I understand Chinese...just not simplified Chinese please, I prefer the 'original' thanks...What mangas?

@ivana: i think you mean 'traditional' chinese rather than original.

'Original' chinese are the etchings on oracle bones and I can guarantee you won't be able to read it.

Of course I mean 'traditional'. I just called it 'original' because it's like most Chinese use it and they only write simplified Chinese because they're being lazy-butts. (I wouldn't blame them tho since Chinese has so many damn 'strokes'.)

@ivana: now that is uncalled for. Even if one just learns simplified, it is still a huge achievement considering the huge amount of characters and strokes one has to learn. Simplified is the official written language in China much like how mandarin is the official spoken language. People do not need to learn both traditional and simplified.

Just because you know traditional doesn't make you any better than a person who knows simplified. Rather, it just makes you appear arrogant and just plain wrong. No language is better than another, that's a fact.

I'm not sure if you go to a Chinese school (since you said you were half Chinese) but our teachers say you need to learn the traditional first, then the simplified, even though it is the 'official' language in China, it isn't in Hong Kong.

Yeah, 'huge achievement' but more less stroke to learn. I didn't say it would make me 'better'. Arrogant? Well, do you have ANY idea when students here get to learn simplified yet? It just pissed me off that most people type simplified chinese nowadays everywhere, since I can't get some of it. = =

Well, since I study both Chinese and English, imo it really is a pain to study Chinese (Cantonese has 9 'sheng diao' or 'tones', 5 more of the official Mandarin), and a language that is better than another is but a person's point of view.

Half chinese? I'm full chinese.

Hong Kong was only recently returned to China so I'm not surprised that it hasn't changed given that Hong Kong is mainly oversea chinese. Only in oversea chinese communities is traditional chinese taught along with simplified.

Yes. arrogant. You just called simplified chinese people lazy butts. That's implying that they are inferior to you. If you can't get it, that's your problem and no excuse to start insulting people. I'm sure there are plenty of communities with traditional chinese as the norm. So stop getting on the simplified chinese ppl's cases and go find your niche rather than complaining about them.

There are plenty of languages you do not know, that doesn't make them inferior to you. It just means you don't know them. Plain and simple.

Whoa take a chill pill! I'm from Malaysia, full Chinese and ALL our schools only teach simplified Chinese. Why write more strokes when you can be understood by less?

@aisling: fine. *chills to a cool 273K degrees* ;P

the whole traditional vs simplified is like Cantonese vs. Mandarin. XD

It's pretty funny cuz here in my state: most people up north speaks Cantonese, while most in the southern part speaks mandarin. XD

The lazy-butts are the people who learnt both traditional & simplified. Many people who learnt traditional tends to use simplified more after they learnt it, especially in writings. Yeah you're full chinese and yet you yourself even completely forgotten your Cantonese so don't pretend as if you've known the language so well and don't get so judgemental about it since you clearly don't have the right to. So what if I'm arrogant? You're just ignorant.

I never said I knew the cantonese language fully. Repeatedly I said I did not speak Cantonese, only Engrish. I only said stop judging people based on what they do. I am not the one who said people are lazy butts. You did. You judge them. I merely said you shouldn't judge people like that.

You assume I know nothing of chinese written language and you'd be wrong. I actually was taught traditional chinese for several years before quitting so I know how difficult it is and have taken a writing course analyzing writing in china over the years. This included cursive, simplified, traditional, oracle, and other forms. I've had direct exposure to cantonese for most of my life. I don't appreciate being called ignorant when you know nothing of my background and simply assume that because I do not know how to speak it, I don't know anything about it.

The fact of the matter is written chinese is very hard to learn no matter which form you are learning.

But it is true. Would you rather write simplified or traditional chinese if you knew both? Maybe the word 'faster' would suit more than 'lazy-butts'? -_-?

Actually, whether I do trad/simplfied depends on where I am. If i'm in a traditional community like in my state, of course i'd use traditional because that's what everyone understands here. If I was in china, i'd use simplified because that's what's understood.

For myself, I don't see what's so glorified about traditional chinese writing. Language is and has always been a tool, a medium to promote understanding between people. As I've said, why write more when you can be understood by less? Why ride horse carts when you can travel faster by plane?

There's nothing glorifying about traditional, that goes to simplified too. Exactly Aisling! (Umm, hey, is there a shorter way to call you? =S) I don't find 'lazy-butts' to be insulting at all and it shouldn't be (I'd even mix some simplified words when writing too), like I said, it was only aimed for the ones who knew simplifed after and not the people in China (I mean how can they be lazy-butts when that's the only Chinese they knew...? Doesn't even make any sense. -_-) And people here don't write it just because of where they are, they only write it because it's easier and faster, even some of my teachers do.

@Leelah and other on prev page:
I was really really really inactive these days... ='(
Miss you guys. Anyways, it's great to hear that Leelah can pronounce three kinds of "R". I can pronounce two kinds of "R", the one of American English, and the one with Russian rolling "R". xD

LOL'd to the debate xD

@Ivana: 你講話好婉轉。我鍾意。I prefer peace in this forum. By the way, I like to type traditional one but write simplified ones.

@KTC: Agreed to you in #132. ^^


OFF TOPIC: Oh my chill pill would be too late to send here LOL.

Edit: Cantonese is spoken in Southeastern China (Guangdong, Guangxi, Fujian, HK, Taiwan) and some SE Asia (Malaysia, Singapore) while Mandarin (all above including some oversea Chinese).

婉轉? Lol how? xD Well, people have different opinions and I respect that but I don't go attacking them just because theirs doesn't match mine's.

You know Russian too Mika, right?

Maybe you feel that way just like the other party feels the same way. It could all be just a big misunderstanding if no attacks were meant in the first place but strong language implied that there is.

Anyway, so far I know:
English
Mandarin
small amount of Cantonese (spoken), Teochew (spoken), Hokkien (spoken)
Japanese - fading away
Malay - fading away

Frankly, though, I'm not really a language person. I almost always get lower marks for languages than math and science.

@aisling: Better than me with engrish skillz XD

[And only one english 'dialect' at that. (North CA. Very specific. I think we North CA have a language war with the South CA over several words and whether they exist or not ^_^)]

My brain is sadly not geared for any type of language assimilation. I can get math formula's just fine, but stringing together a sentence in spanish is painful.

@Aisling
What's Teochew? You mean Fuk-kien? Wow so was your Japanese fluent?

Teochew is pronounced "Chao-Zhou" in Mandarin. No, Fuk-kien is Hokkien. My Japanese was medieval at best, because I learnt it at a time when I hated it. It was forced upon me by my father, who loves Japanese (the language only; he hates the people <-- he actually hates a lot of races, so that's not surprising). At that point, I had not discovered the delights of Japanese anime XD So I didn't really apply myself, and I've retained a very little.