SPEECH is Top Priority, Not Characters SPEECH is Top Priority, Not CharactersWayne Wong
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Chinese characters may be the traditional writing system for Mandarin, but remember how Jesus and his heavenly Father feel about human traditions that make it significantly harder for people to serve Jehovah than it ought to be. (Mark 7:13; Matthew 23:4) Indeed, compared to other writing systems, characters are exceptionally difficult to deal with, and they are exceptionally costly in terms of the ongoing time, attention, and effort required to learn and remember them. It’s good if some have already learned to use characters, but for those of us who are learning Mandarin for the Mandarin field, our focus should really be on understanding Mandarin speech and speaking Mandarin understandably:
Your first linguistic goal should be to “utter speech easily understood.” [emphasis added] (1 Corinthians 14:8-11) Though people may be tolerant, mistakes or a heavy accent may distract them from listening to your message. Giving attention to proper pronunciation and grammar right from the start will prevent you from forming bad habits that are hard to break.
—“Serving With a Foreign-Language Congregation”, in the March 15, 2006 Watchtower.8 For if the trumpet sounds an indistinct call, who will get ready for battle? 9 In the same way, unless you with the tongue use speech that is easily understood [emphasis added], how will anyone know what is being said? You will, in fact, be speaking into the air. 10 It may be that there are many kinds of speech in the world, and yet no kind is without meaning. 11 For if I do not understand the sense of the speech, I will be a foreigner to the one speaking, and the one speaking will be a foreigner to me.
—1 Corinthians 14:8–11.
As imperfect humans, we may tend to focus on Chinese characters simply because we can see them, and because they are such interesting and even exotic sights, especially to Western eyes. (This may remind one of the way many people say idols and images help them worship an invisible God, because they can see those idols and images, which some people additionally find to be interesting to look at.) Indeed, those who have expended much time and effort to learn some characters may find that they can understand those “gateway characters” faster when they see them, compared to when they see Pīnyīn. This is because while characters and Pīnyīn are both systems for visually representing Mandarin words and their meanings, Pīnyīn represents meaning indirectly by first simply and directly representing invisible Mandarin speech sounds, which in turn represent meaning (1 Corinthians 14:10, quoted above), whereas characters make some attempt to represent meaning directly through their visual designs, resulting in a short circuit.
However, just as a short circuit is not a good thing to have in an electrical circuit, relying on characters trying to directly represent meaning visually is not a good thing to do for those of us who are learning Mandarin for the Mandarin field. Why? The reason is that, just like it’s an established fact that the earth is round, according to modern linguistics (the scientific study of language) this is also an established fact: “Speech is primary, writing is secondary and is always derivative of speech.” This scientific truth about language, that Jehovah built us and wired us to primarily communicate meaning through speech, supports what 1 Corinthians 14:8–11 (quoted above) says about understandable speech being of prime importance to Christian evangelizers. Additionally, as 2 Corinthians 5:7 tells us, we should be “walking by faith, not by sight” [emphasis added]. And further, Romans 10:17 says that “faith follows the thing heard” [emphasis added]—speech is heard, not writing, even if that writing is as visually meaningful as Chinese characters can be.
Sadly, that “faith follows the thing heard” is made painfully obvious by how, occasionally, publishers leave the Mandarin field (or even leave the truth) because they’re not getting the spiritual nourishment they need from the Mandarin meetings—since they’re not understanding what they hear, their faith is not getting built up. Rather than successfully continuing to help out, such ones instead become spiritual casualties, no longer available to help on the Mandarin front of the spiritual war we are fighting. (2 Corinthians 10:4, 5) Learning characters does not fix this—publishers need to learn to understand Mandarin speech to benefit spiritually from Mandarin meetings, because the talks, comments, etc. at such meetings are made of Mandarin speech, not characters. In fact, focusing on characters makes this problem worse because it makes learning Mandarin speech harder and slower. At the very least, it distracts from learning Mandarin speech.
In contrast, Pīnyīn is a simple full writing system for Mandarin that can help us to focus on and successfully develop the primarily required abilities of understanding Mandarin speech and speaking Mandarin understandably, without the often unnecessary distraction of the visually beguiling, bewitchingly complex Chinese characters.
Characters focus mainly on themselves, and are at best a scenic route to learning Mandarin speech, while Pīnyīn is a fast, direct route to learning Mandarin speech. As rescue workers in the Mandarin field, rather than tourists, we must give top priority to the fastest, most effective way to help those in the field, not to the way that features cultural attractions for us to see.
There is of course some value in learning a reasonable number of characters, since they are so pervasive in the Chinese world. However, characters can gradually be learned later, if desired, when we actually have time for the diversion that they entail.
If we were to compare Mandarin language ability to a building, then ability with Mandarin speech would be the building’s foundation and basic structure. Pīnyīn is an excellent tool for helping to build good, solid ability with Mandarin speech, which makes for a good, solid foundation and a good, solid basic structure for Mandarin language ability. Knowledge of characters, though, at best would be decorative or fashionable exterior paint, siding, trim, etc. that is visible on the outside. First prioritizing fashionable, visible characters can thus lead to Mandarin language ability that does not stand up well to real-world usage because of lacking a strong foundation and a good basic structure. In contrast, children in China generally have a good foundational knowledge of Mandarin speech before they learn characters, and they continue to learn and constantly use Mandarin speech even as they learn characters.
So, for each of us language learners in the Mandarin field, the first priority should be to learn Mandarin speech. This will enable us to actually understand and benefit from Mandarin meetings, and it will enable us to actually talk to Mandarin-speaking people in Mandarin from the heart. It will also make it easier for us to gradually learn characters later, as time allows.
For more information on this, see the following articles:
☞ Link to the article “Pīnyīn is a Good, Workable Writing System On Its Own”
This article is a brief overview of why it’s important for those of us in the Mandarin field to recognize that Pīnyīn is a full writing system, not just a pronunciation aid.
☞ Link to the article “Pīnyīn Was Plan A”
This extensively researched in-depth article discusses how we in the Mandarin field should view Pīnyīn.
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