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I want to learn Chinese

Inuyasha-the-kid said:
I want to learn Chinese,Do anybody know a Chinese form?

woah, i had a dab at learning chinese and it was difficult, with the different tonal systems with the words its really hard i tell you.

"Ni hao" is hello, pronouced "knee how"

thats all i remember.
 
Here's one: Chinese Forum thanks to Glenn, who got it from MaCherie. There are quite a few people from this forum who's also a member there !
Get the four Mandarin tones down first; then get those corrected by someone who knows the language as early as possible. This should be done by a real person who can hear you and correct you, probably not on line. 😌
 
the most difficult part for me: kanji ..
why do they have over 20,000 characters ? *sigh ...
 
A working vocabulary of 20,000 characters would be only found in some of the most erudite, linguistically attuned, perceptive, exceptional individuals because that fairly covers most characters and variants accumulated over more than 2,000 years of continuous use. But in reality very few people would need all that vocabulary, because over half of those 20,000 would be found exclusively in an historical context.

For the majority of the population, around 2,000 would give you no difficulty leading a personal life; around 5,000 would give you full understanding of everything that is happening in modern China and what is written about the world, save certain loans from foreign countries (not that many).

Beginner level Chinese character dictionaries rarely exceed 5,000 chars in number, and a 20,000 character dictionary would be quite sufficient even for light historical reading and literature.

Several dictionaries that include all observed msnuscript styles are kown to have 80,000 characters. Although for the avarage student of hanzi-hanja-kanji, this would be an overkill, such references are essential for the study of epigraphy and script evolution.
 
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they said there're 2 types of kanji: china's and taiwan's
and taiwanese's kanji is more complicated than china's
what should i learn? i mean, which kanji is commonly used by chinese, or japanese, or taiwanese, well .. by people
 
there is only one kanji that means all of them :), so semuanya lu musti kuasailah...
simplified chinese is just an extension of traditional chinese. which means you better learn traditional chinese and then put a plugin on to it (the simplified chinese).
Simplified seems easier to write because it has less stroke that traditional chinese, so handwriting seems faster, but it is not truly easier than Traditional because it takes more brainpower to store new radicals created for simplified chinese, because in simplified chinese, all the old radicals from traditional chinese still exists so as a result you have to double your brainpower to learn simplified chinese. At least that was a professor in Chinese Linguistics at NTU in Taipei had reasoned to me last time I came by his office to show him my work on the game to improve kanji retention.

ax
 
and why worried about the 20,000 Kanji...even the native speakers have to refer to the dictionary from time to time. Just learn what you need to express your ideas and collect all this treasure naturally as you go. If you need my help, pm me, I can give some advise from firsthand experience.

ax
 
Inuyasha-the-kid, I hope I dont offend you by asking this, but what is your native language?
Im always interested... as sometimes you go to the effort of writing posts (terribly I might add) in Korean, sometimes japanese, and yes... sometimes english, but im puzzled as to whether english is actually your native tongue?
 
are you 13 years old and a student?would you like to stay in china for holiday with my family?
i am chinese living in shenzhen city of china.chinese is my native language.i am studying english now.i have a son and he is seven years old.i want him to study english.if you like to stay in china for holiday with my family ,we will teach you chinese while you can teach us english.
if you like to stay in china with my family,you are welcome by my family.
welcome to china to study chinese.
 
窶「ツ≫?凖翰彙ツ青・ナセテ卩ステッツ!ツ!窶吮??ナ。ツ?ツ青・VERYツ好ツ!窶ーテ、窶拿窶板昶?ーテーSOMEツ(ediar[窶「s窶拿PinYinツ。ツ。ツ。LOL])窶「ツ≫?凖翰彙ツ。ナステ毒ステ督!
How is my CHINESE? It is a fun lnguage to speak, despite my minimal knowalage... 😌

窶牢窶漏ヒ彙窶堋ウ窶堙ア窶堋ュ窶堙?ナスg窶堙≫?堙??堙昶?堋ソ窶堙懌?堙≫?堋スツ・ツ・ツ・窶壺?
 
Gaijinian said:
窶「ツ≫?凖翰彙ツ青・ナセテ卩ステッツ!ツ!窶吮??ナ。ツ?ツ青・VERYツ好ツ!窶ーテ、窶拿窶板昶?ーテーSOMEツ(ediar[窶「s窶拿PinYinツ。ツ。ツ。LOL])窶「ツ≫?凖翰彙ツ。ナステ毒ステ督!
How is my CHINESE? It is a fun lnguage to speak, despite my minimal knowalage... 😌

窶牢窶漏ヒ彙窶堋ウ窶堙ア窶堋ュ窶堙?ナスg窶堙≫?堙??堙昶?堋ソ窶堙懌?堙≫?堋スツ・ツ・ツ・窶壺?納/QUOTE]
not bad...^^ i'm learner of simplified chinese...and my mother tounge is Indonesia and Indonesian-Hokkien(which is can only be use in Indonesia and Malaysia T_T)

7 years ago I started learning Chinese in Malaysia...I can speak well...but I cant write much hanzi...窶ーテ、ナ徒テ「ナ I like it but it hard(for me) T_T
 
Gaijinian said:
窶「ツ≫?凖翰彙ツ青・ナセテ卩ステッツ!ツ!窶吮??ナ。ツ?ツ青・VERYツ好ツ!窶ーテ、窶拿窶板昶?ーテーSOMEツ(ediar[窶「s窶拿PinYinツ。ツ。ツ。LOL])窶「ツ≫?凖翰彙ツ。ナステ毒ステ督!
How is my CHINESE? It is a fun lnguage to speak, despite my minimal knowalage... 😌

窶牢窶漏ヒ彙窶堋ウ窶堙ア窶堋ュ窶堙?ナスg窶堙≫?堙??堙昶?堋ソ窶堙懌?堙≫?堋スツ・ツ・ツ・窶壺?納/QUOTE]

👍
your chinese is very good! 你窶廬窶「ツ≫?凖?#35805;窶敕アツ湘ュ窶点ツ!
it's so nice to konw you here.ナ徒ツ坂??#20852;ツ催?#36825;窶板「认识你ツ。
👍
 
harry yang said:
are you 13 years old and a student?would you like to stay in china for holiday with my family?
i am chinese living in shenzhen city of china.chinese is my native language.i am studying english now.i have a son and he is seven years old.i want him to study english.if you like to stay in china for holiday with my family ,we will teach you chinese while you can teach us english.
if you like to stay in china with my family,you are welcome by my family.
welcome to china to study chinese.


I can`t it will take long to go there ,plus my mom probably wont let me.
 
Well, don't you get along fine when you are with your friends ?
There are a lot of gestures, facials, and short sounds to help keep the flow nice and easy, but it's like that in any language, in any country.
You seem to have an active interest in learning and experimenting, and that's good for you in so many ways.

I only became confident about my Korean in my late twenties, and as for English I can't say I am fluent in all situations. As for my Chinese, I only remember the basics from my three yrs of intensive study; I have long, long ways to go to even think of becoming fluent.

But the good news is; once you get the basics, after that it's only a matter of vocabulary, style, speed, and perceptive conversation skills. These can only get better with time and practice. At 12, you're doing quite alright, so just keep up your experiments !
 
lexico said:
Well, don't you get along fine when you are with your friends ?
There are a lot of gestures, facials, and short sounds to help keep the flow nice and easy, but it's like that in any language, in any country.
You seem to have an active interest in learning and experimenting, and that's good for you in so many ways.

I only became confident about my Korean in my late twenties, and as for English I can't say I am fluent in all situations. As for my Chinese, I only remember the basics from my three yrs of intensive study; I have long, long ways to go to even think of becoming fluent.

But the good news is; once you get the basics, after that it's only a matter of vocabulary, style, speed, and perceptive conversation skills. These can only get better with time and practice. At 12, you're doing quite alright, so just keep up your experiments !

Thanks for giving me confidence in what I do. 👍
 
Re: 2 types of Chinese characters

nanda said:
they said there're 2 types of kanji: china's and taiwan's
and taiwanese's kanji is more complicated than china's
what should i learn? i mean, which kanji is commonly used by chinese, or japanese, or taiwanese, well .. by people
Traditional characters shared by Japan, Taiwan, S.Korea, Old China, and Old Vietnam are called fan-ti-zi, 窶敕嘉ゥ窶愬スナ。, cumbersome-styled characters, which are just that; having many strokes from 1 to over 40. While certain home-grown characters exists, they are less then 100-200 in all, and should be no cause of major concern.

The PRC took special pains to introduce simplified characters aka jian-ti-zi ナ?テ暗ゥ窶愬スナ。, abbreviated-styled-characters, which have drastically redued number of strokes. While all PRC citizens under aget 55 were born after the inauguration of the PRC and know both Mandarin and simplified characters, the majority of them also speak their own local vernacular and read/write the traditional charaters as well since the correspondence between jiantizi and fantizi is regular and mostly predictable for those who's had the exposure.

Therefore over 99% of all traditional characters currently in use in any of the countries can be read and the generally understood within China, Taiwan, S.Korea, and Japan; N.Korea, although it had officially abolished Chinese characters for ideological reasons, revived it in 1963. Hence within the 5 countries the same written characters can be used in communication even though the actual vocalization might vary from place to place.

To compare the two if you have time for studying only one more language in addition to learning Japanese & Kanji (Sino-Japanese), I'd say learn the traditional cause you can use it in many more countries and your hanzi character wirting-recognizing training can be directly imported to kanji literacy upto a degree. You only need to learn the different readings and usage while the majority of strikes remain identical.

note: I might add that the use of traditional characters is not limited to the five countries, but also extends to all the areas where there are a lot of Chinese immigrants. Most major cities in SE Asia and other areas such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York have Chinatowns. Both the numerous Chinese expatriates speaking Cantonese or Mandarin would have nice shop signs in traditional characters as well as thse you will see in the many books in the Chinese bookstores and the Chinese section of your major libraries. Until sometime in the 1800's, books printed in traditional Chinese numbered the highest among all known scripts of the world !
 
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alienaxed said:
and why worried about the 20,000 Kanji...even the native speakers have to refer to the dictionary from time to time. Just learn what you need to express your ideas and collect all this treasure naturally as you go. If you need my help, pm me, I can give some advise from firsthand experience.

ax
Yea you are right. Currently 6763 characters are used in common computers (National Standard II) which meets 99.9999% (*estimated of course) circumtances. But some 3000 out of the 6763 meets 99.99% circumtances. So do not be afraid - even TOEFL, comparing to that of English, requires a vocabulary of 10000 words. So Chinese is not that difficult.

I'll be pround to help. Maybe voice chat via MSN messager could be a nice tool.
 
Depending on your purpose of learning Chinese.
If you're learning to work or live in China, simplified Chinese will do.
However, if you are planning to have some serious studying on Chinese literature and art, traditional Chinese is the better option for you.
 
I think it's better to study the simplified form, since it won't take longer time, and it has been authorized to use in global (around the world) by International United Nations with the purpose of everybody in the world can study Chinese easier & faster to prepare the global business, technology, educational and trade in the world.

So, if you intend to study Chinese instantly, you can use this system.

However, if you prefer to know the source of each characters, or arts and calligraphy purpose, you should study the traditional characters, since they are original and more complicated.

Regarding the relationship with Japanese kanji, actually Japanese kanji (ナ?ツソナスナ。) is taken from Hanzi (汉ナスナ。), so they exactly have the similar meanings, Japanese kanji take the character based on Chinese traditional ones. Though, Japan also has some special kanji characters which created by themselves. And some Japanese kanji have been simplified from the traditional chinese characters.

Currently I'm studying simplified Chinese, so I can just understand a few traditional characters. It's not so easy to memorize such a lot of characters in a very short period. But I will keep studying, though I'm so lazy, hehehe :p

现ツ催昶?ーテ、ツ青ウナ?w习汉语ツ。
窶僊ツ青・窶ーテ、ナ徒ツ渉ュ窶廃汉语讲话ツ,ツ焦?ヒ?按,ナ徒窶督昶?ーテッ进步ツ。
还窶猫ツ,窶ーテ、窶禿ァツ湘ュツ湘ュ觉窶慊セナ徒懒窶佚?#21834;~ :joyful:
应该窶伉ス窶伉ス窶忤窶氾?#21862;ツ,窶ーテ、们该窶ーテ≫?禿サ!! 😎

请您们窶ケツウ窶ーテ、讲话吧 :)
谢谢!!
 
hello

你好呀 ~ 你想學中文呀 ? 我可以教你, 大家也可作文化交流呢

我是香港人 , 你是那裡人

還有你學了中文多久 ?

其實我很想學日文, 但不知有沒有人教我呢 ~
 
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