I have been to China and Japan several times and have always been puzzled by the written language. A language may be "easy" or "tough" in its structure, no arguing about that. But if its graphic representation adds one notch of difficulty, then it's rather discouraging.

I don't mean Chinese or Japanese people giving up their language, far from that, but a covenant on how to write them in a more direct, modern and economic way would see a higher number of students trying to learn any of them (Pinyin would be great if made more popular).

Roman alphabet is one of the best examples to render sounds into graphic codes using a minimum of symbols. Isn't that great? What would you think if each numeral would have its own symbol? Just writing between 1 and 1,000 would be a terrible task.

I wonder how Chinese can learn about new words and concepts. If an Englishman sees the word "methadone" or "achrematite" he may not know what's all about, but at least he's able to reproduce the sound at the pharmacy or wherever.

However, a Chinese person who only hears the word can't reproduce it with a symbol if he ignores the substance the word describes. Or, should he see the corresponding symbol, he can't read it aloud if he hasn't had a previous knowledge. Think of all the neologisms that have no meaning to millions, but which can be read (decoded) by many.

The rendering of foreign names into Chinese shows that problem: we can't have our correct pronunciations coded with Chinese characters; just a faintly similar sound. While the Roman writing of Chinese sounds provides much better results (including the support of special sounds or tones codes).

Another matter I wonder is that of creating new symbols. If the stories about how Nature things' sketching evolved into current characters, why is it that new things, like TV or planes, don't have a new symbol of their own, things that children can easily sketch with simple strokes and are easily understood. Is there any official institution that would care about introducing new characters?

So far, I have been using no more than 28 symbols (56 if we have to consider upper case characters) to describe my thoughts. How many characters would a Chinese person have to use to make these very same statements? How long would have him taken to learn all of them?

It's not that I am in a hurry to learn, but the essentials are grasped in a more permanent way when one's mind is young. So, clear and concise Roman, Greek, Cyrillic, etc. symbols have a leading advantage above intricate patterns (which are hard to discern for the short sighted).

Anyway, all languages are of human origin and humans can master any. But it would be so simple if we were to use easy sound codes for getting to the real essence of a language.