The South China Morning Post - Disinformation

 

I read an article in The South China Morning Post entitled ‘Zhuyin sounds key to children learning Mandarin as a second language.’ LINK

I emailed South China Morning Post as follows:

Luqman Michel <luqmanmichel@gmail.com>

Dec 15, 2024, 10:22 AM

Dear Sir,

I read an article in your papers.

It said the following:

‘However, no method is better than the other, and – more importantly – there is never a perfect method to learn Mandarin. Even so, there is always a perfect combination that suits your child’s Mandarin learning journey.’

 

What combination is the author talking about?

Thank you and kind regards,

Luqman Michel

CCP education in peril (Part 1)

Education remains a priority of nations. The development of any society is based on its education system.

In my recent post, Maggie Chiang asked: ‘Is there a fundamental issue of Education?’

In my post about the above on Facebook, a friend said that China is too busy stealing and copying and that it has no time for its research and development.

I would agree with him. I have done research on the fundamental issue of education in China. Pinyin is taught wrongly not only in China but the Chinese have corrupted the teachers in Sabah too. I have reported this to authorities in China and they have not responded. LINK

Alphabetic and syllabic system

 

For an alphabetic system, the beginner has to first become aware of individual phonemes in spoken words to subsequently learn that those phonemes are represented by letters.

Mandarin does not use an alphabetic system. It is syllabic. The learner has to be aware that spoken words are comprised of syllables. 

Similarly, when teaching kids Pinyin we should teach them syllables as illustrated in the Pinyin chart on my post at LINK

Why would kids taught pinyin with Bopomofo sounds shut down

                                                            

A Chinese friend says he does not understand why I say that kids taught pinyin using Bopomofo sounds may cause them to shut down from learning to read in Pinyin and English.

I have explained this in detail in my book Shut Down Kids. This post is for those who have not read my book or the posts in this blog.

Many of the kids who are classified as dyslexic are intelligent kids who disengage/shut down from learning to read. They shut down from learning to read due to confusion. The main reason for their confusion is the teaching of consonants with extraneous sounds. This means the sound that is not part of the consonants but added by teachers.

AI on learning English and Bopomofo in Taiwan

 

Today, I decided to ask Artificial Intelligence some questions and here is part one of my Q&A.  

 

My question: Why are there kids in Taiwan who can't read in English? Are the sounds they learned under Bopomofo a hindrance?

 

Answer by AI:

As an informed individual from August 2023, I can provide some context on the situation with English literacy among students in Taiwan.

The use of Bopomofo (also known as Zhuyin Fuhao) as the primary phonetic system taught in Taiwanese schools has indeed been a point of discussion regarding English proficiency. Bopomofo is the phonetic script used to teach Mandarin Chinese in Taiwan, and it has a different structure and representation compared to the Roman alphabet used in English.

A discussion on Quora

6 years ago, someone on Quora had asked: Which is better when learning Chinese: characters without Pinyin or Pinyin without characters?

Yong Wen San replied as follows.

If you are serious about learning the Chinese language, then you should aim to shed pinyin from your system as soon as possible.

For the beginner learner, especially one who is not immersed in a Chinese-speaking environment, pinyin does serve as a useful tool for learning the pronunciation of characters and words in Modern Standard Chinese. But that is all it should be seen as - a tool to aid learning pronunciation. I take issue with anyone who makes the sweeping statement that you can “learn Chinese using pinyin”. That will only help you with the spoken modern Chinese language, and even then, it will only take you as far as some basic phrases - ordering food at an eatery, buying something from a grocery store, asking for directions, etc. If your ambitions in “learning Chinese” only go that far, then fine, you can stop reading here.