The counter-argument to the Moser piece from Lily Chao:
Chinese grammar is much simpler if compared to that of the European languages. English speakers sometimes complain that languages like Spanish have a complicated grammar (masculine and feminine genders, verb conjugations, etc), whereas the Chinese language has little or no bound morphology and there are no grammatical paradigms to memorize. Each word has a fixed and single form: verbs do not take prefixes or suffixes showing the tense or the person, number, or gender of the subject. Nouns do not take prefixes or suffixes showing their number or their case. I’m not trying to tell you that Chinese has no grammar; what I means is that due to the lack of inflectional morphology, Chinese grammar is mainly concerned with how words are arranged to form meaningful sentences. Plus each Chinese character pronounced in one syllable, that’s why when watching Chinese movies, you find that a few words can be translated into a syllable mapping in the English subtitle.
Read on.
Ken Carroll
Granted, Mandarin is not an inflected language in the strict sense of the word — certainly not like most European languages –, but I’m not so sure that you couldn’t make the case that certain particles and markers constitute inflections. They are certainly used that way and convey the same morphological information that many common types of inflections do. Just because they are written as separate characters doesn’t make -de, -ma, -ba, -le, etc. any less functional in this regard.
DIFFERENT LISTS FOR DIFFERENT FOLKS -
One part of the article:
I would like to clarify a little bit, this might definitely be true, but keep in mind that the words in a newspaper are very different from spoken speech. A listing of word frequency will definitely give you different results for the first 1000 characters. I’m pretty sure that over time, Cpod’s archive is going to be the most authoritative on the top-1000 for spoken real Chinese.
http://lingua.mtsu.edu/chinese.....index.html
*Note that the most frequent words vary depending on if you are looking at news or fiction, and I’m sure this holds for spoken.
Taking myself as an example, I’m pretty sure I know 1000 characters, but they reflect my spoken vocabulary. I couldn’t say that I can today read a newspaper, but I can talk! I would suspect that some others are the complete opposite of me. Neither better or worse, just a detail to note and for goal-setting.
Note to Cpod:
Over in the Forum some noted that the title tag for the Chinesepod website now only says “Learn Mandarin Chinese”. I was guessing that it was some effort at search optimization. In the Chao article I noticed that the comment from Cpod gave it’s name as “Learn Mandarin Chinese”, I think they’re be no harm in having it read “Learn Mandarin Chinese at Chinesepod.com”
Looks like some competition on the horizon:
WHOIS: mandarinpod.com
Domain Name………. mandarinpod.com
Creation Date…….. 2006-02-25
Registration Date…. 2006-02-25
Expiry Date………. 2007-02-25
Organisation Name…. Dong Yuan
Organisation Address. 1004 Peregrine Plaza, 1325 Central Huaihai Rd
Organisation Address.
Organisation Address. Shanghai
Organisation Address. 200031
Organisation Address. Shanghai
Organisation Address. CHINA
My imprsession after a couple of years of study is that Mandarin grammer is indeed simpler than in the west. However, this simplicty comes at the cost of greater ambiguity and strange (to my ears) sentence construction. As an example, which is the subject of these two sentences?
Ni hui shuo zhongwen.
Ni zhongwen shuo de hen hao.
In English we would probably say “You can speak Chinese” and “You speak Chinese very well.” Same subject in both cases. But in Chinese the second version roughly translates as “Your Chinese is well spoken.” I didn’t figure this out until something like two years after I first learned the phrase.
So for me the relative simplicity of the grammar actually makes it harder at times to guess how to structure a sentence.
I agree that the grammar is far easier in Chinese. Having to memorize the imperative, future, future conditional, past, imperfect, the irregular verbs, and my very favorite, the subjunctive in a romance language is a pain in the pigu. Each foreign language has its unique challenges. I’m not deterred by the challenges of Chinese - especially given the resources on Chinesepod!
A PROOF - A sentence which is easier in Chinese than it is in English
I remember the good ‘ol days when my math teacher told me it would help our thinking to learn geometry proofs, little did I know that years later I would pull out this gem of knowledge.
I will prove that Chinese is easier than English. First let’s start off with a thought, imagine that you have entered a classroom, you have taken off your shoes. Express this statement in Chinese and English. Which is easier to do?
wǒ tuō le xié zǒujìn jiàoshì。
我脱了鞋走进教室。
I-took off-shoes-go-enter-classroom
I took off my shoes and walked into the classroom.
I took off my shoes and entered the classroom.
A: Chinese version
我脱了鞋走进教室
In this Chinese sentence the only variable is the progression of time and the sequence of events. There is virtually no conjugation or tricky word forms. Just subject, verb and actions, and nouns. The verbs do not need conjugation, there are no tricky connector words. It’s about as simple as one could make it. There are about 15 components making up the hanzi, and about 7 words.
我 ….. subject, ( I )
脱了… first action, completed action, (remove)
鞋…… noun, (shoe)
走…… second action (go)
进…… third action (forward/into)
教室… noun, (classroom)
I-took off-shoes-go-enter-classroom
wǒ tuō le xié zǒujìn jiàoshì。
B: English version
I took off my shoes and walked into the classroom.
In the English version we are see that at almost every point in the sentence it’s necessary to make modifications and choices. Imagine doing this all in rapid-fire conversation, how can one do this?! When do I need a ‘the’? Why don’t I say “my pair of shoes”? There are 19 different letters and about 10 words several of which have irregular conjugations; take-took, I-mine-my, in-into, the classroom-a classroom-classroom.
I………… subject, must be converted, ie. from me, mine.
took off…. first action, must be made past tense, doesn’t follow ‘ed rule, exception. Plus this verb requires ‘off’.
my……… possession, need to add this as English is not context sensitive, must determine if it should be I, me, mine, my.
shoes……. noun, must be made plural of shoe, no need to indicate ‘pair’ of shoes in this situation
and……… this must be added because in English verbs can not just be strung together one after another
walked….. first action, must be made past tense to match first verb
into……… must be added to indicate direction
the………. must be added in front of noun, consideration of whether it is ‘a’, ‘the’, or nothing necessary. I don’t know why really, but you have to have ‘the’.
classroom…. 9-letters compared to 9 basic components within the Chinese hanzi 教室. Why two ’s’ and not one? Why is it not ‘class room’?
Proof: Since in this Chinese sentence I only require one variable, the progression of time and actions, and in the English sentence I require 8 modifications, I conclude that Chinese is an easier language than English.
Ref: A Crash Course in Chinese–Sentence Construction Patterns in Mordern Chinese. Ding Haosen. Shanghai 2004.
Anybody want to do this sentence in Spanish, German, Swahili? It’s fun, fun, fun I tell ya!
Quoted from Sharon in Seattle
That just deserves highlighting and reposting. I think my previous long post must be just that.
Me quité los zapatos y entré en la aula. (I think)
I´m by no means close to fluent in spanish, but I think that helps in discovering how hard it is to come up with even a simple sentence like this. Conjugating quitarse, conjugating entrar, getting the plural noun right with the correct definite article…Lantian is right. But I´m usually one to call any language other than my own incredibly hard, no matter which one.
I could be wrong (John? Jenny?) but Lantian I think your sentence (我脱了鞋走进教室) wouldn’t be translated as just “I took off my shoes and walked into the classroom.” With your placement of 了 I think the action of finishing taking off the shoes is empahsized. So it would be more like “I walked in the classroom after I took of my shoes.” It seems the sentence 我脱鞋走进教室了 would be more accurately translated as “I took off my shoes and walked into the classroom.” If you were talking in a strict narrative sense.
And what about 我脱了鞋走进教室了 “After I took off my shoes I walked into the classroom” (but I am out of the classroom now)?
and 我脱了鞋就走进教室了 “I walked into the classroom as soon as I took off my shoes.”
and this one has got me, what’s the difference with this one?
我脱了鞋走进教室去了. “After I took off my shoes I went (by way of walking) into the classroom” (The speaker is not in the classroom)
Chinese grammar may be simpler with its lack of conjugations and tenses, but it’s a whole lot more complicated when it comes to word placement in relation to emphasis. Also the versatility of many different particles and words (了,呢,可) add many layers of complexity.
Again I could be wrong (please correct me if I am), but I think that Chinese grammar is easier only in simple sentences.
Hi Jeff,
I think you kinda prove my point. The Chinese sentence I provided is a very very common structure and expression of that thought. Although yes you could make it cryptic and complicated, most Chinese daily speech is not of that variety. Notice in the English how easily it get’s quite convoluted.
Note that my point wasn’t about making a nice one-to-one translation match between the Chinese and English. I just wanted to compare how a particular ‘thought’ might be expressed, constructed in the two languages.
But with that said, my Chinese grammar is very basic, maybe John can give a ‘complex’ sentence comparison.
Kelso’s Spanish totally lost me, sorry Mr. Lopez — those were two lost years in your class.
So who can say this in German? I’m just curious, I know no German
Teach me — I know English so it must be easier for me to learn than Spanish or Chinese. 我开玩笑。
I see your point, but my point is that on the surface for simple sentences Chinese grammar seems a whole lot easier than other languages, but when you get into it, it gets a lot more complicated. If you think about it Chinese doesn’t have tenses, so you have to use a lot more subtle (sometimes complicated) ways to express them.
While I don’t believe you can take a sentence and compare it in two languages and determine which language is harder, what about this one:
我很高兴
I am happy.
The english is simpler than the Chinese.
你们学得不行啊，要继续努力啊。
特别是Jeff，哈哈。
我脱了鞋走进教室的意思是：
强调走进教室的时候是脱了鞋的（光着脚的），或说，已经脱了鞋。
脱鞋和走进教室着两个动作之间的关系是：先脱鞋，然后进教室。脱鞋在前，进教室其后。
大家是明白，还是明白，还是明白呢？哈哈
“了”这个字是很麻烦。
我小学时候学习过中文语法，但我一直不喜欢学语法。学习任何语言都不能太关注语法了，特别是中文。
表达“我脱了鞋走进教室”可以有很多方式：
我把鞋脱了然后走进了教室
我脱鞋走进教室
…….
但我不会这样去说：
我脱鞋了，然后走进教室
我脱了鞋，在我走进教室前
我先脱鞋，之后走进教室
我走进教室，一旦我脱了鞋
我走进教室，之前我脱了鞋
我走进教室，我已经脱了鞋了
……..
Zhang xin,
谢谢你的帮助。 不过我说的有什么不行的？根据你说的： “脱鞋和走进教室着两个动作之间的关系是：先脱鞋，然后进教室。脱鞋在前，进教室其后”我的英文翻译好像是对的。 因为”I took off my shoes and entered the classroom.” 没有强调。
请下次别说我们学得不行。 我上面写的句子有什么错误？
我高兴。
I=happy
no conjugation, easy! Easier!!
“I am happy.”
Complex complex English, language derived from many and the land of Babel.
I — why not “me happy”
am — weird none-rule abiding ‘is’ conjugation. I can say ‘I am” but not “Me am”. I can say “I am” but not “I is”. Why I ask the sages of lingo?
happy –okay I agree, that’s easier than writing ‘gao xing’ in hanzi. But then again 高 is pretty darn easy after a while. And 兴 is only 6 little flicks. Why isn’t it okay to write ‘hapi’ or ‘I am a happy’ or ‘happi’ or ‘hapee’ like in ‘tepee’? Why can I say “Me so happy” but not “I so happy?”
I don’t disagree that we could make either language complicated or subtle, that’s the beauty of all languages and why we all prefer the original rather than the translated. And it is also probably just as silly to say that one language is simpler than another. The only argument left is when some of us out there say that one language is simpler for them than another….well who can argue that we all aren’t unique?
But if we look at Zhang Xin’s examples (thanks by the way, very very interesting), notice that all of the lexical groupings stay the same, you just add a 然后, 在, 前, 先，之后,一旦, 之前, 已经. There are no variations of conjugation for every other word. All I have to do is learn these ‘markers’ and where they are used and what kind of meaning that then implies. I learn one marker = one meaning. In English one word = several conjugations = several different possible pairings with other words = and endless variations in word placement.
If you look at Zhang’s sentences,
1. He never varies where the ‘le’ comes after.
2. Subject and first always follow each other. 我脱 or 我走进
3. Verbs always precede the object. 走进教室
4. If you want to make subtle disctinctions, insert appropriate markers. 在, 前, 先，之后,一旦, 之前, 已经.
I’m not saying you can’t move things around abnormally for style, all languages do this for the sake of interest and nuance. But in general conversations and everyday language it seems to me Chinese is pretty darn straightforward. Which makes it the easiest language in the world to learn! That’s why nobody get’s my obtuse sarcasm in Chinese.
For the record Lantian,
I agree with you
Lantian how often do you hear a Chinese person say 我高兴。 “I am happy” is almost always (maybe always?) expressed as 我很高兴
Also if you notice in zhangxin’s post the sentences with those markers (已经,之前,一旦)， are not used according to him/her.
Anyway i do agree that it’s a silly argument.
But this is interesting as well:
http://www.spidra.com/fazah.html
See what he has to say about Mandarin.
Actually…i believe you are more likely to hear someone say 我很开心。 or 我开心。。。instead of 我很高兴。。or 我高兴。。to express that they are happy.
我很高兴各位能够将中文语法分析到如此深入的地步。也很惊讶Lantian的精辟总结（看上去不错！难道他是中国人？）
Jerry，你的中文学得很不错了，我一直这样觉得，呵呵，只是看到你们很认真地样子，所以跟你开个小小的玩笑（这可能是某些中国人开玩笑的不良习惯吧）。
你们的语法分析能力都已经远胜于我了，甚至让我汗颜。我从来都没有仔细地想过如此复杂的问题，但因为是母语，所以我只知道我在什么时候应该说什么样的话，而没有上升到理论的程度。
忘与各位共勉。
张鑫
哦！把Jeff写成Jerry了，呵呵。不好意思啊，见谅！
THE KEY TO HAPPY CHINESE STUDIES - Ah yes, the scourge of ad-hoc pre-dinner typing and blogging. Most likely I’ve never used or heard 我高兴, it is grammatically correct though. I have had someone of the fairer gender say 我不高兴. But to stay on topic, did anyone notice how darn easy it is to write 开心. （我开心) And once I can write that, I also know the words 开 for open, and 心 for heart. And I also get bonus hints to guess at words like 打开 or 放心. What do I get for knowing the letters h-a-p-p-y? Does hap get me any bonus hints? Does p-p mean anything? Can I get a Y-M=C-A?
And I wonder, if I say “So how are you?” Does anyone say “I am happy.” I never say ‘I am happy’, maybe I’ll say “Eh, life could be better but who’s complaining, it don’t do no good no how anyway.” Geez that’s complicated. In Chinese, if some asks “So how are you?” all I say is “还可以”。I’m gonna stop speaking English, it’s complicating my life. It’s a downer, it’s hard. 让我不开心了。
Hey, did anyone notice that Jeff and Zhang Xin are kinda arguing above. It’s kinda cool though cause they’re ‘exchanging words’ in 汉字。
张鑫，
欢迎你过来跟我们聊天。很有趣！
我是新疆人。
。
。
。
。开玩笑。
I think it is interesting too!
有事儿您说话！（Let me know if you need any help）
我要赶快学我的英文去了，呵呵。
哈哈哈
天阿 天阿 天阿
我很爱ChinesePod!
不要吵架。。。让你打架。。。哈哈哈
你们都很发疯。。。神经病！
就在开玩笑！！！
Lantian,
Your comment about only needing 1000 characters to read Chinese newspapers has me puzzled. I have been looking at some research essays on linguistics and vocabulary building for reading skills, and they conclude you need to master 5,000 words/phrases in any given language to reach what they call “threshhold” reading level. That level means the point where you can use “reading strategies” effectively and to transfer native language reading skills to the second language. They claim 8,000 words/phrases are need to understand 98% of any given real-world text. The most interesting thing to me about what I’ve read so far is that it claims that increasing one’s vocabulary is the most effective way to gain reading skills, even more so than studying grammar or other aspects of the language. That definitely makes it easier to make effective use of your study time, but I haven’t gotten to the part where they tell you how to best increase vocabulary. But I do agree Chinese is easier than people think. I feel spoiled after spending the last few years learning Chinese. When I tried to learn a little Korean, I was amazed to realize how hard it is to work with alphabets and longed for the simplicity of the Chinese writing system so I could get on with learning to read some of it, but I’ve had to shelve Korean because of my frustrations with learning verb conjugations first again.
Hi Michele,
I wonder what it takes to reach the various ‘thresholds’ for retention, fluency, reading or writing. I think that’s almost a good enough topic on it’s own, how bout it Ken, can we have a thread on What does it take to reach that threshold?
About the necessary vocab, it wasn’t me that was saying someone could read a paper with 1,000 words. It was the Beijing Times.
I haven’t a clue whether or not chinese is harder than English or vice versa, to take two languages as an example. And, I suspect most people don’t really know because we just don’t have very many linguists who have become fluent in a variety of languages to expound on their experiences.
I really don’t think it is important anyway. IMHO, what is more important is why one is learning a language, ones learning approach, and how one maintains it. I have heard many people complain about how hard Chinese is if if they are English/American and how hard English is if they are Chinese, and explain how they are too busy to learn it anyway after becoming frustrated within the first few months.
I say balderdash. Get over it. I have no doubt that English is tough for a Chinese citizen and Chinese is tough for an American/English citizen. Why it is tough is interesting, but pretty much irrelevant. One simply must deal with it and get on with it.
However, once you have reached a certain level, call it intermediate for me, it becomes easier simply because one has gotten over the worst of whatever was needed for that individual to adjust to.
Rodger S.
Rodger …
Disregarding orthography (an entirely separate issue), there really is no such thing as a modern language that is easier/tougher than any other. Complexities in one area invariably balance out with simplicity in another. It’s a temptest in a teapot and about as fruitful as arguing about your favorite wordprocessor.
@Lantian:
here is the german version from “I took off my shoes and entered the classroom”
“Ich zog meine Schuhe aus und betrat das Klassenzimmer”
But you won’t say it like this, its only the written version. In speach you would use perfect instead of imperfect
Personally, I think Chinese is pretty hard, and that conclusion would seem to be borne out by research indicating that Chinese children have to spend longer in school to gain basic literacy, and gain lower levels of literacy on the whole than children in many other developed countries with the same amount of schooling (see eg the books of John De Francis).
The claim in the original article, that 1000 Characters are enough to read 90% of current publications, is quite clearly wrong. Let’s put it this way: Suppose you read an article in the news, and what you read is
“On Sunday, Vice President … again defended his role as a leading … for invading Iraq, for a … program and for … treatment of suspected …”.
So, yes, you can read 90% of the words, but you still cannot understand the text with crucial words missing. Hence, as Michele said above, you need well above 1000 characters to understand a fraction of what is going on in a newspaper.
Next, the disconnect between written and spoken language makes acquisition of words so much harder. In Spanish, I can hear something, and I can look it up. Or I can read something, and connect it to something I heard earlier. This is obviously much harder in Chinese.
Finally, to Lantian’s disingenuous claim about the “meaning” hints:
“And I also get bonus hints to guess at words like 打开 or 放心. What do I get for knowing the letters h-a-p-p-y? Does hap get me any bonus hints? Does p-p mean anything?”
Well, no, p-p doesn’t mean anything, but say a few strokes in a character don’t mean anything, either. Some mean something, fair enough. But the same holds true for English - there are so many English, Latin, or Greek roots that do give you a hint to the meaning.
“galaxy” - milky way, as in “lactose” - milk sugar, as in “fructose” - fruit sugar, obviously related to fruit, as is “frugal”. Now, here, already, you see a problem - recognizing that “frugal” might be related to “fruit” does not really tell you much about its meaning. “dis+in+gen+uous” is, well, “apart” or so, “in” or “not”, then “birth/born”, and an adjective ending. So, what does it mean?
Even if you recognize the “lac” in “galaxy”, you won’t be able to conclude what it means without, well, knowing it. Same, lamentably, holds true in many Chinese compounds - you say that knowing “心” gives you a hint in guessing the meaning of “放心”. Well, it might, or it might not. I am sure I have learned that first character, but I don’t know it now. It’s probably pronounced “fang”, and might have something to do with space, or square. And there is the culture aspect to it. So, “space culture heart” - does it mean generous? Maybe, I don’t know. Oh, wait, the first character is “to place, to put”, so “put heart”? Emotional? To really put all your heart in an issue, so committed? Maybe, maybe not.
In other words, the “hints” of meaning might be just as present (or, well, not) in (compound) Indo-European words as in Chinese, and, at the end of the day, you still have to learn what it means.
To cut a long story short: Moser is right, Chinese is hard.
Hmm, Fab, you sound like me.
I also just want to remind people something about the “1000 Characters are enough to read 90% of current publications” rubbish claim. Sure maybe you recognize 90% of the characters in a particular article, but there are so many different combinations of these characters that create all sorts of different words. Sometimes you can get the overall meaning of these words, but many you can’t.
As an example:
个子
Two very common characters that would probably be included in the first 100 characters a beginner learns. But what does the word mean? Height. Unless you’ve studied it I don’t see how you can infer this meaning from the two characters.
Therefore maybe you can read the article out loud (because you know 90% of the characters and their pronunciations) but actually understanding the meaning is a different story.
What really gets me stuck in Chinese are all the very specific verbs; i.e. verbs that are a particular, narrowly-defined action. Today I learned 缒 (zhui4); “to lower something on a rope.” There are all sorts of verbs that translate as “carry”; carry on a back, carry on your arm, etc.
Comparing two languages with one sentenced litteraly translated, is maybe not the best way. The point is to express an idea.
An example: 当我回来的时候，
In french this sentence would be translated by “Au moment où je suis rentré”. But though it is grammatically correct no one would say it and rather use : “A mon retour”. 3 little words.
And the same could be done for the sentence : 我脱了鞋走进教室。
“J’ai retiré mes chaussures pour entrer dans la classe”. But depending on the context, the action of taking off the shoes might not be the most important and the simple “J’ai pénétré la classe pieds-nus” would be enough.
Sorry for using french, my english is not good enough.
Olive, these are good examples. That’s why we discourage word-for-word translations. It’s important to know is the equivalent meanings.
This is why it is also better to learn Mandarin through lexis rather than grammar - through lexis you learn what Chinese people are most likely to say, rather than a sentence that illustrates a piece of grammar.
Ken Carroll
Olive said ““A mon retour”. Maybe French is easier than Chinese AND English!
I like how she said “The point is to express an idea.” How about mixing up the podcasts with a different format, instead of a dialogue and then a breakdown.
How about discussing how to express something. First propose an idea, for example “I really like China” Then the scripted dialogue would have short little vignettes with different ways of expressing the thought.
A: Hey Joe, so how’s it in China?
B: It’s good, I like China.
A: Joe, doesn’t the traffic drive you crazy?
B: Not really, I’m kinda used to it. I like China now.
A: Joe, how was Shenzhen?
B: The city is great, it’s amazing how fast China is changing.
Then a chat about it afterwards.
The above example kinda is too much just sentences, I’m thinking more kind of like some stories or something. Just some format that makes us first start thinking about expressing something. Rather than the ‘detective’ clues of trying to figure out the dialogues.
Lantian,
I think this is a good idea. I ‘ll take you up on it. We just committed to a slew of new ideas last week. You’ll start to see them in the coming weeks. This could be an edition to the format.
Ken Carroll
An extension on what Fab posted above, as his/her comments seem especially patient and discerning in this thread：
Indeed, English “roots” may often be visually deduced from phonetically represented terms, provided that one has the time, percipience, and perhaps classical/medieval training to recognize the contortions imposed on terms by history. And, as Fab indicated, the properties of roots and affixes offer roughly the same level (or misguidance) of insight into meaning as Chinese components.
But to compare the visual elements of these two languages speciously offers a fair playing field wherein the semantic indicators provided “h-a-p-p-y” are tested according to rubrics external to their system. I suppose everyone already knows this, but we fall into the trap anyway. Lantian is perhaps correct to suggest that his cognition has been honed to pick up on visual clues in Chinese writing that remains beyond his capacity in his native language, if only because the value of the “h-a-p-p-y” is first and foremost designed to stimulate an audible pattern (and in audible patterns it may or may not be proven true that one has more difficulty picking out roots as semantic indicators).
If one were truly seeking to measure the comparative efficiency of these two languages in this aspect, one would at the very least need to add a parallel question to the one Lantian posed above: Does knowing how to accurately, atomistically (breaking them down to singular phonemes) represent the-sounds-one-makes-which-one-comes-to-recognize-have-been-given-the-significance-of-words (i need a good, meaty, Heideggerian German word for this, not linguistic terminology; and yes this “accurately” is contestable) provide a greater frequency of reinforcement for terms already learned and more provisions for the acquiring and redeployment of new terms than learning, say, 26 characters and expecting them to elucidate a chinese language (via their use as components) the way the Roman alphabet does for English?
An aside:
Wise to remember that the Spartans were known for laconic speech (where the term is derived from, in fact), yet never matched the Athenian capacity for rapid deliberation, decision-making, or pragmatism. They did have the one Bush-making quality of “conviction”, though.