The Chinese Character I Hate the Most
I really am having a blast in my Chinese class and do not regret enrolling in it even though people tell me it's very difficult. It helps that I have a great teacher who is just so cool. As usual we are constantly learning new characters and it's very invigorating to retain as much as possible.Yes, I do have trouble with some of them but that's another story. Somewhat recently 我的老师/my teacher showed us the word for car. It is pronounced as chē and written as 车 in simplified form. As you may or may not know, the Chinese writing system has a traditional and a simplified form. The People's Republic of China tried to simplify the traditional characters in order to increase literacy in the country. Though my teacher tells me that it shouldn't be called traditional but rather complex because some simplified characters are older than the ones labeled as traditional. Anyway that's beyond my knowledge right now and besides the point. The moment I laid my eyes on 车, I despised it. It's an ugly character compared to the traditional one: 車. The latter you can visually imagine where the wheels would go and thus remember it as car. This is not the first time seeing this as I had to learn this Kanji character during my Japanese class which goes by as くるま/kuruma. For the most part, Kanji uses the Chinese traditional form. Seriously though, how can 车 be much easier to remember than 車? Just because it has less strokes doesn't mean it's simpler. It would look sick if it was alive and ugh ... disgusting. But because I hate it so much it was burned into my brain so that I can point it out to others and secondly for my exam ... maybe. Just think back to that Simpson's episode about the Soapbox derby where Homer said something like "Martin! Martin! I'll forever curse that name" But yeah I am convinced they did this just to make it harder for me :p
Labels: characters, chinese, japanese, language, learn, personal, rant, school, simplified, traditional
Comments:
熟能生巧嘛。
# posted by Anonymous : December 18, 2006 3:52 AM
Of course. That's why I am planning on going over these characters even during the winter break. Usually I don't do anything school related after the semester but I noticed that I start forgetting characters if I don't use them regularly. Plus, my prof said there will be an exam the first day we come back so we don't start from scratch when we come back. So double motivation.
# posted by Su Ti Ben : December 18, 2006 9:36 AM
A fellow student here! I've been learning for about 15 years informally, and have plans to start formal classes preparing for the HSK exam.
The characters can be a killer, huh?
# posted by Anonymous : October 10, 2007 11:40 PM
It's always a pleasure to meet others learning Chinese as well. I would say I've been studying it for a year but now am doing it informally. So it's sort of the reverse of your situation.
The characters can be a pain at times but somehow it can be fun. I enjoy drawing so maybe that's just me. What's really a pain are the characters that are so similar except for a few minor strokes. But hey, I love it and I intend to learn it somehow someway. u too right?
# posted by Su Ti Ben : October 15, 2007 4:45 PM
Do you know which character with the most strikes in Chinese?
Most chinese don't know. The word has 64 strikes
龍龍
龍龍
that is it! by the way it is one word, not four words
# posted by Anonymous : February 08, 2009 1:38 PM
实买买头 vs. 實買買頭
This is probably the only real downside to simplified. You should really learn to read both though!
Good luck on your studies! Just keep trying!
A fellow (fifth year) language learner
# posted by Jonathan : March 06, 2009 11:59 AM
how about 愛 for love with no 心 (heart) in simplified: 爱 - good call on that one.
or 飛 for fly noticeably shy of some feathers in the simplified 飞 - good luck getting off of the ground.
# posted by Dalbanese : March 07, 2009 12:24 AM
It's nice to know that somebody else feels that many simplified characters look a lot more "jank" than the traditional. I can't stand this simplified. I grew up learning the traditional, and since I didn't pay attention in class (as I should have) I'm regretting it now and studying Mandarin informally with a mainlander who uses simplified! She writes in simplified w/ pinyin, and I write traditional with zhuyin fuhao. tee hee :) We should go back to traditional, the Chinese should be proud of our beautiful and complex language. Plus, traditional looks better in calligraphy :)
# posted by Anonymous : March 07, 2009 1:07 AM
I hate 东 the most
東 is so much better!
# posted by Anonymous : March 10, 2009 3:47 AM
東 means the sun (日) in the middle of the woods (木)。 Easily relates to East, where the sun rises.
东 has totally stripped off the meaning.
I really think Mainland China should revert back to traditional script.
5000 years of history was apparently cut off from the last 2 generations when most of them cannot read the traditional script in artifacts in museums, old books, etc..
There is no need to do everything at one go. Start small, change the headlines in newspapers to traditional script, while retaining the contents in simplified script.
# posted by Anonymous : December 17, 2010 6:51 AM
Wow. I LOATHE 车 !Always have, always will.
I studied traditional characters for 2 years at university, but then moved to the 人民共和国. While living here, i rarely actually handwrite chinese, so after three years I can mostly recognize simplified, but sometimes i'll write something like 觉 in traditional because i've never actually written in it by hand in simplified. this gets an equal share of "哦,你会繁体字?好厉害!" and "um, wtf is this laowai doing?"
As for 车,after making the switch, i've just never felt comfortable writing it. People tell me my chinese script looks like a child's anyway, and I'm comfortable with that, but something about the placement of the last 2 strokes on 车 just makes me feel dirty.
I don't know what that other poster was talking about though, "东" is beautiful. way better than the traditional. I derive enormous satisfaction from writing 东,陈,冻,连 etc.
# posted by Anonymous : March 16, 2012 2:29 AM
As an apprentice of Chinese language, I can only be happy the Chinese characters have undergone a serious simplifications,
although for some of them that exercise better would not have been done.
As they were already simple to write and the change has lost some beautiful meaning.
Like the traditional version for East (dong) which speaks much more to imagination then the simplified version.
# posted by bigboss : August 31, 2012 5:55 AM
CCP-made characters are ugly like the CCP government. They are still called traditional characters. "Complex" is a word invented also by the CCP to justify their characters.
# posted by Anonymous : January 05, 2014 5:35 AM
Your opinion is so awesome and everyone hates Simplified Chinese because it is made from a dictatorship country.
# posted by 周育德 : October 25, 2014 12:05 AM
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