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How many characters?

arpgme

Sempai
6 Sep 2005
156
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How many characters do chinese contains and if I learn 10 a day when will I learn them all?

20/24hr,3/24hr,30/24hr?
 
the problem isn't learning the characters, it's retention. You've got to remember the characters after you learn them.

As for pace, 5-10 chracters a day is probably ideal for a beginner, but every day as you learn new characters you need to practice the ones you've already studied.
 
If you count all of the characters throughout history then about 70,000 or so. The government says that 3500 are what you need to be literate (Chinese version of the 常用漢字 -- chang2yong4 han4zi4), but according to my roommate, who estimates he knows about 5000 without counting variants (7000 or so if you do), that's a load of ****. He says he constantly comes across characters he doesn't know, and it seems that children's books are the worst offenders.
 
Glenn said:
If you count all of the characters throughout history then about 70,000 or so.
is it even posible to learn them all?!

Glenn said:
The government says that 3500 are what you need to be literate (Chinese version of the ツ湘ュ窶廃ナ?ツソナスナ。 -- chang2yong4 han4zi4),

They say 3500 is enough to read a news paper, but people say that is lies!



Glenn said:
according to my roommate, who estimates he knows about 5000 without counting variants (7000 or so if you do), that's a load of ****. He says he constantly comes across characters he doesn't know, and it seems that children's books are the worst offenders.
You confused me...
 
justin9213 said:
You confused me...
Why? It's pretty clear, actually. Even if you know 3500 character you won't come very far. You may be able to read some basic sentences, but in every other news article you will come across quite a number of unknown characters (which will take you ages to look up in a dictionary).

What's worse: there are numerous character combinations which you will only understand if you know these particular combinations, knowing the individual characters won't suffice.
 
bossel said:
there are numerous character combinations which you will only understand if you know these particular combinations, knowing the individual characters won't suffice.
OMG!!! how can I memorize ALL of the chinese(simpplified & simplified) + the combinations?
there are over 8000 chinese characters and must learn them ALL!
but how long do you think it will take?
In 2 day I`ve learn these characters:
你, ツ好, 窶敕シ ,ツ青・,ツ渉ャ,窶吮??,窶ーテ、,
 
It will take a life time to learn all 8,000 chinese characters?!
then every day I will do home work, and learn the characters the rest of the day.
 
justin9213 said:
OMG!!! how can I memorize ALL of the chinese(simpplified & simplified) + the combinations?
You probably can't. But neither can most Chinese. It's simply because many symbols are used only rarely, a matter of memory. Just like Germans don't know all German words, Chinese don't know all Chinese characters (although there is a difference between words & characters, but it's a valid comparison, I think).

but how long do you think it will take?
Don't know, if you really need to know 8000. I wouldn't worry.
Lower your aims, don't think of what might be at the end (if there is one), but concentrate on what is now. IMO, it's enough to learn 200 characters in the 1st half year. Later on you can/will learn more per 1/2 year, as it will get easier.
 
justin9213 said:
How many characters do chinese contains and if I learn 10 a day when will I learn them all?
20/24hr,3/24hr,30/24hr?
3500 is considered quite good for a foreigner studying Chinese.
 
Wow, you won't believe the line of thinking that I went through before I realized what you were saying. The answer was so simple!
 
3500 is an exaggeration too big to make^^

Hi, as a native speaker of Chinese, I think a wordbank of 3500 is only necessary when you read Chinese Classical works.

In general, about 19xx will be very enough for daily usage and general academic researches.

Maybe 19xx characters will be considered too few for other peoples, but Chinese enables its users to form many phrases similar to the fashion of the German language. For example, ナステ?car) can be combined with 窶「[(ticket)ツ、窶敖?(box)ツ、窶禿・(door)ツ、窶卍キ(leader) to form ナステ披?「[(a ticket for a public transport)ツ、ナステ披?敖?(compartments)ツ、ナステ披?禿・(the door of a car)ツ、ナステ披?卍キ(the captain/driver of a car), etc.

Just imagine the way the Germans coin numerous words by combination, you will then understand how many words are coined in a similar fashion in Chinese~~

i hope my opinion will be useful to you^^
 
According to Wikipedia,
Wikipedia said:
In China, literacy for the working citizen is defined as knowledge of 2000 characters.
Personally, I find that surprising and would think the number would be more but maybe they have low expectations for "working citizens." After all, the average Japanese person needs to be able to read quite a bit more than 2000, and Chinese doesn't typically use a phonetic system to spell out words with tricky hanzi.
 
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