More on learning Chinese characters

[Guest guest]

Some list members have learned or are interested in learning medical

Chinese as a way of accessing Chinese medical research instead of

waiting for the research to be translated.

 

Here are some more helpful websites for those wishing to learn

Chinese:

 

http://www.mandarintools.com/

 

Click on " Learn to draw Chinese Characters " in the lower right

corner.

 

The following is a particularly helpful site from USC:

 

http://www.usc.edu/dept/ealc/chinese/newweb/character_page.html

 

I recommend the " Radicals " lesson first.

 

Another particularly helpful site for beginngers is the " Practice

for Order of Chinese Characters " site listed on the mandarintools

page.

 

Some basic background info: Pinyin is the rendering of Chinese words

into the Western alphabet. For example, the pinyin names of herbs.

Ma Huang (ephedra), Ren Shen (ginseng), Huang Qi (astragalus), Gan

Cao (licorice), etc.

 

Pinyin words also have tonal marks above some vowels. These are

shaped like a small / mark, \ mark, - mark, and small v-shaped

marked above certain letters. For example, there is a - mark above

the a in Can. This indicates that the tone of the voice is held

steady. The a in Cao has a small v mark above it. This indicates

that the pitch falls and then rises. A different pitch will change

the meaning of a word. The Chinese characters will be different for

the same pinyin words with a different pitch even though the letters

are the same except for the tonal marks.

 

As strange and complex as Chinese characters look to most Westerners

at first, each character is made up of basic strokes. Once a person

realizes this, Chinese characters look a lot less mysterious and

confusing.

 

After you click on " Practice for Order of Chinese Characters " , click

on " Grade 1, Book 1 " . Then click on the first Chinese character in

the list on the left side of the page. This is the character

for " big " . One of the advantages of this site is that as the

computer draws the different strokes (in the correct order), the

narrator calls out the names of the different strokes. When the

character is complete, the narrator says the Chinese word.

 

There is a correct order for brush strokes. There also is a correct

direction for drawing the strokes. For example, the stroke that

looks like a horizonal (or somewhat horizontal) bar starts at the

left and goes to the right. There is a section on the " Learn to Draw

Chinese Characters " page which I thought might be confusing for

someone just starting to learn Chinese. One can pick up the same

information from the " Grade 1, Book 1 " page by just paying attention

to the way the brush strokes are made.

 

Why learn to recognize the basic strokes? Because being able to

count the number of strokes is necessary in using a Chinese-English

dictionary. Pinyin-English dictionaries are alphabetized by the

pinyin names and are easy to use. But if one needs to translate a

Chinese character into English or pinyin, it is necessary to be able

to count basic brush strokes and recognize basic " radicals " . For

example, the Chinese character for " big " is made up of 3 brush

strokes. It's also a radical. So turn to the section of the Chinese-

English dictionary which lists radicals made up of 3 strokes. This

narrows the hunt down considerably. In addition, this radical is

used in more complex characters. The more complex characters that

contain this radical are listed under it according to the number of

extra brush strokes - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 13. Again, the

search for a particular character and its translation is narrowed

down a lot.