Chinese: A Description for Teachers of Other Languages – 2

4 thoughts on “Chinese: A Description for Teachers of Other Languages – 2”

1. Eric Herman

   November 21, 2014 at 7:17 pm

   Fascinating! Thank you, Diane.

   Much of this is new info to me and good to know. I’ve been asked before how you learn to read Chinese. I’ve also seen cold character reading and pinyin talked about on moreTPRS, but I’ve never really understood.

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2. Diane N.

   November 21, 2014 at 10:26 pm

   Thanks, Eric. This is the kind of stuff I think about a lot.

   Some of the pinyin and all of the characters in the text got zapped by the blog (it can’t display Chinese text). I posted the same content on a blog I participate in, so if anyone wants to see that it’s at: http://tprsforchinese.blogspot.com/2014/11/chinese-described-for-teachers-of-other.html

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3. Catharina

   November 22, 2014 at 5:53 am

   Thank you Diane. How interesting. Am I understanding correctly that Japanese and Chinese characters are mostly similar? I always wondered if each Asian language had developed their own set of characters over time. I’ve also seen vertical writing in Japanese papers.
   If I were to have kids read in early elementary I would try cold character reading in French. I understand it much better now. A little like high frequency sight words in Kindergarten.

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   1. Diane N.

      November 22, 2014 at 4:53 pm

      Hi Catharina,

      The Japanese began to write their language after Chinese scholars came in the 700’s. First, it was all exactly the same set of characters (but later, Japanese adapted to using some characters – sometimes they are written a little bit different, but still pretty much the same – and they created 2 syllabary phonetic writing systems). Chinese has been written vertically from top to bottom, and also horizontally from right to left, and mostly is now just as English is written (left to right). Japanese I think is likewise, but don’t quote me on that. I know in my college Japanese classes we read from left to right like an English text would be.

      My French dept. chair says she sees similar issues in reading for students of French because the spelling doesn’t seem to match the pronunciation.

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