I HAVE just found out that my one book 2 CD Chinese course with its 1000 word vocabulary reportedly takes you to the European Council's
Common European Framework Level B2, that's level 4/6 with level 6 as near mother tongue proficiency. Can interact with a degree of fluency and spontenaity that makes regular interaction with native speakers a possibility without strain for either party. That remains to be seen!
1000 words isn't very much. Linguaphone courses teach 2000 words nowadays (it used to be 1500). Rosetta Stone levels 1-3 teach 1500 words (not very much for the £400 they cost). So 1000 words is just a higher basic smattering of day to day topics. Not "A level" (higher school certificate) standard. Which is what CEFR Level B2 is...
In A Level German we discussed nuclear disarmament, environmental protection and general politics. I don't see much of that indexed in Chinese. I think if you discussed politics in Chinese you'd get extradited!!! I've decided to wade through this book very slowly at 1-2 weeks per unit. There are 22 units. By the end I should read and write every word I know in simplified and traditional.
Simplified characters are, in my view, an exercise in fatuous vulgarity; but they are the standard now. So I'd better learn them. I just hope I don't get manic and start thinking of them; I might die of impotent fury. I mean why take the most complex and beautiful script on the face of the earth and DARE simplify it? That really is beyond the pale.
They should have simplified English spelling before they took their greedy talons to Chinese. English requires simplification in my view. I mean why is night spellt with a gh? It shoul be "nite". Or even "nait". Compound nouns sould be run together as in German. "Spellingmistake". "Pricetag" "informationbooth". It looks funkier and makes the language more intimidating for foreigners, who deserve to be confused.
What most English speaking natives appear rarely if ever to appreciate is that speakers of almost any other language can take for granted that a loud personal conversation on a foreign street ~ no matter how overheard ~ shall remain just that: PRIVATE. Not so with English!
Every bloody word you say, anywhere in the world shall be noted down and used against you. Of course this makes communication far easier and I'm not knocking that, but it would be nice sometimes, I think, to be able to converse loudly on foreign soil without the natives eavesdropping.
One tennis pro even got fined for swearing IN ENGLISH on ARABIAN soil!!! Who are THEY to tell us how to speak our language! That is an offence against freedom of speech. Not to mention highly intrusive.
Would a Czech tennis ace be fined for yelling "oh fuck" in his own language three thousand miles from home? I think not.
And here endeth the linguistic rant.
Illustrated: "horse" in traditional and simplified (vandalized) Chinese characters... be honest: which is prettiest? Clue: the one on the left.
I was talking about Mandy Patinkin earlier: here's his duet with Madonna:~~~~~~~
WHAT CAN YOU LOSE
"Mandy is NOT short for Amanda as I had assumed, but for MANDEL... DUR!!
Ah that's the downside of speaking a global lingua franca Gleds.
ReplyDeleteShame my fluency in any other language is dodgy
I'm glad someone else appreciates that fact though. Usually it's lost on everyone and I'm left self-consciously shamefaced NOT wanting every tom dick and harry to eavesdrop and treated as a weirdo by basically everybody else, who can never comprehend why!
ReplyDeleteMy fluency is very dodgy too. And I'm talking of English!!!
1,000 words doesn't seem much but are probably adequate for a survival level. Vocabulary isn't usually the problem . it's the bits that join the words up, ie., grammar! Personally I would hate to see British English adopt Americanised spelling.
ReplyDeleteI didn't mean Americanized spelling but a thoroughly modernized spelling so for example chauffeur would be spelled "showfer" two would be "too" and knee would be "nee"...
ReplyDeleteIt's actually about 1200 words in the English to Chinese section but that's NOT anything advanced is it, it's higher basic, enough to go shopping, introduce yourself, talk about hobbies, have a stab at official documents. Chinese grammar is very easy because Chinese words do not inflect AT ALL. No complicated tenses, verb conjugations, grammatical gender... none of that at all!