卖抠，你先吃一点我们特色豆腐,” 曹妈妈说, “你们美国是不是没有豆腐吃的？”

“是的，基本上我们更喜欢吃屎。”

“啊，真的吗？” 曹妈妈奇怪地说。

曹爸爸打破了一时的沉默：“卖抠，你这几天在江西有什么计划，想去什么地方玩？”

“随便吧，我们美国最喜欢大便吃去自由自在地享受。”

“天哪!” 妈妈说, “你们真喜欢那个！”

“对，只要有司机解手，我们就很高兴随着他去”

曹妈妈的脸变得煞白，难过地说：“那么，我们晓琳也会参加那种活动吗？”

“对啊，她最喜欢，在美国的时候习惯了！”

曹爸爸打断问卖抠：“那到底你们要去什么地方？”

“我们去看哪里要流血”

“怎么流血？“

“对啊，我很想去伤害她那边，她也喜欢被打，我们打架要解决流血的问题。”

“卖抠！你的父母叫什么名字！？”曹爸爸严厉地说。

“他妈的笨死了！晓琳没有告诉你们吗？”

曹妈妈吓了一跳道：“她说过！说过！不过是我们忘记了，你先别急了。”

“你父母到底给你什么样的教育呢！” 曹爸说。

“这个。。。 基本上都是性交的教育”

“天哪！”

“对啊，老子也想跟晓琳一起了解一下。操太太放心，虽然晓琳说她没经验，但只要吸毒吸毒道德经都可以掌握了！”

突然曹妈妈站起来哭着离开房间，卖抠没有太了解她是怎么一回事。

“真是！” 爸爸喊起来， “你真不要脸！看你把我女儿弄成这样！我告诉你，我们这家可能是落后，不了解西方流行的习惯。但至少我们有道德！我的女儿万万不会接受这种对待！！”

“操先生，我们打架可不是很好吗？”

“这里是个文明的家庭！你给我滚出去，否则我叫警察。你个流氓，你有严重的心理毛病，先回国看病，别赖着我们女儿！！！”

“可是。。我。。曹先生，晓琳到底在哪里啊！”

*  *  *

这就是我的老兄卖抠的故事。还好他那天没坐飞机，决定待在中国坚持找回他的心上人。他很辛苦，只有过几个月才找到了办法跟晓琳沟通，最后他们再合起来了。

那你们学中文的老外想一下，看中文里面的声调和发音是多么重要，以后好好学习。请大家不要再犯我的朋友卖抠的错误。

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1. that is, you will be lost in the translation of Lost in Translation

As is natural in any language, when the Chinese decided to adopt these signs to clarify their script, they set their own rules for using them. There are many examples of punctuation marks that are apparently identical in Chinese and in Western languages but in fact have different meanings and uses. This is not the main point of the post, but I will stop slightly on one of the example that I think is fun.

The sighing mark

For some reason the (!) that is known in the West as exclamation mark got translated in to Chinese as 叹号, that is, the 叹 mark. This 叹 character is most commonly used today in expressions like 叹气, and its meaning is closer to sigh or acclaim than to exclaim. My theory is this is the reason behind that quirk of the Chinese netizens who write “!” marks on every second sentence.

I have seen from experience that many Westerners find this habit annoying, or even consider it immature. I can see where they are coming from, but they should bear in mind that  “!” does not mean the same thing in Chinese as in English. I you don’t believe me, check a professional format letter in Chinese. Both the introductory and the final formulas are normally followed by “!”. Believe it or not, when you write to a client in Chinese you start the letter with “Respected Mr. Client !” and end it with “Regards !”

Similarly to the Chinese readers I would advise to moderate the use of “!” when they write in English, as it is usually not well understood. Sometimes I receive emails! Written just like this! you know it’s crazy! But please don’t do that anymore! because in English that sign is not like just sighing! It is exclaiming! which means shouting!! at your friend’s face!!!

Back to the main point:  The HELL of punctuation

After this little anecdote with “!”, I am back to the main subject. As we said, the fact that a language adapts foreign loans to its own needs is perfectly natural. The problem comes when the speakers of that language are not consistent with their own rules, or they just ignore them or even sabotage them on purpose.

I am completely serious when I say that the Chinese people have a secret plan to annihilate all the punctuation marks. Any foreigner who reads regularly in Chinese realizes that the use of punctuation is lax, leading to ambiguous phrases, and requiring extreme mental processing power to parse the endless strings of characters.

But let me give you three particular examples of this Chinese conspiracy:

The Commas (,) – These symbols are so important to help us understand long phrases, especially in contextual languages like Chinese. It is not easy to use them perfectly, I do mistakes in English as well. But what I have seen in Chinese is beyond belief. From those who write a whole paragraph without a comma, to others who use periods compulsively instead of commas, to foreign educated colleagues who just place the commas following English rules. Are they no rules in Chinese, or is this aspect not emphasized in school education? I have my own theory about this, but more in conclusions below.

The Dialogs – I noticed this problem recently as I am writing my first piece of fiction in Chinese (I will be publishing it very soon). When I was doing the dialogs, I checked the internet to see what is the standard in Chinese novels [1]. To my dismay, after opening a handful of different novels on online literature sites, I realized there is no common standard, every writer represents dialog differently. Worse still, a good number of writers don’t even punctuate at all, just marking every dialog line with a “he/she said:” to show it is dialog.

The Spaces – But of all the problems with Chinese punctuation, I think the worst by far is the one single punctuation mark that does not exist. It is an essential mark, the most important of all and by far the most used in the West. We usually ignore it as it is taken for granted, but we would have a hard time to read anything without it. I am speaking of the Space separating words. As absurd as it might sound, this device was not in the package of punctuation signs that the Chinese imported into their language, and this is probably the single most difficult hurdle of Chinese punctuation. Welcome to the Wall of Characters.

Conclusions

I have been thinking a lot about these problems with the Chinese punctuation, and I have come to the following explanations:

1- Following in the age-old tradition of Chinese scholars, the modern day Chinese draw a secret pleasure from making their written language as cryptic and unfathomable as is humanly possible.

2- The Chinese education system does not emphasize the importance of punctuation, either because it follows in the tradition of point 1, or because it despises those pesky symbols that are so foreign.

3- More interestingly, I have a budding theory that might explain this and some other peculiarities of the Chinese written language. It has to do with the different way that native Chinese read and parse their written language, which might explain that they actually don’t need the punctuation signs as much as we do.

This point is also tied to the similar problems observed in Chinese document formatting and typesetting. Unfortunately, I will not be able to continue today, because the time is running out and because I am not still 100% sure of where I am getting or where I can get.

We will leave this mystery for next Thursday Language. In the meantime any suggestions/corrections are sincerely appreciated.

1. to English speakers, note that the American and British standards for dialogues using “” and , are far from international standard. Check a typical Spanish novel to see what I mean

I am of the opinion that the blogosphere, including some respected linguist sites, have made a lot of noise for no reason. Or rather, for two reasons: one is the old problem of Chinese messing up their PR (the word “purity” is a particularly bad choice in the context of culture). The other one is that the China blogging scene is overwhelmingly American, and it is difficult for Americans to understand the problem of language colonization.

I am a big admirer of the openness and flexibility of the English language. Reading blogs like the Language Log I learnt to appreciate the descriptivist approach to linguistics (to study how a language is, instead of vainly dictating how it should be), and I believe this laissez-faire attitude has helped to make English the richest language in the World.

But what we should keep in mind is that English has not achieved this just through the holiness of its linguists. It is rather political and economic events that ensured its status as the World’s dominant language, and it is thanks to that status that the English language can afford to be so open today without losing its soul. This cannot always be replicated by others.

Purity vs Colonization

Everybody knows that there’s not such a thing as a pure human language. Believe it or not, most of the Chinese I have asked are cool with that. They know that words like 社会 come from Japanese, and that Mandarin has many loans old and new. In fact, contrary to Western peoples who take pride in their military feats, the Chinese prefer to show pride in the strength of their culture: they were conquered many times, and yet their culture absorbed those of the conquerors.

So why then protect the language, if foreign loans are a part of its natural development? Well, the main reason is that the advance of technology and globalization makes languages much more vulnerable to colonization than they were before.

It is one thing for English to adopt cool exotic expressions like “long time no see“, or nouns like “pundit” to express an idea that didn’t exist before. All those thousands of loan words are accessories that enrich the language, giving it a vast vocabulary capable of expressing all sorts of nuances. But I am not so sure English speakers would feel so enriched if all the kids in the US started speaking like this: “Tian-ne, I’m very Shou, you come Look-see!”

This is exactly what I heard recently in the fashion TV channel, as a young Shanghainese explained the merits of a new product to lose weight: “变得很SLIM,要SHOW一下，OHMYGOD!”. Needless to say I puked slightly in my mouth, and I wished for a moment that there were still Re-education camps in China. But I hope at least this serves to illustrate the point I want to make: When speakers start to use words from the dominant culture to replace their own language instead of adding to it, it is not about purity anymore, but about survival.

So is Mandarin endangered by English?

The colonization danger I describe can be very real. As a minority language speaker, I have seen first hand how small languages can be completely disfigured by the dominant culture, to the point that older speakers cannot understand the young ones anymore. It is perfectly understandable that speakers should try to protect their languages from this. In fact, many countries have adopted protectionist policies before China, and they are fine as long as they don’t push it to absurd extremes.

The real question here would be whether mandarin, the largest language by number of speakers, is really a weak language that needs government protection. I think the risk today is very much overstated, if only because most Chinese speakers don’t know enough English to be influenced by it. Fortunately, retarded ladies like the one in my example are a small minority, and as far as I can see the language is still pretty healthy with its occasional “bye bye” or “DVD”.

In fact, the main danger to Chinese is not the excessive use of foreign terms, in my opinion, but rather the opposite.

I have always maintained that the exclusion of latin letters from Chinese writing is a mistake, especially now that all the Chinese learn the latin alphabet at school. I see no reason why foreign names of people, places or brands should not be rendered with their original latin script when they are not well known among the Chinese. In fact, this is done already in some newspapers, but only as a clarification in parenthesis, while an invented character-based name is given as the main term.

The key here should be the popularity of the names to consider. Terms like WTO or “New York” are known to most Chinese as 世贸 or 纽约, in a similar way as the Spanish would say OMC or “Nueva York”. To use foreign terms in these cases sounds pedantic at best, and the media would be right to avoid them. But a different thing is to invent a new character-term for any obscure foreign name that makes a brief appearance in the Chinese media. This is absurd, and it makes it more difficult for Chinese to communicate with other cultures.

In the end, a radical exclusion of all foreign script from the media may have the effect of debilitating the language even more. On the linguistic level, it forces the characters to adopt a purely phonetic function for which they were not designed, the solution is inelegant. More importantly, it pushes many Chinese engineers and scientists to read and write their technical material in English, where they can recognize terms like PCMCIA without having to check a technical dictionary. This is happening already in some fields, and it is a deadly strike to the validity of mandarin as a top World language.

In any case, what I am giving here is only my opinion, and ultimately it is up to the Chinese to decide how they use their own language. But I did want to write this post to put into perspective the statements of deputy Huang. His choice of words was unfortunate, and his proposal is ill-conceived, but we should not dismiss the whole thing as a blind surge of xenophobia. There are languages dying all the time in the World, and it is perfectly understandable that a country takes political measures to protect its language against a disadvantage that, at its origin, has only political sources.

The more interesting discussion now is whether these measures, and which of them if any, are really effective.

NOTE: I have been absent his week, and the next one probably even more because I am on my final run-up to HSK. I hope I can keep up at least with my Thursdays but this is not guaranteed.

Given that most traditional cultures were extremely sexist by today’s standards, it is very common to have sexist elements embedded in today’s languages. In English, for example, there is the old peeve about what to call a female fireman. Latin languages with their gender declensions are even more problematic, to the point that some daring Spanish feminists like to write “abogad@”, to cover all the possible sexes of a lawyer.

The old Confucian tradition in China is hardly an example of gender equality, and given the intimate relation between Confucian scholars and the Chinese script over the millennia, it is only natural that the characters should carry some important bias. As we will see, the spoken language is not any better, reflecting a society where the woman had a limited role even among the common people.

I am not going to consider here Confucian notions like the three obediences and four virtues of a woman (三从四德) [1] that every Chinese speaker is familiar with. I discount these things as relics from the past that were discarded in the revolution, and they are not taken seriously today by any normal Chinese family. But even ignoring these relics, it is quite clear that the language has many common words and uses strongly biased against the feminine Half Skies (半边天) [2].

Off the top of my head, I find the following kinds of sexist occurrences in mandarin, see for yourself:

1. The familiar case of the third person pronoun discrimination appears in the written 他 (like in English, the character for “him” is used even when the gender of the person is unknown).
2. The female radical appearing in characters with negative “feminine” meanings like those in 嫉妒 (envy).
3. Words like 丫头 that are widely used to mean “girl” and originally meant “slave” [3]. Words like 弄瓦 and 弄璋 – give birth to a girl (mud) and to a boy (jade) – fall under the same category.
4. Order of words in expressions like mum and dad, brothers and sisters, which in Chinese systematically have the masculine members before the feminine ones (爸爸妈妈, 兄弟姐妹). There is an exception in 女士们先生们 (ladies and gentlemen), but it looks very much like a modern calque.
5. Common words like 嫁给 (marry for a girl) and 娶妻 (marry for a man), which imply that the girl is “married to” someone, whereas the man has the prerogative to actively “get” someone. In the same category, the common term 成家,  to marry, literally to “build a family”, can only be used by men. Women don’t build families, they rather give themselves to a man, and he takes all the credit.

Bear in mind that my level of mandarin is far from native, and I am not particularly gender conscious, so there must be a lot more examples out there I haven’t thought of. Like usual, this Thursday feature is meant to engage the readers, so please lend me a hand to come up with more examples.

I don’t really think that this is among the big problems of Chinese women today, and I am not writing this to promote language feminism. What I do find interesting, however, is the little activism that I have seen in China regarding this subject. Especially compared with the West, where some groups have gone to great lengths to save our languages from their discriminatory legacy.

Given the efforts of Maoism to promote gender equality, and considering the power that Shanghainese women have enjoyed in the recent history of China, it is surprising that there hasn’t been more noise. There are some feminists to be sure, like the thundering delegate Zhang. But they don’t usually take language as a target, as far as I have seen.

What is your opinion? Any idea why this happens? Has this got to do with some conformist trait of the Chinese women, or is it due to the repressive environment?

1. 三从四德: This can be briefly translated as “obey and STFU”. Or if you prefer the classic translation: 3 Obediences- Obey your father before marriage, your husband when married, and your sons in widowhood. 4 Virtues- Morality, Proper speech, Modest manner and Diligent work
2. 半边天: Mao had the brilliant idea of declaring that women where holding half of the sky, and since then they are illogically called “Half Sky” in the PRC
3. 丫头:I believe this must be the origin of the English translation “she has given birth to a slave” that raised so many eyebrows in Pearl Buck’s “The Good Earth”

This is a new feature in my blog. It is a follow up of the initial Language and Culture posts last year, and I commit from now on to continue the series every Thursday that I feel like it. The idea is to post about those language curiosities that I encounter in my study of mandarin and I jot down directly on my study desk.

Professionals like you find in the Language log like to mark the difference between a linguist and a polyglot, and I completely agree with them. While I am a fan of linguistics, particularly those of the descriptive kind, I have never studied the discipline seriously and I couldn’t tell a preposition from a palmiped. I am just a curious language learner, and I’ll stick to what I know.

This thought has discouraged me for a while from writing about language,  considering the rich selection of linguist blogs already available. But then I thought, there is a certain level right between anthropology and linguistics, a space wide open to the speculation of non specialists, where living in language immersion is as important as formal training.

I am referring to the observation of how Language and Culture interact with each other, and how a certain character and a view of the World gets imprinted into the language, form the fossils of the remote past to the process ongoing even today. This is the point of the Language and Culture Series, which consists more of questions than of answers. Here is an example:

The Holy Fractions

The observation today has to do with the common use of number fractions or percentages in the Chinese language, going much further than what I have seen in any other culture. It is surprising for a language so rich in flowery adjectives that the speakers should prefer to describe things in hard numbers. Especially when applied to fields like love that have up to now resisted the advance of mathematics.

I observed this first when my friend Fu described a couple as loving their daughter only 20%. “That is terrible”, I jumped, “she is 20% loved”. But it wasn’t funny. In fact, she was pretty serious, she had done her homework well and she was adamant: 20% is the love the girl got. And that is just the most accurate way she found to describe it.

Since then I have observed the same phenomenon in many circumstances, probably the most well known are these:

• The CCP’s assessment of Mao after his death, the one that says he was 70% right and 30% wrong. Heroic? Disgraceful? No, just 7/10.
• The well known formula to order your steak in China: 30%, 50% or 70% cooked. No rare or bleu, but numbers.
• The use in Taobao of (very unrealistic) percentages to indicate the state of an article, such as “99.9% new”, or even “99.99% new”.

The main question I have here: does this come from the legacy of Maoist education? Is this a residue of the “scientific” outlook of the Marxist theories, or is it rather an ancient trait that existed long before in the Chinese culture? Any reader of 古文 has seen instances of poet Li Bai describing himself as 75% drunk, or 37% sinking in the lake under the moon?

Let me know if you know of any other example. And why do the Chinese like to see the World in fractions?

Note: I translate all in percentages, but the original expressions are various, including the usual 分 or 成  for 10th fractions.

But there are more interesting implications than the mere difficulty of the language, in particular cultural and political ones. Because the refusal to use loans and phonetic script is the result of conscious decisions. There is nothing in the language itself that forbids import of foreign words or use of an alphabet, indeed, there are already some exceptions of direct loans in current use that are written in latin letters, such as DVD or KTV.

Chinese has a parallel Word System diverging from the rest of the World, and the government has an active role in the maintenance of this system. However, this policy is not unilaterally imposed from above. It is certainly encouraged by the education system, but Chinese speakers seem to follow it naturally and often prefer Chinese roots even when not supervised. This is in contrast with the situation in many countries where the system tries to protect local terms, only to find that people still prefer “email” to “courier electronique”.

Anyone living in China long enough realizes how aware Chinese are of their long history and their status as a different civilization. This discourse is irritating for Westerners, because it reminds too much of ultra-nationalistic creeds back home. But it has one essential difference with those creeds: in the case of China, it is true. As we said before, China is justified to see itself as a cradle of civilization, and it is the only such culture that has survived practically independent from World mainstream till modern times. This cultural awareness is the main reason for the preservation of the language as we know it, surviving different regimes and even periods of chaos.

When we study Chinese we are not merely learning another language, we are learning the words of a parallel World, the last independent system of vocabulary and writing that humanity still has. It is the most similar experience available on Earth to learning the language of another planet. If Chinese is really so hard to learn, this should provide enough motivation for anyone to try it.

Political considerations

Mandarin is not in itself a very difficult language, what makes it hard is its complex Word System, which is for the most part not essential (that is, the language could still exist with loans and an alphabet). This System makes it hard for foreigners and Chinese to communicate, and it is a serious obstacle in the education of the Chinese. In the last century,  development has been the main priority of China in order to recover her past glory, and inefficient relics have been torn down without blinking, just like the Walls of Beijing. Chinese words and characters are the last of those obstructive monuments to remain, and by far the oldest of all. It is a miracle that they have survived till today.

The invention of convenient methods to input characters on a keyboard has made the future of the characters seem more secure, but their permanence is by no means ensured. Many famous linguists have argued for the use of pinyin as main written language and elimination of the characters from daily life, not least of them Lu Xun, or the late John de Francis. Much as I admire these men and their work, I am completely opposed to their position as a matter of principles. I don’t suppose anyone will believe me in this age of economists, even less in the China of the new philosophies, but I have this to say: Efficiency is not a supreme value. In fact, it is not even a value in itself, but just a means. And a sad means it would be to recover the greatness of China, if there were nothing left to recover.

I think it is clear to most Chinese today that their Word System is too precious to abandon it for the sake of efficiency. However, some reasonable concessions can be made which might ensure the very survival of the System in the long term. In particular, the acceptance of foreign loans for new technical words might facilitate the access of Chinese to foreign research and the incorporation of foreign talents when the real Chinese brain-drain starts in earnest. The complete acceptance of latin script to represent phonetically foreign Proper Nouns (which is already used informally) would also be a step towards efficiency without sacrificing the heart of the system, and would be of great help for all the Chinese trying to learn English.

Apart from the practical issues considered, no less important is the mentality underlying the Chinese Word System. The growing common vocabulary in all the languages in the World represents the recognition by most cultures that there is a large part of common human culture, and that, since this part is only going to become larger with the progress of technology, the sensible solution is to adopt a common language to communicate it. By deciding to stay apart from this system, the linguistic choice of China represents a stance opposed to the rest of the World, and in a certain way it perpetuates the traditional isolation of the Middle Kingdom even in the age of Global interconnection. The insularity of the Chinese internet community and the misunderstandings between cultures that have arisen from it are, to some extent, a consequence of this choice.

The part played by the language in China’s relations with the World is probably not of the first importance. But even today this part is not negligible, and with the advances in communications, nobody knows how vital it will become in the future. Ultimately, it is only up to the Chinese to decide what language they want for themselves. We can only wait and see, and hope that they find a way to stay connected with us, while preserving their unique heritage of Words.

I don’t suppose this is groundbreaking research, but it is interesting because most people are not aware of it, and also for its implications in the limit betwen language and politics, two fields we like to cultivate in this blog. Here is the argument in full with conclusions, for examples and details see the previous post and its comments:

• To learn a new language the main knowledge required is in three areas: grammar, phonetics and vocabulary. Grammar and phonetics differ essentially from vocabulary in that the first two are rules applicable to infinite cases, whereas the latter is raw data. We can call them the Code and the Data elements of the language. The Code elements are finite and not growing. The Data element is practically infinite and growing, to the point that it is not completely mastered even by native speakers.

• When studying a language, the Code elements play an essential role in the basic and intermediate levels, but at advanced level the real obstacle for communication—and therefore for progress—is Data.  For example, in German advanced students may sometimes use the wrong declension, and in Spanish they may fail to differentiate “rr/r”sounds. These things tend to not hamper communication because human languages are highly redundant. I would never understand “pero” (but) when a speaker says “perro”(dog). Ultimately,  imperfections in the Code elements amount to the same as having an accent: most of the times they are only relevant as metadata.

• But while Code above a certain level is highly redundant, Data remains essential at every level. Borrowing from this great article: The phrase “Jacuzzi is found effective in treating Phlebitis”is meaningless when either or both of the nouns are unknown. A single missing word can often obscure the meaning of a whole paragraph or article.

• The number of words used passively in real life far exceeds the typical standard lists of language levels. This is because semi-specialized words—such as ionic, jacuzzi or matrix—are not included in vocabulary lists as they are considered too rare. Certainly each of these words is rarely used, but there are so many of them that as a whole they are actually very often used. This Data element is so large that it cannot be memorized in a classroom, and the only way to acquire it is through many years of immersion.

• The reason why most language learners never realize this problem is because they are “cheating”. In most languages in the World, this high level vocabulary is practically identical and it doesn’t need to be learned. There is a certain limit level for each language above which most modern words are international and the Data is no more specific of the language .

• This limit level of vocabulary convergence is different for every language, but it doesn’t so much depend on the language family or geographical origin, rather it depends on the size and the development of the community of speakers. That is the reason why even non indo-European languages like Basque are extremely easy above the intermediate level: the community is not big enough to support complex terms, and all higher Data is adopted from International words. Most people tend to misunderstand and attach too much importance to the concept of language families, and they come up with absurd lists like this one.

• The internationalization of vocabulary is growing with the advances in telecoms and globalization, especially since English has become the only language of scientific research. There is little point in inventing new Swedish terms in science, for example, when all the scientific community are reading/writing their papers in English. Often, in spite of political efforts to promote a local vocabulary, the economics of language revert the higher Data back to Internationalese.

• There is only one language in the World that for historical, political and demographic reasons has remained an exception to this trend: that language is Chinese (Mandarin, Cantonese or others, the difference is irrelevant  here). It constitutes a parallel system of high level Data that has very few words in common with the rest of the Word. Japanese and Korean are partial exceptions in that they draw from both the Chinese and the International System, but modern words are increasingly International and these languages are converging with the rest.

• In addition to this, Chinese has a ridiculously difficult writing system unique for its lack of a functional phonetic script. This compounds the vocabulary problem: not only there are more words to learn than in any other language, but each word  contains much more information as it needs to be associated with its corresponding characters.

• Moreover, since there is no standardized way to transcribe foreign Proper Nouns, even names of places and persons tend to be “translated” into Chinese, sometimes completely departing the original phonetics and becoming Chinese Names in their own right. This adds to the already massive Data element in the Chinese language.

All this takes us to the conclusion: Chinese is the most difficult language to learn at a high level, regardless of the origin of the student.

This is particularly interesting because up to now the right answer to this question was only: “depends on your own mother tongue”.  With the possible  exception of Japanese/Korean students,  this post justifies that Chinese is actually the hardest for everyone else.  Inversely,  it is also very difficult for Chinese to learn other languages, although this is mitigated by the fact that other languages do have functional phonetic scripts.

Another interesting conclusion:  Chinese is not only difficult, it is actually growing in difficulty.

As the World grows more interconnected and technology occupies a more important part of our lives, new semi-specialized vocabulary takes an increasing part in everyday language. Expressions that refer to international concepts such as “spam”or “plasma TV” increasingly take the place of expressions referring to  local cultural heritage.  In this sense, we can say that all languages in the World are converging, while Chinese is an island diverging from all the rest.

Then there are the political conclusions that we can draw from this, but I am committed to writing shorter posts, so we will leave that for the next day. Comments and corrections are welcome to my arguments above.

I know I am treading on dangerous ground, and the sect of the Japanese learners is sure to fall on me with all the weight of their declensions. To make this a fair game, I will define first what I understand by difficulty: the time needed by one average person without previous contact with related languages, to attain a functional level, where functional is understood as being able to execute every normal activity in mandarin without significant disadvantage, such as: writing dissertations, hosting formal meetings, reading at a normal speed, chatting in a noisy a bar. I am taking my own level of French as standard measure of this level.

Of course, this standard and the whole notion of “significant disadvantage” are subjective and difficult to measure, but for the purpose of this post it should be enough. Note that the key factor here is utility: I am deliberately paying less attention to aspects such as accent as long as it doesn’t get in the way of normal communication. The reason is that I am considering the language as a communication tool rather than a mark of status, origin or other possible functions. In China, any possible use of imitating accent is lost to most foreigners because the facial features give them away immediately.

Apart form the accent, important fields like Classic Chinese are given very little weight in my definition of “functional”, for obvious reasons. It is true that by using this definition I am weakening my case for the Most Difficult Language, but we can afford that, because our most formidable weapons are still in reserve.

One more thing before I continue: this exercise has been tried many times already, like here, here and here. I am ignoring previous results because the criteria used in each of them—such as teacher’s perception or comparison of certain conventional parameters—do not have any use in real life. Each student is free to chose his own definition for difficulty and functional level, but it seems to me that the one in this post, summarized as “the level needed to use the language seamlessly in native contexts” is the one that most people would naturally accept.

My argument follows the process of studying Chinese through 3 stages: First I prove that Chinese is easy, then I prove that it is difficult. Finally, I will give the reason why Chinese is THE MOST DIFFICULT language in the World. If you are already familiar with the study of mandarin you might want to skip straight to the third chapter.

Chinese is Easy

The simplicity of Chinese grammar at a basic level and the easy pronunciation and memorization (without tones) of the first lists of words makes for a very mild learning curve at first. I’ve had many occasions to compare with students of Spanish in Spain, and almost always the students of Mandarin in China are faster to start using simple sentences. Apart from the language itself, I suspect that the curious and chatty nature of the Chinese is an important part of it.

If you have been in China long enough you have probably seen some of those miracle students that learnt Chinese in 1 year. I have met a few of them myself, and in some cases I was amazed by the results. These people are essentially natural communicators, they don’t need the tones or the characters because they use a very powerful tool in mandarin, which is context. Their intonation and body language channel tons of information, and so they are able to entertain a band of adult Chinese for hours on end, while you sit there bitterly wondering where to put the 了. That is a real story, by the way.

Of course, not everyone can be such a great communicator, but the point here is: for a certain kind of person and for a certain kind of objectives, Chinese can be in fact an easy language when learned in immersion. That is the kind of superficial level that is referred to when you hear someone say “he speaks 14 languages fluently”. It includes just the most basic characters, practically no grammar and long lists of everyday vocabulary memorized without tones. It is nowhere even near my definition of functional level, but it is useful and rewarding, and for most people it is all they need.

It is for this reason that to every foreigner coming to China, especially the curious and communicative ones, I strongly recommend studying Chinese conversation without characters. At this first level it makes economic sense for most of them to study seriously.

Given a prolonged exposure to mandarin speaking environment, a speaker can go a long way without characters. However, for serious students of mandarin, the non-character path is not sustainable. Among other reasons, because it will make it impossible to read and write, effectively leaving off limits large areas of knowledge.

Chinese is Difficult

The potential student should think very carefully before stepping into the next phase. Because it requires an investment in time that is out of proportion with the study of almost any other language, or even with such complex undertakings as, for example, obtaining a PHD. In the vast majority of cases it does not make economic sense, and it is simply not a rational choice. So if you decide to go there, just make sure you have irrational motivations.

The difficulties that appear in this phase, such as characters and tones, have already been described in the excellent articles mentioned above, so I will not go into details. I will just stress the factors of context and interdependence, which I feel are sometimes understated. The idea, summarized, goes like this: Those two diabolically difficult codes that are spoken and written Chinese are made even more difficult to learn because they tend to be not self-supporting in the mind of the student, but relying on each other, and then both of them rely a good deal on context.

This is the most absurd part of the system, because intuitively one would imagine that a (semi) ideographic script is independent from Speech. The truth is that not only they are not independent, but the whole system is so inefficient that Chinese themselves rely heavily on their Spoken language to interpret the characters. This explains, for example, why it is so easy to come up with characters that your average Chinese cannot read, or why they can read a newspaper knowing only 2000* characters but you cannot, as they successfully use their spoken language to remember/guess the missing characters.

In the other direction, the dependence on written material to learn to speak is common to any second language, as being able to read words in a phonetically significant way makes them much easier to remember.  In China, the existing material in proper pinyin (Latin letters with tonemarks) is practically zero, and the tendency of some letters and tones to vary among regions makes it almost impossible to learn them properly just from listening. To make matters worse, Chinese speakers themselves rely on the characters to solve ambiguities, as is often the case with names of people and places, or when they explain a new word: “My name is Jiang,” they say, “the beauty-woman Jiang” referring to the 2 parts of the character 姜. Ambiguities tend to happen a lot in contextual languages like mandarin, even more when a foreigner is involved.

This mutual influence between speech and writing has many other consequences unique to Chinese: for example, it is impossible to write down or even read foreign words without an advanced knowledge of characters, making it very difficult to understand familiar names both in writing and in conversation.

All  these factors (and many others I haven’t mentioned) provide an extremely difficult learning environment for a foreigner. This is the main reason why it is impossible to reach functional level without following a balanced approach on spoken and written language, plus immersion in Chinese culture. It explains why sinologists with a vast knowledge of characters never get to speak the language functionally, and neither do old China Hands living for decades in language immersion. They both stand on a wobbly platform with one leg shorter than the others.

In short, to study Chinese the effort is similar to learning 2 different languages that need to be pursued in parallel**.  And each of these two languages is a LOT more difficult than French (for an English speaker).

This however, has still failed to impress the students of Japanese, who are already grinding their katanas to come after my head. I will admit that, up to here, the Japanese language still has a good chance of beating Mandarin. Move on to the next section to see my checkmate.

Chinese is the Most Difficult Language in the World

Now is when we get to the third phase, that of students at a functional level, without any “significant disadvantage”compared with native speakers.  As far as I am concerned, this phase is just hypothetical: I have never seen a foreigner who got there. I am not saying this person does not exist, I just mean that after 3 years in China I haven’t met any, that is how rare it is.

In terms of the measure standard established, I could phrase it like this: I have still not met a single foreigner who is fluent in Chinese at a level to compete with my own level in French, which is my 4th language, learnt as an adult in 3 years spent in France. I have an accent and a few faux amis, but I can read and write as fast and complex as any of my French colleagues with similar backgrounds, and I can’t remember the last time I didn’t get something on TV. I challenge anyone to get me a non-native Chinese speaker that can speak or write like I do in French, or even at a comparable level. Excuse me if I sound cocky, I am just writing this because it is the basis of the argument that follows.

But let’s get to the real point of this post: Why is Chinese the most difficult Language in the World?

The main basis for this assertion has to do with vocabulary. I think that in most studies about learning Chinese, this factor has been greatly understated. It is in my opinion the single most important obstacle for a student to get to the functional level. Before I explain why, let me give some background:

In the origin there are deep cultural reasons, that come from the fact that China is seen by its speakers as a cradle of civilization. Actually, it can be accurately said that China is one of the cradles of civilization, and the only one that has kept a living language to this day. Linguists will say that the language has changed completely since the times of the Shang, but this is a purely technical objection. Culturally, it is STILL the same people and the same language, it is felt like this by the speakers, and this entails a series of attitudes that are unique to Chinese.

These “attitudes” include not recognizing Latin or Greek as cultural references, and by extension not accepting English or other foreign roots in the creation of new words. This is the heart of the matter. This makes things extremely difficult for foreigners studying mandarin, and also for Chinese studying foreign languages. And it has implications that go beyond the scope of language learning.

Regarding the practical consequences for the student of mandarin, consider this: the active vocabulary required to obtain a standard level of language—for example, the vocabulary required for highest level of HSK— typically contains no more than a few thousand words, which are more than enough for everyday general conversation. And yet, the HSK11 people that I have met were not even close to competing with my French.

The reason is that for people with a higher education, the passive vocabulary really needed to attain a functional level is much larger than the vocabulary required in any standard test of proficiency.  Think of vector, ion or metaphysical. None of these words enter the standards lists of vocabulary because in theory they are technical terms, and yet they appear in normal conversation and you are expected to recognize them even if you have no idea what an ion really is. You acquire these words through a lifetime of living inside a culture.

So what happened with my French? Obviously,  I just learned the few thousand words necessary to get along, and from then on it was extremely easy…  because the vast pockets of specialized  vocabulary were for the most part already known to me. And that is because, once you have learnt to decode phonetics and grammar, and above a certain level of vocabulary, all the languages in the World become almost the same—except for Chinese, that is.

And as a consequence of this Chinese differentiation, the only practical method for most people to achieve functional level is to spend a lifetime in immersion, in order to acquire the vocabulary in all those fields that are not studied in language school and can only be learned through experience. In summary, for a student to become functional it would take, following our three phases above:

1. Exceptional communication abilities, talent and motivation.
2. Years of full-time study to learn reading and writing.
3. Even longer – min around 10 years? – in 100% immersion in China.

Essentially, we are speaking of a person who is dedicated to Chinese as a career, who has a talent for language and who lives in a total Chinese environment for many years. It is not impossible that this person exists, and we might even have someone in comments below who responds to this description. But the conjunction of those 3 conditions in one single person is extremely rare, and for the vast majority of students, functional level in Chinese will always be out of reach.

Excuse the long post, I wrote it out of frustration the other day when I got stuck in the middle of a sentence containing ionic treatment, partly because the word for ion, 离子 (li2zi3) like many other technical words, does not give you any clue when it is out of the context of physics. I would like to see what the Japanese (who are pretty good at saying “ion” phonetically) have to answer to this. Checkmate.

And Chinese has won the dubious honour of being the most difficult language in the World.

NOTES:

*There has been much discussion about this and the number is probably wrong. The point is that even when you get to know more characters than a native Chinese, he will still be able to read much better and faster than you. This is frustrating.

** I am using terms very loosely here, Written Chinese is not in itself a language but a representation of Chinese. It is not really studying 2 languages, but I find this comparison useful to give a feel of the raw amount of data that needs to be stored into your head.

PS. If  you are interested in this debate,  see the summarized and hopefully more clear post here.

My approach to learning Chinese this year is based on the one I used with my previous languages: The reading method. It can only be used starting from intermediate level. In the case of mandarin, I would say this is not before 2 years of studying at a normal rate.

The method consists of acquiring first a minimum level of vocabulary to understand most simple texts, and from that point on dedicate your study time to the pleasant hobby of reading novels as captivating as possible. If you are a bookworm like me this works very well, because you end up putting in far more hours of study (reading) than you would if it were normal exercises. I know there are also many resources to read Chinese on the internet with cursor translator included, but computers tend to distract your attention very fast, whereas reading a good book gets your eyes glued to the characters for hours on end.

The result of this method is that you end up with a vast passive vocabulary and excellent character recognition abilities. Then it is up to you in your socializing time to go out and try to use these words in conversation, at the risk of locals saying you sound pompous. Sometimes you can even lift full phrases from a novel, and it is fun when you manage to use them in real life. For example, when I was reading Lu Xun’s “AhQ” I placed neatly my favourite line:

Little Yi:我讨厌我的老板，怎么办?

Uln: 你先估量对手，口讷的你便骂，力气小的你便打。

Little Yi:天哪！

Uln: 怎么啦？

Little Yi:你又在练习！

Uln: 我？没有啊。。。

Admittedly, my use of the method is a bit radical. But the social phase is an essential part of it, because once you have used a word a couple of times successfully, it quickly moves into your active vocabulary, and after that it rarely leaves you again. This is only practicable if you live in a Chinese environment, it never worked when I was back in Europe.

Reading speed

The key tipping point in the reading method is that moment when you realize that you can read a story fast enough to actually enjoy it. This is a function not only of your knowledge of characters/words, but also of the interest of the book and of your own personal nerdiness. When I read my first novel “Brothers” last year, I was so excited to taste the Chinese popular literary style that I gladly spent two months ploughing through the 700 pages of chengyu-ridden Yu Hua.

Since then, I have much increased my reading speed, to a point where I can sustainably read non-fiction without falling asleep. The preparation for the high-speed requirements of the HSK has helped me a lot for this, and I must say that, in spite of all my ranting in the previous post, it does make sense to force students a bit. Because the ability to read characters at normal native speeds is one of the most difficult to acquire, in my opinion.

Note that, when I say speed, I am not referring to the speed that comes from knowing all the words in the text. It is obvious that by using less the dictionary it is possible to read faster. My point is that, even for simple texts where all the words are familiar, I still read almost 3 times slower than a native Chinese, even after 1 year of reading books. This is an issue that has appeared only when studying Chinese, and not in any of my previous languages that used latin script, so I have strong reasons to think that it is tied to the use of characters.

I think it probably has to do with the way the brain processes the characters, and the way people schooled in Chinese from an early age have developed differently in this field. The post about reverse pinyin last week pointed me in this direction, and a few experiments I have done with my Chinese neighbours as well. I hope I have the time to write a bit more about this next week.

In the meantime, if there is a non-native advanced reader out there, I would like to hear your experience. Does it eventually get better, and do you manage to read at the same speed as the Chinese? Or do you have the same problem I note here? Let me know.

OK, off-line I go again. I already missed all Tuesday and Wednesday in an absurd meeting in Changsha so I need to catch up. I’ll be back after the HSK, if I haven’t showed up by Monday call the fire brigade.

Before I disappear for a week into my studying den, let me explain you again this business of the HSK. It is short for 汉语水平考试，or Chinese Level Exam, and it is the official standard to measure your level of mandarin, accepted by all universities in the mainland. It is also a very crazy exam, designed to squeeze out of the examinee’s brains as much linguistic information as possible in 3 hours, and then put it down in measurable statistical terms.

As it happens, the HSK is an exam that does not mainly measure your level of Chinese. It measures your determination, endurance and sangfroid, and your faith in a better life after the bell. The good side of it, apart from hardening your soul, is that it gives you a good taste of the ultracompetitive Chinese education system and their university entrance exam. It is even reminiscent of the 科举考试, the old imperial examination to select the bureaucracy, which famously caused some of the candidates to lose their wits and become heavenly kings. For a foreigner who is serious (deranged) enough to try to understand China, this experience is essential.

But back to the facts: This Saturday 17th is the HSK advanced, and I am going to fight for a level 9, out of 11 possible levels. I need to get this degree desperately, for the sole honourable objective of beating my own record. This is the Olympic spirit.

My practice essays with thoughts on the Four Books

Here are some details of the exam: the reading section contains text with a total of over 4,000+ characters, the equivalent of some 10 pages in a standard format novel, and on that text you have to answer 15 questions (not choose a,b,c,d, but actually answer with a sentence). There is a total of… 15 minutes for this part. I tested with a native Chinese friend and that is the time she took just to read the text at normal speed.

The essay writing is another scary part, because you get so used to typing with the computer that when it comes to handwriting characters you don’t even know where to start. At least here you do get 30 minutes for an essay of 400-600 characters, so you actually have the time to read what you are writing, and to consider if you really want to express your own point of view in an exam which contains exercises like:

“The concept of scientific development leads our people towards a more ——– society”  ( a-harmonious, b-harmonic, c-harmonium d-hormonal)

This example is not exactly literal, I am quoting from memory. The point is the HSK has a strong Beijing flavour, and some of the phrases are taken directly from CPC handbooks and the helmsmen’s theories. In a way, it feels like the Four Books of the imperial examinations all over again: the Thought of Mao Zedong, the Theory of the 3 Represents, the Concept of Scientific Development… As the old saying goes: All things they’ve changed, and nothing has changed.