Chinese Mandarin Learner: Hanzi Stroke order

Showing posts with label Hanzi Stroke order. Show all posts

25 May 2012

Free CML Blank Hanzi Worksheet

03 November 2011

Electric Things

A long long time ago when I learned Japanese, I started to become very interested in kanji. The first one that fascinated me was 電. I liked the story of the rain and rice field with the bolt of lightning (natural electricity). Now that I am learning hanzi and simplified Chinese the character looks like this 电 and loses much of the original story. However I have realised that this character is turning up again and again in my vocabulary lists. Here are some examples with literal translations;

电视 Electric Look - TV

电影 Electric Shadows - Films

电梯 Electric Stairs - Escalator

电脑 Electric Brains - Computer

电车 Electric Car - Tram

电邮 Electric Post - Email

电话 Electric Voice - Telephone

When I think about these words it makes me think how logical and straight forward Chinese language sometimes is. The literal translations act as automatic mnemonics so that I can easily remember them.

20 September 2011

NPCR1 to NPCR2

Recently I reached a milestone in my learning. I finished New Practical Chinese Reader and began New Practical Chinese Reader Two. There are some noticeable differences between the two texts. The most obvious is that there is no longer any pinyin with the dialogues that begin each lesson / chapter. The idea is that the text will gradually ween us off the use of pinyin. According to the introduction in NPCR1 this is part of the methodology of the series of books. A more subtle change is that the grammer, sentence patterns, questions and answers have become much more complex. I expected the texts to become more difficult, but there seems to be quite a jump from simple Chinese to more complex Chinese.

Here is something I did not expect. There are many suplementary resources for NPCR1 across the Net. As for NPCR2 there seems to be very few resources available. I can't understand this. It is as though learners had very good intentions to begin learning Mandarin, worked their way through NPCR1 and then stopped. Alternatively many of the supporting web sites seemed to have given up creating media that would help learners who choose this text. There are a few websites where I can still access some resources, but others finished with Lesson 14 of NPCR1. So this makes working through NPCR2 for me a bit more dull and less of a rich learning experience. I have searched for suplementary materials for NPCR2 and found nothing.

I still have access these sites;

Chinese Character Writing Exercise Sheets

Quizlet

YellowBridge

Hanlexon

I should mention that my university UNE does supply me with multiple resources to support my learning. The lesson guides are very detailed, well written and support my studies. There is much to do and much to learn in my course of study.

So onward and upward using NPCR2. If anyone has a NPCR2 related resource or resources I would be very pleased to know about it.

09 September 2011

Chinese Character Etymology

When learning characters I often find one of the best ways to remember is by learning the etymology of the hanzi. This method helps me a great deal. By looking at how the characters have changed over time and seeing their original forms creates links in my memory. I much prefer this to rote learning the hanzi.

I have found three sites that are useful to look up hanzi etymologies.

YellowBridge has a Etymology Explorer which allows you to draw the character (using a mouse) to aid lookup. There are other methods of lookup too; English, Pinyin and others. After finding the hanzi, the explorer can then show the formation method, simplification method and character decomposition.

Hanzi Etymology Explorer

Another site Chinese-Characters.org has a Pinyin index and a Radical index. Unfortunately the last entry into the weblog was in 2009 and the home page explains that it was a huge project and a labour of love. Do not expect this site to have everything.

Chinese-Characters.org

Third site that you can find much detailed information on hanzi etymology is 中文.com. While I like this site it does look very busy and complex. It displays the hazi with every associated compound. It does have multiple ways to lookup. You can even make quizzes with the learn page.

Hanzi Etymology Explorer
Hanyu.com

So three very useful sites for etymology look-up.

Does anyone know of any others? Leave a comment if you have a similar site to recommend.

02 September 2011

MDBG English Chinese Dictionary

MDBG English Chinese Dictionary is the best online dictionary I have found so far. The dictionary The word dictionary contains information about Chinese words, consisting of one or more Chinese characters. Results of searches in the word dictionary will show the following;

Simplified / Traditional Chinese, the Chinese words matching the query
Mandarin, the Mandarin pronunciation in Pinyin or ㄅㄆㄇㄈ (Zhuyin Fuhao)
English, the English definition
Traditional / Simplified Variant, the Traditional / Simplified variant if available
HSK, the HSK level(s) in which this word occurs

I find it very useful as it has animated stroke order and you can hear the hanzi pronounced. It will break the hanzi into character composition. The interface is very easy to use. So a very useful tool for a Chinese Mandarin Learner. Have a look for yourself MDBG Character Dictionary

The most common Chinese characters in order of frequency

The most common Chinese characters in order of frequency is an interesting website. The 汉字 hanzi are listed according to falling statistical order.

The tip from the web page introductions states that the list could be used;

"Students can use the character list to create flashcards in order to train Chinese. Teachers can aslo make such cards to use in their teaching. Write the Chinese characters (possibly both simplified and traditional forms) on one side of a little piece of cardboard. Write pronunciation and explanations on the other side."

The list has 2700 hanzi. It has the first 2400 hanzi and then there are gaps. I like the look of this web site and the list. It has hanzi, pinyin and examples of usage and sentences. Quite a useful resources. Here is an from the beginning of the list.

The most Common Chinese Characters in order of Frequency