This Is Chinese… Written in Latin Letters

#LearnChinese #ChineseLanguage #Mandarin
This is Chinese… with no characters and no tones. Just the same letters we use to write English or French.

About 90 years ago, a Latin alphabet called Sin Wenz (拉丁化新文字) was created to replace Chinese characters. It was born in the Soviet Far East, reached China, was supported by Lu Xun, and for a few years it really competed with characters. In this video, I’ll teach you how to read it in two minutes, show you how it connects to the Arabic script and Turkey’s 1928 alphabet change, and tell you why characters survived.

Chapters
0:00 This is Chinese?
0:36 How to read Sin Wenz in 2 minutes
2:04 Why the Soviet Union wanted a Chinese alphabet
4:16 The Arabic script connection
5:52 The tone problem
6:51 Sin Wenz in China
8:08 Why characters survived
9:07 The twist: the alphabet in your phone