# Complexity of Mandarin language



## Ubuntu (Jun 17, 2011)

> Mandarin Chinese use more of their brain than English speakers to understand language
> Mandarin Chinese speakers use two sides of their brains to understand language, whereas English speakers use just one, according to new findings from Wellcome Trust researchers. The observation may have implications for the treatment of stroke-associated language impairment through drug and other therapies, which are already being investigated.
> 
> "Speech is a really complex sound," explains Wellcome Trust psychologist Dr Sophie Scott, who led the project. "As well as understanding words, the brain also uses the way in which words are spoken, such as intonation and melody, to turn spoken language into meaning. This system also has to be robust and flexible enough to deal with variations in speech sounds such as regional accents."
> ...


http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/News/Media-office/Press-releases/2003/WTD002864.html



> Mandarin Language Is Music To The Brain
> 
> ScienceDaily (Dec. 12, 2006) — It’s been shown that the left side of the brain processes language and the right side processes music; but what about a language like Mandarin Chinese, which is musical in nature with wide tonal ranges?
> 
> ...


Mandarin Language Is Music To The Brain


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## Paradox of Vigor (Jul 7, 2010)

That's interesting. So are these articles advocative of the Mandarin language in regards to it being superior to English and perhaps other languages?


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## Jason Chan (Jan 20, 2012)

this theory is nothing new at all
chinese and english are two lenses through which the same world looks completely different

the chinese language is a two dimensional language that is more intuitive and holistic. it is a language tailormade for the NPs

English and other european languages are linear or one dimensional, but more analytical, exact and sensing. they are languages designed for the SJs

No one language is superior


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## Paradox of Vigor (Jul 7, 2010)

Jason Chan said:


> No one language is superior


What if a language was created that made equal and effective communicative use out of all the types? That language would then be superior would it not?


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## Jason Chan (Jan 20, 2012)

how do you define "equal" and "effective communicative use"?
i believe one man's meat is another man's poison
English may not be perfect, but as a global language it is "fine"


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## In2itive (Mar 4, 2012)

What would you define as superior? Complex declensions that allow you to change the order of some of the words, as in Russian? Or maybe the simplicity of some of the Romance languages which make them easy to learn as a second language would be superior to Germanic and Slavic languages, for example.


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## wuliheron (Sep 5, 2011)

Recent brain scans have indicated languages uses a variety of different locations in the brain that evolved for apparently unrelated purposes. I'm sure the linguists and neurologists are pulling their hair out trying to make sense of the whole confusing mess, but it does make sense that something as plastic as the brain would adapt different parts for use with different languages since language itself is so flexible.


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## LotusBlossom (Apr 2, 2011)

interesting! Going on a tangent here - reminds me of how some years ago, a Puerto Rican friend of mine gave me an illustration on the thought patterns of an English speaker vs. thought patterns of a Speanish speaker. This is my scribbling but this is a rough approximate of what he drew:










Don't know how true this is since I don't speak Spanish!


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## wuliheron (Sep 5, 2011)

Kayness said:


> interesting! Going on a tangent here - reminds me of how some years ago, a Puerto Rican friend of mine gave me an illustration on the thought patterns of an English speaker vs. thought patterns of a Speanish speaker. This is my scribbling but this is a rough approximate of what he drew:
> 
> Don't know how true this is since I don't speak Spanish!


I'd say the basic idea is probably right. From what I've read it seems English is particularly good for engineering because it has few hard and fast rules and can adopt new terms easily. Its also popular for business because its relatively easy to learn and most English speaking people around the world can understand each other without too much effort thanks in part to the popularity of Hollywood films.

Urdu was originally the secret court language of Genghis Khan for discussing political and battle strategies when two members of his entourage realized the potential of the language for poetry and created Urdu, considered the most poetic language to this day. German is thought to be the best language for the sciences, and I'm certain every language has its particular advantages and disadvantages. Classical Chinese has no verb "to be" (it, thing, etc) and is supposedly excellent for quantum mechanics. Similarly, the Navajo language has no verb to be or even a future tense and Navajo people sainted Einstein because his theory of Relativity so closely matched their spiritual beliefs.


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## Darkestblue (Apr 19, 2010)

"Let's learn to speak Mandarin!"


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## LotusBlossom (Apr 2, 2011)

oi


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## Longdove (Jan 4, 2011)

Kayness said:


> interesting! Going on a tangent here - reminds me of how some years ago, a Puerto Rican friend of mine gave me an illustration on the thought patterns of an English speaker vs. thought patterns of a Speanish speaker. This is my scribbling but this is a rough approximate of what he drew:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


It's an inside joke, I get what your friend was trying to say.

Haha I like that you're the one that took it upon yourself to draw a visual representation of that.


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## LotusBlossom (Apr 2, 2011)

Longdove said:


> It's an inside joke, I get what your friend was trying to say.
> 
> Haha I like that you're the one that took it upon yourself to draw a visual representation of that.


haha! Thanks! The message that I got is that he's saying English speakers think in a structured way while Spanish speakers don't, due to the nature of the language. Is there an in-joke that I missed?


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## doublexuan (Feb 27, 2012)

I am an NP and also Chinese. I find the language frustrating and extremely difficult. It doesn't make any sense to have a separate character for everything. At least for most languages you get an idea how to pronounce it simply by looking at it. You can't for Mandarin. So it is impossible to remember how to write it, especially if you have a bad memory like me.


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## Jason Chan (Jan 20, 2012)

do you speak mandarin as your first language? we dont have separate characters for everything in the universe! indeed i find the chinese way of creating vocabulary far more logical than european languages
For example in cantonese (i dont speak mandarin myself but cantonese and mandarin grammars are similar in my example)
child ~ jai 
adult ~ yan
male ~ naam
female ~ nui

So we have
naamyan ~ man
nuiyan ~ woman
naamjai ~ boy
nuijai ~ girl

It is so simple! once you have mastered some three thousand characters you can name everything at ease
whats more the grammar of chinese is also much simpler than english
maybe you find chinese difficult simply because you dont have a chance to use it in your daily life

given the rise of china as a major power in the global economy politics and culture i would have to say a basic knowledge of mandarin is essential


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## Jason Chan (Jan 20, 2012)

ps: to remember a chinese character you need to go for a quantum leap in the way you look at the world
Instead of learning to pronounce a character in a linear way you need to think of it as a 2D diagram
and ... you know this calls for your ability to think "graphically"
The same mental skill will let you master chinese typewriting as well


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## Werewolfen (Sep 1, 2009)

About 12 years ago , I used to eat at the same Chinese restaurant. I got to be really good friends with the owner, his wife, and most of his staff. I would always order the same plate, Hunan Chicken, and ate there every week for probably 2 years. He started teaching me phrases in Mandarin and would always come around the counter and sit at my table when business was slow. He started teaching me simple phrases at first such as .....( "How are you ? = Nee how mah ) (thank you= Shay shay ) (Your welcome = Boo-kutchee) ( Happy New Year = S'hin dah jay kwai-lo ) and just kept on adding to the phrases. I remember him telling me that one word can also have up to 5 different meanings depending on how it's pronounced. 

No kidding on how difficult Mandarin is, especially reading the symbols. I bought a Mandarin language book back then and would take it in there with me and he would always ask "Did you bring your book ? " with a big smile on his face, lol. Peter Xiu was his name and he had a few Mexican employees and Peter could speak 3 languages fluently, his native Mandarin, English, and Spanish. His intellect was impressive. 

He eventually moved his restaurant across town and my trips to his place started becoming less frequent. I've found that languages that do not use the English alphabet are extremely hard to grasp. I bought a Russian book years ago and gave it a good try for about 3 months and never could memorize the Cyrillic alphabet. Languages like French,Italian,Spanish, and German are pretty easy to become partially fluent in because they all use the English alphabet as a base, it's like the foundation is already laid for me to start connecting the dots so to speak.

Some languages I just think require total immersion to learn. For the time I spent around Peter Xiu, he was a great teacher and friend. I consider Mandarin to be equally difficult as Russian.


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## sprinkles (Feb 7, 2010)

Jason Chan said:


> do you speak mandarin as your first language? we dont have separate characters for everything in the universe! indeed i find the chinese way of creating vocabulary far more logical than european languages
> For example in cantonese (i dont speak mandarin myself but cantonese and mandarin grammars are similar in my example)
> child ~ jai
> adult ~ yan
> ...


3,000 characters or 26 letters... hmmm... XD

Yes, Chinese is more simple. However, the complexity of English is mostly due to specifics and explicit context, rather than situation inferred conext - i.e. in the best case you don't have to know what is going on, who is talking, or what they are talking about in order to understand what is said, since you get that directly _from_ what is said.

There are still many ambiguous cases in English but it has many rules for mitigating ambiguity.

Edit: there's also something to be said for related things not sounding alike - this helps to eliminate misheard speech, especially over telephones etc. In fact, whole systems are based around this goal of things sounding unique, such as the NATO phonetic alphabet.


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## Jason Chan (Jan 20, 2012)

Werewolfen said:


> Some languages I just think require total immersion to learn. For the time I spent around Peter Xiu, he was a great teacher and friend. I consider Mandarin to be equally difficult as Russian.


100% agree! English is not my native language so don't be surprised if you occasionally come across a few mistakes in my writing. I used to learn English by reading grammar books. From my experience, this is the worst way to learn a language! I spent a lot of time on the memorization of words and rules! No fun at all! Indeed never have I been able to finish reading anyone of my books ... it was just boring.
You are quite lucky because you can actually learn a language from a native speaker, and one who you know very well.


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## Jason Chan (Jan 20, 2012)

sprinkles said:


> 3,000 characters or 26 letters... hmmm... XD
> 
> Yes, Chinese is more simple. However, the complexity of English is mostly due to specifics and explicit context, rather than situation inferred conext - i.e. in the best case you don't have to know what is going on, who is talking, or what they are talking about in order to understand what is said, since you get that directly _from_ what is said.
> 
> ...


Classical Latin has only 23 letters, but few of us would find it (at least a little) simpler than English! Why? The binary notation uses only 0 and 1 for all numbers, but that does not make it any easier than our decimal notation (My computer will disagree with me, though)

For the purpose of daily communication, personally I don't think English is very difficult to learn. To be able to write good English literature, of course, is another story! It is easy to learn but difficult to master. Anyway, compare to Old English, I think the English language has somewhat become simpler and simpler. It does its job as the "first" truly global language very well.

The Chinese language family was once as inflectional as Latin, but over time its grammar has become quite analytical, simple and logical. Its cumbersome writing is certainly the biggest obstacle to foreigners, though. Yet this also makes it a good mental exercise for those who want to challenge themselves. haha ...

We often hear people asking on the Internet: Which language is the best / worst / most difficult to learn? Stupid meaningless questions ... The power of a language lies not in its intrinsic simplicity (which is meanlingless because we can never quantify and define this term scientifically) but in the people who use it as their first (or second) language. Given the hegemony of the USA, whether we like it or not, every human being living on this planet has the "responsibility" to learn and master English. With the rise of China, however, I would have to say a basic knowledge of Chinese is helpful. Why not think of learning Russian, Chinese, Japanese or any other languages as a mental exercise?


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## sprinkles (Feb 7, 2010)

@Jason Chan

I agree, except for binary which is certifiably easier than base 10 for arithmetic. People only think it is hard because it has that reputation, but if for example a child never knew about this reputation and you taught them binary multiplication before teaching them base 10, I'd bet that they will pick up the concept of multiplication much faster.


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## Jason Chan (Jan 20, 2012)

sprinkles said:


> @_Jason Chan_
> 
> I agree, except for binary which is certifiably easier than base 10 for arithmetic. People only think it is hard because it has that reputation, but if for example a child never knew about this reputation and you taught them binary multiplication before teaching them base 10, I'd bet that they will pick up the concept of multiplication much faster.


I don't really want to use adjectives like "easy", "difficult" ... in my argument, since I can hardly quantify these concepts. It is only through quantification that I can COMPARE two different things or concepts, say which language is the most difficult (Chinese? Japanese?), who is the most beautiful woman in the world (Helen of Troy? haha ...) So I can't say whether or not the binary notation is indeed easier than our familiar decimal notation. I would say both systems have their own merits, so it may be wiser for us to keep using different notations in different situations. Anyway, this is only an analogy to our discussion on language.

One point that I think is worth mentioning is: To a baby or child, the Chinese language is probably no more "difficult" than English! Their brains work like a sponge, ready to absorb everything quickly and effortlessly ... It won't be too difficult for them to pick up seven languages in a year or two have they been given the chance to speak with native speakers


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## KneeSeekerArrow (Jan 8, 2012)

学习中文很难吗？ 我以为不难。


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## MCRTS (Jul 4, 2011)

Jason Chan said:


> One point that I think is worth mentioning is: To a baby or child, the Chinese language is probably no more "difficult" than English! Their brains work like a sponge, ready to absorb everything quickly and effortlessly ... It won't be too difficult for them to pick up seven languages in a year or two have they been given the chance to speak with native speakers


I'm ethnic Chinese, but even as a child, I found learning Chinese Mandarin difficult. I was exposed to it as early as three or four years old, but I never really got it as I did English, which was what my parents spoke at home. When reading or writing, English was more natural to me, while I needed more time when it comes to Mandarin. The difference is less marked when it comes to spoken, though. 

When it comes to teaching language to children, I think environment is important. Of course, there are people who are more predisposed to learning certain languages...it's all down to how our brains are wired. Interest plays a huge part as well. I know of friends who hardly speak Mandrin once they left school, but are taking third or even fourth languages.


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## Just_Some_Guy (Oct 8, 2009)

An easy way to look at this is that written Chinese and Japanese _mean_ something whereas English doesn't mean shit.

Take the term "cat". C-A-T doesn't _mean _anything at all. It is merely a series of sounds depected by the English alphabet by the letters C, A & T. It's _meaning _is derived by an agreement between English users. That is to say, the correlation between C-A-T and a fuzzy cat is _arbitrary_. 

In the Japanese (I'll use this because I am more familiar with it), cat is 猫, pronounced ねこ (neko). It comes from the combination of two Chinese radicals. The one on the left is a simplified character for "clawed animal" (the original classical symbol is far more intuitive) and the one on the right is the character for seedling. How do you pronounce seedling in Chinese? "Meow" (or thereabouts), of course. :laughing: The result is that this "neko", when written, is a little picture of a clawed animal that goes "meow." 

Of course there is still an element of inter-subjective agreement required, but the pictographic nature allows the mind to engage differently with the word than it does with a merely phonetic language.


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## LotusBlossom (Apr 2, 2011)

KneeSeekerArrow said:


> 学习中文很难吗？ 我以为不难。


 I think the speaking part isn't difficult, but the writing part? hell yes.


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## LotusBlossom (Apr 2, 2011)

MCRTS said:


> I'm ethnic Chinese, but even as a child, I found learning Chinese Mandarin difficult. I was exposed to it as early as three or four years old, but I never really got it as I did English, which was what my parents spoke at home. When reading or writing, English was more natural to me, while I needed more time when it comes to Mandarin. The difference is less marked when it comes to spoken, though.
> 
> When it comes to teaching language to children, I think environment is important. Of course, there are people who are more predisposed to learning certain languages...it's all down to how our brains are wired. Interest plays a huge part as well. I know of friends who hardly speak Mandrin once they left school, but are taking third or even fourth languages.


Same here! I was exposed to Mandarin pretty much the same time I started learning English, even if it doesn't seem like it...LOL...even after all these years my mandarin still sucks. The main benefit of it (learning Mandarin), though, is that it increased my comprehension of Teochew, the dialect that my father's side of the family speaks. Oh, and ordering food


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## MCRTS (Jul 4, 2011)

Kayness said:


> Same here! I was exposed to Mandarin pretty much the same time I started learning English, even if it doesn't seem like it...LOL...even after all these years my mandarin still sucks. The main benefit of it (learning Mandarin), though, is that it increased my comprehension of Teochew, the dialect that my father's side of the family speaks. Oh, and ordering food


Yes, Mandarin does aid me in understanding dialects. I'm actually a Hakka, though I don't understand or speak it. However, I do understand Teochew and Hokkien, both of which are more commonly spoken in Singapore. Teochew tends to be more lyrical and sing song, and Hokkien tends to be more "rough", for the lack of a better term. (I do apologise for derailing. Haha, talk of Mandarin is bound to lead to dialect.)

But it's pretty cool that you do have some knowledge of Chinese. What's your first language?


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