it will crack your brains :-)

[Cobie]

 

 

Someone once said that learning Chinese is "a five-year lesson in humility".

I used to think this meant that at the end of five years you will have mastered Chinese and learned humility along the way.

However, now having studied Chinese for over six years, [make that 8 in my case] 

I have concluded that actually the phrase means that after five years your Chinese will still be abysmal,

but at least you will have thoroughly learned humility.” [so true, 10 cry emojis here].
(https://pinyin.info/readings/texts/moser.html) 

I posted this before, lots of times actually.   
 

 

Edited January 21 by Cobie

[Cobie]

These three are not the same:
 

古文 (gu3 wen2) Classical Chinese ; 

 

文言文 (wen2 yan2 wen2) Literary Chinese ; 

普通话 (pu3 tong1 hua4) Mandarin.

 

Most sinologists use the words Classical and Literary for different periods (pre/post Han).

 

 

[ChiDragon]

6 hours ago, Cobie said:

These three are not the same:
 

古文 (gu3 wen2) Classical Chinese ; 

 

文言文 (wen2 yan2 wen2) Literary Chinese ; 

普通话 (pu3 tong1 hua4) Mandarin.

 

Most sinologists use the words Classical and Literary for different periods (pre/post Han).

 

 

古文 is referred to the ancient characters used in oracle.  One character may represent one idea.

 

文言文 is really classic. It uses a simple phrase to represent a complex idea. It is very difficult to interpret its actual meaning and easily to be misunderstood by the reader.
 

普通话 is a common language using in China. The terms they use are very simple that is easy for the common people to understand. Where Mandarin is used in Taiwan by more educated people. It is mixed with classical idioms in the speech.  Some common people may not be understood. 

 

 

[Master Logray]

13 hours ago, Cobie said:

 

 

Someone once said that learning Chinese is "a five-year lesson in humility".

I used to think this meant that at the end of five years you will have mastered Chinese and learned humility along the way.

However, now having studied Chinese for over six years, [make that 8 in my case] 

I have concluded that actually the phrase means that after five years your Chinese will still be abysmal,

but at least you will have thoroughly learned humility.” [so true, 10 cry emojis here].
(https://pinyin.info/readings/texts/moser.html) 

I posted this before, lots of times actually.   
 

 

 

 

The writer is comparing a visual language vs. an auditory languages.  People tend to find one is better over the others from their inherent dispositions.   Chinese do have some advantages:

 

- grammar:  no tenses, no cases, no gender, no be/have, no predicates/modifiers etc...

- reading:  visual presentation is much faster in reading than auditory origin.  People seldom need to read the sentences in silence.  And it is more concise in wording (lesser vocabularies), also occupies much less visual space than English.  

- speaking: somehow I watched many video of foreigners speaking very good mandarins, less use of intonations.

 

The drawback of Chinese

- need to memorize few thousand pictograms, their properties, usage, variation in sounds.   

- tonal language means the speaker must be very exact in pronunciation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Cobie]

 

3 hours ago, Master Logray said:

...  foreigners speaking very good mandarins, less use of intonations. ...

 

Reminiscent of my Chinese teacher - her motto is, ‘Chinese is very easy’.  I’d ask, what tone is that? And she’d say, the one you hear. Lol, so annoying.  Problem is, some actually don't hear it. There is a mechanism in the brain that can reduce language-input to the nearest sounds in your own language (needed to understand accents) and my language has no tones.  I hear the tones now, but it took me years.

 

Quote

The drawback of Chinese- need to memorize few thousand pictograms ...

 

This too, who's got the time!

 

 

Edited January 22 by Cobie

[Cobie]

 

 

10 hours ago, ChiDragon said:

... 文言文 is really classic. ...

 

A note by the bit quoted. The ‘Classical’ as used by the Chinese after the Han dynasty, is different from the Classical Laozi used.  The Chinese kept using Classical next to the Chinese current in their own times. But over time elements of the current  Chinese crept into their ‘Classical’.  Post Han dynasty, the ‘Classical’ has become so different that it has been given a separate name, ‘Literal’.

 

 

Edited January 22 by Cobie

[Master Logray]

3 hours ago, Cobie said:

 

 

Reminiscent of my Chinese teacher - her motto is, ‘Chinese is very easy’.  I’d ask, what tone is that? And she’d say, the one you hear. Lol, so annoying.  Problem is, some actually don't hear it. There is a mechanism in the brain that can reduce language-input to the nearest sounds in your own language (needed to understand accents) and my language has no tones.  I hear the tones now, but it took me years.

 

 

This too, who's got the time!

 

 

 

One of the ways is to look at the Chinese words frequently.  Don't read them for meaning, don't try to understand them.   Just look at them like looking at pictures.   The material is better to be light, with photos, or something you familiar, like on IG, but definitely not DDJ.   It helps.   

 

[Cobie]

古文 (gu3 wen2) Classical Chinese. 
This is the language the DDJ was written in, one character represents one idea.

文言文 (wen2 yan2 wen2) Literary Chinese.

This uses phrases to represent complex ideas [成語 (cheng2 yu3) set phrases]. 
It cannot be used to read the DDJ. 
 

 

Edited Wednesday at 08:05 PM by Cobie

[Cobie]

 

On 22/01/2026 at 5:38 PM, Master Logray said:

One of the ways is to look at the Chinese words frequently.  Don't read them for meaning, don't try to understand them.   Just look at them like looking at pictures.   The material is better to be light, with photos, or something you familiar, like on IG, but definitely not DDJ.   It helps.   

 

I don’t know what IG is, but the rest is so true.  I use Duolingo. 

 

 

Edited Wednesday at 08:54 PM by Cobie

[Cobie]

 

On 25/12/2025 at 1:30 AM, ChiDragon said:

3. 無，名天地之始。
4. 有，名萬物之母。
3. Invisible, was a name given to Tao at the origin of sky and earth.
4. Visible, was a name given to Tao as the mother of all things.

 

For me that is reminiscent of Saint Gregory Palamas. He said God is invisible, unknowable in his fundamental essence. But becomes visible, makes himself knowable through the visible things created.

 

 

Edited 7 hours ago by Cobie