You see, the chinese language is one of the few widespread languages whose writing is not phonetical. Most popular languages are quite phonetical in writing, using the lating alphabet. Even those less phonetical, such as the slavic languages, are still backed by a fairly logical writing system that’s still linked to pronunciation.

Chinese, however, aside form being the most cursive language (in many cases, ya sentence flows like one word) in my opinion, it is also a visual language. Here is the secret, as my Chinese teacher told me: before pronunciation, one must learn the symbols visually. This is also true for japanese and korean. So Chinese is actually a visual artist’s language, learning the meaning through images, much like the ancient egyptian hieroglyphs. An image is associated to a word, but also combinations of one or two or even three images join to make a word but unlike the egyptian symbols there’s no obvious connection so one must learn them visually.

This may also account for the positive thinking of the asian people. You see, for example the composite symbol of good is the joining of the symbols for man and woman. Therefore, the union of man and woman is good and as such this idea is imprinted into each Chinese person. When I asked my teacher what’s the connection, the idea behind the meaning of forming the symbol for good in this manner, he was stunned for a moment. I guess he could not conceive that I couldn’t see the inherent good behind the connection of man and woman. Strange … isn’t it?

Another example is the symbol for “happy”, which is the combination of the symbols for “open” and “heart”. Therefore having an open heart means to be happy. Anyone who has had an interest in asia culture can see this idea connected to buddhist and taoist philosophies.

Strangely, the combination of “close” and “heart” means “to care”. My teacher explained that when you care deeply for one person, your heart is somewhat closed to anything else. I can see the point behind it, however it doesn’t feel very natural. But still interesting.

Although I haven’t been a very good student of the Chinese language, I do look forward to my first exam.