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How many Chinese characters do you need? | ||
Tags: Chinese Characters | Mandarin | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| ChristopherB Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 6317 days ago 851 posts - 1074 votes  2 sounds Speaks: English*, German, French | Message 1 of 17 09 June 2010 at 1:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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Very surprised not to find a thread on this (I searched the Chinese characters tag). I'm curious to find your input on how many characters would cover most advanced situations, primarily reading contemporary novels, history and newspapers. I seen figures ranging from 2000, which seems far too few, to figures of 8000, which seems far too many. Others maintain between 3000-4000. I know it's impossible to pin down an exact figure, so how far would a knowledge of 4000 get you?
I should add, I know it's the combinations that matter at least equally as much for vocabulary, but I'd like to focus this thread exclusively on individual characters. On Steve Kaufmann's blog, there was a poster by the name of Harry who claimed a knowledge of 8000 characters, saying #4000-8000 weren't obscure and it was annoying not knowing them, because they keep coming up. I wonder, would such characters largely only appear in Classical Chinese (or historical non-fiction perhaps?) or is an extra 4000 odd characters really, truly necessary to feel at home in reading this mammoth of a language? Speakers (or should I say readers) of Japanese are also welcome to contribute :) Edited by ChristopherB on 09 June 2010 at 1:18pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| lanni Senior Member China Joined 6264 days ago 102 posts - 156 votes Speaks: Mandarin* Studies: English | Message 2 of 17 09 June 2010 at 6:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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I could enjoy reading contemporary novels with a few new characters on each page around the age of 10, including novels like Red Mansion Dream (if you do not count much on understanding its beautiful and difficult poetry). I was forced to read history books in senior high, no comprehension problem with the literature genre. I came to love reading newspapers at college, still had strange-character problem in the process.
I am learning new words and characters every week, especially with traditional literature. I started learning Chinese characters at 8, non earlier. If I had a clear statistics of how many Chinese characters those grade school textbook editors had worked on in my years, I would make a clear answer to this question. Edited by lanni on 09 June 2010 at 6:16pm 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| smallwhite Pentaglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5309 days ago 537 posts - 1045 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin, French, Spanish | Message 3 of 17 09 June 2010 at 9:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hi,
I'm a native from Hong Kong, China. Some time ago I came upon a Chinese character frequency list on the Net, and I noted down my observations: - the characters around #4000, I knew them very well. - the characters around #5000, I knew almost all of them. - the characters around #6000, I knew some of them. --- for the ones I didn't know, I mean they looked completely unfamiliar, I'm sure I've never ever seen them before. I'm educated, not in the academic field, do read newspapers, do read some contemporary novels but never classical ones, so I guess I'm a typical average ordinary person :) I think around 5500 characters appear in daily life in Hong Kong. If you want more precise figures you can send me word lists and I'll test myself again for you ;-) 13 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| egill Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5697 days ago 418 posts - 791 votes Speaks: Mandarin, English* Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 4 of 17 09 June 2010 at 9:34pm | IP Logged | ||
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Here is a list of characters that Taiwanese students supposedly learn (separated into
school grades 1-9). There's 5568 total but the first 8 sets (3526 total) would probably suffice as a starting off point. List Edited by egill on 09 June 2010 at 10:16pm 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| smallwhite Pentaglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5309 days ago 537 posts - 1045 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin, French, Spanish | Message 5 of 17 09 June 2010 at 9:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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Seems that's just a recommendation and not an official list? Some of the characters in the 9th list looked so weird I actually went check my browser's encoding ;p The 8th list is fine, my surname is in there :D
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ChristopherB Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 6317 days ago 851 posts - 1074 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, German, French | Message 6 of 17 10 June 2010 at 7:15am | IP Logged | ||
Very interesting. So what do you do when you come across new characters? Do you have to look them up, and if so, how do you remember them? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| lanni Senior Member China Joined 6264 days ago 102 posts - 156 votes Speaks: Mandarin* Studies: English | Message 7 of 17 10 June 2010 at 11:52am | IP Logged | ||
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I read anthologies of classical poetry and prose for fun. Nobody forces me to do it, but to make the process more efficient, I edit a personal dictionary of every new word and character I come across in the reading. The dictionary includes where I meet that particular character and where I have met similar usage, I would make a note of the article, author, book, and quotations (I don't quote if I have not read the sentence before), etc.
So you see, I have to look them up in the first place, and then the process of editing helps with the memorising. This personal dictionary is very useful for later reviewing and looking up. I take a pocket Chinese dictionary (新华字典xin1hua2zi4dian3) with me everywhere. If I feel like looking up some strange character, I do it and chew its pronunciation, strokes and meaning for a brief moment, then over it. The possibility of forgetting is quite low for modern Chinese context (I am native, remember). Classical context is a different question, I am not that confident about remembering once and for all. Please allow me to sidetrack a little bit. Don't be anxious about learning Chinese characters or the language itself. It is an easy language mainly for three reasons: 1. Most Chinese consonants can find their similar counterparts in English, Italian and French. Perhaps c, j, q, x, z are more difficult, but you can easily find a way out with professional instructions. There are no trills. 2. Every character's pronunciation is fixed with one most of the time, occasionally with two or three. Surely there are sound changes in colloquial contexts, but there are rules. You can learn the rules, practise them for a while, internalize them. 3. The speaker does not ought to speak quickly or non-stop to show they are fluent. As long as they get over the sound changes in colloquial contexts, slower speech would not destroy anything, actually, the impression can be elegent and thoughtful. I don't know the professional terminology for sound changes in colloquial contexts. Take a couple of examples to make it clear: The 3rd tone switches to the 2nd when preceding another 3rd tone, if these two characters make a sound team in meaning. 你好（ni2hao3） The 4th tone swithes to the 2nd when preceding another 4th tone, if they meke a sound team. 不去 （bu2qu4） From my native personal experience, listening to audiobooks and radio dramas are very helpful with internalizing grammar and constructing sentences. I have heard someone complain about dubbed foreign movies. I don't think so. On the contrary, I would recommend foreign movies dubbed in the 1980s and late 1970s by Shanghai Dubbing Studio (上海译制片厂)。 The translations are superb and educated and colloquial all at the same time. I could hardly believe that the conversations were translated from foreign languages when I was a kid and relished listening to abridged audios of their dubbed movies on air. You can even imitate the dubbing actors's and actress' way of speaking, because they sound so natural, elegant and emotional. Anyway, if you want to enjoy Chinese language, go for it. It does need a process, but it is not that intimidating. Even I, a native kid many years ago, had to wait for 2 grades to enjoy it. You can do better, because you are an intelligent adult and live in the 21st century. Edited by lanni on 10 June 2010 at 12:03pm 11 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| egill Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5697 days ago 418 posts - 791 votes Speaks: Mandarin, English* Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 8 of 17 10 June 2010 at 11:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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This (现代汉语常用字表) was supposedly obtained from the PRC's Ministry of Education
website (教育部语言文字信息管理司网站). It has 3500 characters in descending order of frequency from corpus analysis. There's a wiki article on it and it seems quasi official. I don't know how incorporated it is into actual curriculum, but it certainly seems like a good starting point. Wiki List For those interested in Traditional characters Hong Kong's 4762 strong 常用字字形表 and Taiwan's 國字標準字體 may also be good leads to check up on, though a quick google was not sufficient to turn up these lists. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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