A new Chinese book
I recently started studying a new book in my Chinese class. The book is Kan Gushi Xue Chengyu (看故事學成語 or Read Stories, Study Idioms).
In class I now spend some time reading from Qibai Zi Gushi, a story from Kan Gushi Xue Chengyu and also learn some Chinese history.
One major difference between the new book and the one I was studying before is that the characters are not annotated with Zhuyin Fuhao (with the exception of the four character idiom). Although the stories in both texts are probably at a similar level. You can see an example of the book's contents in the photo (click on the photo to see a larger image).
I feel like I have made some good progress in improving my reading skills. Reading Chinese no longer seems such a strain and making the transition to a text without Zhuyin Fuhao was not as difficult as I thought it might be.
The study of idioms (成語) has been interesting. My teacher has mainly chosen ones that are fairly easy to understand or have an interesting story that accompanies them. Some of them I can remember and would be confident using, others I can understand but would be a little unsure of the appropriate context to use them in. I must admit there are a few that I really didn't understand though.
At the end of the lesson I learn some Chinese history. This is to give me some more background knowledge for reading some of the stories in Kan Gushi Xue Chengyu. I really knew very little about the history of China with the exception of the 20th Century. My teacher is very passionate about the subject and teaches it in a way that makes it very interesting. He started with the story of Huang Di (黃帝), the first emperor of China. We are currently up to the Qin Dynasty (秦朝). I do wonder a little how much of what he has taught me is representative of fact and how much is legend.
A Tibetan in Taiwan
Chinese classes continue
On reading Chinese
Tony Wheeler in Taiwan
Chinese characters explained
Posted: October 26th, 2006 under Books, Language learning, Languages in Taiwan, Mandarin (華語).
Comments
Comment from Bryan
Time 6 November 2006 at 1:24 am
Have you taken a look at the 中國民間故事 [Chinese Folk Tales] series (two volume)? I think you might like it, as it teachers intermediate Chinese through folk tales rather than contemporary issues and social context. I have tried many types of Chinese books but I never felt like I was learning any vocab until I picked up this series in Taipei when I visited in 2005.
I remember as a high school student studying Latin that I very much enjoyed reading the short stories in the Cambridge Latin text and translating them for homework. I never grew tired of it and I really came to love languages through Latin. Each chapter of Cambridge Latin would introduce new grammar and new vocab as well as special phrases and what not.
That is exactly what “Chinese Folk Tales” does, and I really enjoy working with the texts. I guess the grammar points are more contextual compared to what traditional grammar and reading texts aim for, but the folk stories are interesting and keep my attention much better than essays about modern problems in the PRC.
The only downside is that the book uses Taiwanese pinyin and zhuyin for pronunciation. This doesn’t bother me since I had to learn Zhuyin in my first Chinese class, but I know it is a big turn-away for many Chinese learners. The series is only available in Traditional characters, so any students who only read simplified will probably be turned off by the book as well.
Comment from David Reid
Time 6 November 2006 at 9:15 am
Thanks for the recommendation Bryan. I will look for a copy of this book.
Comment from Charlie
Time 26 October 2006 at 9:35 pm
Huang Di (黃帝) is not really the first emperor, but one of the legendary 5 great emperors…
Qin Shi Huang (秦始皇) is the first emperor of a united China, from 221BCE. Qin is a really interesting emperor, specially for: the great wall (萬里長城), Buring books and scholars (焚書坑儒), unified the measurements (度量衡) and many other things.
I recommend to watch Hero by Jey Li, it portrays Qin in a interesting way and it’s based in some idioms (成語) for example:
圖窮匕見
天下為公
See Ya