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Chicago school kids learn CHINESE!
Vanity ^ | 1-29-2006 | Dick Bachert

Posted on 01/29/2006 4:43:03 PM PST by Dick Bachert

Just caught a network news segment on how the Chicago government schools – at the alleged urging of parents – are teaching kids there CHINESE, a language having 3 gazillion unique GRAPHIC – as opposed to our 26 alphabetical – characters and 4 or so basic SOUNDS!

They claim they’re doing this so our kids can COMPETE with the Chinese – most of whom are busy learning a much easier language: ENGLISH!!

I think teaching American kids Chinese is wonderful. These kids will then be able to explain why they are ignorant of biology, physics, math, basic science, etc. – IN CHINESE because their local educrats stole time from THOSE vital skills necessary for us to compete with the Europeans and the Chinese – to teach them CHINESE!


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: chinese; governmentschools; language; madness
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To: Dutch Boy

I heard the speaking electronic dictionary. Most amazing.


81 posted on 01/29/2006 5:39:39 PM PST by RightWhale (pas de lieu, Rhone que nous)
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To: Dick Bachert
So what? When I was growing up, they taught German, Italian, French and Spanish in my high school.

Frankly, I think we'll better off having our kids learn Chinese as a second language than French and Spanish - two worthless languages in my opinion. French is too sissy and there is pretty much no literature of note in Spanish. Most people who speak Spanish are from cultures that never produced very much of intellectual worth. Most people who speak French, well, you probably wouldn't want to speak with them anyhow.

At least with German and Italian, you can appreciate some operas and literature. But even those languages are falling by the wayside.

82 posted on 01/29/2006 5:41:25 PM PST by SamAdams76 (Blizzard coming to Northeast U.S.)
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To: bikepacker67

I heard the quote as it was given. It was cold that day: the Hudson River was frozen, and nobody had yet heard of Global Warming or Algore.


83 posted on 01/29/2006 5:42:21 PM PST by RightWhale (pas de lieu, Rhone que nous)
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To: RightWhale
I heard the quote as it was given. It was cold that day: the Hudson River was frozen, and nobody had yet heard of Global Warming or Algore.

Wow! How old are you?

Because I can't remember a time when the drumbeat of glacier melting doom wasn't the backbeat of all that is wrong with civilization.

Did that start during the Jurassic Period?

84 posted on 01/29/2006 5:46:56 PM PST by bikepacker67
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To: Dick Bachert
English is no easier to learn than Chinese, and vice versa.

On the other hand, China has many different languages, most of them based more or less on the same phonemes as English, but with the addition of "tone" on each word (rather than on phrases as is the case with English). Underlying all the Chinese languages is a single written language which uses an elaborate set of ideographs instead of an alphabet or syllabary (like Cherokee and Korean).

Structurally English and Chinese are quite similar, and you don't need much instruction to begin to figure out how to read an older version of Chinese ideographs commonly found on Chinese restaurant menus ~ I call it "kitchen Chinese".

If you can get hold of a book on Sioux Indian sign language, take it with you to any exhibit or display of Shang Dynasty characters ~ those are the oldest Chinese characters. You will be able to translate those characters with your sign language as a guide.

A reasonably intelligent person should be able to learn to hear and speak some degree of Chinese in one of the standard versions (Mandarin, Cantonese or Shanghainaise) in a few months with the assistance of a native speaker. Depending on your inherent capabilities, you can probably start figuring out old fashioned characters (as noted above) right away. The more modern stuff will take much longer.

Tell you what, there's nothing more satisfying than figuring out what a line (or column) of Chinese characters is trying to say to you.

85 posted on 01/29/2006 5:50:26 PM PST by muawiyah (-)
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To: RightWhale

Mine speaks in Simplified, Traditional, English and German. It's very cool. It's also only as big as a bar of soap and opens to a mini QWERTY keyboard and has a credit card sized LCD screen. They sell for about $100 in Shanghai.


86 posted on 01/29/2006 5:50:41 PM PST by Dutch Boy
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To: RightWhale
That's so of PinYin, which is what I hope you are referring to.

I've had trouble picking up the "sound" however, and really have a hard time telling the difference between MA and MA and MA and MA and MA. It's almost as bad as differentiating among PA, PA, PA, PA, and PA. OMA, I get!

87 posted on 01/29/2006 5:52:53 PM PST by muawiyah (-)
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To: Beelzebubba
No argument. But I am not the ignoramus who is arguing that kids shouldn't be studying one of the most-spoken languages on the planet, because it has too many words.

Nor I. Chinese is very hard for English-speakers but is a mind-broadening experience. Can't hurt.

88 posted on 01/29/2006 5:53:56 PM PST by VadeRetro (Liberalism is a cancer on society. Creationism is a cancer on conservatism.)
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To: Alter Kaker

I think he's referring to PinYin.


89 posted on 01/29/2006 5:54:10 PM PST by muawiyah (-)
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To: Dick Bachert

I think this is good. Learning Chinese will simulate the minds of kids. Although there are many characters, the number of sounds in Mandarin Chinese is relatively constricted. Also the characters can be broken down into combinations of limited number of "radicals". I wish I had begun to learn Chinese in school instead of many years later.


90 posted on 01/29/2006 6:01:37 PM PST by wideminded
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To: Dick Bachert

I'll bet the alledged parents will be surprised to hear this.


91 posted on 01/29/2006 6:08:04 PM PST by freekitty
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To: Future Snake Eater
"As I understand it, English is pretty high on the list of Most Difficult Languages To Learn."

Not for Europeans, because English has so many commonalities in words and grammar. But if you want to know how difficult it is to understand Chinese, read on.

According to the University of Michigan, the person with average lauguage abilities takes about 480 hours to become a level-2 proficiency in Swahili, Spanish or Dutch. It takes that same student about 720 hours for Farsi, Indonesian, Hebrew and Thai. However, it takes about 1,320 hours to to become level-2 proficienty in Chinese.

So the Chicagoan students are wasting their precious time on a language that is about useful to Westerners as pig-latin.

92 posted on 01/29/2006 6:08:46 PM PST by TheCrusader ("The frenzy of the mohammedans has devastated the Churches of God" Pope Urban II ~ 1097A.D.)
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To: RightWhale
"Can you sound like those Japanese military characters in old movies"

Sure, just speak English while moving your lips to other words.

93 posted on 01/29/2006 6:09:55 PM PST by TheCrusader ("The frenzy of the mohammedans has devastated the Churches of God" Pope Urban II ~ 1097A.D.)
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Comment #94 Removed by Moderator

Comment #95 Removed by Moderator

To: Drango
I learned French in school.

Bummer.

96 posted on 01/29/2006 6:12:27 PM PST by Vince Ferrer
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To: TheCrusader
You have documented that Chinese is harder for English speakers than Swahili, not that it is less useful.
97 posted on 01/29/2006 6:15:38 PM PST by VadeRetro (Liberalism is a cancer on society. Creationism is a cancer on conservatism.)
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Comment #98 Removed by Moderator

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To: MrsEmmaPeel
Huh? Its there are only 214 Chinese "radicals" -- that can be combined in a myriad of different combinations.

The radicals make it far easier to read the characters. Radicals organize Chinese characters like a BTree index. By learning to see the radicals, you can an idea of what a character is even if you don't know the rest of the character, and you can learn faster.

100 posted on 01/29/2006 6:29:30 PM PST by Vince Ferrer
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