How to Go About Studying the Chinese Languages

How to go about studying the Chinese languages

On the ORIENTAL LANGUAGE STUDIES website there are a large number of lessons that have to do with the Mandarin and Cantonese languages. While progressing through the lessons starting with one would be a fairly logical way to study much more is involved. What follows is a proposed outline of study, which many have used and found workable as far as making general all over progress is concerned.

As has been mentioned in various notes about the material on the OLS website it cannot be over emphasised that all of the Chinese dialects are based upon the Chinese character. Oriental people think in these characters – picturing them in their mind. In western languages the thinking is somewhat different. Thinking is done on the basis of sounds. So whether you speak Mandarin, Wu, Haka, Cantonese or what ever dialect of Chinese the writing is the same – apart from a few local variations.

Many may view Chinese as complicated and difficult. In fact this is far from the case. Unlike western languages no words are conjugated or altered in any way. As you see the character/word in a dictionary that is the way it is permanently used. The bane of western languages to those who have to learn them is indeed the charts of ways in which words, especially verbs, change according to gender, tense and case. Take for example German which has no less than twelve ways to write and say: “a”. There is none of this in Chinese.

Another bane of western languages is the variations of word order. Chinese is so regular almost to defy belief and what is more, for the English speaking person the word order is almost the same. So a first lesson is for Chinese word order – use English word order. One can then say that of the many languages of our world Chinese is probably one of the most regular! Why then is Chinese considered to be so “complicated”? It is merely because of the unusual writing system, which to the average person seems impossible.

Where then must one start? It is essential to start learning the characters right from the beginning of one’s studies. May be you have obtained a Chinese grammar book out of a library. If so you probably notice that the use of the characters is left until the last couple of chapters of the book. This is clearly too late. One must learn the characters as you learn your simple basic words and expressions.

How then, do you learn the Chinese characters? The answer is simple: by looking at them. Likely although you may have seen many Chinese characters you probably did not look at them individually. Every time we see something new don’t we stop and examine it for a while – perhaps something in a shop window! Then we ask: what is that? That is the way to learn Chinese characters!, only do it learning the most common ones first. In the grammatical lessons from OLS, that is what is being done, but learn them as you go. Do the exercises which really is just a means of impressing the character image on your mind.

Perhaps you have heard that there are about 10,000 characters in the Chinese language. They may seem off-putting. But then there are about 1,000,000 and more words in the English language does that put one off? But even the mention of 10,000 characters is not quite correct for those 10,000 characters are actually built up from much simpler characters called “Radicals”. Of these there are only 214 and of these many you may never see used. So from the start you need to learn the “radicals” These are provided for you in chart form, accompanied by a list giving you the meaning and pronunciation of each depending upon which dialect you are learning, Mandarin, Cantonese or what.

Where did these characters come from? Some go back thousands of years, in fact there is very good reason to believe that some of them are clearly connected with the Bible and some of the accounts in Genesis. Some are clearly adaptions of Egyptian Hieroglyphics. So when you are learning the characters try and think like people of those times thought. The basic ideas in them are perhaps what one might call “primitive” certainly not modern. What then are the characters? There are basically two kinds: Pictographs or pictures of what they represent! Like animals, birds, mountains etc. Some of them came undoubtedly from Egyptian Hieroglyphs. While they are actual pictures of the objects that they represent, the Chinese characters have adapted the picture by drawing it in strokes which enables it to be written more orderly and quickly. This system of strokes is learned and appreciated by your being conscious of what has been developed over the centuries. Another form of the character are ideographs or ideas like actions, do, go, buy, think. These are often expressed by putting a couple of pictographs together in to one character. For example what could express the idea of “resting” than a man sitting under a tree? That is exactly how that idea is drawn. So because all of the characters have meanings like this, one can read them almost into any language or Chinese dialect! Because English word order is so similar to Chinese, in many instances, one could read the characters, knowing their meaning, straight into English. That is to say, one gets the meaning and attaches the appropriate pronunciation to it.

That brings us to the method of learning the “radicals” There are different ways of approaching it: Go through the “list of radical meanings” and select any basic word, initially try nouns or objects, that you fancy. Note its number and look it up on the Radical chart. If it is a noun or object can you see why the character means that? Don’t be in hurry, think about it. Now select a verb or action word say “see” now look it up you will notice it is made of two parts. Why does it mean see? Think about it. It has an ”eye” and a “man” in it – essential to see. Come to your own conclusions like this, spending some time every day and you will learn the radicals in no time. Another method is to go through the chart of radicals and when you see a character that looks interesting or one that you seem to have become familiar with, then look up it’s meaning – you probably will never forget it after that. This is just fun! If you view it that way and not as a chore you will learn them in no time. [Consult Chart of Radicals]

[Consult the List of meanings of Radical characters]

Now take your dictionary and you will find it has a section that is the Index of Radicals. You will notice that they are listed according to the number of strokes in each. This will refer you to the Index of Characters. This is the method that you must use to find Chinese characters in a dictionary. Select any character, look for the radical in it, look it up in the Index of Radicals according to the number of strokes in it, when you have found it, note its number. Now go to the Index of Characters as indicated by the number reference attached to the radical in question and search in that list until you also find the character in question. Note its pronunciation. Now knowing the pronunciation go to the main body of the dictionary to get the meaning and pronunciation. Here be careful. Do not accept the first word you see. Check, does it have the same “character” as the one you want? Remember in Chinese, many words have the same pronunciation but a different meaning which is only determined by its particular character. Knowing the radicals then is essential to finding a character in a dictionary!

[Consult the dictionary appropriate to the dialect you are studying]

To reinforce the suggestions above and to help appreciate further as to how characters are made up of a combination of radicals go to the lesson: “How to learn the Chinese character”. This lesson progressively presents common, basic characters and by means of puzzles, or multiple choices, helps one see how the Radicals are involved in every character. If you are in a group studying Chinese why not make it a class discussion on what you individually have found out and try and iron out any problems by discussion.

One may wonder by this time, “when am I going to learn some Chinese?” Now is the time to start progressively going through the Grammar lessons, starting with number 1. Notice that there are separate lesson for Mandarin and Cantonese. While basically the lessons are the same the certain idiomatic differences in language is dealt with in these two sections. What now becomes apparent is that Chinese now has two sets of characters. Traditional and Simplified. Cantonese only uses the Traditional characters at present while Mandarin uses both. Older people are more accustomed to the Traditional characters as they were taught them at school, whereas younger people are being taught the Simplified. As a teacher yourself you will do well to know both! For a start you may go for the simplified characters. However this is a misnomer. The simplification has merely to do with the writing and a reduction of strokes. They are not easier to read. Learning the Traditional characters first has a decided

advantage: One would quite likely recognise the simplified if he knows the traditional, but it is very unlikely that one could recognise the traditional knowing only the simplified. One can see what has been left out but can hardly imagine what ought to be put in place. Learn or use the Traditional first. Each lesson in Mandarin provides you with both. Traditional on one side of the sheet and the same lesson with simplified characters on the other. Study them both.

A quickly apparent disadvantage of the simplified character is that although it takes fewer strokes to write the “pictorial” aspect of the character tends to disappear. Also seeing that it is not likely, considering the use of word processors in writing the characters in these days that you will be much concerned with saving a little time in writing by hand. Dictionary wise, a slight problem may arise here as nearly all of the latest dictionaries are written in the simplified characters some better ones show both character forms [Consult Lesson 1 examining both sides of sheet 1. ]

It is apparent at this stage that certain dictionaries are essential to study of the language. In Mandarin the following will be helpful The Oxford Starter Chinese dictionary (first edition) ISBN 0-19-860258-8. Another is Concise English-Chinese / Chi-EngDictionary (second edition) ISBN 0-19-591151-2. This contains the characters in both simplified and traditional forms. In Cantonese the choice is not very wide but A Pocket dictionary of Cantonese ISBN 962-209-122-9 will be useful and A Practical English-Chinese Pronouncing Dictionary ISBN 0-8048-1877-0 is useful giving both Mandarin and Cantonese pronunciation of the characters, but does not serve as a Chinese to English work. A further aid to study is the use of a Chinese – English and English to Chinese word processor. One that allows both Mandarin and Cantonese use is NJStar. This can be downloaded from the Internet for sample use. The decided advantage of such word processors is that it writes the characters for you. Also it contains its own dictionary and provides a means of finding characters from a Radical chart which is displayed on screen.

There is no better way of learning a language than by hearing it and reading it. For reading there is nothing better than reading the Bible. Choose passages that you know well, like everyday expressions found in the gospels. Even if at first you only recognise a few characters like I, we, she, it etc. you will realise that you are making progress. Do some reading every day. Obtain copies of the New World Translation in either Traditional or Simplified or both. To help you with Bible book names consult “How to name all of the Bible books” in this book. That will teach you the pronunciation of the many Book names besides helping you to find parts of the Bible quickly. You might be tempted to write in the name of these books in English next to the Chinese. Try and resist this. Learn to become dependant on getting meaning from the characters themselves. Some texts provide the pronunciation of the Chinese writing it above the characters in the Latin or western script. This is called “pinyin” in Mandarin or Romanisation in Cantonese. Do not view this as an alternative way of writing Chinese. It is not. It is merely to help for westerners with the pronunciation. When reading, concentrate just on the characters, turning to the “pinyin” only for the pronunciation or for consulting your dictionary! On page 2 of the Grammar lessons in this book there are provided some reading exercises.. Again you may be tempted to write in this space ‘helpful reminders’. Resist this. If you cannot identify a character go back to the main lesson on page l and find it there, or consult it in your dictionary! Writing the English next to a character has no value in learning it.

What has been said so far are suggestions that have proved workable already. Try and follow them. Maybe you can get together with a friend or a few others to study. This has decided advantages. One is able to benefit from each others study or research and can be encouraging. If one of you has learned a language before perhaps he or she can take the lead in discussing the material and ironing out problems. For this it is good to have an outline for study that will take care all the things mentioned above. This outline that follows will remind you of things needing continual attention:

OUTLINE FOR WEEKLY STUDY OF THE CHINESE LANGUAGE

(Repeated from 1/1) This is merely a suggested outline of study emphasising the essential matters needing attention. Adapt it to circumstances and progress.

(The numbers relate to percentages of the time you have available in each study period)

10%

Review the “CHART OF RADICAL CHARACTERS”

Have each student highlight the radicals that he knows.

Hear from others what they have learned since the last study period.

Review meanings and pronunciation

10%

Review finding characters in your dictionary by means of identifying its key radical

Practice finding the radical by the count of its strokes.

Take note of how the radicals change their shape when joined with other radicals.

Does your dictionary show this in the RADICAL INDEX?

15%

Review one or a part of a lesson on “How to learn the Chinese character”

Note examples. Hear from others what conclusions they came to as to why a certain character means what it does! Listen to everyones opinion.

Compare it with the notes (solutions) at the bottom of the sheet.

15%

Do some Bible reading. Arrange each week something simple to prepare

Help each other by discussion

Practice finding Bible books, chapter and verse.

Keep the list of “grammatical prefixes & suffixes” to hand for consultation

25%

Review the current Grammar lesson

If some homework was set. Compare your answers

Review the current lesson (This can be lessons found in Section 5 or this book or you can apply for more

lessons from Oriental Langugae Studies)

Discuss the new ideas presented

Note the new characters introduced – by examining the radicals, can you see why it means what it does?

Consider the new vocabulary – test each other with it for recognition.

Can you get sense from the characters that are used in it?

Consult the charts of Chinese word order and

The list of Variations of the Chinese verb.

15%

Do the Reading practice on page 2 of the current lesson.

If there is a group help each other out when one gets stuck on a character

Remember we are not competing but learning

Refer to page 1 of the lesson for correction

Remember do not write next to this reading practice section.

It is a test of your progress and your dependence on the characters for getting sense in reading.

10%

As you progress set assignments:

Using the current Large print Watchtower with pinyin prepare to read and discuss

an answer for the study.

Identify what characters you can in pertinent material.

Try and read the questions.