Hi, also a few questions

[Lord_Azael]

Hi, I'm Sam (i also go under my adopted Japanese alias Azuma あずま Ryuuguu 竜）and i'm new to CC101 and to Chinese, i've been learning for about 2 days now using CC101 and i really enjoy it.

I have a few questions about Chinese.

Question the first: In Japanese, the Kanji have at least 2 different readings for each character. Is this the same in Chinese?

Question the second: Someone advised me to move away from Pinyin (which i have not learned properly yet) and to "learn the hanzi using mnemonics based on the character radicals". Could someone explain firstly what that actually means and please give me some tips on how to do it.

Question the third: I have been using a website called smart.fm for my Japanese studies and was wondering if anybody else here has used it for chinese? If you have, do you know of any good lists to study (besides the Taipei program: 'Mastering the Chinese Characters' series)

Thanks in advance

[shanshanchua]

Hello Sam!

(1) Most Chinese characters have only one pronunciation, although there are some who have more than one. But not that many for a beginner learner to worry about.

(2) Personally, I would think learning pinyin is very useful for a start. As you become more familiar with Chinese characters, you will definitely notice that some of them have the same radicals, and therefore sound the same/similar. But the thing is, there are many radicals, and even if two characters have the same radical, they may still sound different. So it's not that easy to figure out how a character sounds just by looking at the radical.

Sorry, can't help with your 3rd question.

Hope this helps!

[Lord_Azael]

Thanks for your answers

I spent most of today running through the introduction lessons, the first 3 beginner lessons and the first few survival phrases. Got a big list of words to learn, and loving it

Also, i bought myself the "My Chinese Coach" for the nintendo DS, has anyone played it?

[hjj5599]

Hi Sam,
For the first two questions, i agree with shanshanchua and advise you to start learning Chinese from Pinyin

For the third one, i advise you to download some e-books which is devised for the beginners who study Chinese. Some of my friends used the teaching materials of the elementary schools and got progress quickly.



hjj
Msn/Email:

[jchow]

Hi, Sam

Question the first: In Japanese, the Kanji have at least 2 different readings for each character. Is this the same in Chinese?
>>As I know because of the difference of the Onyomi（音読み）and the Kunyomi(訓読み), the Japanese Kanji have at least two different readings. But most of Chinese characters just have one readings, sometimes maybe the tone are different. Just a little percentage characters have two different readings.

Question the second: Someone advised me to move away from Pinyin (which i have not learned properly yet) and to "learn the hanzi using mnemonics based on the character radicals". Could someone explain firstly what that actually means and please give me some tips on how to do it.
>>As a native Chinese speaker I suggest you learn Chinese from Pinyin, it's basic to your pronunciation. We can't learn English skipped abcd, right?

Question the third: I have been using a website called smart.fm for my Japanese studies and was wondering if anybody else here has used it for chinese? If you have, do you know of any good lists to study (besides the Taipei program: 'Mastering the Chinese Characters' series)
>>I know some Japanese, and I am a Chinese. If you have some question about those language studying, connect me without hesitation by

[lan_dawei]

@jchow,

I believe Lord_Azael was referring to the system of pronunciation in Taiwan called 'bopomofo'.

I myself prefer Hanyu Pinyin because:

1) it roughly mappable to English pronunciation of Roman characters with some weird twists (i.e. zh and q)

2) I can type pinyin and get Chinese.

3) Pinyin is the de facto standard, so why @Lord_Azael, go against the grain?


I find the bopomofo system very hard to remember and my keyboard doesn't have the bopomofo symbols on it, so that would make it even harder for typing Chinese. I've seen such keyboards in Taipei.

[nauht]

Question the third: I have been using a website called smart.fm for my Japanese studies and was wondering if anybody else here has used it for chinese? If you have, do you know of any good lists to study (besides the Taipei program: 'Mastering the Chinese Characters' series)

What's this 'Mastering the Chinese Character' Series you speak of?

[david]

@naught,

Smart.fm is a vocabulary-oriented study site based in Japan. If you signup, make sure you signup through the English interface. They keep spamming me with Japanese email. I'm not even sure how to unsubscribe.

--dave