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RTK, Chinese - A mutual relationship - thecite - 2009-07-24

Just wanted to post yet another reason why RTK is so useful:
I've recently made a few Chinese friends at my school purely through knowing RTK and being able to competently read Japanese material.
I can speak one word of Mandarin (albeit badly), Nihao. Yet, knowing the 2042 Kanji, plus some various 100 or so from book 3, I found mutual ground with a few Chinese students in my classes at school, and through discussions on the English meaning of various Kanji, we've become friends. One of them was particularly impressed when I read the Heisig keywords that made up their name. So, although I know practically no Chinese, no simplified characters, but I know RTK, I've bridged a language gap (just a little bit) rarely crossed by western high school students.

I will learn Chinese using RTH (Trad. and simpl.) sometime next year, but not for now.

RTK, Chinese - A mutual relationship - mezbup - 2009-07-24

I know what you mean. I live in a country with a huge chinese population so theres kanji/hanzi commonly displayed in various places throughout the city. And it's cool being able to identify the characters!

RTK, Chinese - A mutual relationship - thecite - 2009-07-25

mezbup Wrote:I know what you mean. I live in a country with a huge chinese population so theres kanji/hanzi commonly displayed in various places throughout the city. And it's cool being able to identify the characters!
Yeah, I was just saying that whereas I had nothing in common with Chinese people beforehand, I now have 2, 000 characters worth of something in common with them.

RTK, Chinese - A mutual relationship - TheTrueBlue - 2009-07-25

mezbup Wrote:I know what you mean. I live in a country with a huge chinese population so theres kanji/hanzi commonly displayed in various places throughout the city. And it's cool being able to identify the characters!
What country do you live in?

RTK, Chinese - A mutual relationship - mezbup - 2009-07-25

New Zealand Smile

RTK, Chinese - A mutual relationship - strugglebunny - 2009-07-25

I think every country seems to have a huge Chinese population. I mean, even my crappy little hometown in the middle of Pennsylvania had a bunch of Chinese (although you'd be hard pressed to find them anywhere outside of a restaurant, where the hell did they all go?)

How did there get to be so many?

RTK, Chinese - A mutual relationship - mezbup - 2009-07-25

Well it's not surprising considering they do make up a massive chunk of the worlds population. It'd be well worth learning chinese... but im not going down that road just yet.

RTK, Chinese - A mutual relationship - Machine_Gun_Cat - 2009-07-25

mezbup Wrote:New Zealand Smile
Holly shit me too! I always see Chinese characters on queen street and read out signs to my friends now.

RTK, Chinese - A mutual relationship - lagwagon555 - 2009-07-25

I do the same thing on Queen Street every week day too Big Grin I'm only half way through, but it's awesome actually seeing them in real life.

RTK, Chinese - A mutual relationship - b0ng0 - 2009-07-25

That's great, it's really cool when you can make a contact with folk purely from a knowledge about their language. Unfortunately, when I was at school there wasn't a single asian student in my year... ach well...

RTK, Chinese - A mutual relationship - mezbup - 2009-07-25

Haha omg you guys are in Auckland! Hopefully im moving back there soon... im down in Napier atm and theres still kanji down here! I read a few on the name of the restaraunt out loud and then I look above it and in english it says what I just said. Ahahaha. I thought it was quite cool.