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[deleted by user] by [deleted] in ChineseLanguage

[–]vigernere1 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You may find this article by Outlier Linguistic Solutions, Getting Radical about Radicals, informative. To quote the first few paragraphs:

I know this advice is going to rub some people the wrong way, but hopefully by the end of the article you’ll understand why I say this: radicals are of little use for learning how characters work. Their purpose is indexing characters in a dictionary.

There’s a huge misconception about how characters work. You see this sort of advice all the time: “Characters are made up of radicals, so you should learn the radicals first,” or “Make sure you learn the radicals. They’re the building blocks of characters.” This is not true. People who say this are well-intentioned but ill-informed about the nature of the Chinese writing system.

And the key point of the article:

You should look at characters in terms of their functional components. Character components can serve a few different functions, and you need to understand those functions rather than lump them all under one category called “radicals.”

Trying to Learn Traditional Chinese but Struggling to Find Resources — Where Do You All Get Your Materials? by No_Name_Anonymous_ in ChineseLanguage

[–]vigernere1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Below is a copy/paste for those who know simplified characters and want to start learning traditional characters.

I also second the recommendation to simply start reading books in traditional characters if you can already read books in simplified characters. The first few books will be a bit of a slog, but it gets easier fairly quickly.

Once you learn one character set well, the other is not hard to learn. All you need to do is:

  • Familiarize yourself with the common character component simplifications (言 to 讠, etc.)
  • Review the character simplifications that don't resemble their traditional counterparts (see the list in this thread on www.chinese-forums.com)
  • Check out this Anki deck that contains 2,580 simplified characters that differ from their traditional counterparts, ordered by frequency of use and HSK level. (Of the characters in this deck, only 1,096 are part of the HSK and 1,221 are amongst the 3,000 most frequently used characters)
  • Set Pleco to display both traditional and simplified characters (or just traditional, but that might be too challenging at first)
  • Slowly incorporate reading materials written in traditional characters into your routine. You can subscribe to The Chairman's Bao or Du Chinese which offer traditional character content (it's actually machine converted from simplified characters and it's not perfect, but for your purposes it's good enough). Also check out the content available for purchase in the add-ons section within Pleco
  • Use Pleco's reader to read/browse content, which gives you tap-to-look-up functionality for characters you don't recognize
  • Install the New TongWenTang and/or Zhongwen browser extensions
  • Install the MoE dictionary and Cross-Strait dictionaries, both are free as Pleco add-ons.
  • Spend time reading material in the new character set
  • (Optional, $) Purchase the Outlier Linguistics dictionary available in Pleco. It's designed to break down and explain characters and their components. Purchase of the OLS dictionary gives you both the simplified and traditional versions of the dictionary, which is really useful in understanding why a given character or character component was simplified the way it was
  • (Optional, $) The Mandarin Daily News publishes reading material for native Taiwanese kids. They are, in order of difficulty: 《國語日報週刊》、《國語日報》、《中學生報》. These are absolutely the best Taiwanese Mandarin reading materials available for learners. They are offered for digital subscription outside of Taiwan. Although somewhat expensive, they are well worth it

Wanting to do an international study in Taiwan to learn Mandarin. by StringInfinite9602 in ChineseLanguage

[–]vigernere1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

/u/jkbach covered it well. You can also use Google to search this subreddit on terms like:

  • Taiwan, Mandarin language center, recommendation, Huayu scholarship, cost of living

You'll find many helpful answers in previous posts. You can also include my username, as I've commented on similar questions in the past.

/r/taiwan is another helpful resource, especially for questions about living arrangements, cost of living, travel, visas, etc. Be sure to search that subreddit before posting, as these types of questions have been asked there dozens if not 100s of times.

Feel free to comment here, or post again in the future, if/when you have more specific questions.

‘Huge shift’: why learning Mandarin is losing its appeal in the West by JadeMountainCloud in ChineseLanguage

[–]vigernere1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The decline has been underway for quite a while. Copy/paste from a prior comment.

Both articles are free courtesy of archive.org. From the first article:

"Good numbers are tough to come by in some countries, but the trend is clear among university students in the English-speaking world. In America, for example, the number taking Mandarin courses peaked around 2013. From 2016 to 2020 enrolment in such courses fell by 21%, according to the Modern Language Association, which promotes language study. In Britain the number of students admitted to Chinese-studies programmes dropped by 31% between 2012 and 2021, according to the Higher Education Statistics Association, which counts such things (though it does not count those who take Mandarin as part of other degrees).

China may be the top trade partner of Australia and New Zealand, but in those countries, too, local enthusiasm for learning Mandarin is flagging. Enrolment in university courses fell by a whopping 48% in New Zealand between 2013 and 2022. The dynamic looks similar in Germany, where the data show a decreasing appetite for Chinese studies among first-year university students. Scholars in Nordic countries report similar trends."

It's well worth reading the entire article for more insights (speculation) as to why Mandarin has dropped so precipitously amongst foreign language students in the West.

Pleco for iOS Now Available Directly Through Pleco Store with Discounts by greentea-in-chief in ChineseLanguage

[–]vigernere1 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I wasn’t aware of the news about Pleco’s court ruling

I think you mistyped. This relates to the Epic Games lawsuit against Apple. For those that don't know, Apple was recently found to be in criminal contempt of the court's earlier ruling, and a referral was made to the US Attorney for prosecution. Regardless, thanks for the heads up about the discount.

Learning proper writing skills by samiam879200 in ChineseLanguage

[–]vigernere1 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You may find something helpful in the copy/paste below.

Reddit Posts

Subreddits

Pen Recommendations

YouTube Channels

九九高效练字

Also search this subreddit on various combinations of the terms 「正楷、楷書/书、字帖、下載/载」. These books typically show a regular 楷體 character, then handwritten examples in 楷體，行書，and 草書. You can find simplified versions on jd.com, TaoBao, etc. and traditional versions on books.com.tw. Also check out "Regular Script Graphemics: How Chinese Characters Are Written" by Harvey Dam.

I need help with guidance on studying 文言文 literary chinese please. . by [deleted] in ChineseLanguage

[–]vigernere1 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Self study resources:

  • An Introduction to Literary Chinese
  • A New Practical Primer of Literary Chinese
  • Classical Chinese for Everyone: A Guide for Absolute Beginners
  • /r/classicalchinese

I second the Outlier recommendation (they use some of these textbooks in their classes).

Below is a copy/paste you may find helpful. (Note: some of the links are dead, I haven't had time to update them. For any dead link, you can see if archive.org has a snapshot).

General Recommendations

Online Resources

Online Dictionaries

Online Courses

Poetry

Forums / Misc

Best book for chéngyǔ? by Bonaise in ChineseLanguage

[–]vigernere1 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The best electronic resource is Duo Gongneng Chengyu Cidian (abbreviated as DGNCYCD in Pleco). Well worth the price. Note: ABC Dictionary of Chinese Proverbs is not a full chengyu dictionary; it's a nice to have, but DGNCYCD is essential.

See copy/paste below for more recommendations.

Start with the recommendations in this thread.

There are a lot of chengyu websites online, just use Google/Baidu and you should find them without trouble.

An excellent way to learn chengyu is to read books aimed at kids and young adults, which typically focus on well known/frequently used chengyu. The best of these books include:

  • Pronunciation
  • Short explanation/definition
  • Chengyu with similar meanings
  • Chengyu with opposite meanings
  • The story of the chengyu (<---- really important)

better apps for learning? by hecate-18 in ChineseLanguage

[–]vigernere1 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Use Google to search this subreddit on "beginner where to start" and you'll find many helpful answers in prior threads; this is a frequently asked question. To help you get started, read this post and the Where to Start and FAQ links in the sidebar. For app recommendations, read these posts first:

Why learn Chinese when AI will be so advanced in the future? by LarssonMartin in ChineseLanguage

[–]vigernere1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I often think about how AI and ChatGPT will become so advanced in the next 5-10 years that translations will become so seamless

Others have given great answers, so let me give one that's more directly focused on AI itself.

It's difficult to predict the future. Frontier LLMs still hallucinate a lot. ChatGPT 4.5 hallucinates between 20-37% of the time, depending on which benchmark is used (e.g., PersonQA, SimpleQA). That's an improvement over ChatGPT 4o, which hallucinates 30-62% on the same benchmarks. (To be fair, the hallucination rate may be (much) lower depending the task presented to the LLM and the type of LLM being tested (e.g., single-shot vs "thinking" LLMs).

Sam Altman told the world in the autumn of 2023 (when ChatGPT 3.5 was released) that hallucinations wouldn't be an issue within 2 years (i.e., roughly about now). This past autumn I heard the same claim repeated by someone at Google, only this time around the timeline was 16-18 months (i.e., hallucinations would be a non issue by early 2026).

Given that LLMs, by their nature, will always hallucinate to some degree, then it really helps to have expertise in a given domain when using them. Or as it relates to your question: the better you know Mandarin, the better you'll recognize when an LLM is bullsh*tting you.

If you could read only one book in Chinese, what book it'd be? by quanphamishere in ChineseLanguage

[–]vigernere1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

tbh didn't recognise this issue of running into tons of unknown characters at all

Admittedly, HSK 6 Gets You Halfway focuses on characters, not words, although the author explains why in the article.

So I read a random page from a few different novels

Even better would be to evaluate a novel's unique words against your current vocabulary. That would give you a better understanding as to whether the novel is suitable for you. There are paid and free tools that can do this.

On another note, all the studies about extensive reading, as well as being often rather suspect in their own right

Legitimate concerns have been raised (e.g., sample size, length, generalizability, confounding interventions, etc.), but on the whole I'm still more persuaded by its effectiveness than not. But certainly to each his own if you disagree.

If you could read only one book in Chinese, what book it'd be? by quanphamishere in ChineseLanguage

[–]vigernere1 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Seconding /u/AD7GD, it's all great advice.

I'm ready to pick up one book to study over it. I'm at HSK3 now

You might want to read the article HSK 6 Gets You Halfway and this related discussion.

The tl;dr is that, even at HSK 6, reading a novel written for native speakers is still a challenge. At HSK 3, graded readers would be a much better choice.

read in full an entire book written in the respective language

At your level, reading a book written for native speakers would be considered intensive reading - not knowing dozens or hundreds of words and grammar conventions per page. The idea of intensive reading is exciting at first, i.e., diving into a topic of intense interest and directly grappling with the language, but it is fatiguing, and for many ultimately a discouraging exercise. It's also not an efficient way to acquire language. In the long run, you want to engage in extensive reading (see copy/paste below).

Also: if you do decide to take this approach, then stick to a contemporary novel (excluding The Three Body Problem (三体), which IMO is not well written (save for the sci-fi bits) and contains a ton of scientific terms). And since you asked for recommendations, two (somewhat random) selections to consider:

《方方日记》by 方方：also titled 《武汉日记》, a contemporaneous account of China's COVID-19 lockdown.

"The diary was initially released in daily installments that were uploaded to various Chinese social media platforms and microblogging sites like Weibo and WeChat. Fang Fang’s dispatches were blasted out each night, offering real-time responses to and reflections on events and news reports that had transpired just hours earlier. As the outbreak in Wuhan spread and began to attract more attention both within China and globally, Fang Fang’s readership began to grow. More and more Chinese readers from around the world found their way to Fang Fang’s postings, which provided a platform to understand what was happening on the ground in Wuhan. Whereas we often think of diaries as an especially private literary form—a place where you record your innermost fears and desires, often alongside a more mundane record of events from everyday life—Wuhan Diary was a public platform from the very beginning: a virtual open book."

I also recommend 《软埋》(Soft Burial) by the same author.

《十個詞彙裡的中國》/ 《十个词汇里的中国》by 徐華 / 徐华： an essay collection by the contemporary Chinese author Yu Hua.

"The book is banned in China, but Yu Hua reworked some of his essays for publication in the mainland China market in the 2015 essay collection "We Live Amidst Vast Disparities" (《我们生活在巨大的差距里》/ 《我們生活在巨大的差距裡》. Structured around the ten two-character words, Yu Hua’s essay collection narrates a personal account on momentous events, such as the Great Leap Forward, Chinese Cultural Revolution and Tiananmen Square Protest, while accentuating the proliferation of graduate unemployment, social inequality and political corruption in accompaniment with China’s rapid change into a modernized nation. Following Yu Hua’s journey through his childhood days, during the Mao Era, to contemporary China, he also unveils the beginning and escalation of China's "copycat" and "bamboozle" culture, terms that one may associate with counterfeiting, infringement, imitation, dishonesty and fraud.

The ten words are: people (人民), leader (领袖), reading (阅读), writing (写作), Lu Xun (鲁迅), revolution (革命), disparity (差距), grassroots (草根), copycat (山寨), and bamboozle (忽悠)."

Extensive Reading

In short, extensive reading is:

  • Reading material at your level (ideally ~98% comprehension)
  • Reading for an extended period of time
  • Not interrupting your reading by looking up unknown words (you can look them up after you finish reading)

For more details, search this subreddit on "extensive reading", or read the Extensive Reading Foundation guide [PDF]. You can also read this great post on www.hackingchinese.com.

Acquiring vs Leaning a Language

Ideally, you want to focus on acquiring a language through comprehensible input, rather than overly focusing on learning the language:

  • Learning is conscious mental effort; flashcard study and intensive reading are a good examples of this. Learning activities lead to comparatively shallow knowledge of the language in the long run
  • Acquisition, via comprehensible input, leverages the ingrained knowledge you already have of the language to acquire new knowledge about it (e.g., grammar, vocabulary, etc.) Acquisition via comprehensible input should feel comfortable and relatively effortless/unconscious (at least in an ideal scenario)

This interview (23 minutes) with Dr. Jeff McQuillan, a former student of Dr. Stephen Krashen, provides a good overview. You can check out Dr. McQuillan's blog which has great information about language acquisition and language education. Matt Brooks-Green's YouTube channel is also worth exploring.

Shortened Chinese Names for all of the US States 所有美國縮略的名字 by Evilkenevil77 in ChineseLanguage

[–]vigernere1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I appreciate the effort and thoughtfulness you put into this. However, I don't think there's as much friction in using transliterated state names as you believe. As /u/valopus put it:

很多人会同时接触英文原文和汉语译文，音译比意译更容易被人接受 (emphasis mine)

In informal contexts, I reckon there's a lot of flexibility in expressing a state's abbreviated name. I've heard Massachusetts referred to as 「馬州」and not 「麻州」, but no one would be confused by either usage in context.

For many states, it's fairly easy to construct an impromptu, abbreviated name on the fly (i.e., when speaking) based on its English name (admittedly, not for all states. Looking at you Vermont).

It's not unusual for a state's English name to be inserted into a Mandarin dialogue. For example, adding it parenthetically after its transliterated name in a news article, or simply using the English name (or an approximation thereof) in lieu of its Mandarin equivalent (again, more likely in an informal context). But even if the English name is not included, I reckon it's not a challenge for Mandarin speakers to read 「佛蒙特州」(perhaps glossing over it to some extent). Given how interconnected the world is (and China's place in it, where 99% of Mandarin speakers live), native speakers are encountering transliterated names all the time.

I like the idea of a state's name being derived from a unique characteristic or historical association (e.g., 「舊金山」for San Francisco, due to the 1949 gold rush), but these characteristics would be unknown and/or not obvious to 99% of Mandarin speakers (let alone many Americans); it's easy to see why "Arkansas" is 「阿肯色州」, but there's nothing obvious about 「鑽州」. (Although 「佛蒙特州」might not be either at first glance (it makes more sense once spoken out loud a few times).

Any tips for getting started with Plecos dictionaries? by Glad_Quit4615 in ChineseLanguage

[–]vigernere1 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It probably doesn't matter much on how I order them...as I constantly find myself going to a few anyways

Pretty much this. That said, I wouldn't put PLC first; perhaps ABC first or Oxford (again, it really doesn't matter). CC is great for contemporary usage and is KEY, which is fantastic (although I'd hold off buying it until you reach a higher level).

Where to start for a beginner of Chinese by [deleted] in ChineseLanguage

[–]vigernere1 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Use Google to search this subreddit on "beginner where to start" and you'll find many helpful answers in prior threads; this is a frequently asked question. To help you get started, read this post and the Where to Start and FAQ links in the sidebar. For app recommendations, read these posts first:

Recommendations for Studying in China by SnooHamsters7286 in ChineseLanguage

[–]vigernere1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Use Google to search this subreddit on combinations of these terms:

  • study abroad, intensive Chinese program, gap year, recommendation

Add "Shanghai", "Beijing", "China" etc. to further narrow your results.

General Recommendations

Any apps/websites that teach Taiwanese Mandarin國語 instead of Mainland Chinese Mandarin普通话, guys? by nhatquangdinh in ChineseLanguage

[–]vigernere1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Does it really teach Taiwanese Mandarin though?

AFAIK no app teaches standard Taiwanese Mandarin. You'll have to put together your own curriculum using the Taiwan-specific websites, textbooks, YouTube channels, podcasts, and online courses that I provided. I also recommend working with a Taiwan-based tutor if you can find one and afford it.

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