Learn mandarin - How many characters is enough? -

> Learning Chinese > Reading and Writing
How many characters is enough?
Home New Posts

Login: Pass: Log in or register for standard view and full access.





Page 1 of 7 1 23 > »






JimmySeal -

Hello all,

I've been feverishly learning Chinese for the past two months in preparation for a 10-day trip to
Taiwan at the end of July. By now I know the pronunciations of about 900 characters and about 100
compound words. I've seen various statistics on the number of characters necessary for literacy
(3000, 6000), but how many would you estimate are necessary to read almost everything I see? That
is, how many to be able to read 98-99% of the characters on any page of a book or newspaper? I'm
just curious. Does anyone have any statistics relating to this?

Thanks, and pleased to meet you all.



Pleco Software Learn Chinese with our Dictionaries for Palm and Pocket PC.
Learn Chinese in China Learn to speak Chinese 1MonthChinese.com -Mandarin School in China.
Chinese Textbooks Wide range, cheap, varied languages. Also Chinese cartoons, toys, gifts.
Study Chinese in Beijing Affordable Mandarin language courses at BLCU with ChinaUnipath.com.
HNHSoft Dictionary Learn Chinese on Smartphone and PDA with real person's voice.
XueXueXue IQChinese Get beyond the plateau.Take your Mandarin to a new level.
Chinese in Lijiang Short term Chinese study in a beautiful town with a focus on daily life.
MandarinTube Chinese Access to current everyday Chinese language and culture, 24/7.
Learn Chinese Homestay Chinese course, cultural activities & volunteer events in China.
Learn Chinese Online 1-on-1 instant tutoring, diverse courses, native teachers. FREE trial now!
Nihao Chinese Progam Free one-on-one Chinese lesson. Win 5-years of free lessons now!


About Ads (and how to hide them) -- Your message here









terran261 -

I don't personally know any numbers on this, but I can say that simply knowing the characters
isn't enough. Even if you are able to read it aloud, it will take considerable practice to be able
to actually decrypt the information as you read it. Although simply cramming characters into your
brain is important, I would focus more on those compound words, as they are what really provide
the substance of an article.










DrZero -

If you want to maximize your enjoyment of a 10-day trip, I don't understand your approach. You
won't spend most of your time in a hotel room reading, will you? Why not focus more on speaking
and listening, and use pinyin?
I agree that knowing the compounds is crucial. Maybe you should halt learning new characters for
now, and focus on compounds involving those you already know.










billiardsmike -

I can't stress the compounds enough - they are words, afterall ! It's not unusual for me to be
able to read entire sentences and still have virtually no idea as to the meaning because I still
don't know those particular usages.










kdavid -

There was a post earlier that said with a knowledge of around 3000 characters you could read up to
around 10,000 words.

As the posters above said, the character combinations is the most important. At this stage in my
studies I know around 1200 characters, but can read over 2000 words and this is due largely to
different character combinations.

On the other hand, you can know 3000 characters but not be able to decipher them in context and/or
know what they mean in different combinations and therefore not be able to read 1000 words (as
Chinese tends to be a disyllabic language).

I agree with Dr. Zero: this sounds like a short trip for you, don't spend it studying otherwise
you'll miss a lot. Talk with the locals when you can and focus on your listening and speaking.










JimmySeal -

Hello, and thank you all for your advice. I know that my approach seems unorthodox, but I am
fairly certain that I know what I'm doing. I know that other "quick and dirty" methods may make me
more conversational in preparation for my trip, but I am more focused on my long term studies,
past my trip to Taiwan. I would rather stick to what I am doing now, and be less proficient at the
end of July, than take some other approach and derail my study in the long term.
Plus, being able to read signs and menus surely has its benefits. And I don't intend to spend my
time abroad studying; that's why I'm doing the legwork now.

In any case, I was really only mentioning the trip as a means of introduction. I still am curious
about my initial question, or if no-one has an answer to that, would anyone be willing to tell me
how many characters they think they know, and how close to high reading proficiency they would say
they are?










imron -



Quote:

I still am curious about my initial question

Try reading the following threads:

http://www. /showthread.php?t=15960
http://www. /showthread.php?t=15392
http://www. /showthread.php?p=78748
http://www. /showthread.php?t=80
http://www. /showthread.php?t=4675

They should provide you to most of the answers you asked in your post.










JimmySeal -

Those threads are very informative. Thank you for pointing me in the right direction.










djwebb2004 -

The answer is that with 3000 characters you cannot understand everything you see. The government
has a list of 3500 frequently used characters and a larger list of 7000 commonly used characters.
The latter includes characters most Chinese people do not know. So you need at least the basic
3500 and then some.










muscle -

I can tell you. I have a book with just such statistics.

For Single characters:
1400 will cover over 95%
2000 will cover 98%
2451 will cover 99%
3477 will cover 99.79%

Now if you want to know about words then
4500 words covers 88.7% to 90.7%
8000 words covers 95.1%

This book is published in Taiwan, so while you're there
you might want to pick up a copy.
It's called 6,000 Chinese Words: A Vocabulary Frequency Handbook
by James Erwin Dew
copyright 1999 by SMC Publishing Inc.
P.O. Box 13-342, Taipei 106
Tel (886-2) 2362-0190
ISBN 957-638-527-X












All times are GMT +8. The time now is 04:32 PM.














Learn Chinese, Free Chinese Lesson, Learning Materials, Mandarin audio lessons, Chinese writing lessons, Chinese vocabulary lists, About chinese characters, News in Chinese, Go to China, Travel to China, Study in China, Teach in China, Dictionaries, Learn Chinese Painting, Your name in Chinese, Chinese calligraphy, Chinese songs, Chinese proverbs, Chinese poetry, Chinese tattoo, Beijing 2008 Olympics, Mandarin Phrasebook, Chinese editor, Pinyin editor, China Travel, Travel to Beijing, Travel to Tibet