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Writing Chinese by hand | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| !LH@N Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6821 days ago 487 posts - 531 votes  Speaks: German, Turkish*, English Studies: Serbo-Croatian, Spanish | Message 9 of 30 06 May 2009 at 7:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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@leonidus:
I am by no means a judge or language learning expert or anything, but it kind of sounds weird to me. It sounds like if I said "Oh, no need to bother with correct spelling in Russian, I'll just look it up in a dictionary/PDA/whatever you name it" Or, more correctly, saying something like "Ah, why bother, if I read it, I know the word, no need to screw around with Spanish spelling! And if I need just directions, I'll put it into a PDA!" So, what do you do if you...for example...run out of battery? Or...you lose your PDA? Or...anything like that? I, in my humble opinion as a non-expert, think that you will NEVER reach litteracy in Chinese with an attitude like that. Regards, Ilhan PS: No offense Edited by !LH@N on 06 May 2009 at 8:32pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| leonidus Triglot Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 6326 days ago 113 posts - 123 votes Speaks: Russian*, English, French Studies: German, Mandarin | Message 10 of 30 06 May 2009 at 8:25pm | IP Logged | ||
Hi Ilhan, I may never reach literacy in Chinese, that's true, just like millions of Chinese people, who can't read a newspaper. Yeah, believe it or not, you need roughly 3000 characters to read a newspaper, while official school level exam includes 1500 characters for villages and 2000 for cities. Basically, even after you graduate from high school you still can't read a newspaper, unless you made an extra effort to learn all the remaining characters on your own. How's that for sounding weird, eh? But at least I don't say I won't need them all. All I am saying is I don't need to write them by hand, reading and typing them is good enough for me, all 3000 of them or more. If the battery runs out, well, that'll be a bad day, I never said my approach is perfect. Oh wait! I'll have a pocket dictionary that I can use, hurrah I am saved now! Hehe :) Edited by leonidus on 06 May 2009 at 8:32pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| !LH@N Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6821 days ago 487 posts - 531 votes Speaks: German, Turkish*, English Studies: Serbo-Croatian, Spanish | Message 11 of 30 06 May 2009 at 8:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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Yeah, in Germany an unporportional amount of youth are criminal. In Berlin, not even 20% of Turks graduate from high school. I am still graduating right now. There are so many hard things, and there are so many people who are worse off than me, but hey, I am still giving it an effort, right?
And I think so should you. Why bother learning a language if you don't mind about writing it right? But hold on, I think I got the right post for you, just check this out, and tell me how you liked it ;) Regards, Ilhan 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| leonidus Triglot Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 6326 days ago 113 posts - 123 votes Speaks: Russian*, English, French Studies: German, Mandarin | Message 12 of 30 06 May 2009 at 8:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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Ilhan,
I liked it, however I didn't find much about having to write hanzi in there. I want to learn to read and be literate, and be able to read newspapers. I don't need to write hanzi, except fill in a form in a hotel and such. If somebody disagrees, it's their view, they obviously have a purpose for this skill. I don't. Period. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| !LH@N Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6821 days ago 487 posts - 531 votes Speaks: German, Turkish*, English Studies: Serbo-Croatian, Spanish | Message 13 of 30 06 May 2009 at 9:08pm | IP Logged | ||
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Alright, I was just trying to have a conversation :)
Regards, Ilhan 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Fat-tony Nonaglot Senior Member United Kingdom jiahubooks.co.uk Joined 6140 days ago 288 posts - 441 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Russian, Esperanto, Thai, Laotian, Urdu, Swedish, French Studies: Mandarin, Indonesian, Arabic (Written), Armenian, Pali, Burmese | Message 14 of 30 06 May 2009 at 10:11pm | IP Logged | ||
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I feel I should offer some support to Leonidus in this debate. I agree totally with
everything he has written. I spend a lot of time in Thailand with my Thai in-laws and I am employed as a linguist working to and from 3-4 languages on a daily basis, yet the amount of writing I do in any foreign language, whether in work or socially, is pretty much zero. When you do write, it's invariably on a computer and checked by a native (if your aim is to pass this level, especially in Mandarin, I sincerely wish you the best of luck) or informal notes (shopping lists etc) where spelling is hardly a must. I agree that writing out characters is good for helping to learn them, but to actually go out of your way to be able to write them correctly, at any time, by hand is an extremely ineffective use of time. Especially since most people spend ages learning to transcribe conversations, which is the last thing you're likely to produce on paper. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6894 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 15 of 30 07 May 2009 at 2:08am | IP Logged | ||
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I do a bit of handwriting practice every morning at breakfast and have been keeping it up for nearly four years now. I stopped keeping track of the numbers after 1500 odd but I guess I must have been through 2000+ by now and probably forgotten about half of them again. Each time I revisit and relearn a character though, it inches a little bit closer to being permanently memorised.
To each his own. If someone can learn without characters, or without writing them, I'm happy for them, but it doesn't work for me. The way my brain works I find that characters and words just refuse to stick in memory properly, until I can actually write them as well. I need the writing practice to strengthen all the other aspects of learning and I'd be lost without it. Besides, I actually enjoy doing it. Edited by Hencke on 26 May 2009 at 5:46pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5766 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 16 of 30 07 May 2009 at 5:34am | IP Logged | ||
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Nobody hasn't mentioned the same problem yet, but I found it almost impossible to decipher handwritten characters before I started to practice writing by hand myself regularly.
And I personally think the ability to read handwritten text is an integral part of literacy. (Not to mention that for me, handwriting is a good way to check if I actually 'encoded' a character correctly and will be able to recall it at a later date, if only to check if the characters in my word processor are the ones I actually want to use) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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