🚀 go-pugleaf

petex@cix.compulink.co.uk (Peter Christian) writes: (about Chinese)


>I don't think fluency is the issue, it's having learnt to recognize and
>reproduce 4000+ different characters. The task of learning to write
>correctly (i.e. to form the letters correctly) is fairly soon
>accomplished in an alphabetic script, and it's the relation of sound
>to spelling that's the problem. In Chinese, learning the inventory of
>signs is the whole task essentially. The enormous numbers of
>homophones must make it difficult too.

No, you do not have to learn to recognize and reproduce 4000 characters.
You have to learn basic components, a few hundred only. Themselves
are composed of a very few different types of brush strokes, and 
easy to reproduce, when you have been taught properly. The whole
calligraphic system is very regular and modular. 

For instance, you do not have to learn to recognize and reproduce
the character for "copper", only to learn and recognize its
two components, the character for "metal" and the one for "together",
which gives away the pronunciation. To use the same example, 
in English, you do not have to recognize and reproduce the word
"copper", only its five components, which give away the pronunciation,
but nothing about its meaning.

So, I rate the Chinese writing system above the English... and the
Welsh above both.