Why Chinese Is So Damn Hard (1991)

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Language Learning

Chinese Culture

Linguistics

The article 'Why Chinese Is So Damn Hard' (1991) discusses the challenges of learning Chinese, and the single comment on the post reflects on the timelessness of the article's insights.

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bad_username

3 months ago

> A passage in classical Chinese can be understood only if you already know what the passage says in the first place. This is because classical Chinese really consists of several centuries of esoteric anecdotes and in-jokes written in a kind of terse, miserly code for dissemination among a small, elite group of intellectually-inbred bookworms who already knew the whole literature backwards and forwards, anyway.

Found the inspiration for the famous "Darmok" episode of Star Trek TNG.

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