How many unknown characters is too many?

[eya323]

When reading a book, how many unknown characters per page is "too many" to be consistent with my reading level?

To provide some context, I know between 750 and 1000 characters, but struggle with new words formed from these characters when reading. I can read the Chinese Breeze 300 and 500 character books easily and without using my dictionary.

I've heard that 10-20 unknown characters per page is "just right" and more than 30 is "too many." Is there any sort of consensus on this?

Thanks!

[trisha2766]

I don't know but I think even 10-20 unknown characters per page would be frustrating to me, at least after a little while, depending upon the length of the book, etc. Probably would depend upon the mood I was in too.

I'm curious about how other people will answer.

I know between 750 and 1000 characters ... I can read the Chinese Breeze 300 and 500 character books easily

That's good to hear- that's about how many characters I know and I ordered the Chinese Breeze books a while back.

[renzhe]

Like you noticed, the main issue when reading native materials is how many words you know, not necessarily characters.

The proportion of unknown stuff will depend on you. Usually, I find material valuable if I can understand what's going on without too many dictionary references. I try to guess new stuff out of context, based on radicals, individual characters, etc. I will look up a new word if it shows up more than once within a short span, or if it is really needed to understand what's going on. Anything requiring more than one dictionary lookup per page is too annoying for me to read.

Other people have different habits. For me, reading is not primarily for finding new vocab, but for understanding words in their natural context through lots of exposure. If I look up a word every 2 pages, that's 10 words in 20 pages, and that's plenty for me. I would feel very uncomfortable if I came up with 40 new words after 2 pages of a book. No fun to read like that.

Still, having said that, I would encourage you to try materials which are challenging for you. As long as you don't feel like throwing the book out of the window after three pages, it can be useful. Reading challenging materials is the best way to improve your reading level. But I wouldn't look up every single character and word I don't understand. Try to gauge what the important ones are and look those up. Figuring things out from context is a very important part of reading.

[eya323]

Thanks for the advice, Renzhe.

My biggest problem is that I get annoyed by having to look up too many new words. I like the Chinese Breeze books because they contain pseudo-adult content. My Chinese teacher fills a lot of my study time with reading fairy tales and other children's books-- which is fine and makes me feel like I am learning Chinese in a way that Chinese kids might pick up on the language.

I am very interested in history, politics, business, etc., but I get frustrated reading newspapers and magazines-- too many unknown words. I recognize the characters and can usually get the "gist" of the article, but I have to guess at the meaning of the words and phrases and sometimes am completely off.

For example, last summer in Beijing, I picked up a newspaper to see if my reading level was anywhere near where it would need to be to read an article. I thought I was reading an article about ice cream consumption and the weight problem among children in the US, but it was actually about the novelty of ice cream trucks in American suburbs. I got confused because the article had a few sentences about kids chasing the ice cream truck. I thought they couldn't catch it because they were overweight, but I think the author was trying to set the scene of an American suburb in the summer.

Anyway, I'm trying to work my way to reading more authentic material and getting away from texts for Chinese learners. The problem finding that balance between new vocabulary, reading comprehension, and interesting subject matter.

[renzhe]

Well, you are likely still missing quite a bit of vocabulary before you can start tackling serious articles about politics and such. Don't feel bad -- this stuff is actually very tricky.

But there is probably material out there that is more accessible and still interesting and adult enough. If you tackle that first, while working on your characters and vocab, you will eventually reach the level needed for the articles you mention. Finding the appropriate material for your level is important.

Unfortunately, I don't have good suggestions for you. I used comic books as an intermediate step, and I had a decent vocabulary under my belt already before I tackled my first real book (and it was a rude awakening regardless). Personally, I had no problems with reading childish materials, and this makes things easier

[trisha2766]

Now I feel depressed! After reading this thread I thought I'd try to read this book - which I just bought recently: http://www.chinabooks.com/cart/product.php?productid=19659&cat=0&page=1 ( the page shown on the site I could read though, I'm not that bad)

Its for really little kids and I still didn't know around 1/3 of the characters! At least it has pinyin too though, so I can look them up easier.

[renzhe]

With a book like that, it's a good idea to look up every single character and word you don't know, as most of them are bound to be basic.

[anonymoose]

It's important not to frustrate yourself so much that you lose interest in learning.

But on the other hand, we've all been there, and with perseverance, you will be able to get to the stage where you can read a newspaper without having to look anything up, so just keep going at it.

By the way, this is where an SRS program, or some other systematic way of memorising vocabulary would be useful. I remember what used to frustrate me was having to look up a word that I knew I had already "learnt" several times before. Systematically learning vocabulary, you will be able to avoid this annoyance.

[xianhua]

Its for really little kids and I still didn't know around 1/3 of the characters!

Books for children can be misleading though. The book in question is intended for the parent to read to the child (unless these two year-olds are reading). In these cases, you may get animal sound-effects transcribed as hanzi, which are used to keep the child interested. My wife, who previously worked as an English teacher, and conducts herself in English every day, is finding that our 18 month-old's English books are teaching her new words. After all, why would she ever have had reason to know that the pony has a 'tufty' tail?

I gave up looking at children's books in Chinese as there were far too many words which I could waste time looking-up whilst I could actually be using that time to learn much more practical vocabularly. This in turn is more likely to be used on a regular basis - and therefore reinforced into my long-term memory. I think a lot depends on your interests. I have spent the past few weeks learning vocabularly and sentences surrounding events in Chinese history, for example, 抗日战争 (War of Resistance against Japan) and sentences like 1949年,共产党领导的军队战胜了国民党的军队 (in 1949 the Communist Party forces surmounted those of the KMT). Now because I find these subjects fascinating, I will no doubt have good reason to use them in conversation with native speakers, and therefore re-inforce the new vocabularly and sentence structures.

[xiaotao]

I recall reading that when selecting English books for English speaking children, that 3 new words per page was just right and 5 or more is too challenging.

I think that works well with learnering Chinese too, it you want to learn and retain. I like books with the phonetics for easy look up and Chinese readers that have a vocabulary list.

[skritterdoug]

If you can get through the article, even with help from a tutor, and then re-read it several times in the next days and weeks and work on the vocabulary you can bite of stuff way above your level and learn from it (in my experience). If you are more interested in review and keeping your existing knowledge up (e.g. when not actively studying or when studying specialized vocabulary) I would say re-read textbooks and Chinese Breeze type books (they will cover a good deal of basic vocabulary).

I find my textbooks have between 30-60+ new characters/words per chapter (with 2-3 pages of chapter text) so that many is doable but requires focus. If you are reading for pleasure or to improve speed, you want few to no new words.

So, my 2c, is that like everything it depends.

[Caidanbi]

Hmm, I really think this just depends on how badly you want to read the book and how patient you are. When I first started learning Chinese I would spend hours trying to translate song lyrics and magazine and newspaper articles. It was slow because I didn't know the majority of the words and characters, but very interesting because I wanted to learn so badly. As a result of that, I learned a lot of words and sentence patterns very quickly, and my language skills advanced quickly. But I realize that not everyone has the patience or the desire to do that.

[leosmith]

When learning a language, there are essentially two types of reading.

1) Intensive reading, where you grind through and look up lots of stuff you don't know, in order to learn vocabulary and grammar

2) Extensive reading, where you don't look up anything, in order to get comfortable with vocabulary and grammar you already know

1) can be used to learn vocabulary and grammar, but is not absolutely necessary. Most people find it pretty painful. 2), and lots of it, is absolutely necessary to become a fluent reader. The rule of thumb is 5 words (not characters) per page. Of course this depends - the assumption is that someone can get the meaning of 5 words/page from context, thus won't need to look them up.

My ideal learning situation is getting enough vocab and grammar from beginners materials (text books, grammars, language programs, etc) to be able to begin a nicely graduated series of readers, which will gradually take my level up to normal reading material, without having to do 1).