[nabs-l] Taking a Course in Chinese

[Ben J Bloomgren]

Hanna,

That's why I wrote my initial message to you. I fear that you're going into this giant's backyard in ignorance. Please know that I am not flaming you by any means. I'm not even trying to sound rude, but I don't want you to run into a buzz saw in class when they're studying Chinese characters while you're wondering about an "alphabet." Chinese does not have an alphabet in the same way in which English does. The characters express words or parts of words, and their meaning and pronunciation must be learned from memory. I'm not trying to scare you off, but it takes the average native-born Chinese student upwards of five years to master the system. There is Pinyin, which is a way to write Mandarin Chinese in regular letters, but that's not how the Chinese public does things. Again, please know that I'm not attempting to start a flame war. I probably sound very arrogant and rude, but I'm just trying to get you to the best experience possible with this tiger of a group of languages. If you wish to email me off list, please do so: bbloomgren at me.com or on twitter at http://twitter.com/blindbirder

Sincerely,

Ben
On Aug 28, 2012, at 7:22 PM, "Hannah Chadwick" <sparklylicious at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi all,
> Thank you for the info. I'm not interested in learning all the millions of
> characters but rather the Chinese alphabe.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf
> Of Chun Chao
> Sent: Tuesday, August 28, 2012 4:34 PM
> To: blind-international-students at nfbnet.org
> Cc: nabs-l at nfbnet.org
> Subject: [nabs-l] FW: Taking a Course in Chinese
> 
> Hello Blind International Students:
> 
> The following is a message that was circulated on the National Association
> of Blind Students (NABS) list regarding the use of Braille with foreign
> languages.
> If anyone has any information to contribute to this thread, please send all
> responses directly to NABS at mailto:nabs-l at nfbnet.org
> 
> Sincerely,
> C.C. Alan
> 
> On Aug 28, 2012, at 0:48, "Hannah Chadwick" <sparklylicious at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
> Hello everyone,
> 
> My name is Hannah Chadwick, and I'm attending UC Davis this fall. I'm
> planning on double majoring in international relations and linguistics with
> a minor in journalism. I love learning new languages, and will be taking a
> Chinese class. I took Spanish for 2 years in high school and I was able to
> use my BrailleNote for that, but I'm not sure that doing my Chinese work on
> the Apex will be the best idea since the alphabet will be completely
> different.
> 
> Has anyone taken a Chinese course before? If so, what did you do in terms of
> writing the Chinese alphabet? Are there software out to that would read the
> language?
> 
> Best, Hannah
> 
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