汉字字根理论

[tlevine]

Does anyone know where I can find this book? I assume this is a translation of the English title. Someone supposedly used it to learn 2500 characters in 89 days and thus break some Guinness world record.

The name suggests that book uses a method similar to that of Heisig's books.

[HerrPetersen]

Sorry, but no I have never heard of the book. A personal recommandation for a book that is quite compatible with the Heisig approach (though you probalbly already know it): http://www.zhongwen.com/

Of course he is a half blood, as someone with no chinese blood would not be able to do it. I believe, that for instance on the Remembering the Kanji page there are people who learned 2000 kanji in much less time. (Even though most without pronounciation). Still I am a little sceptic about the world record thing. That being said, very much respect to the guy.

Edit: I agree with the person posting below. It seems more than a little fishy. If he would have been able to pass an intermediate/advanced HSK, it would surely add to the credability. On the other hand, he didnt seem to have claimed to learn how to speak.

[imron]

I'm not so sure it's a book, but rather just a description of the method he used to learn characters. If it was a book, surely it would have been written as 《汉字字根理论》 instead of "汉字字根理论".

[roddy]

Note that he's scribbled a website address on the blackboard, and it's also mentioned on some of the certificates - I think that's what you're looking for.

Note also that he hasn't got a Guiness World Record. He's got some certificates from some 'World Record Committee' which has consulted Guiness records, whatever that means, and I can't see the "World Record Committee - Chinese Written and Verbal Language" existing anywhere else on the Internet. They also seem to have made up their own rules.

By all means have a look at the guy's methods, but it all looks a bit odd to me.

Edit: Same people are behind this. Seems like the guy's dad wrote the $400 book which allows you to achieve this remarkable feat.

[tlevine]

Note that he's scribbled a website address on the blackboard' date=' and it's also mentioned on some of the certificates - I think that's what you're looking for.

Note also that he hasn't got a Guiness World Record. He's got some certificates from some 'Word Record Committee' which has consulted Guiness records, whatever that means, and I can't see the "World Record Committee - Chinese Written and Verbal Language" existing anywhere else on the Internet. They also seem to have made up their own rules.

By all means have a look at the guy's methods, but it all looks a bit odd to me.

Edit: Same people are behind this. Seems like the guy's dad wrote the $400 book which allows you to achieve this remarkable feat.[/quote']This makes more sense to me now; it seemed such a record would be very subjective, and I hadn't really read the whole thing. I still don't doubt that he really did learn enough to read a newspaper though.

I'll still look at all of the links people gave me.

My Chinese actually teacher actually showed me the article without pictures, so I hadn't thought of looking at the picture in the article I posted.

[imron]

I still don't doubt that he really did learn enough to read a newspaper though.

I do.

After looking into this a bit further, it's all a bit riduculous. From their rules:

The method of verification of proficiency:

1. Fifty (50) words from a current newspaper of the selected language will be randomly selected. Each word will be presented for ten seconds and the attempter will duplicate each word by hand writing and will provide its meaning.

Note: This is not a timed section. However, one hundred twenty (120) minutes could be a reasonable estimate.

2. Three (3) headlines will be randomly selected and the attempter will translate each headline into his or her native language.

Note: This is a language proficiency test and not a culture knowledge test. Therefore, any cultural-laden phrase shall be excluded from this proficiency test. This is not a timed section. However, forty five (45) minutes could be a reasonable estimate.

3. Test on the proficiency of using a dictionary:

Knowing how to use a dictionary is a very important part for literacy. In this section, twenty (20) minutes is allowed for the attempter to use a dictionary to check his or her previous test sections.

Note: The dictionary used by the attempter shall be examined and approved by the testing and verification committee.

4. Standard for success and completion: The way of point calculation is as follows:

1. Each word of the fifty (50) word section accounts for 2 points, and the total section accounts for one hundred (100) points. In this section, each question has a two part answer, duplication of a word by hand writing and the meaning of that word. An error in either part of each answer will result in a 0.80 point deduction.

2. Each answer for the headline translation section accounts for 5 points. This section of the test accounts for fifteen (15) points.

3. For the dictionary section, no point is given directly. Any point gain through corrections of the two above test sections by using a dictionary will be the score of this section.

A test score of eighty (80) or greater (from the sum of all three sections) will be success and completion for this test.

So, it doesn't prove that you can read a newspaper at the level of a native speaker at all. You only have to provide the meaning of 50 characters at random. They say words, but if you look at the pictures, it seems they are only testing characters. Even more humorous is that it appears at first someone chose a two-character word, but one of the characters was then scribbled out. As any learner of Chinese who has tried to read a newspaper knows, simply knowing the characters is not enough. You need to know the word combinations.

The next step is to read and translate 3 headlines - in 45 minutes. If you're talking about having acheived native-level proficiency, then 5 minutes is probably more than enough for this, maybe 10 minutes to account for nerves or whatever. Just doing a quick test then, I did it for three headlines in under a minute. Not to mention that any headline with cuturally laden references is not used making this section both significantly easier and also useless as a test of real world Chinese ability. They say "This is a language proficiency test and not a culture knowledge test", but as anyone who has learned a foreign language knows, language proficiency and cultural knowledge are closely linked.

Finally, and for me, this is the kicker - You're allowed to use a dictionary to check and correct your results

Also, if you look at the scoring system, you get 2 points for each character - 1 for being able to write it, and 1 for being able to state the meaning. However if you get any part wrong, you only lose 0.8 points. So, even if you get it completely wrong, you still get 0.4 points Or, to put this another way, as long as he was able to write the character after being shown it for 10 seconds (not necessarily a difficult feat and allowing him to pick up 1 point per character for a total of 50 points), then he could get the meaning of half the characters incorrect and still pass! In fact it could be even more than this, because he still has another 15 potential points to pick up in the headline section.

Anyway, good on him for putting in so much time to study characters, but to claim as they do that based on this test he has acquired native level proficiency is just silly. I would have been more impressed if they said - here's a newspaper article. You have 10 minutes to read it, then you need to explain in English what it's talking about. Then do that for another 3-4 random newspaper articles. As it is, they've stacked the rules so heavily that I have to wonder just how much real Chinese this person actually learnt.

[imron]

Also, we've discussed chinese-word-roots before.

[roddy]

Yeah, I fail to see what being able to identify the 克 of 沙克吉 says about your Chinese level.

I can't help but be dubious about the guy's initial level of Chinese also. He's got a 'certificate' saying he didn't know any, but he's the son of a guy who writes books about Chinese characters. What are the chances he grew up with no exposure at all? [edit: ok, parents divorced at 9, he was brought up by non-Chinese mother] And now the younger son is going to do it all again?

My initial reaction was that this was some dubious attempt to sell books, but given that you actually have to dig pretty deep to discover that there's even a book for sale I don't think that's the case. I just think there's a little community out there that has for its own reasons formed a small educational ecosystem. They write the books, they use them, then they award themselves world records. We all need hobbies, I suppose.

[HerrPetersen]

Good analysis roddy, that is pretty much what I was thinking.

It just doesnt seem fair to have someone declared the worldchampion of something, when he or she is the only one participating. Like I said, there are quiet a lot of people who managed to complete the Remembering the Kanji book in under 1 month, (take Heisig himself), which almost seems to be sufficient to pass the test.