Comments on: Learning to read Chinese http://blog.taiwan-guide.org/2006/05/learning-to-read-chinese/ commentary on all things Taiwanese -- Taipei, Taiwan Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:14:50 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Anonymous http://blog.taiwan-guide.org/2006/05/learning-to-read-chinese/comment-page-1/#comment-84236 Anonymous Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:23:31 +0000 http://blog.taiwan-guide.org/2006/05/learning-to-read-chinese/#comment-84236 David, learning to read Chinese is very hard, however once you learn, it is worth it! It definitly takes a lot of work though. I have studied Mandrin Chinese, and have focused on all aspects of the language- pronouciation, reading, writing, typing, etc. as well as the culture of the people. It is fasinating! At first learning to read characters instead of letters was a real challenge for me, however once you can get past that idea, it becomes much easier. I believe that whole idea is just to practice, practice, practice. I'm glad you are gettting books written in Chinese to practice reading. You could also try and find some websites online (there are numberous) where you can have the characters, pinyin, and English. Having all three, makes learning to read Chinese much easier. Also, there are several dictionaries online where you can enter characters (if you decide to do online, it is easy to copy/paste the character) and it will give you the meaning as well as the pronciation. I highly recommend this one for you to use, however there are several other very good dictionaries on the web, and in print. http://www.mandarintools.com/worddict.html The most important part to remember is to practice. Maybe something like Rosetta Stone would help you as well. I know they have a Chinese language software, which incorporates the character, definition of the character, and pronciation of the character. Good Luck Zai Jian Anonymous David,

learning to read Chinese is very hard, however once you learn, it is worth it! It definitly takes a lot of work though. I have studied Mandrin Chinese, and have focused on all aspects of the language- pronouciation, reading, writing, typing, etc. as well as the culture of the people. It is fasinating! At first learning to read characters instead of letters was a real challenge for me, however once you can get past that idea, it becomes much easier. I believe that whole idea is just to practice, practice, practice. I’m glad you are gettting books written in Chinese to practice reading. You could also try and find some websites online (there are numberous) where you can have the characters, pinyin, and English. Having all three, makes learning to read Chinese much easier. Also, there are several dictionaries online where you can enter characters (if you decide to do online, it is easy to copy/paste the character) and it will give you the meaning as well as the pronciation. I highly recommend this one for you to use, however there are several other very good dictionaries on the web, and in print. http://www.mandarintools.com/worddict.html

The most important part to remember is to practice. Maybe something like Rosetta Stone would help you as well. I know they have a Chinese language software, which incorporates the character, definition of the character, and pronciation of the character.

Good Luck

Zai Jian

Anonymous

]]> By: bizofknowledge http://blog.taiwan-guide.org/2006/05/learning-to-read-chinese/comment-page-1/#comment-91 bizofknowledge Mon, 12 Jun 2006 20:17:00 +0000 http://blog.taiwan-guide.org/2006/05/learning-to-read-chinese/#comment-91 My Mandarin teacher once estimated that you need to know 10,000 characters to understand an article and up to 100,000 characters to read a newspaper. I almost gave up when lao shi said that! My Mandarin teacher once estimated that you need to know 10,000 characters to understand an article and up to 100,000 characters to read a newspaper. I almost gave up when lao shi said that!

]]> By: David http://blog.taiwan-guide.org/2006/05/learning-to-read-chinese/comment-page-1/#comment-90 David Tue, 30 May 2006 16:08:00 +0000 http://blog.taiwan-guide.org/2006/05/learning-to-read-chinese/#comment-90 Mark, the 700 character stories is made up of lots of short stories which are about 700 characters in length. Given that I can read most of the characters therein I guess they are probably taken from the 1,000 most frequent characters or something like that. Some of the vocabulary would not be among the 700 most frequent characters, but most of it is not too difficult. Mark, the 700 character stories is made up of lots of short stories which are about 700 characters in length. Given that I can read most of the characters therein I guess they are probably taken from the 1,000 most frequent characters or something like that. Some of the vocabulary would not be among the 700 most frequent characters, but most of it is not too difficult.

]]> By: Mark http://blog.taiwan-guide.org/2006/05/learning-to-read-chinese/comment-page-1/#comment-89 Mark Mon, 29 May 2006 20:23:00 +0000 http://blog.taiwan-guide.org/2006/05/learning-to-read-chinese/#comment-89 I like your study methods! Actually, I went to the same bookstore and bought 金銀島, AKA <I>Treasure Island</I>. It's a bit hard for me, though. I've had to look up a couple of words on each page (and skim over many others I was only somewhat familiar with). Is that 七百字故事 book full of very short stories of only 700 words each, or does it mean that all of the words in the stories are made up of the same 700 characters? I like your study methods! Actually, I went to the same bookstore and bought 金銀島, AKA Treasure Island. It’s a bit hard for me, though. I’ve had to look up a couple of words on each page (and skim over many others I was only somewhat familiar with). Is that 七百字故事 book full of very short stories of only 700 words each, or does it mean that all of the words in the stories are made up of the same 700 characters?

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