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Hanzi - how to learn ? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| dissident Newbie United States Joined 5310 days ago 37 posts - 43 votes | Message 1 of 39 10 May 2010 at 1:37am | IP Logged | ||
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I am using Rosetta Stone and Pimsleur to study Mandarin. Neither is very helpful with the characters.
I need some kind of systematic tutorial that shows how the characters are derived from basic elements etc. I found something of the sort on youtube for Kanji but they talk about Japanese so its a bit confusing. What can i use ? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| furrykef Senior Member United States furrykef.com/ Joined 6470 days ago 681 posts - 862 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese, Latin, Italian | Message 2 of 39 10 May 2010 at 5:29am | IP Logged | ||
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Well, there is the book Remembering the Hanzi by James Heisig, but I hear -- I have no idea, myself -- that it's not as good as Remembering the Kanji is for Japanese.
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| dissident Newbie United States Joined 5310 days ago 37 posts - 43 votes | Message 3 of 39 10 May 2010 at 7:23am | IP Logged | ||
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right. how about some free resources like a webpage ?
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| robsolete Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5383 days ago 191 posts - 428 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Arabic (Written), Mandarin | Message 4 of 39 10 May 2010 at 7:38am | IP Logged | ||
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If you're serious about Mandarin, you do realize it's going to take you 2-4 years of studying hanzi to be able to read a newspaper, right? Shelling out $25 for a good book on the subject is going to be the least of your problems. The time you save by not having to hunt around webpages all day will more than make up for the labor time to make that $25.
I've heard the Heisig is good but limited in that it doesn't really go over radicals or pronunciation. I just picked up "Reading & Writing Chinese" by Tuttle and I like it so far. It's been recommended by a few users here. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5667 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 5 of 39 10 May 2010 at 9:02am | IP Logged | ||
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I have been using Alan Hoenig's book of 2178 chinese characters.
The author admits in the preface that the book was inspired by Heisig's japanese book and was written around the time that Heisig's own chinese book came out. I have looked at the Heisig chinese book, but prefer the Hoenig book because it covers far more characters than Heisig, has little mnemonic stories for every character (Heisig misses some out), and includes pinyin for every character. For $17 I think it is a bargain (less than 1 cent per character). Edited by Splog on 10 May 2010 at 9:04am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| furrykef Senior Member United States furrykef.com/ Joined 6470 days ago 681 posts - 862 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese, Latin, Italian | Message 6 of 39 10 May 2010 at 12:05pm | IP Logged | ||
On the contrary, Heisig's system is completely based on "radicals" in a sense -- but they're not the same as the standard 200-odd radicals used in dictionaries and such. They might still aid in such a dictionary lookup, however, since there's still a lot of overlap. Heisig's system does indeed not focus on pronunciation, though. With Japanese, which often has many pronunciations per character, this makes enough sense (although some still disagree!), but as Chinese generally has only one pronunciation per character, some have questioned applying it to Chinese. Edited by furrykef on 10 May 2010 at 12:06pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| nescafe Senior Member Japan Joined 5407 days ago 137 posts - 227 votes | Message 7 of 39 10 May 2010 at 3:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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Japanese pupils practice Kakitori, writing Kanjis with one's hand, in elementary school and junior high. It would be the only way to learn Chinese characters. You can find Chinese texts easily on the web, for example at Baidu Baike 百度百科 or zhongwen wikipedia. Write down those texts on papers with your hand, and you will naturaly gain a systematic understanding of how the characters are derived from basic elements.
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| furrykef Senior Member United States furrykef.com/ Joined 6470 days ago 681 posts - 862 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese, Latin, Italian | Message 8 of 39 10 May 2010 at 4:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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Writing them on paper? Blegh. Thanks to Heisig's system, I can write 2042 Japanese kanji (pronouncing and actually using them is a different matter) and I have never touched pencil to paper for the vast majority of them.
I still wrote them, mind you, but I wrote (and still write) them in the palm of my left hand using the index finger of my right, and I only do so while reviewing flash cards. It's quick, efficient, yet effective. What more could you ask for? :) (And yes, I can still write them on paper just fine when I have to.) Edited by furrykef on 10 May 2010 at 4:41pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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