I was inspired by what ‘GentleRain’ (GR) wrote on his blog of how frustrating it is for a westerner to learn Chinese. It is not just the westerner, it is frustrating to us Indians as well. I grew up realising English is so imperfect a language and Chinese vexes me more. For couple of days of starting to learn Mandarin (I stopped midway though), I was harping on how Indian languages are so perfect and logical till it dawned to me learning language is not like learning mathematics. Learning language is learning a culture; I hadnt enrolled into a Mandarin course but ‘Chinese Culture course’ .
While I would anyday vote for more ‘logical’ (sic) organisation of the Chinese textbooks by figure of speech etc., I would still believe it would just teach you the language and not the essence. There may be many reasons for people to learn Chinese, the most important being to work in ‘emerging economies’ (of the Chinese world). In that case, it is important to learn Chinese in the unstructured manner – cumbersome yet appropriate. Else, while reading / listening chinese, one would end up understanding the syntax and not the semantics.
I hate memorising, thats why I chose the ’science’ line. That was my undoing when I tried to learn the language logically, it wont work! I hate to say, memorisation is a must for languages and there is a limit to logically teach a language – then it would cease to be a language it would be linguistic science (or something).
Referring to GR, I disagree on the abstractions thing. Western thought may be logical but I dont think it is any more abstract than the Chinese. Chinese are really abstract when you see how their writing and their cultures, but where they fail is representation of abstraction using language. It would be easier for one to learn any Indian language for a couple of years and read the books and understand the abstraction. This wont hold it for the Chinese language. It is not for nothing it is said ‘It takes a lifetime and a little more to learn Chinese well’ . I give very poor marks in their language’s ability to capture abstraction as understood by western and Indian languages. Our written languages are more complete and encompassing.
Thats why understanding chinese (both the people and the language) is so difficult! With a qualified immodesty, I would say in terms of the evolution in the ability of a written language to capture the complex thoughts and culture, Indian languages are centuries ahead. Not to mention English!
mianmianxiyu said
Hello Wanderer.
>Learning language is learning a culture; I hadnt enrolled
>into a Mandarin course but ‘Chinese Culture course’ .
I wonder about the “language as culture” thing some. English is spoken now by a lot of the world. Indian English is not American English. Nor is it British English (though, clearly it is closer to the latter). I wonder how much of the differences are cultural and how much are not. And I wonder how much, as an Indian, you must change the “active” culture in your head when switching languages, or when “code switching” (changing languages mid-sentence).
> it is important to learn Chinese in the unstructured
> manner – cumbersome yet appropriate. Else, while reading /
> listening chinese, one would end up understanding the syntax
> and not the semantics.
My vote is still out on this. I’ll be able to comment better in the future when I know more Chinese.
> I disagree on the abstractions thing. Western thought may
> be logical but I dont think it is any more abstract than the
> Chinese.
Touché. Poor choice of words on my part. Different kinds of abstraction. I’d recommend the book Geography of Thought. It makes an interesting analysis of these things.
insomnya05 said
Sure, I saw your reference to Geography of Thought. I will surely pick it up next time I am in Eslite.
Indian-English, American-English etc.. are different but dont you see a common thinking emerging in the ‘English speaking world’ . English is becoming synonymous for the common culture of globalisation that is emerging! The differences are superficial.
I am Indian, born and brought up in India. Within a few minutes of chatting, you will probably realise that we both have done similar things – (seen) the same movies, (read) the same books etc. Probably have the same opinion on Bush
mianmianxiyu said
Yes, I agree that there’s a common worldview emerging… I’m not clear how much it is bound to English and how much it is bound to economics or just due to media (and (maybe this is your point) can these three be separated?). As a fluent speaker of English from a non-American country, you are probably better positioned than I to gauge this.
p.s. I’m sure we’re both fervent Bush supporters.