Presented by: Kening Li, Asian Languages and Cultures, University of Michigan
Event Date: Wednesday, November 9, 2016
People unfamiliar with the Chinese language are often amazed by the sheer number of characters used in the language. A Chinese user needs to know about 3,500 characters in order to have a greater than 99% comprehension of the content of an ordinary newspaper article. Compared to the 26 letters in the Roman alphabet, that seems like a lot. But is this an accurate comparison? Are characters in Chinese really equivalent to the letters in an alphabetic language? Does having over 3,000 common characters really make Chinese inefficient, placing an extra burden on learners? In this talk, I will show how characters function in Chinese by discussing what the characters really stand for; the difference between characters and words; how words are formed in Chinese-and how that process differs in Classical vs. Modern Chinese. No Chinese or linguistic knowledge is required.
Негізгі бет "3500 Characters vs. 26 Letters: Efficient or Inefficient?" by Kening Li
Пікірлер: 212