I never said th and s sound the same. I said they sound very similar, didn't I? I think even native speakers would agree with me on that. Please don't misconstrue my words.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/02/2010 04:56AM by Cindy.Zhou.

I know I am a bit off-topic. I am very sorry about that. But it seems someone keeps finding fault with me. I just said I love my mother tongue and it's one of the most complicated and ingenious languages in the world. I didn't say Chinese is the best or English isn't ingenious or something like that. But immediately someone jumped out and said since Chinese is so complicated it couldn't be ingenious and asked me to back up my arguments. Then I listed my reasons, just as that person has demanded. Actually, any person can say he loves his mother tongue or home country, he doesn't even need a specific reason. So to return to the topic, You want to know why I love China and the Chinese language? The reason is very simple, just because I am a Chinese!

Uberche -

I think we actually agree about the welfare, just not on my choice of the words "too good". I agree that it does not work and overall is a bad system, I have said that, and that more should be done on training, education, and the like vs. just handing out things. And you are right, there ARE lazy people everywhere, but in the USA, as I stated, the welfare system is too good for these lazy people, it makes life too easy for them. The welfare system needs to be modified. It should help people who truly need assistance, truly need help based on their financial situation, and not just by giving them food, money, etc.... It should be a system that is designed to help people find work, get a better education or training, and give them what they need at their low points in order to get their life heading in the right direction. I used to be an idealist until I saw the truth with my own eyes. Many people take advantage of the system. They take a job knowing they will get fired or laid off on a regular basis in order to collect unemployment payments. They will turn down jobs or not even look for work because it is easier just to sit at home doing whatever they feel like and getting months and months of free money. That is not what a good welfare system should do.

Please note that I clearly included the phrase "compared to most of the world" when I wrote of a "comfortable life" living off welfare. For me, it would not be acceptable, however in my travels, seeing how the large percentage of the rest of the world lives, it is "comfortable". In America, a person on welfare can have a house, a car, food to eat, clean water to drink, all the modern electronic appliances, new clothes, cell phone, internet, personal computer, etc...in my opinion, even though personally I want more, that is a comfortable life.

"Not legally". Right. You are correct. But it does happen, against "the law", for different reasons. An illegal immigrant in America often has a better life and is treated more fairly than if in their own country. Go to Mexico or Cuba and ask them about it.

Regarding the "minority rules". Hmmm, I will stay away from religion, seems to be a touchy topic, although when 95% of the parents have no problem with children singing "silent night" at school but it is banned because of the 5% who do, I can say that whatever the law says, it is a clear case of the minority ruling. If the law supports this, then the law itself is clearly supporting the ability of the minority to have power over the majority. If the 5% really don't like it, they should be allowed to keep their children out of the performance. I don't believe in magic, but if 95% of the parents approved of a "Harry Potter" play, then even if I didn't like it (but in this case I don't care) I would not try to make the school system ban it. A better example might be this; in America, a minority of the schoolchildren cannot speak English. Rather than force the children (many are the offspring of previously mentioned illegal immigrants who are getting a free education) to learn English, some schools have began teaching in whatever language that child speaks, at the cost of the taxpayer (hiring bilingual teachers, buying new materials, separate classrooms, etc...) Personally, I do not think that this is such a bad idea, and it makes schools more interesting, however it is a clear case of a small minority getting a benefit at the cost of the majority. Let me be clear - I believe in individual rights and am proud of the fact that America does make an effort to accept and help all people, regardless of race, religion, handicap, etc...but the point is that sometimes, the small minority is NOT someone who needs help, or is NOT an innocent child, but rather just someone who does not like what is happening in the world around them, so they complain, threaten lawsuits, take advantage of the legal system, do whatever they can until they get their own way.

Maybe if you make a 'write the English language with hanzi' system you'll be famous.

If you know some Japanese, you would know the Japanese people have already achieved that. Most of the 片假名 words are borrowed from English. They adopted the English pronunciation yet the 片假名 characters themselves look like Hanzi characters or radicals.

Like カード, which is card, it sounds very similar to the English word card.
Or コンピュータ, which is computer, it sounds very similar to the English word computer.

Every Japanese 片假名 character has a fixed pronunciation. They can both work as phonetics and be used as alphabet letters to compose new words. I don't know much Japanese but my sister had once worked as a lecturer teaching Japanese in a university.

Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 07/02/2010 12:07PM by Cindy.Zhou.

CindyZhou - I liked you first answer better (from a few pages ago)!!! I don't buy the "just because I am Chinese" answer because in that case, if that was true, then everyone in the world would love whatever country they are from. It wouldn't matter if there was horrible genocide, nuclear meltdowns, starvation, or if it was indeed the most beautiful place on Earth. No - if someone loves, or hates, their country, there must be reasons why. Indoctrination from parents, school, and government from childhood through adulthood? Beautiful natural scenery? Great economy and social benefits? The culture - food, entertainment, social aspects....family or friends and the memories created there? There must be something, or, as I said, everyone in the world would love their country.

Don't apologize for being off-topic...but you see the point. I understand wanting to defend yourself and give reasons, but concerning language, you can see the problem. Too much pride, ignorance, illogical reasoning, self-serving examples, someone who is not even a native-speaker trying to explain your own language to you, etc...it gets ridiculous but it is interesting. Maybe you should make a new thread entitled - "Your favorite language and why?" Or "Top Ten Reasons you love your language" and start the debate from there, so more people might be drawn to it? Honestly, the off-topic stuff that bothers me the most are the posts born from insecurity and bad manners.

Yes, I understand that pinyin is an input system for modern gadgets like PCs and cellphones. My point is, most of us are so used to this input method, we don't really care about the proper spelling. Eg I just have to key in "w" and a whole bunch of characters appear, intuitively I just select 我 if that's what I want. I don't even have to bother if the proper pinyin is "wo" or "wor" or whatever.

But some foreigners seem to think that our lives depend on it not realizing that pinyin was only introduced recently. We survived thousands of years without it.

As for Cantonese, there used to be a pinyin system but it sounded so silly and complicated that it never got popular. Nowadays, we just tell foreigners wanting to learn Cantonese to skip it, just learn Putonghua instead, which is so much easier.

Moroes Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> @Astroboy.
> Most people at the office in Shanghai are using
> Kingsoft office software and do use Pin Yin for
> computer inputs. I see them also use pinyin for
> SMS. Some use other methods. I know Hong Kong
> people use a different method because they did not
> learn cantonese pin yin (Cantonese pinyin looks
> insanely hard to learn).

Cindy.Zhou Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> 26^8 = 208 827 064 576.
> Here are the words created by using your method:
>
> aaaaaaaa

Did you actually read what I said? I already said if even only 0.001% of them are good that's still 2 million. Double the current English language.

I do like that one of your words that are so impossible to use is

> inteleto

That's actually a very simple word to pronounce and is actually a word in Spanish, would be easy to bring it to English.

> 齉, 狴, 奰, 髲, 筚, 贲, 閟, 梐, 苾, 诐,
> 獘
>
> We seldom use the above characters when we write
> something. But actually if you know the way how
> simple Chinese characters work, it wouldn't be too
> difficult to memorize complicated Chinese
> characters.

You seldom use but they are still part of your language. English seldom uses periarthritis either.

> I don't have to calculate, just by looking at the
> sheer number 208 Billion, I can tell you 95% of
> them are trash, unless you invent a new set of
> phonetics and word-building rules.

I actually said 99.99% in my post but fine. 95%. So 95% of 200 Billion is 10 Billion. Still not looking very limiting. I like to see you make 10 Billion words using Hanzi that are as easy to remember as an 8 letter word in English.

> A much more precise way to calculate how many words
> can be created is by looking at how many total
> syllables are there inside the language, including
> all the vowels and their phonetics and all the
> consonant and vowel combinations that make sense.
> That's why I say Chinese are easier to expand. For
> each syllable, there are at least four tones, so at
> least theoretically, in Chinese we can create four
> times more words.

No sorry, In Chinese you can create four times more words than you could without the tones however Chinese has 417 Syllables with 4 tones as I've already said that equals 2070 sounds. English has 12,000 syllable, if you look at them in valid clusters for words there are still far far more than 2070 valid English sounds to be used.

> And at present, English obvioualy lacks some
> syllables, like jing in Beijing, qi in qiguai. If
> the linguists borrow some syllables from other
> languages, the goal of creating 2 million words
> with less than 9 letters may be achieved.

Really... no jing? So how exactly do we say a bell Jingles?! and if there's not qi how do we say Cheeky? There are Chinese sounds English doesn't have but those two are not them. English has sounds Chinese doesn't, Chinese has sounds Russian doesn't, Russian has sound Greek doesn't It's common.

> That's because in phonetics, v and w has the same
> pronunciation.

No it doesn't. Veil and wail are completely different.

Your undestanding of English is very limited from what I can see. This may be why you don't understand how easy it is to expand an alphabetic language.

Once again, I'm not saying Chiense is a bad language but it's very far from the most ingenious language in the world. It's much harder to learn than most languages and I don't see any real advantage going with a picture based writing system. I like Chinese, it's very interesting, but Chinese people's continual insistance that Chinese language is the most intelligent, and Chinese food is the most complicated and China is the most beautiful and CHina has the most history (all of which are false) becomes incredibly tiring and annoying to the rest of the world. When China was isolated i"m sure it was great to sit around and talk about how the rest of the world wasn't as good as China but China needs to start working in the real world. Everyone loves their own language but rarely will you hear a Canadian going on about how Enlgish is the most ingenious language because it's a very absurd statement. There's no way to measure how ingenious a language is because almost every language in the world today works great for communication.

Moroes Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> @Uberche
> Chinese don't have to make a new char just for a
> new word. Just so you remember they can join
> chars to make a word like JiaNaDa
> 加拿大(Canada) or dongxi 东西 stuff.
>
> Also English can be confusing too. Just look up a
> dictionary. One word can have up to several
> meanings. Same word used for different uses. Or
> different words with the same meaning. Lorry and
> Truck. When you say Lorry some people have no
> idea what it is. English can be confusing.

Of course, I'm not saying English easy to learn but it's a little silly to say English is limiting and Chinese isn't. Or that Chinese is more ingenious than alphabet based langauges when Chinese are just forced to learn both anyway as children.

English is very confusing, it's grammar is absurd and I"m very glad I never had to learn it. But Chinese is equally so. I'm just so sick of listening to Chinese wax on and on about how great their language is. Maybe I should just start telling Chinese people how great English is all the time... see how long that last before they get annoyed..

Coming back to topic, when a Chinese person says "I love my country..." he actually means he is proud of what his people have achieved thus far, the progress made since "kai fang" which is only like 30 years or so, the economic success, the beautiful country, the cultural diversity etc.

Very few countries can become an economic powerhouse within a short span of 30 years, put someone in space, have bullet trains running all over, win as many gold medals in the Olympics... and so on.

I am also proud that we can achieve all these without abusing other nations, capturing and using slaves, causing untold hardships and miseries to others (eg like what Japan did to other nations during WWII, Germany did to the Jews, Americans to the native Indians and negro slaves, etc).

We may have criticisms about politics, government decisions/policies, human rights abuse, how we handle provincial affairs etc. But which country has the perfect government? The government is made up of people, and people are fallible. To err is human. We have to look at things from a larger perspective. By and large, China has done much better than the west.

I am sure a lot of young Chinese are enamored with the west, wanting to go abroad etc. That's because they have not experienced life there. And the grass always seem greener on the other side. But eventually we all grow older, wiser and more knowledgeable. As someone who has been there, done that, my bet, right now, is on China (and I am sure a lot of foreigners are nodding their heads in agreement with me but not daring to admit it).

Xietingfeng Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Uberche -
>
> I think we actually agree about the welfare, just
> not on my choice of the words "too good". I agree
> that it does not work and overall is a bad system,
> I have said that, and that more should be done on
> training, education, and the like vs. just handing
> out things. And you are right, there ARE lazy
> people everywhere, but in the USA, as I stated,
> the welfare system is too good for these lazy
> people, it makes life too easy for them.

But if you want to provide for the sick and underprivledged you pretty much need to do that. Countries with no welfare system for lazy people also have none for the poor and that tends to turn out badly

> I used to be an idealist until I saw the truth
> with my own eyes. Many people take advantage of
> the system. They take a job knowing they will get
> fired or laid off on a regular basis in order to
> collect unemployment payments. They will turn
> down jobs or not even look for work because it is
> easier just to sit at home doing whatever they
> feel like and getting months and months of free
> money. That is not what a good welfare system
> should do.

Agreed. But there is no real way to stop lazy people from taking advantage of the Welfare system. Just be happy you have a much better life than them as a worker, you go on holidays, can travel, eat healthy and go out to plays, symphonies and more.

> In America, a
> person on welfare can have a house, a car, food to
> eat, clean water to drink, all the modern
> electronic appliances, new clothes, cell phone,
> internet, personal computer, etc...in my opinion,
> even though personally I want more, that is a
> comfortable life.

The real problem in the USA is that people on Welfare can't have those things. People on welfare and 10 credit cards can. This is why the USA is bankrupt, they have all been living well beyond their means. I grew up living at welfare level, we weren't on welfare but my mom was a self employed jeweller and it's not a very high paying job if you are making everythign by hand. We lived on welfare levels in Canada (which are MUCH higher than the USA) and we never could afford most of that because my mom refused to go into debt with the banks. MOst of the US is living beyond it's reach and it's going to collapse because of it. Sadly China is not pushing consumption and getting people to borrow money and get credit cards too...

> "Not legally". Right. You are correct. But it
> does happen, against "the law", for different
> reasons. An illegal immigrant in America often
> has a better life and is treated more fairly than
> if in their own country. Go to Mexico or Cuba and
> ask them about it.

I agree completely. I just don't think it's the USA's fault. It's more their home countries fault. Though in the case of Cuba it IS actually the USA's fault as well I guess... haha


> Regarding the "minority rules". Hmmm, I will stay
> away from religion, seems to be a touchy topic,
> although when 95% of the parents have no problem
> with children singing "silent night" at school but
> it is banned because of the 5% who do, I can say
> that whatever the law says, it is a clear case of
> the minority ruling. If the law supports this,
> then the law itself is clearly supporting the
> ability of the minority to have power over the
> majority.

the Majority made the law. It's not really a case of tyranny of the minority, it's teh majority trying to protect the minority.

> If the 5% really don't like it, they
> should be allowed to keep their children out of
> the performance. I don't believe in magic, but if
> 95% of the parents approved of a "Harry Potter"
> play, then even if I didn't like it (but in this
> case I don't care) I would not try to make the
> school system ban it.

If the law said Harry Potter wasn't allowed in schools, it shouldn't be in schools. If the majority want Christmas in schools they should change the law, of course then you're also going to be allowing all other religions into schools including Islam, Hindu, Scientology, Wickan, Flying Spaghetti Monster and more....

School activities are paid for by the public, lets say you are muslim, you pay taxes and these taxes are used to support school activities, do you think it's fair taht your money has to be used to support Christian holidays but no one ever supports your holidays?

I don't see why schools don't just do waht they are suppose to do, teach people facts and accepted theories. Leave the religion out of it.

> A better example might be
> this; in America, a minority of the schoolchildren
> cannot speak English. Rather than force the
> children (many are the offspring of previously
> mentioned illegal immigrants who are getting a
> free education) to learn English, some schools
> have began teaching in whatever language that
> child speaks, at the cost of the taxpayer (hiring
> bilingual teachers, buying new materials, separate
> classrooms, etc...) Personally, I do not think
> that this is such a bad idea, and it makes schools
> more interesting, however it is a clear case of a
> small minority getting a benefit at the cost of
> the majority.

Where is that happening? Public schools? I've searched for it on the internet and haven't found any cases of this in public schools. I'm entirely against that, it'd be a huge waste of time to have to teach in multiple languages. You go to an English school you should be taught in English.
Supporting other cultures is great but it's a good idea to have a set language for education so that everyone gets equal time and chance.

> Let me be clear - I believe in
> individual rights and am proud of the fact that
> America does make an effort to accept and help all
> people, regardless of race, religion, handicap,
> etc...but the point is that sometimes, the small
> minority is NOT someone who needs help, or is NOT
> an innocent child, but rather just someone who
> does not like what is happening in the world
> around them, so they complain, threaten lawsuits,
> take advantage of the legal system, do whatever
> they can until they get their own way.

But it's still the majority who rules. If the Majority choose to protect the minority, that's their choice. Affirmative action with Blacks is the biggest example of this. forcing schools to enroll more Blacks could be seen as minority ruling but i'ts not because the majority of the population pushed for Affirmative Action and supported it in law.

I see - so maybe the difference is in the meaning of the words "I love....". Maybe many of them mean exactly what you say - pride, and because pride in the country as a whole might not be applicable to what their personal tastes and desires for fun are...got it. That brings to mind another reason why it is hard for me to understand the Chinese perspective. See, I really do not care that much either way about what "my country" does except for how it applies to my life, and the lives of those I love. If living in any country brings me and my loved ones happiness, and it is a direct result of what that country offers us, then I will love it. For example, if living in my country gives me the freedom to easily travel to other countries, I will love it. Or if the economy helps me find a good job to provide for my family, I will love that aspect. If living in my country means I am just minutes away from some of my favorite forms of entertainment, I will love that. For me, loving my country is in terms of what it means to me personally. So, when one of my Chinese friends says "I love my country" but they have never taken a bullet-train, never been to outer space, do not have very much money (or perhaps can't find a job) at all, have never even left Guangdong Province and are surrounded by pollution that even THEY complain about, have never won a medal, did not go watch the Olympics or even watch them on television, it makes me curious as to what exactly THEY love. What does living here do for their daily life? Thanks for you answer - it made a lot of sense to me.

Astroboy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> We have to look at things from a larger
> perspective. By and large, China has done much
> better than the west.

You can never just be rational and intelligent, you always have to end with retardation. I agreed completely with you till this. A larger perspective would include things like long term sustainability (which China has none at this stage), Environment protection to ensure health (miserable), protecting it's people's health and mental well being (how many attacks on primary schools? how many mine collapses? etc).

You have such a narrow perspective it's a joke. All you care is money and face. China has money and does good at international competitions so therefore they are doing good. You insult others for their love of the West, but all you care about is how China measures up to the West.

What is YOUR obsession with the west is a better question...

Xietingfeng Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What does living here do for their daily life?

Face.

Uberche ~

I would have to spend some time googling, but I know there are programs and efforts being made to teach in other languages. In addition to that, the American government spends a lot of money providing immigrants with free English classes and training, not only for children but adults also. I actually think that is great, except it would be nice if the people getting the free lessons would pay for it if they could, now or later, to help alleviate the tax burden.

Two points about welfare - First, it IS possible in some cases to have that lifestyle on welfare, particularly if two or more people share the expenses, or they bought some things and saved some money BEFORE they started collecting the welfare, in which case the welfare might not be enough to get you everything you want if you start with zero, but if you already have what you need, the welfare is enough to keep you living happily (and even traveling or going to the local opera house) for years. One problem is that the government does not necessarily give welfare based on REAL need; there are some loopholes, like with the tax laws, that can allow someone to legally abuse the system. The second point - sadly, you are so correct about the credit card and other types of debt, and how it has led America to its current downward spiral and possible ultimate demise. Sadly, although I'd hoped other countries would learn the folly of debt, that doesn't seem to be the case. But, the truth is, it exists, and partly because of the governments soft stance on bankruptcy and financial responsibility. Can't pay for your house anymore? No problem. Live there anyway until the bank kicks you out, then just forget the loan and rent for 10 years. Can't pay your credit card/business debt? No problem, just declare bankruptcy and start over. Of course, hard for the government to crack down too much when they run a bigger deficit that our minds can comprehend.


As for the "minority rules", can we just "agree to disagree"? I could keep giving examples and you could keep pointing out valid reasons why you disagree for pages and pages if we want to. Can we just agree that in America, whether provided for by "majority" law (which is actually approved by a minority even if a popular vote is held as too many Americans are too lazy too vote) or not, that the idea and implementation of individual rights leads to circumstances where the minority get what they want even when it is clearly not in the best interests of the majority? It is not always a bad thing either. Environmental policies, Wall Street and financial reform, healthcare policies, etc...some work out to be good, some bad, but many are against what the majority would like. The money and power, well, the vast % of it, belong to a small minority, and we all know that money and power wins out over what the majority wants almost every time.

Astroboy -

You made some good points, and as I said your answer helped me, but I have been thinking more about your statement that "by and large, China has done much better than the west", especially when adding the "from a larger perspective" qualifier. I will admit that what China has done in recent times has been impressive, especially when looked at from the outside and compared to what has been the direction in other countries. But HOW can you just ignore the thousands of years before that? I would argue that because China is so much older than most other modern countries as they exist now, they have done much worse because it has taken them so long to "catch up" and in many crucial areas they are still far behind the standards enjoyed by most of the developed world. I could argue that what America achieved in just a few hundred years, China still has yet to reach after thousands. But of course that is slightly naive and misguiding, but so are the statements you presented. Can a country be measured by its "headline achievements" while ignoring what is going on behind the scenes and in the general public? Can the progress and advancement of 10% whitewash how the other 90% lives? Can 30 years of progress erase centuries of history prior?

You also wrote:
"I am also proud that we can achieve all these without abusing other nations, capturing and using slaves, causing untold hardships and miseries to others (eg like what Japan did to other nations during WWII, Germany did to the Jews, Americans to the native Indians and negro slaves, etc)."

Don't you realize that China has done so many terrible things to its own people that there was no need to abuse other countries too? Slavery? Untold hardships? Treating women like second-class citizens? I am not even Chinese and I know enough of its history to realize the irony of your words. Even today, how many millionaires of China became rich as a result of the backbreaking, suicide-inducing, childhood-stealing "jobs" they provide to the masses? How many female fetuses are aborted each year? How many peasants die horrible deaths in mines or at one of the "hospitals" in rural China?

Listen - I know America has a terrible history. I know almost every country has many atrocities in its past. As I reminded Kurt, I am not comparing America to other countries, because that would be a never-ending post. America has been, and is still guilty of doing terrible things...but you know what? I will admit it. One of my curiousities about the whole "I love my country" statement was that so many Chinese seemed blind to the truth, and your last post was a good example of that. True, you did admit that China has its problems, but at the same time, you seemed to ignore those when pronouncing how much "better" China is than seemingly ever other country (you mentioned the west but alluded to Japan and I assume you think China is much better than Korea, Vietnam, etc..?) in the world. I think one reason I shy away from the whole idea of "loving" a country is for this reason - loving something can make you blind to the truth about it.

Cindy.Zhou Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> That's because in phonetics, v and w has the same
> pronunciation.

thank goodness you are not my chinese teacher.. and you wouldn't be after that comment either.

if u think V and W sound the same in chinese nope (the W sounding like V is the result of accent and lazy mouth). I hear some dongbei people switch the w with a v sound like wazi 袜子 (socks) sounds like vazi. But down south they don't do that. the W sounds like w. All of my chinese teachers have told me that saying the V sound instead of the W sound is not STANDARD CHINESE. its like when down south they say 是。。not as shi but si. or the ying with yung.


Cindy i hope you don't teach your students to pronounce the W in chinese pinyin with the V sound. thats not standard chinese.

on another note as for tones I have even seen chinese people correcting other chinese people on their tones. there is even a speech test that chinese people take in china to test their STANDARD CHINESE speaking. WOW.

and saying V sound instead of the W sound in chinese would fail your ass on that test.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/02/2010 08:29AM by Hanyustudent.

It is a universal rule in a free market economy. 80-90% of a country's wealth is usually concentrated in the hands of 10-20% of an elite group of wealthy individuals, captains and movers of industries. These same people are king-makers and people who decide who should be president. In America, that would be the Rothschilds, the Rockefellers, the Bill Gates and so on.

The so-called majority will only get to vote pre-selected candidates based on TV airtime sponsored by the elites. Where do you think presidential candidates get funding from, to run their campaigns?

That's common knowledge and only Uberche does not know it.

Xietingfeng Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>The money and power, well,
> the vast % of it, belong to a small minority, and
> we all know that money and power wins out over
> what the majority wants almost every time.

I don't disagree with u. I was thinking more in terms of recent times. Some economists have said that if it were not for China's strength, the whole world would have been dragged into deeper shit by the economic crisis caused by America.

There were some dark periods in history where China fared badly. At the turn of the century, for eg when it was ruled by corrupt Qing officials and a stupid Empress.

If you want to be academic, we could measure by historical timelines. But that would not be comparing apples with apples. When China started its dynasties, much of Europe was still in the dark ages. So which period of history do we want to compare against?


Xietingfeng Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Astroboy -
> You made some good points, and as I said your
> answer helped me, but I have been thinking more
> about your statement that "by and large, China has
> done much better than the west"...

Actually Astroboy, I do not want to compare any part of history or country against any other. Comparisons, especially of this nature, often just lead to unproductive arguments and endless debate. My point in bringing up history in response to your post was that you were making statements about your own country that seemed to ignore facts from your own history while using other countries history against them! Haha - understand what I mean?

The original point of my question was to learn some specific reasons to explain why Chinese people say they love their country in the context of today, not historically, and what specifically it is about China that makes them feel such love on a personal level.

I will say one thing about the "strength" of the Chinese economy...I hope that they learned a lesson about easy credit and real-estate speculation (buying homes as investments instead of as a place to live, especially with borrowed money) because if China is not careful, they will have a problem much worse than that America had.

Xietingfeng Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Uberche ~
>
> I would have to spend some time googling, but I
> know there are programs and efforts being made to
> teach in other languages. In addition to that,
> the American government spends a lot of money
> providing immigrants with free English classes and
> training, not only for children but adults also.
> I actually think that is great, except it would be
> nice if the people getting the free lessons would
> pay for it if they could, now or later, to help
> alleviate the tax burden.

Free English classes I agree are a great idea. Teaching in public schools in multiple languages just seems wasteful though.

> Two points about welfare - First, it IS possible
> in some cases to have that lifestyle on welfare,
> particularly if two or more people share the
> expenses, or they bought some things and saved
> some money BEFORE they started collecting the
> welfare, in which case the welfare might not be
> enough to get you everything you want if you start
> with zero, but if you already have what you need,
> the welfare is enough to keep you living happily
> (and even traveling or going to the local opera
> house) for years.

THen they must have been very productive citizens before hand.

> One problem is that the
> government does not necessarily give welfare based
> on REAL need; there are some loopholes, like with
> the tax laws, that can allow someone to legally
> abuse the system. The second point - sadly, you
> are so correct about the credit card and other
> types of debt, and how it has led America to its
> current downward spiral and possible ultimate
> demise. Sadly, although I'd hoped other countries
> would learn the folly of debt, that doesn't seem
> to be the case. But, the truth is, it exists, and
> partly because of the governments soft stance on
> bankruptcy and financial responsibility. Can't
> pay for your house anymore? No problem. Live
> there anyway until the bank kicks you out, then
> just forget the loan and rent for 10 years. Can't
> pay your credit card/business debt? No problem,
> just declare bankruptcy and start over. Of
> course, hard for the government to crack down too
> much when they run a bigger deficit that our minds
> can comprehend.

yeah, the whole economic system is insane... people wont change till it collapses completely though apparently..

> As for the "minority rules", can we just "agree to
> disagree"?

We can if you tire of debating it. You're right we wont agree, rarely debates on the internet lead to agreement I htink, mostly it's just to pass time and learn more from the other side of the arguement.

I could keep giving examples and you
> could keep pointing out valid reasons why you
> disagree for pages and pages if we want to. Can
> we just agree that in America, whether provided
> for by "majority" law (which is actually approved
> by a minority even if a popular vote is held as
> too many Americans are too lazy too vote) or not,
> that the idea and implementation of individual
> rights leads to circumstances where the minority
> get what they want even when it is clearly not in
> the best interests of the majority?

Depends on what you think is the best interests.

> It is not
> always a bad thing either. Environmental
> policies, Wall Street and financial reform,
> healthcare policies, etc...some work out to be
> good, some bad, but many are against what the
> majority would like. The money and power, well,
> the vast % of it, belong to a small minority, and
> we all know that money and power wins out over
> what the majority wants almost every time.

Sadly true.

Astroboy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> That's common knowledge and only Uberche does not
> know it.

Regale us all with your knowledge of economics! no wait! Let me do it for you. Jews are evil and control everyone.

Anti-semetic loser.

I actually said 99.99% in my post but fine. 95%. So 95% of 200 Billion is 10 Billion.
**************************************************************

How can you come up with such a precise percentage by using such a dumb method? I said I can immediately tell at least 95% of them are trash, but I didn't say all the rest 5% are usable.

Obviously you know nothing about permutation and combination. Even if you want to use such a dumb method, it should at least be something like 26 + 26*26 + 26*26*26 + ... + 26^8. Otherwise all the words containing less than 8 letters will be excluded from English. Actually words with less than 8 words are the most commonly used ones in your daily conversation, like I, you, he, hi, good, is, she, are, hi, and hello.

Besides, you didn't even distinguish vowels and consonants in your ingenious method. And now you have the face to brag about how many words can be created in English by using your dumb method! Don't make me laugh! Go back to a primary school and ask a maths teacher there if you can calculate the total number of Englsih words containing less than nine letters by using your innovative method:

0.001% * 26 * 26 * 26 * 26 * 26 * 26 * 26 * 26

Once again, I am really amazed at your maths talent!

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/02/2010 12:00PM by Cindy.Zhou.

inteleto

That's actually a very simple word to pronounce and is actually a word in Spanish, would be easy to bring it to English.

That's exactly what I said, if the linguists borrow some syllables or words from other languages into English, the goal of creating 2 millions words with less than 9 letters may be achieved.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/02/2010 12:02PM by Cindy.Zhou.

It's "anti-semitic". And no, I am not anti-anything. Just pro-truth.
And the true losers are the majority. That's why the poor always gets poorer, and the rich richer.

Uberche Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Regale us all with your knowledge of economics! no
> wait! Let me do it for you. Jews are evil and
> control everyone.
>
> Anti-semetic loser.

No sorry, In Chinese you can create four times more words than you could without the tones however Chinese has 417 Syllables with 4 tones as I've already said that equals 2070 sounds. English has 12,000 syllable, if you look at them in valid clusters for words there are still far far more than 2070 valid English sounds to be used.

Last time the precise number you got is 208 827 064 576. Where did you get the above "precious" numbers this time? Maybe you calculated them by using some other extremely ingenious methods. No need to tell me the maths formulas you used this time. I already know how good you are at maths!

Really... no jing? So how exactly do we say a bell Jingles?! and if there's not qi how do we say Cheeky? There are Chinese sounds English doesn't have but those two are not them. English has sounds Chinese doesn't, Chinese has sounds Russian doesn't, Russian has sound Greek doesn't It's common.

I said jing京 as in Beijing北京. I wrote jing in hanyu pinyin, the pronunciation is totally different from jingle. Either You deliverately mistrued my words or you never heard the correct pronunciation of 北京. English do lack a lot of syllables, like 京、金、女、七、奇. Once again, Cheeky sounds nothing like 奇.

Your undestanding of English is very limited from what I can see.

Come on. I know you understanding of English is adequate enough as to come up with the following ingenious method to calculate the total number of English words: 0.001% * 26 * 26 * 26 * 26 * 26 * 26 * 26 * 26

And your knowledge about Mandarin is equally marvellous. You thought the character 京 in 北京 has the same pronunciation as the syllable jing in jingle. Tell me, how come you have lived in Beijing and learned Mandarin for some while without knowing how to pronounce the character 京？

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/02/2010 12:12PM by Cindy.Zhou.

I'm just so sick of listening to Chinese wax on and on about how great their language is.

I will be pretty happy to see you leave Beijing and go back to your home country or another country. No one invited you to China club, you can go to Italian or French club and learn their languages.

thank goodness you are not my chinese teacher.. and you wouldn't be after that comment either.

Thank goodness you are not my Chinese student. I have already known how great your Chinese-English translation skill is by judging from your previous posts. Didn't your Chinese teacher teach you the word "that" used at the beginning of a clause cannot be translated into "那个"? BTW, I am still waiting for you to translate “经过那个多少" without adding words and fluffing it up.

Cindy, don't bother. A lot of foreigners come to China, study just a bit of Chinese and think they have everything figured out.

There is a saying: When a wise man tries to teach a fool, he comes nearest to being one.