Learning Pinyin

[Riyeko]

Hi there, my online name is Riy and im really new to the forums.

I have expressed an interest in learning chinese for about two years now, and just finally started to get really into it.

I listen to a lot of chinese music, and can understand "some" of it, such as.. when someone says "i love you" or "i want to fight" i can figure out through listening to the chinese, that thats what theyre saying.

Anywho, I am coming across a problem.

I am starting to teach myself the basics before I get into a college course (its hard to find one where im from, which is middle of nowhere america). I am able to understand and read the english lettered pinyin version of chinese, but I am completely in the dark when it comes to the actual characters themselves.

Just a note.. the "basics" im talking about, are counting to 50, shapes, colors.. etc.

Such as, I can read yi er san, 1 2 3, but sometimes when it gets up into shiwu, shiliu, its hard to understand the actual characters.

The only thing im coming up with in my brain is to write out the characters themselves over and over again, such as reptition to burn the characters into my memory.

Im asking if anyone has any other advice that they can give me on how to keep learning some of these "basics".

Note: I am a baby at beginning to learn chinese, and can barely say anything beyond hello, goodnight and welcome in chinese >_< .

Thanks in advance,

Riy

[kkaite2]

Hi from my experience; if you want to learn Chinese, you have to learn to write characters the right ways:

1. each Chinese characters is composed of simple strokes: . 一 丨 丶 乁 乀 丿乚 乙 亅

2. those simple strokes has to be written in the correct ways (left to right, up to bottom, etc. )

3. when combining those simple strokes to form a new characters, there are sequence that has to be followed: (radical first, either at the top or left side; etc)

4. you can watch youtube for writing lessons;

5. practice by repetition (write with the correct stroke orders )--> like when you learn to write English the first time

6. after you practiced a lot, when you found a new characters you can write them in the correct orders because the sequencing rule are the same.

As of using only Pin Yin to write a document; I do not think that you can write an article in only Pin Yin and expect people to be able to decipher the article.

[Hofmann]

What might be helpful in learning a character is looking at its etymology and using spaced repetition software.

[jbradfor]

I'm a tad confused. You title this "Learning Pinyin", but it sounds like you are interested in learning characters?

Anyway, first, I applaud you for realizing that you should learn characters, and be willing to do so. Especially in the beginning, it can be too temping to just learn pinyin. To progress much beyond the beginner stage, you'll need to learn characters, as discussed in this thread.

Do you want to just learn to read or to learn to read and write (by hand)? The benefits to being able to write by hand are debated, but two things that are definite are that it takes a lot of time, and outside a university most younger-urban Chinese don't write much by hand.

If learning to write now does actually appeal to you, in addition to the advice by kkaite2, you might want to check out www.skritter.com.

If you just want to learn to read (which, if you can't guess by now, is my advice ;)), Hofmann's advice is, as usual, golden.

Once you have learned to read 300-500 characters, I recommend starting to practice reading. You would have a long way to go before you can read native material, but there are many books aimed at CSL learners, even at the beginner stage.

[grahamH]

Hi, I would recommed reading right away with a beginner reader, or textbook to guide your studies. For me understanding how a character or a word is made (see the etymology link from Hofmann) let's me tell myself a story that associates it's meaning and construction.

Take 'you' 你, the radical on the left means person, the second part, 尔, also means 'you'.

Now 'him/her' 他, also has that person radical, but the second part, 也, means 'also'.

The person radical with a personal pronoun makes sense to me, a simple phrase like, 'the person is stood by you and that person also', is an example of how to tie it all together.

How you apply this is personal, and doesn't have to makes sense to anyone but you.(That's my disclaimer if this didn't make sense )

In the specific example you gave about the numbers, if you can read from one to ten, then you can read to ninety nine. You just need some practice to get comfortable with the characters. I took a mathmatical units, tens, hundreds...and so on approach because I'm that kind of logical geeky kind of guy, and Chinese really lends itself to it.

15 or 十五, is one 10 and 5

25 or 二十五, is two 10s and 5

Another way would be to write yourself sums in Chinese, or rewrite price tags into Chinese. Or any other example you can think of where you will actually use numbers.

Hope this is helpful, and is more enjoyable than plain repitition.