Herman Oving Online Chinese language course Block A Sept to Dec 2007

Hi Lorne, I'm not doing Hermans' Course, but as a student of the Chinese language for a few years now, I thought I'd throw in my two cents. I think the only thing you can really do IS just keep writing. Over and over and over again. Then a few more times.
Good luck.

No problem Lorne. I know how grueling it can be to learn the characters, but believe it or not, it Does get easier. Once you begin to understand the structure of a character and learn the phonetics, you'll soon be able to decipher and remember tons of characters.

Contrary to what many people assume about the Chinese written language, there is definite logic to the compositions.
I started learning Chinese immediately after graduation (2003 from the Shang Hai TCM college) at langara college. I was also doing a 1 year apprenticeship with 2 Chinese doctors and between TCM stuff, would drill them with language questions. I then spent a year at the Beijing University of CM and did the course in Chinese. I thought what better way to learn then to jump in the fire. It was hard at first but just got easier as time went by. my desire to learn Chinese was similar to yours Lorne. To increase my knowledge of TCM and read medical journals to be up to date with current research and trends.
Good luck to you all. It's definitely a journey, but well worth it.

Eran Even Dr. TCM, R.Ac
Coast Acupuncture & Traditional Chinese Medicine
Port Coquitlam, BC

Hi Herman,

How important is the pronunciation. I did assignment one but did not learn how to sound the characters. Will I lose out if I focus on reading and writing only? My biggest obstacle is time. I did manage to memorize and put on cards the first 10 characters. But I did not manage to learn the 4 tones or learn the pronunciation of the characters. My objective is to be able to read medical articles in Chinese. Let me know what I need to do and I will do my best.

Questions about assignment one

part 5 (c) http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/Lindict/
Here is where I may have missed out on pronunciation. Was this for ren2 or also ren3 and ren4? This software did not sound it out our for me although it had the icon for it. I went to )http://www.uvm.edu/~chinese/sounds/ren.WAV) but it sounded it for all ren's. Between my lack of time and being somewhat tone death (in my opinion) I just passed by on pronouncing the characters.

Part 5(d)
When learning characters are we to learn the complex stroke counts? I may have missed this but I needed to refer to CMC I to figure out the radical for for Wu3?

Sorry for all the questions. I figure if I get off to a good start and base it will be easier later in the course.

Lorne
www.acubalance.ca
www.prodseminars.com

Lorne,

Quote: How important is the pronunciation. [...] My objective is to be able to read medical articles in Chinese.

If your sole objective is to be able to read Chinese, it is not strictly necessary to practise pronunciation. However, I'd advise to keep the sound of the characters in mind while writing them down. Also, when you teach or write (or translate), you often need to know the correct pin1yin1. Knowing pinyin is also useful for checking dictionaries, indexes etc. ... and thus, it is one of the requirements for the Block A exam.

Quote:Questions about assignment one

part 5 (c) http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/Lindict/
Here is where I may have missed out on pronunciation. Was this for ren2 or also ren3 and ren4? This software did not sound it out our for me although it had the icon for it.

I am not sure what your question is. The link brings you to Lin Yutang's dictionary. And then?

Quote:I went to )http://www.uvm.edu/~chinese/sounds/ren.WAV) but it sounded it for all ren's. Between my lack of time and being somewhat tone death (in my opinion) I just passed by on pronouncing the characters.

Listen carefully. There are four tones!

Quote:Part 5(d)
When learning characters are we to learn the complex stroke counts?

Yes, practise both simple and complex forms. After a while, you will see the patterns (the way complex characters are simplified).

Quote: I may have missed this but I needed to refer to CMC I to figure out the radical for for Wu3?

I'm not sure what you mean.

Quote:Sorry for all the questions.

Asking questions is the only way to learn.

Herman

Brad Matthews
Dr TCM
www.nswellness.ca
Hey Lorne (et al),
First of all, congratulations to those of you taking the time to learn to read and write Chinese - it's a huge undertaking. I am not by any stretch fluent, but am able to read and write a good deal of TCM literature. For me, (and also a previous post) repetition was/is the only way to do it. But, don't worry, as you develop more of a "feel" for it, you will begin to see a lot of repetition in characters, and it will (believe it or not) start to getv easier.
Paul Unschuld has a couple of books called "Learn to Read Chinese" that can be quite helpful. Plus, they have an added bonus that a lot of the passages are actually taken from the Classics, so you get to review those as well.
I think one of my biggest mistakes was in concentrating too mych on the written language, at the expense of the spoken one. It seems I have developed a kind of reverse illiteracy whereby I can read and write to a certain degree, but can't speak to save my life. Luckily, in Vancouver, we have the benefit of a very large Chinese-speaking TCM community, so it is no excuse not to attempt to learn to speak it as well.
I have found, that on a personal note, the more Chinese I learn, the deeper the medicine becomes for me. Once you begin to learn some of the characters that are part of TCM, an acupoint for example takes on a whole new meaning - check out a book called "Grasping the Wind" (sorry, I can't remember the author). It's a fascinating examination of why the points are called what they are called, and you will see that they are so much more than merely a number.
Good Luck!