Grand Comic Reading Project #1: Doraemon Color Collection

[Chinadoog]

Do you guys also come across a lot of new characters and words when you read Doraemon? I know about 3,000 characters, but I still come across so many new ones. It's a bit confusing since I know that 8 year old Chinese kids can easily read these comics - does this mean they can figure out the meaning even without recognizing the character?

I'm reading the one called 大雄在海底鬼岩城堡, I'm only 60 pages in but I've already come across atleast 3 characters that aren't even in the top 4,500 character list I have... 真伤脑筋

[Gleaves]

Yes. Definitely. Jbradfor mentions someting about this a few posts up. I find that something like Doraemon (aimed at children) will have vocab that is simple, but not necessarily stuff that I run across. Stuff like all sorts of animals, colors, etc. that I never learned in Chinese kindergarten. Then there is always other unique vocab that kids wouldn't know either. I'm guessing kids just skip that stuff (although even an 8 year old is probably better at picking up something in context than me). Anyways, I always cringe when someone says something like you only need 500 characers to read a newspaper, because I've found that I need a large vocab to comfortably read just about anything.

[HedgePig]

Chinadoog, I probably know less than half the number of characters that you do so I'm coming across a lot of new characters and words. But I can believe that an 8 year old native speaker can read them quite easily. The sentence structure in Doraemon is very simple and I think in many cases, a native speaker would have a good chance of guessing correctly what the right word is, since the word itself wouldn't be unfamiliar, even if the characters are. I suspect that Chinese children pick up a lot of characters this way.

Also having the drawings does help one guess. I've found that I'll often look up new words by typing in the English for what I suspect it means and seeing if Chinese matches.

[jbradfor]

Yes, I've whined about this more than once B)

In some ways, it makes sense. How do native speakers (typically) get a large vocabulary? By reading. For that to work, they must come across words they do not know when reading.

Just in case you don't know about it, I would like to draw your attention to the vocabulary lists for each comic we are creating. feihong has created a nice wiki for this, and many people are adding words to it. I encourage you to review it before reading a chapter, to pull out any words you don't know, and to add words you come across that do you don't know and aren't listed.

The words I've added, for example, are typically from the (new) HSK level 6 list (which covers the most common words from the 5,000th to the 10,000th), or are not on any HSK list (meaning not in the most common 10,000 words).

[feihong]

@Chinadoog

I think those word lists really aren't worth much. They might be generated using some text corpus, but it's not necessarily a representative sample.

I can pretty much guarantee you that any video game- or cartoon-obsessed eight-year-old Chinese kid can figure out what's going on in Doraemon. And they probably don't worry too much about the few things they don't understand.

But yeah, even though I labeled Doraemon as "easy", I still had to look up a bunch of words while reading it. Yotsuba, which doesn't have any sci-fi themes, is probably easier, if you can stomach traditional characters.

[feng]

Im getting into some Doraemon, I went to the bookshop and asked for them and ended up with some really heavy thick versions which i can't carry around in my bag. Is anyone aware of a traditional version of the online version linked above?

[HedgePig]

Hello feng - I'm afraid, I can't help you regarding traditional characters. But I was curious about your remark regarding "heavy thick versions". When I bought Doraemon in simplified characters, I found the books quite small (A5 size?) - and in fact have difficulty reading the characters (the curse of getting older!). I eventually gave up as I found I was making enlarged photocopies - but this was really too much effort and not convenient to read anyway. So I wouldn't mind getting hold of something which has a larger print (in simplified) Do you have any information about the thick versions - ISBN number or something that might help me locate them?

[feng]

@HedgePig Being in Taiwan, only traditional is available here. I just went to my one of my few local book shops, and purchased the only thing they had available, which still has very small text. The reason it is so thick and heavy is that the only thing I could find at this book shop was every single doraemon comic ever written inside one book!

[tijana93]

the links rnt working for me -.- maybe its just that theyre a bit older and need an update? and i was so looking forward to it =.= help~

[feihong]

@tijana93

I've updated the links. Try again.

[tijana93]

Thanks. The download link isn’t working, but I can read it online now~ Hmm, is it ok if I post some questions about the words and phrases i come across while reading it here, or should i go to the other subforums? Noone seems to be reading this right now, so maybe it’s better if I look elsewhere...

[tysond]

Many people watch the new posts so any questions you post here are likely to get some attention.

[feihong]

@tijana93

 

The download definitely still works. You just need to be patient while the counter goes down to 0.

 

As for posting questions, this is as good a place as any on the forum for asking questions related to Doraemon.

[tijana93]

Thanks~ Could someone explain the differences between 变， 变化, 变成, 改变 and maybe other similar words I should know of...all are related to change, but I’m curious when do we use which one? I think I have some general idea, but I’d like a more detailed answer...I have a few sentences from Doraemon 周围环境(btw is this an expression)的变化而改变的动物。so 变化 is the noun, but 改变 is confuzing me a bit. Also, could we refrase this sentence using 变成？ 变成木头就不会沉下去了。ok so here 变 or 变化 cant be used, but what about 改变？可以任意变长或缩回来吗。还可以改变方向。ok, I’ve found tons of examples, they change stuff a lot, and usually use 变成， but then there was this sentence 草…变栅栏了。why 变？ Why not 变成？ Anyways, I’m totally lost now, and as you can see, I am a beginner, so some help would be welcome...

Also, this sentence 大雨天的， 总算没白跑一趟。

Uh this is so depressing now that I see it all in one place...

[renzhe]

变成 means "turn into". It requires a direct object

变化 is a noun, meaning "change"

改变 is to change something, like "alter" or "modify"

Could you tell us where the other sentences are? I could use some context.

[tijana93]

Thank you~

[tijana93]

omg i actually finished this~

I finished the 150 something pages, this is officially my first comic book in chinese! I'm so proud of myself kekeke~ Apparently there's more, like another volume or something, but I think I've had my fair share of Doraemon for a while now. I really need something new... Oh, and I have to notice that it got so much easier (that's probably my getting used to reading in chinese tho <3 ) compared to when I started...I've added some 200-300 words to my anki deck, so it feels like i have progressed a lot~

So, what would you recomend next, given my level and all...Tho I'd really prefer something with a story, a plot or something, as fun as the short stories were, my brain started to hurt towards the end...Ah also, I was wondering, what level do you think shoujo mangas are? Compared to Doraemon, how much would I have to read and learn in order to read some easier shoujo stuff? Did you guyz have anythibg like that for the GCRP? If not, pleaseee do~

[tysond]

Congrats!!!

I moved to One Piece after some Doraemon. Interesting characters and stories.

Graded readers are also good for improving reading skills.

[tijana93]

Thanks!

Ah I've heard of One Piece, but it seems extremly long...Also, given the popularity, I'd expext it to be much higher level than Doraemon...Hmm, I was wondering, is there a chinese android app for reading manga/hua/hwa? It seems China has apps for just about anything, do you know a good manga app? I've heard of those books, but atm I can only do free online stuff~ Do you have any other suggestions, something that's not too long, so I can finish it quickly?