<b>Forum for the discussion of Applied Linguistics </b>
Moderators: Dimitris, maneki neko2, Lorikeet, Enrico Palazzo, superpeach, cecil2, Mr. Kalgukshi2
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shuntang
- Posts: 327
- Joined: Fri Feb 20, 2004 10:06 pm
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by shuntang » Sun Jul 10, 2005 2:39 pm
coffeedecafe wrote:but is it still true if one is totally ignorant of much of china's history? is it possible to be a member of those grand and glorious and yet be willing to see genius in the response of one from any nation?
if i am unaware of great happenings do they cease to exist, much as the sound of a tree falling in a forest may be doubted if it cannot be verified?
though the use of tenses in a recipe or cookbook might not be useful, in history if one item happened before another, it could be seen as cause and effect.
so tenses may be helpful sometimes and sometimes merely a distraction?
Good points. But I am afraid you have overused questions and negatives.
If you don't know the history of China, how do you know what I have said is true?
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coffeedecafe
- Posts: 73
- Joined: Fri Sep 17, 2004 10:17 am
- Location: michigan
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by coffeedecafe » Sat Jul 16, 2005 7:12 am
can there be too many questions? is life itself not a 'quest'?
maybe i do not know of china's history, and only accept your statements as a basis to work from. or maybe i only remember dimly being told way back in elementary school that china has had one of the longest histories of any culture. though it has had many dynasties, has it not? so everything has not remained the same? and the regions of china may be very diverse from one another? for instance, does any area have hotter food than szechuan? i think the more we know, the more questions we might desire to ask. is that not a positive thing?
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jotham
- Posts: 509
- Joined: Thu Nov 16, 2006 12:51 am
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by jotham » Wed Apr 09, 2008 11:27 am
I've missed the older posts. The article surprised me as I thought that Chinese was much easier to speak than either Japanese or Korean. It seems much more conducive to English grammar. I enjoy speaking Chinese because it has a light-hearted casualness about it. Japanese, on the contrary, seems to be rigid in form. But it could just be that I'm still learning Japanese. I've also noticed that Japanese people really have a much harder time expressing themselves in English — they get easily tangled in grammar (like I do in Japanese) — compared to Chinese speakers.