I went to China, and they do not use keyboards with Chinese characters on them. Not only is this impractical, it also is inefficient considering they use pinyin. They have no alphabet like ours, so typing character by character would mean they would have to have a keyboard with a few thousand characters.


Just to clarify(though computers in Japan have such things because they have something that coould be called an alphabet--hiragana and katakana{i think})

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True victory does not come in defeating the enemy in battle, but in winning the war before the need of one.

Sun Tzu

Erm...who said that each key had a character on them? Of course you type in the romaji form while the computer coverts it into the characters (of course, you gotta know the romaji spellings too) ...
I thought that was fairly obvious o_o

Anyways, this is getting out of topic.
Language learning is fun!...but it gets harder as you get older >_<
So far I only know how to fluently speak two languages,
I'm currently learning Japanese (for the wrong reasons ohoho) and I'm about as good as...a 1st grader OTL;;;
In terms of practicing, I just chat in Japanese now and then with a friend of mine who has been learning it as well.

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Everyday I'm tumblin'

i grad. from my chinese skol last year~ o so happy ^^ i dont have to wake up so early on sat. T^T

as 4 chinese, i can read and talk normally but i can barely write... i fail at that yet i still got a 80 something average~

ritee now im learning pin yin so i can type in chinese (is being forced to do so T^T)

and im also learning man. (as in listening to songs and asking my mommy if i have no idea wut theyre singing, or i look up the word)
(im canto) i do speak a lil man. but im not that good at it so i reply in eng when they talk to me ^^

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As if handcuffed, I'm bound to the memories of you...

你的中文说得很 好的！！我也在 学中文呢，学了 差不多九年了。 我学了那么长时 间，但是你的中 文水平更我大概 一样的！！

I'm learning Japanese nowadays, and I'd want to learn Swedish and French. I know almost nothing about Swedish and French @_@ Je n'entendre français I'll really try that blog to accurate my Japanese and my English!
I think that every new language you learn is like a new window opening. It isn't so simple as just moving through the door, but is more funny :3

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April March = Love ♥♥♥

A friend of mine in my English Class is Swedish, and she loves nothing more than to tell me interesting facts about Sweden. She is so into it, I can imagine myself trying to learn the language in the future. Go for it Sanae!!!!

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True victory does not come in defeating the enemy in battle, but in winning the war before the need of one.

Sun Tzu

Well... French is far more simple for me to understand (at least I understand a lot more of French songs than the Swedish ones!) as well as to do a course @_@ I'm really interested in Swedish language, altough. I like learning Japanese, but I'd be more interested on learning Swedish.
Thanks for the cheering! I'll try online learning on Swedish until I find real teachers!

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April March = Love ♥♥♥

Chinese is pretty hard.. There's like 5000 characters or something Oo'

many more than that i think

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True victory does not come in defeating the enemy in battle, but in winning the war before the need of one.

Sun Tzu

Apparently, Swedish isn't supposed to be THAT difficult for foreigners to learn... I really can't say since I was born in Sweden and sort of learned the language without any effort on my part English and Mandarin are supposed to be the two most difficult languages to learn... Personally, I'd love to be able to speak Hindi (so I can watch Bollywood movies without confusing subtitles!)...
Any swedish words you'd like to learn, Sanae?
Here's a wonderful and incredibly useful phrase:
Ursäkta, jag förstår inte. (Excuse me, I don't understand.)
Whenever I make an attempt at learning a new language, these are always the first words I memorize
But yeah, languages are amazing. They always seem to reflect the mentality of the people speaking it, so it's like peeking into people's brains...

Ahhh...there are a lot of Chinese (well Asian in general) people here
Anyways, I can speak and understand my native language, but I can read and write only a little bit.
I want to learn Latin and Japanese if I can, they sound so fun

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Lalala~

me too lol. I would love to be able to speak some Latin or learn Japanese. Try your best at it and tell me how it works. If you get really good would you practice with me?



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True victory does not come in defeating the enemy in battle, but in winning the war before the need of one.

Sun Tzu

Just curious. What is your native language if you don't mind? And also, MasterofMagic, don't worry that you're not very good. I'm terrible at Chinese and I am Chinese as well. Only the speaking part really trickled down to me from my parents.

Last edited by roadblock4 at 6:38 pm, Jan 26 2009

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Trip Fall Die

GAH! My plot doesn't bend that way!

Still my speaking sucks and you know that is probably the most important, so good job retaining your speaking/listening skills. I am Korean and I do not speak Korean--I hardly understand it(except for simple things). At least I am improving my writing skills.

Good luck roadblock with learning written Chinese; its a conundrum for me.

Maybe we can practice together. You tell me the topic and I will prepare.

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True victory does not come in defeating the enemy in battle, but in winning the war before the need of one.

Sun Tzu

way more than that i think

i was reading up on learning japanese before, and apparently to pass 6th grade they need to know 1000 characters. If you want to pass the fluency test with the government you have to know a little over 5000 characters. wish they were as easy to remember as numbers