Archive for June, 2010

How can Chinese have a common written language but different spoken languages?

Isn't it true that the purpose of writing was to be able reproduce spoken words? In Chinese languages even if the writing is not capable of reproducing common sounds, it is capable of communicating the same meaning. If the oral language preceded the written language, as we all think, then how can it be explained that a written language was agreed by people who speak differently?

How does a Chinese language keyboard make all the ideographic words?

Since Chinese (or Korean or Japanese, etc.) is not an alphabetic language and has so many ideographic characters, how is the keyboard structured to include all those characters?

Did the Japanese language grow out of the Chinese language?

I'm very curious if the Japanese language grew out of the Chinese language. Watching the Japanese news on TV, I see that many of the Japanese characters are exactly the same as some of the Chinese characters, and they mean the same thing (of course they have different pronunciations).

How can I get chinese language bar on my computer with VISTA?

I want to be able to type chinese and english and chinese interchangeably. I know about going to the control panel, and selecting regional language option, but I don't know how to go from there. When I tried changing somthing to chinese it gave me the whole chinese system thing like time, money, and etc. I'm confuse so please explain to me in detial. I have windows VISTA. Thanx!

Does the major Chinese Studies teach Chinese language in it also? What's the difference between the two?

Also of the schools I have looked at have Chinese studies but I want to Major in Chinese Language.
I was wondering if Chinese Studies does also teach Chinese Language and also what's the difference between the two majors?
IF I took Chinese Studies would I learn Chinese?