Xref: utzoo comp.edu:2466 sci.edu:645 comp.cog-eng:1319 Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!dewey.soe.berkeley.edu!thom From: thom@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu (Thom Gillespie) Newsgroups: comp.edu,sci.edu,comp.cog-eng Subject: Re: What to know & universal icons Message-ID: <31102@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> Date: 4 Sep 89 02:45:03 GMT References: <768@cogsci.ucsd.EDU> <3490@rtech.rtech.com> <1316@blackbird.afit.af.mil> <56868@aerospace.AERO.ORG> <1989Sep3.055622.28387@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: thom@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu.UUCP (Thom Gillespie) Organization: School of Education, UC-Berkeley Lines: 23 If Craig thinks that learning chinese is easier than learning a few new icons then craig has never tried to learn Chinese. ALL ideograms/pictograms in chinese have multiple meanings and there is no assurance that any 2 chinese people will get the same meaning from the same group of characters. Classical chinese is even more difficult than the revised characters. English is a very linear left brain language; chinese is more acoustic and right brain. Whole new set of problems arise. There is no alphabet in chinese. Forget Pynyin, that is a western wet dream. Now Japanese is another story. Not 1 but 2 alphabets, and then 2000+ kanji. They cover the right brain and the left brain. Often stroke victims will lose the power of the alphabets or the kanji but not usually both. You don't learn characters in japanese or chinese 'just once.' If you don't use them you lose them ... and have to learn them over and over, just like any language. Talk to the Chinese who are going to school in this country and have their kids here. The kids forget the language very quickly and it poses serious problems for them when they get back home. Believe it or not but the stupid icons on a Mac or Sun are easier to use or learn than chinese, try it! --Thom Gillespie