Chinese characters were in the news this week, in the New York Times to be exact. The Times invited a writer, computer programmer, an art historian, and a professor of Chinese literary studies to discuss the future and present condition of Chinese characters. For expats living in China, however, this issue is always on our minds. As we try to puzzle out which bus to take, which bathroom we can use without the police being called, what the sign by the elevator in our building says (do we need to evacuate immediately or is someone leaving their trash in the stairwell again?). Those of us that study Chinese, struggle with the thousands of characters that change meaning radically with just a blip of ink or smudge of a pencil. And, as we watch our teachers pull out cell phones to check how to write certain characters, we too wonder if the Chinese language is in need of an extreme makeover. So we asked you:

Chinese characters are very difficult to learn, do you think China should just use pinyin?

Photo: Wikimedia

Haha, it‘s very funny question! There would be no use for pinyin because it would dramatically slow down the reading speed and complicate understanding. Especially for foreigners, Chinese is a visual language. It is hard for us to distinguish such often used combinations like man, kun, dun, lun, ding, ming, xin when we hear them, and understand the meaning behind the sound. But when we see the character behind the sound, the meaning becomes clear immediately. So, if China would need to change to pinyin system, I would suggest changing the whole language and adding some easily distinguished sounds and widen the use of sound combinations (such as mit, kol, huk, mak, kak, lut, bon, and so on) make longer words... so it would become a different language!!
K / Estonia

No. I do admit learning characters is extremely difficult but it is part of the language. Of course it would be easier for us, but then again you would be removing an ancient writing system. Chinese characters actually make sense even though they tend to kill us; it's just another way of thinking. 
A / USA

No, I don’t think they should change. Reading pinyin is even more trouble.
T / China

Photo: Wikimedia

Oh...no...please...lol. We are actually thinking of using traditional Chinese instead of simplified Chinese.
G / China

In China since the founding of the PRC, there was a period of time when a number of linguists wanted to replace Chinese characters with "Latin" letters or other forms of spelling, but the facts show that it is not feasible.

First of all, the characters that are used now aren’t just text, they’ve been used for thousands of years, man-made transformations will conflict with history and the laws of progress, and create a huge amount of trouble. Japan’s failed attempts to reform the Chinese characters have proved this point.

Secondly, there are many Chinese characters that are homonyms, for example, the pinyin spelling ta can mean "he", "she", "it", or "collapse". Using the pinyin table of sounds becomes very problematic.

Third, the tradition of characters also brings with it a lot of meaning. The radical "贝" shows the word has to do with money. The characters containing "氵" usually have to do with water. If Chinese characters are replaced with Pinyin, these cultural factors will disappear and that is a great loss.
L / China

Photo: M4RCO

Pinyin was introduced to allow less literate Chinese to learn the spoken language faster. But it does not seem feasible to replace all characters by pinyin, since many words have the same pronunciation. Language is an expression of culture, so replacing the characters will mean that you will replace a large part of the culture. The Koreans for example, replaced Chinese characters with a new Korean language to create a new Korean national identity. So no, I would not support replacing the Chinese characters and killing the Chinese heritage.
D / Netherlands

My answer is: No, I don't. Because Chinese represens China's history and culture.
Y / China

No, characters should not be replaced by pinyin! I've spent 7 years learning thousands of the f*#kers and I'll be damned if they're getting rid of them just like that!
R / UK

I think that the Chinese way of writing should be taught at school along with writing pinyin. Pinyin should be used officially. More people would be able to learn Putonghua and thus China would benefit from that in the long run, by making itself more accessible.
-- from a Newsletter reader

Photo: Wikimedia

No. As a foreigner who has learned the CChinese language, I would like to tell you that you must not change the Chinese characters to pinyin, but you must continue the process of simplifying the characters in a shape to enable people to learn it easier and faster.
-- from a Newsletter reader

Being an Overseas Chinese with no education in mandarin, I personally find it difficult to write Chinese characters even I do speak a little of it. But then again, using pinyin will be unrealistic as many Chinese characters are not pronounced the same. Writing any sentences in pinyin, I think I can hardly understand either or may get the wrong meaning of it.
-- from a Newsletter reader

Perspectives seeks to promote dialogue and cross-cultural understanding by featuring Chinese and foreign responses to a single question. Email us to be added to our weekly question mailing list or to suggest questions of your own and feel free to add your opinions in the comments section below.

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Related Links

The Future of Chinese Characters
China to issue new list of simplified Chinese characters
The 7 Hurdles in Mastering Chinese
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My Chinese is Abominable, but I Have No Time!

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