Dienstag, 1. Dezember 2009

Learning the Mandarin Characters (Hanzi)

Once you've got a good vocabulary base in Mandarin, and preferably not before, you'll want to get started on learning the Hanzi.

I've found the following combination quite good for learning the characters:

1) Tuttle Learning Chinese Characters - gives you picture stories with built in mnemonics for remembering the tones and pronunciations of the 800 most basic characters (HSK Level A), and builds up your character knowledge systematically going from least to most complicated by only introducing characters containing components you've already seen

2) Tuttle Chinese-English Learner's Dictionary - Contains the 4,800 most frequently used Chinese vocabulary items, including the 3000+ words for HSK Level A and B proficiency, and over 4,700 sample sentences with characters and pinyin, and the best thing, all the entries are arranged alphabetically by pinyin in the main dictionary, or can be looked up as in a standard Chinese dictionary. Compound words are broken down into their constituent parts to facilitate learning and understanding.

If you combine these two resources with Skritter's (http://www.skritter.com/about) Spaced Repetition approach to learning how to write the characters, you'll gain the character fluency you're striving for in no time!

Also, smartfm.com has a great program for learning the 2,500 most common characters (http://smart.fm/goals/49389-chinese-characters-level-1-beginner) using the Spaced Repetition Method and memory games, and it's free!

Also, this is a good free site for the 4000 most basic characters, and each entry also contains a flash video of the stroke order:

http://www.learnchineseez.com/read-write/simplifie d/index.php?page=1

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