Unit 1: Learning to Read and Write Chinese

Unit 1: Learning to Read and Write Chinese

Chinese4Free

Welcome to the first unit in our Chinese4Free course! Before we begin, we’d like to remind you that learning Chinese is a challenging commitment, especially for English speakers, but the process of mastering a new language is extremely rewarding. For this reason, our first unit will mainly focus on the tips and tricks that help students become successful in learning Chinese.

To begin, it is important to understand the key characteristics that make Chinese a difficult language to learn for English speakers:

  1. The lack of a traditional alphabet
  2. The four Chinese tones of pronunciation
  3. Memorizing and distinguishing between different Chinese characters

As a foundation for our course, we will address how new students can handle each of these challenges individually.

1. The lack of a traditional alphabet

New students may be aware that instead of a typical alphabet that makes up the building blocks of words and phrases in any given language, the simplified Chinese written language contains over 8,000 distinct characters. While this figure may seem intimidating for new students, in actuality only around 6,000 of these characters are commonly used, with a vocabulary of around 2,500 characters (the amount taught to elementary school students in China) being sufficient to read a newspaper.

To make learning these characters easier for English speakers, a phonetic alphabet called the Pinyin system is used. The Pinyin version of a Chinese character may be written so that English students know how the word is phonetically pronounced (including tonal accents). For example, the Chinese greeting, 你好, may be written phonetically with the pinyin system as Nǐ hǎo (the meanings of the accents above the Pinyin words will be explained later).

Furthermore, the Pinyin system allows students to type in Chinese very easily. To access simplified Chinese characters on Google Docs (where most of your assignments will likely be completed), follow these steps:

  1. On a Google Doc, click on “File” in the top-left corner
  2. Hover over “Language” toward the bottom of the drop-down menu
  3.  Scroll to the bottom of the list of languages and select “中文 (中国)”
  1. A button with the character “拼” should now be located on the right side of the toolbar
  2. After pressing the new button, a small rectangle should appear at the bottom-right of the screen, indicating that the language feature is on.
  3. The shift key will allow you to toggle between Chinese and English input, with “中” representing Chinese and “En” representing English

Note: The Chinese input on Google Docs is notoriously sensitive. If you leave the tab or window with Chinese input turned on, you will likely have to refresh the page to be able to type or use punctuation upon return.

Once the Chinese input is enabled, you will be able to find a desired character by typing in its Pinyin translation and scrolling through a list of suggested characters.

Now practice the previous instructions by creating a Google Doc and typing the following Chinese sentence using the given Pinyin translation: 我的妈妈给我一本书。(wo de ma ma gei wo yi ben shu). Hint: match each character one at a time by typing the pinyin separately (type “wo”, then “de”, then “ma”, and so on until all of the characters are identical.

Don’t worry about how long typing in Chinese takes you right now. Your speed and efficiency will improve as you become familiar with the shortcuts and oddities of the software. Essentially all word processing programs will allow users to type Chinese with the same Pinyin system, but the process for enabling Chinese inputs will be slightly different for each platform.

2. The four tones of pronunciation

Now that you understand the bare essentials of the Chinese phonetic system and typing with Chinese characters, we can begin to introduce the challenge of speaking in Chinese. As we mentioned previously, the Pinyin translation of a Chinese character is its phonetic pronunciation, but this is a simplification. Most Pinyin translations are not only made up of a phonetic translation, but one of four tone marks are also included to denote how the character is pronounced. For example, the Pinyin translation of the Chinese greeting, 你好, with accents is Nǐ hǎo. As to differentiating between the four tones and understanding how they affect pronunciations, countless online videos can explain these concepts far more effectively than our written format. For this reason, we have included some of the best free videos for learning and practicing Chinese tonality and pronunciation below, with many more available online (Note: none of the following materials are owned or created by Chinese4Free, nor are we paid or endorsed by these independent creators):

Once again, don’t worry if pronouncing words in Chinese or using the correct tone is difficult at this point. Many of the sounds used in spoken Chinese are unfamiliar to English speakers, but will become easier and more familiar as you practice over time and are exposed to the language in a classroom setting. Securing this fundamental understanding of how the Chinese language is spoken by consistently watching videos and attempting to mimic fluent speakers will give you a substantial advantage over other students that are completely unfamiliar with this subject.

3. Memorizing and distinguishing between different Chinese characters

With our foundational understanding of the Pinyin system and spoken Chinese, approaching the most difficult task for most new Chinese students, learning and memorizing characters, should become substantially easier. While there are many methods for enhancing a student’s Chinese vocabulary, the centuries-old basis for committing these characters to memory has been handwriting and repetition. The most effective method (if executed correctly) for memorizing characters and their meanings is writing them over and over. This tactic may seem antiquated, but there is no substitute for the cognitive links between characters and their translations built by repetition with writing. How can we execute this method? Ultimately, it is up to the individual students how they study characters, but most will simply use a pen and notebook. To improve recall and recognition of characters, students can try purchasing a whiteboard and markers with different colors to code each character and build stronger associations.

When deciding what to write repeatedly to memorize the meaning of characters, it is important to understand the three main components that make up a Chinese character: the strokes that make up the character itself, its Pinyin translation (with tone marks), and the English translation. It is our recommendation that students study with repetition by using the format “Pinyin translation = character = English translation”. For example: Nǐ hǎo = 你好 = greeting, hello. When presented with a list of new vocabulary, students should use this method to become familiar with the vocabulary until they can confidently read and translate a sentence with the words. This traditional study method may seem tiresome or boring, but we strongly recommend against listening to music or podcasts while studying characters. Short, frequent, and focused sessions of study are the easiest way to learn and retain Chinese characters, especially for English speakers who do not utilize the language in their daily lives.

As you study more Chinese characters, you may begin to notice similarities in the structures of characters with similar meanings or pictographic features. By pictographic features, we mean that some characters resemble the objects they are meant to represent. For example, the character 人 (Rén) means “person” and looks like a person walking, and the character 月 (Yuè) means “moon” or “month” and looks like a crescent moon. While these pictographic associations are helpful for remembering certain characters, Chinese is not a pictographic language, meaning that the translations of most characters cannot be interpreted solely from their resemblance of real objects. On the other hand, a more reliable method for interpreting the meaning of a character is the radical (部首, Bù shǒu) system. Although there are thousands of unique Chinese characters, most of these characters will contain one of around 40 common components called a radical that hints at its category of meaning. 37 of the most common radicals will be listed below for your future reference. We highly recommend using the repetitive writing method to study the meanings of the following radicals to serve as the basis for your vocabulary knowledge. As you are presented with new Chinese vocabulary in the future, be conscious of the radicals and components that make up each character to memorize the meanings more efficiently. Learning to recognize patterns in written Chinese is essential for students to recognize and differentiate between similar characters as their vocabulary increases, so mastering these skills early on will provide exponential benefits in the future.

Radical (部首)PinyinEnglish meaningExamples
人 (亻)RénPerson今,他
刀 (刂)dāoKnife分,到
Power如,助
yòuRight hand; again友,取
kǒuMouth叫,可
Earth在,坐
Sunset外,多
Big天,太
Woman好,婆
ziSon字,孩
cùnInch村,特
xiǎoSmall少,尖
gōngLabor; work左,差
心 (忄)xīn (xin)Heart想,忙
Dagger-axe我,或
手(扌)shǒuHand拿,打
Sun早,明
yuèMoon期,朗
Wood李,杯
水 (氵)shuǐWater没,洗
火 (灬)huǒ (biāo)Fire烧,热
tiánField男,留
Eye看,睡
示 (礻)shìShow票,衫
Fine silk素,红
ěrEar聊,聋
Clothing裤,衬
言(讠)yánSpeech说,语
bèiCowrie shell; money贵,费
zǒuWalk起,趣
Foot跳,踢
金(钅)jīnGold钱,错
ménDoor们,间
zhuīShort-tailed bird准,难
Rain零,雪
食(饣)shíEat餐,饭
Horse骑,吗

Additionally, certain Chinese instructors may require students to learn the stroke orders of characters, that is, the specific order in which marks must be made on the page to construct a character. Whether or not students need to understand stroke order heavily depends on the instructor teaching the class, but if the instructor does not feel stroke order is important, we recommend students place emphasis on making characters look accurate and understanding their meanings and pronunciations rather than memorizing stroke orders. In general, students will be close enough to stroke order if they write the components of a character in order from top to bottom and left to right (essentially how we write letters in English, especially “L” or “B”).

Finally, the role of online tools like Google Translate or Chinese dictionaries in learning Chinese must be discussed. Once again, the Chinese instructor’s policies regarding these aids should ultimately guide how students use these tools inside and outside of the classroom; however, we understand that many teachers inaccurately believe that tools like Google translate will negatively impact the ability of their students to genuinely learn the language, when in actuality, using these aids (in moderation) can make learning a language easier.

Assuming your instructor accepts some limited use of these tools, we are here to explain how they can enhance your language learning experience. Because there are thousands of unique characters within the Chinese language, it is unrealistic for English speaking students to remember every word and phrase they have learned while constantly introducing and memorizing new vocabulary during the school year. For this reason, occasional use of Google Translate or various online dictionaries can be helpful for students, so long as they do not become dependent on translations rather than their knowledge and studying. We have listed several of our favorite online dictionaries and translation websites with a description of when best to use each of them.

  1. Google Translate (best for quick translations of a forgotten phrase or single word from Chinese to English or vice versa; easily copy Pinyin with tone marks; do not attempt to translate entire sentences or passages with accuracy)
  2. MDBG Chinese Dictionary (best for finding multiple, accurate translations of a character; details the structure, stroke order, and radicals of each character; cannot translate long phrases or sentences): https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary
  3. LINE Dictionary (best for finding the Pinyin and definition of an unknown character by drawing it with a mouse; does not always provide relevant definitions; cannot translate long phrases or sentences): https://dict.naver.com/linedict/#/cnen/home

Continue to our second unit with your newfound understanding of how to learn Chinese as an English speaker to get an introduction to Chinese vocabulary and grammar!