Re: Word count of minimum vocabulary


I am surprised to see that my use of the term "Chinese
ideographs" has generated a lot of follow-up stuffs and
even a harsh critique on a well-known dictionary. Let
me point out that, no matter what opinions one may have,
from standpoint of linguistic theory or what not, about
that term, that term is simply currently in "common use"
and that fact alone, I believe, legitimates my use of it
in previous posts of this thread. In order to substantiate
this claim, I like to supply below a quote from the
following link:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/FK24Ae02.html

which is a newspaper In Hong Kong. Note that it also agrees
with what I wrote in my post that "Chinese is deemed by
quite many people to be rather hard to learn", which Lee
in his follow-up qualified however as a myth.

A difficult language to learn
Mandarin is reputed to be one of the most difficult languages
to learn in the world. Its system of ideographs used for
writing, and the four distinct tones in pronouncing similar
monosyllables, have baffled many non-Chinese attempting to
learn the language.

[The term "Mandarin" above refers to the official Chinese dialect.]

M. K. Shen

.

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