Chinese IS a blackhole (some not-so-motivating but humous look at Chinese)

Very interesting topic.

I think learning Chinese is hard, remembering it is even harder, like my friend told me how to say floor 樓 lou2 in Chinese, it was only 2-3 weeks later I could remember the word, but not in the right tone.

I've ordered tea once, I translated the tea from Chinese in to pin yin then tried to 'sing' the words with tones. I think it helps also with finger action to help set the tones.

But I still managed to garble the phrase, but I got my drink.

I'm not a maths person, don't like maths. My mother on the other hand has done geology and crazy science maths.

I have studied music (I got a recorder at 6 and 3 months) I love music and I'm interested in psycholgy.

And I love logic puzzles, Sudoku and kakuro are great fun.

I don't know if Chinese is similar to a black hole, maybe because of it's total difference to English causes the brain to meltdown. I know if I spend some time learning the speaking/listening/writing CHinese for a few hours my English goes bye bye. and I can't remember simple words.

And sometimes learning Chinese feels like this:

http://images.ucomics.com/comics/nq/2008/nq080101.gif

Mathematician and amateur musician here. I loved physics as a kid but I took a quite detour to learn the mathematics behind it and never got back to the physics.

Since this thread contains some heavy duty concepts and what appears to be a number of other physics-math geeks out there, my Ph.D. thesis 30 years was based on extending the use of a model from quantum mechanics (specifically the theta functions associated with the Weil representations of the adelic symplectic group [which itself is the group of isometries of the Heisenberg group]) to help understand strange relations concerning asymptotic behavior of the number of ways an integer 'n' can be expressed a sum of 'k' squares as 'n' gets large.

I wish I had gotten back to physics to really be able to understand the Hawkings and Thornes out there but there is only so much time.

It took many years of extremely hard work to get competent in theoretical mathematics ... so far it appears that Chinese competency requires a similar effort ... hmm, maybe more as progress seems slower.

I found that as an amateur classical guitarist and pianist that this is skill I think is overkill for recognizing Mandarin tones.

再见，

何睿林

Well I have always loved math but I have no musical talent whatsoever. This may be why speaking is a greater challenge for me than reading. It has taken me some practice to even be able to "hear" the tones. I am now paying the price for being too lazy or undisciplined to learn an instrument early on. The first music teachers I had in school really turned me off to music. I now love all types of music (except one) but I can only participate by listening.

AuntySue - the tones seem to make sense to me in the lessons. It's just a matter of listening and repeating. Some people have absolutely no concept of pitch, so "high tone" will mean nothing to them, so I don't know how they would copy it.

Learning Chinese involves so many intelligences, some of which we didn't have developed as kids(or maybe even had some neurological obstacles), that we can't but experience some frustrations, and yet here we all are, sucked in by the gravitational pull. I think as learning pulls itself through all these relativity fields, and science deepens, we may learn how we can even more positively overcome our various "handicaps". In the mean time, ChinesePod and all its conversations, lessons, 88groups and the humor/edification of the above conversation sure seems like an improvement in the path for learning over what learning Chinese was thirty some years ago. :-)

I used to be a musician, and I have pretty good pitch recognition. I've found this to be a disadvantage when trying to learn a tonal language as taught by non-musicians to non-musicians. I hear what's there, I know damn well what I'm hearing, I could echo it back to you on a synthesizer or shadow it on a violin or draw you a graph of the sounds, and it'd be a near exact match, but it's nothing like the pitch contours as they are explained in a Mandarin lesson. There is not only no logical relationship between the words describing these pitches and the sounds that are actually produced, but also those pairings are inconsistent, so it's not even possible to learn in terms of "when they say this they really mean that". Maybe we need special classes for students who have the handicap of pitch accuracy! :-)

Just had that, "Then you look at the electronic clock on your computer and realize that it's now the year 2023." experience.

Thanks for all these great links and the intelligent speculation. I know I can't sing in key, though there is something very satisfying in using musical instruments to create music. Not great in math, but share that love of physics (without the math) like Rich. ...and I love the beauty of patterns in math. As a special education teacher, I have noticed that some of my severely phonetically challenged students are actually very good at reading pictographic characters and make good use of graphic organizers. Something about visual pattern seeking that is satisfying to them (although why they don't just as easily see the visual patterns of the phonics is beyond me). Anyway, it is very good to read that we share this experience of the gravitational pull and effects of learning Chinese. Having studied Chinese on my own for a long time, its good to know I'm not the only one feeling these crazy effects. Nothing like laughing out loud in recognition of the shared physics of learning Chinese.

I also ran across that BBC article awhile back. After reading it, I assumed that Chinese people would be more musically gifted than English-speakers, but when I mentioned it to some Chinese acquaintances, they laughed and said it's kind of a joke how most Chinese are completely incapable of singing on-key. Weird...

As for myself, I was raised in a musical family, playing a total of three instruments and singing, with a mother who earned a Master's in Vocal Performance. So yup, I used to be a music geek, but rarely play and never perform now. I guess you could say I replaced it with Mandarin. :- )

And for the record, I've never been good at math. Just in case anyone's keeping a tally... *grin*

Ha, not so much fluency as aptitude. It's only because that BBC report mentioned using the part of the brain associated with music, which I suppose makes sense.

RJ, Sebire: Thanks for those links. Fascinating stuff! I had been schooled in language=left and Wernicke's area physiology, so these findings really rattled my belief system in that regard.

I play stringed instruments, predominantly mandolin (lest anyone thinks my handle is a play on "mandarin", it's not). Now if Sebire's correlation (between Chinese fluency and ones capacity to process music) holds true, then I suppose I'm not nearly as musical as I once thought! :u)

Thanks sebire.

This is also quite interesting.

http://www.apa.org/releases/interhemispheric.html

The Sequel to Gödel Escher Bach: Jenny Ken John?

42, anyone?

886!

That link was interesting. Hands up any musicians out there? I've been playing the piano for years, so my pitch is pretty good. People say there's a link between music and maths, so continuing that vein of thought, presumably a lot of you Poddies are also musical too?

I think all three subjects lend themselves well to pattern spotters.

Mandomikey,

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3025796.stm

although I like Yves answer also.

mandomikey, most Chinese live in the Northen hemisphere but they are increasingly present in the Africa nowadays, not to mention Australia that has lots of 华侨 :-)

Chinese requires both hemispheres to be learned? How do you figure that?

There is a theory that we are all born with trillions of neural connections and in the first few years of life we keep those we need (use) and the rest atrophy and dissappear. I have often wondered if the Chinese people, faced with learning a more difficult language and one that uses both sides of the brain instead of just one, end up on average with higher intelligence because of this.

Obviously Chinese is not for the intellectually weak. Therefore by default those that remain are probably brighter than the general population and in this group I would expect a greater number of science types. These are also the people that like a challenge. Goulniky is right - I wouldnt say there is no correlation with speech but I understand your point. I have no doubt that I will be able to read Chinese one day very well but I still have doubts about ever being able to speak well. Im not sure its a black hole but definitely a bottomless pit. A life long venture. Rich I agree that stepping back and taking a different approach for a while usually helps.

-Rj

But I am not talking about ChinesePod, I am taking about like the school where I studied at (http://www.newcenturychinese.com)... not to say that they were ALLL "nerds" :P But I think the ones who grasp the characters best (not that I am saying we all can't or aren't, but those who had less difficulty) or those who were most likely to just learn Chinese on their own for the mere challenge of it (like I originally started) are those visual, nerdy learners. :) (nerd as in a good sense, but very technical people.... have I put myself in any more hot water? ha ha)

being more a maths than physics type, and not to bring in any neuroscience complexity to the debate, I'd say that the main difficulty with Chinese is its n+1 dimension.

However many dimensions you think language learning entails, 汉字 brings one more.

Not that I think it's inherently difficult, it's even be the main magnet to me, I'd never had started Chinese without, but I constantly experience a complete lack of correlation between what I can read/write vs speech understanding /production. How's that for black holes?

Rich, Chinese aside, it should be no surprise that many people participating in blogs/forums and deciding to learn a language online would be nerds, computer scientists and such like. I'm sure there's lots of other indicators you'd find in common if you could open the CPod vault, interesting stuff for market research there (and the business school case study that will undoubtedly come out one day)

Oh, I wanted to comment, that while you can't take the population of poddies reading this to say that most are scientists or whatever, but I have found, when in Tianjin studying at the same language school in which Westerners of different trades (usually to later go help with charity work west China), it seems so many were computer scientists and engineers! I really think Chinese is an object-oriented language, at least that's the way I think as you can see from my character posts on 88groups.com.

Again, at the top of my post, I said I got it from a friend, so not my theory, but it did make quite a lot of sense to me!! I have found it a lot more useful actually (can argue about it I guess) to go aaaaalllll the way back to the beginner state of Chinese and learn from there.... well, that is what I was forced to do to get a masters in Chinese studies with 6 classmates who just started learning the language. You may think that would be a bore for me, but not... the class moves so fast (they have to be pretty much conversationally fluent, at least for asking a teacher for details or a person for general information) but I am learning from a different book, and they even teach different words. To make it challenging for me, I write down everything the teacher says from their 20-characters a lesson (1 1/2 lessons a week), and so my writing has improved greatly.

My whole point is that I had to pull away from this "black hole" and take another spin on things, and so I highly recommend it... of course maybe not so easy for the 自学 Chinese learner, or even in classes. Again, I don't regret having to relearn all the basic grammar and words.... so much I had long forgotten and had picked up bad Chinese practices from Chinese friends (just like we actually often say bad English grammar).

I still am in a blackhole when it comes to learning new advanced words, from reading the news paper or a Chinese novel. These words never seek in because it seems like there is a zillion uses for the new characters and a zilion ways to say such-and-such word. Ugh. (English is probably just the same though)

There is hope though. Hawking Radiation, which if I remember correct states that there are constantly pairs of particles and anti-particles forming from nothing and then annihilating each other through out space. If this occurs near the event horizon, an anti-particle can fall in the blackhole and it's pair can survive on it's own, forming a new particle. The anti-particle also reduces the mass of the blackhole.

I will agree that physics type have some attraction to Chinese and other Eastern languages. Count me in as another one.

sibire, as much as quantum theory is trying to describe the physical universe, it is essentially heavy duty maths rather than physics to me...

While the number of posters to this thread does not likely constitute a statistically significant portion of the Chinese Pod community to say that there is a strong correlation, I would say that intellectual challenge of learning Chinese is similar to the intellectual challenge of Theoretical Physics and Non-Euclidean Geometries.

I'm beginning to wonder if there is a correlation between physics types and mandarin learners...

Rich, I have always thought of the brain as a computer that operates on a quantum mechanical level. Perhaps you need to unify your theory.

Left alone that we all hope that this rips a hole into space/time so we can move through to another dimension . Although in reality we are of course just being thinned out and ripped apart.

You should boldy acquire some advanced math and formalize your thoughts. Maybe you place the theory in some A+ journal...

Um, maybe just a nuetron star.

You've certainly done some heavy thinking!

*giggle* No pun intended.

Have a listen to an show Kip Thorne did on Australian radio here: http://www.abc.net.au/science/k2/

Hehe, I loooved General Relativity (and the associated geometry) when I did it, but unfortunately it transpired there is no way in hell I was ever going to do a PhD in GR, so I gave up and started learning Chinese instead.

That's as close as I'm getting to asserting Chinese is a black hole :D