Expo on Chinese language study opens in Vietnam

[etylo]

It should be very very easy for Vietnamese to pick up Chinese.

Vietnamese language is based on Chinese, and used chinese characters.

The French came to Vietnam, and by bayonets and bullets , the French forced Vietnamese to use alphabets killing tens if not hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese to force them to use alphabet.

The French colonialists still living rent free in the heads and souls of Vietnamese who use alphabets in their language.

In the past, Vietnamese of same sound can be distinguished by the characters used. Now they cannot as they use the same sound.

Dont believe the rubbish and crap that you need 3000 chinese characters to speak chinese.

Look at the Chinese toddlers of a few months to 1 or 2 years old.

They may not even know 20 or 50 words and they can happily talk in chinese with friends and family.

They certainly do not go catatonic until they got that magical 3000 chinese words to talk.

I can speak Chinese fluently enough with the 200-300 chinese words under my belt. It is nonsensical to think you need to know 3000 chinese words to speak chinese.


When you get into Chinese, you will find within the characters how that word will sound like

Perhaps this might be of help to those who truly want to get into the Chinese language and not just learn the language.
And how I at 65 years old, made myself read 1,500,000 chinese characters in about 3 months and enjoyed thoroughly my path into written Chinese.

The Idiotic Taoist way of getting into Chinese

You folks know I have been relatively quiet in the forum despite my leaving that life of 66-72 hours work week. Â I have wanted to get deeper into Chinese e...

www.thedaobums.com

3000 characters are for proficient usage of reading and writing of Chinese language like readings of newspaper and books and writing of essays at university level. I agree, for everday people conversation, 500 characters can get you long way and pretty much do the job.

 

[Viet]

Many Chinese characters have an embedded part that forms the pronunciation of the whole character. There are only about 1200 different sounds for all 100k Chinese characters including 4 different tones too. For example, the character for cup 杯 has two basic parts or characters 木 and 不， the 木 part or wood character indicates that cup 杯 is made of wood at the time，the part or character no 不 （sounds like bu）is used to indicate that cup 杯 should be pronounced pretty close to that sound. Similar patterns are found in many more complicated characters. Chinese writing are both pictogram and ideogram, not so much just to record pronunciations of words as in the West. Chinese writing has been in existence for more than 3500 years, and we can pretty much understand what was written thousands years ago unlike in the West, people don't understand words spoken 500 years ago like in Shakespeare time.

Ok for you as native speaker, 不 is pronounced as bu, very easy because you know it. But for non Chinese how do they know it? Between 不 and bu there is no link. Chinese words have no embedded pronunciations. The only chance to get it if you can memorize everything,
I play chess. I compare chess with Chinese. Many similarities. In order to play good a chess game I need memorize the past parties I played. Grand master as Msgnus Carlson can remember all chess moves of 10,000 parties.
That’s about the number of words in Chinese.

 

[etylo]

Ok for you as native speaker, 不 is pronounced as bu, because you know it. But for non Chinese how do they know it? Between 不 and bu there is no link. Chinese words have no embedded pronunciations. The only chance to get it if you can memorize everything,
I play chess. I compare chess with Chinese. In order to play good chess games I need memorize the parties. Grand master as Msgnus Carlson can remember all chess moves of 10,000 parties.

Some basic sounds of some very basic characters you have to remember just as you have to know the sounds of consonants , vowels and basic pattern to pronounce spellings words in English. Besides, Chinese characters also use Latin alphabets spellings to aide Chinese characters pronunciations, just as 不 is written as bu besides it to help you recognize the sound. There is also a complete Chinese pronunciation system created for Chinese characters using Chinese characters consonants and vowels just as in English, but I never learned to use it myself. Most people on the mainland also use the Latin alphabets spellings on Chinese characters to help them with the sounds and input say like on computers. There are only about 300 basic sounds for Chinese characters without tones.

 

[Viet]

Some basic sounds of some very basic characters you have to remember just as you have to know the sounds of consonants , vowels and basic pattern to pronounce spellings words in English. Besides, Chinese characters also use Latin alphabets spellings to aide Chinese characters pronunciations, just as 不 is written as bu besides it to help you recognize the sound. There is also a complete Chinese pronunciation system created for Chinese characters using Chinese characters consonants and vowels just as in English, but I never learned to use it myself. Most people on the mainland also use the Latin alphabets spellings on Chinese characters to help them with the sounds and input say like on computers. There are only about 300 basic sounds for Chinese characters without tones.

Ok good explanation

 

[REhorror]

Chinese are much more simpler than japanese, Google translate alone is at least 70-80% accurate, and I can confident read chinese websites via Google translate.

Japanese is a bit tougher but if you understand context, it would still be understandable.

 

[Viet]

2 aspects to your entry that I like to answer

The simple one first.

I answer the chinese language aspect a bit later.



You do not really play chess. You play a bit of chess. Not when you think chess moves as 10,000 openings (not parties)

This is chess as I played it and know it. You do not need to memorise all chess openings as thats an impossibilty

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Plagiarised from https://www.thedaobums.com/topic/40...ecursor-on-chess/?tab=comments#comment-670843
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Posted January 29, 2016
A major milestone was just passed recently.

There is this thread in a forum far far away almost in another galaxy.
discusstruth.com/threads/do-you-play-chess.315/page-2

That thread was on Chess which I rudely interrupted on 19 Aug 2015 warning them all not to be stupid and get into chess. A position also agreed to by the Saudi Grand Mufti Abdul Aziz bin-Abdullah who issued a religious fatwa declaring that chess is forbidden for Muslims because it is 'a waste of time' and promotes gambling. He added: 'The game of chess is a waste of time... it causes enmity and hatred between people.'

Plagiarised from what I wrote:

That is about the worse thing you have done in your life.
Get out of chess before the addiction really kicks in.

For those with morbid curiosity what chess is about.

Modes of flight of Riamfada and comparison to Tinkerbell //Some chess memories, hustler foil, Bali
http://shanlung.livejournal.com/104619.html

Then the talk went on into chess openings and if I play people face to face

Playing face to face as below?
The chess board physical enough for you?

from HOMO SAPIENS NON URINAT IN VENTUM
http://shanlung.livejournal.com/102154.html

And I was there again in March and June 2015
Those guys there know me very well as a person who periodically turn up sometimes kicking arses and sometimes
to demonstrate how to snatch defeat from jaws of victory

I used to be fascinated by openings. Wasted money and time going deeper and deeper into it.
There must be about 20,000 book openings to go into instead of smelling roses and living whatever is left of my life

Then again, in just the first 2 moves in the chess game, there are 160,000 possibilities
and in just he first 3 moves in the chess game, there are 64,000,000 possibilities or openings

And in the first 4 moves in the chess game, you have 25,6000,000,000 possibilities.
And that is just the first 4 moves. Openings can go to 8-9-11 moves. Even more than that 25 billions.

So what can I hope even if I could remember the 20,000 book openings against 25,6000,000,000 possible openings? You agree that is not even a grain of sand in a beach of sand 100 miles long

I believe so much better to focus on the fundamentals, develop the pieces to maximise their vectorial movements and control of the center. And go with the Tao and flow with the game

I only need to remember that. And being an Idiot, remembering less things meant I less likely to blunder. And all the good things I can remember cannot undo any of the blunder.

Let us remember that at any opening, at any point within that opening, the numbers I quote above to you apply.

So in the 2nd move of say the Ruy Lopez, just 2 more moves into that will 160,000 possibilities and 3 moves from that to be 64 k k possiblities.
The most exhaustive study of just the R L will not even scratch the surface of RL

Let us say a tiny fraction of 64 k k are good possibilities, let say 1 in 1000. You still looking at 64 k. And openings can go 6-7 moves deep

Can one reasonably remember all of that? Maybe for GMs and IMs. Not for people like me.
And then what about the King's Indian, or Sicilian Closed and Sicilian Open. And Kings Gambit/Queens Gambit and Alekhine Defense etc etc etc etc

As said, remember the fundamentals and ground yourself well in that. Go into battle with no fear of death. Like what Jap Samurai have in mind.
"I allow you to cut my skin provided I cut into your flesh. I allow you to cut into my flesh provided I cut you through to the bone"

And what if my allowing you to cut me to the bone which is a pretense as I then will cut off your head.

Also remember positional advantage get you to a favourable end game. But before the end game, God (or the Tao) put in the middle game.


I then touched on WeiChi, which you folks might know better by the Japanese name of Go



In checkers, your pieces still move. And if you queen that piece, the movement to that piece expand even much more.

In weichi, or better known in West as Go, the pieces are the same (other than black or white) and the pieces do not even move after they are placed down.

And yet, the most profound of board games, and even much more profound and complex than chess is Wei Chi.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_(game)

Go (simplified Chinese: 围棋; traditional Chinese: 圍棋; pinyin: wéiqí, Japanese: 囲碁 igo,[nb 2] literal meaning: "encircling game", Korean: 바둑 baduk[nb 3]) is a board game involving two players, that originated inancient China more than 2,500 years ago. It was considered one of thefour essential arts of a cultured Chinese scholar in antiquity. The earliest written reference to the game is generally recognized as the historical annal Zuo Zhuan[2][3] (c. 4th century BC).[4]

There is significant strategy involved in the game, and the number of possible games is vast (10^^761 compared, for example, to the estimated 10^^120 possible in chess),[5] despite its relatively simple rules.

The two players alternately place black and white playing pieces, called "stones", on the vacant intersections ("points") of a board with a 19x19grid of lines. Beginners often play on smaller 9×9 and 13×13 boards,[6] and archaeological evidence shows that game was played in earlier centuries on a board with a 17×17 grid. By the time the game had spread to Korea and Japan in about the 5th and 7th centuries CErespectively, however, boards with a 19×19 grid had become standard.[7]

The objective of the game—as the translation of its name implies—is to have surrounded a larger total area of the board with one's stones than the opponent by the end of the game,[8] although this result typically involves many more intricacies than simply using surrounding areas directly.

Once placed on the board, stones may not be moved, but stones may be removed from the board if captured—this is done by surrounding an opposing stone or group of stones by occupying all orthogonally-adjacent points.[9] The two players place stones alternately until they reach a point at which neither player wishes to make another move; the game has no set ending conditions beyond this. When a game concludes, the territory is counted along with captured stones and komi (points added to the score of the player with the white stones as compensation for playing second) to determine the winner.[10] Games may also be won by resignation.

You see in above for WeiChi, the possibilities are 10 power of 761 against chess possibilities of 10^^ 120

I got a bit into WeiChi when I was working and living in Taiwan and then in South Korea.
I drew back from that abyss as what if I got better in that and would I find the time to get deeper into that especially with my addiction to International Chess?

WeiChi is enchanting and mesmerising. Even more than the other variation of chess which is Chinese Chess. I also drew back from Chinese Chess. Something very difficult as C C is also very enchanting and magical. In CC , you got almost immediatly into the middle game and where knights can be crippled and canon exist and only can work if there is an intermediate piece (regardless if your piece or enemy piece) for the canon to fire over.

One measure of the complexity in WeiChi is that we have chess computer programs that can trash Chess Grand Masters even many years ago.

Despite lots of efforts, the best of WeiChi program can only win against the best of human GMs only when given handicaps. It is believed that only in the distant future can computer WeiChi approach humans, and even so, provided true AI been reached.


I wrote above in Aug 26 2015. I did not expect a Go program about to take on top rank in Go for some years still.

I was wrong.
A major milestone was reached in WeiChi or Go and AI

Google DeepMind's AlphaGo beat the European Go champion at the complex ancient Chinese game.

It was a very delightful shock to find a Go program made a GM equivalent in Go bite the dust.

He was not the top Go GM, only the European Champion. But nonetheless.....

I will wait and see in March 2016 when that program takes on the World top Go Grandmaster Lee Seudol in Korea

Idiotic Taoist shock and lost for words

I said moves not openings.
Magnus Carlson can remember 10,000 parties. If a party has 30 moves, means, he can remember 300,000 moves.
Some people have incredible memories.

Yes that’s right the combination of all possible moves in a chess game is gigantic.

 

[Nan Yang]

East asians are basically the same in that aspect

Errrr. Not really.
Compare Chinese reactions during Wenchuan earthquake and Japanese reactions to the Tsunami.