Learning Chinese

Chinese is a very difficult language for most to learn. Among the factors include certain sounds which are foreign to speakers of English and most European languages and the writing system, in which complex strokes are used to create characters. These characters must simply be memorized. No ifs, ands, or buts about it and no way around it – there is no way to learn them except for pure rote memorization and visual memory recall. Most estimates say that you must learn 3,000 characters in order to understand about 95% of the Chinese you’ll encounter on a day-to-day basis.

Today, however, I want to talk about forms of writing Chinese, as there are several different forms.

The first, and most obvious, is writing characters. This is called 國字 (Guózì), which means “Country words.” The characters themselves are called Hànzì. This is what every schoolchild in China and Taiwan learn to read and write (with the help of of alphabet, which I’ll discuss in a bit). Characters are made up of several strokes in a particular order – mastering these strokes and knowing which order to write them in is essential to identifying and writing characters.

The second way to write Chinese is by using ZhùyÄ«n fúhào, also known as the bopomofo (named for the first 4 sounds of the Chinese alphabet). This is an “alphabet” of 45 very simple characters, each one representing a distinct sound in Chinese. These are placed next to Chinese characters to assist children and people learning Chinese how to pronounce each character. This is what zhùyÄ«n fúhào looks like:

ㄅㄆㄇㄈㄉㄊㄋㄌㄍㄎㄏㄐㄑㄒㄓㄔㄕㄖㄗㄘㄙ一ㄨㄩㄚㄛㄜㄝㄞㄟㄠㄡㄢㄣㄤㄥㄦ

If you can’t read the script, you may need to install a Unicode Chinese font. Otherwise, I have a picture of Zhuyin Fuhao here:

Here you can see the Chinese character on the left with the bopomofo characters on their right. Most children’s books, as well as dictionaries, will give the bopomofo pronunciation for a character to assist those learning it. Learning the bopomofo characters is not essential to learning Chinese – one could, for instance, simply develop pronunciation and listening skills by listening and speaking and trial and error. Learning the bopomofo, however, helps you learn new characters when looking them up in a dictionary or reading them in a book that uses them.

The final way to write Chinese is through the use of HànyÅ­ PÄ«nyÄ«n or “Spelling the sound of Chinese.” The words I’ve used to write “HànyÅ­ PÄ«nyÄ«n” and “ZhùyÄ«n fúhào” are pinyin – they are the English transliteration of Chinese sounds, complete with tone markers. There are several forms of pinyin (Hanyu, Wade-Giles, Yale, etc) but the most accurate and one I prefer is HànyÅ­ simply because it’s the most standardized and it’s the one used in (some) dictionaries in Taiwan, so it’s the most appropriate for me.

Children in Taiwan are not taught HànyÅ­ PÄ«nyÄ«n and asking them to “write something out” for you in pÄ«nyÄ«n will only net you confused looks. You can, however, ask them to write things out in bopomofo and they’ll be happy to do that. PÄ«nyÄ«n is used only in some dictionaries and to help foreigners (typically, those that speak English) pronounce or write out Chinese words. It isn’t very useful in Taiwan or, I Imagine, China and Hong Kong. (Update: Since I’ve written this, it’s been pointed out to me that I was wrong. Pinyin is used everywhere in China, whereas Zhuyin is used only in Taiwan. See the comments for more information.)

So, there you have it: the three ways to write Chinese. I’m still working on my bopomofo and, once I have that thoroughly memorized, I may try writing characters. Some of the characters, however, are incredibly complex and I don’t foresee myself ever being proficient in writing them.


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4 responses to “Learning Chinese”

  1. Mark Avatar

    Pīnyīn is used only in some dictionaries and to help foreigners (typically, those that speak English) pronounce or write out Chinese words. It isn’t very useful in Taiwan or, I Imagine, China and Hong Kong.

    Actually, every school child in China learns pinyin as an intermediate step while in the process of acquiring character literacy. It’s used much in the same way as zhuyin is in Taiwan. In fact, I had a Taiwanese children’s book with me on a train ride from Beijing to Shanghai in the summer of 2006 and the Chinese people who saw it didn’t know what the zhuyin was! A couple of them told me they thought it looked like Japanese. Due to the sheer size of China, pinyin use far far outstrips that of zhuyin.

    You might find some of these pictures interesting:
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpasden/297327175/in/photostream/
    http://images.amazon.cn/b/ban_lwk_081030_waed8105391.jpg
    http://images.amazon.cn/b/ban_lwk_080425_waed8038061.jpg

    1. The Expatriate Avatar

      Ah yes, thanks for pointing that out. Been a while since I’ve written this and I was indeed wrong. I’ve heard of Remembering the Kanji and it’s newest release in the form of Remembering the Hanzi. However, from what I’ve read, RtH isn’t that useful. It only has stories/mnemonics for the first few characters and then leaves you to think of stories on their own. I’ll pass.

      I recently picked up Learning Chinese Characters by Alison Matthews, which shows 800 basic characters, a quick etymology, and a mnemonic story for each of them. It’s aimed at simplified characters, but it shows traditional forms as well. Very nice, although I don’t really use the mnemonics to remember characters. Perhaps I should start.

  2. Mark Avatar

    Oh, yeah. And for character learning, there’s a mnemonic system pioneered by a student (now philosophy teacher) of Japanese. It’s unconventional and somewhat controversial, but it’s done wonders for my writing abilities. It probably depends on what kind of learning suits you, but it might be worth a shot.

    I wrote about it here:
    http://toshuo.com/2009/remembering-the-kanji-at-last/

  3. Tyler Avatar
    Tyler

    Just learn the characters,
    Learn how to write, make a list with them on it, then memorize them.
    It’s as simple as that.
    Or if you are inclined make flashcards.
    But just make sure you study, review, and read, alot.
    It works.

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