Driving west coast of France - Part 1

Nantes　Part１

Nantes is a French city located in embouchure of Loire river, having around 300,000 population. It is also capital city of Loire-Atlantique Prefecture. In ancient days, when the duchy of Brittany was annexed by the kingdom of France in 1532, Nantes kept the parliament of Brittany for a few years, before it was moved to Rennes. In 1598, King Henry IV of France signed the Edict of Nantes here, which granted Protestants rights to their religion.


However, on the contrary, on the way from Nantes airport to city centre, there is very modern bridge built across the Loire river. A lot of modern chemical plant and small steamship for merchandise transportation can be seen from that point. Under the rainy clouds, every architecture gives you a monochrome and dull feeling.




Actually, there are lot of modern buildings are in the city and few buildings reminds you that once this city was capital of medieval era. Nantes castle was not big castle. You can enter without paying the fee. On the other hands, few things were exhibited for visitors.





As the typical characteristics of the castle located in embouchure of river, the defense is replied on water. Therefore castle does not have high altitude buildings. Actually their altitude is not so difference than that of resident buildings surrounded there.
So you cannot expect marvelous view from the castle.

How did Chinese learn to pronounce Chinese characters?

A simple question hit my mind when I learn Chinese, which is…

How did Chinese learn pronunciation of Chinese characters?

Japanese language contains Chinese character, but on the other hand there are another characters so called “Kata-kana” and “Hira-gana” which is much more pronounce oriented character. By using this, you can learn how to pronounce a character

Example;

国 ＝　Chinese Character (国 means country)
くに　＝　Hira-gana (Pronounce as Kuni)
クニ　＝　Kata-kana (Also pronounce as Kuni)

Then, if you know “Kata-kana” or “Hira-gana”, you can pronounce Chinese characters. The characteristics of “Kata-kana” and “Hira-gana” are much similar to alphabet, rather than Chinese characters.
So Japanese have learned “Kata-kana” and/or “Hira-gana” first, when they are 4 – 7 years old. Then they started to learn Chinese characters.

But on the other hand, as long as I know, Chinese language does not provide such assistant character like “Hira-gana”.
I know that “Pinyin” helps foreigner to learn pronunciation of Chinese.
But I believe that is basically for foreigner not for proper Chinese. Otherwise, Chinese people should learn alphabet first in order to learn pronunciation of their own characters. That is rather weird for me.