A survey of Chinese youths has found that 83 per cent of them have struggled to remember the precise format of their language’s characters when writing, old-school style, with a pen or pencil. Computers and phones are to blame.
The so-called “character amnesia” is caused by the modern tech world’s dependence on Western alphabet-based systems, leading some to fear for the future of the country’s writing system. It could also jeopardise the future careers of the Western world’s bad tattoo artists.
But in a rather ironic twist, phones are also coming to the rescue – “When I can’t remember, I will take out my mobile phone and find it (the character) and then copy it down” said 21-year-old student Li Hanwei. So were not sure if computers and phones are supposed to be good or evil today. [Physorg]
dawdle
August 27, 2010 at 7:19 PM
There are so many different input methods for typing Chinese. Pinyin (by the pronunciation of a character) is probably the most common.
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