Here's My List of Beginner's Books for Self-Directed Study!

[Wonderland]

I set the date of my starting to learn Chinese as 31 Oct. 2004. Since then, I have been surveying the field for the most fun, engaging, and productive way to learn. I realize that every language is different and the resources are different and so the strategy needs to be different. My plan for Chinese has four stages in which I start by learning the basic character monosyllabics and work up to bisyllabics, trisyllabics, and quadrisyllabics (one-, two-, three-, and four-character phrases and sentences).

STAGE 1 - MONOSYLLABICS - exposure and familiarization with characters by skimming old basic reference tools and keeping a notebook when learn something.

1. Analysis of Chinese Characters/Wilder. Seems like a good modernization and restyling of the first part of Wieger, with every entry cross-references to Wieger. Do the whole book, pages 3-346.

2. Cracking the Chinese Puzzles/T.K. Ann, Vol. 1, p. 102- . I don't like his dictionary games, but the information on characters seems authoritative and comprehensive.

3. Chinese Characters Explained/Keilan. Analyzes characters giving elements, authoritative etymological information, and cross-references to Wieger and Soothill's Pocket Dictionary.

4. Kanji ABC: A Systematic Approach to Japanese Characters/Foerster & Tamura. So it's Japanese, just adapt to Chinese. Photocopy the chart on the last two pages which has the best representation of graphemes I've ever seen. Graphemes are better than radicals for comprehension and finding in a dictionary. Radicals are like "departments", but graphemes are smaller embedded pieces in the character, are easier to identify, and seem to have a more stable meaning than radicals. m-w.com definition:

-Main Entry: graph·eme

-Pronunciation: 'gra-"fEm

-Function: noun

-1 : a unit (as a letter or digraph) of a writing system

-2 : the set of units of a writing system (as letters and letter combinations) -that represent a phoneme

5. Kanji Gold. http://web.uvic.ca/kanji-gold/#package Kanji Gold download page

http://web.uvic.ca/kanji-gold/

Lots of fun and fast learnning for identification.

6. Remembering the Kanji/Heisig. Every entry in Kanji Gold has a reference to this book. Not authoritative, but imaginative approach to remembering kanji. "Kanji" is the Japanese word for "Hanzi" (the Chinese characters which the Japanese use, too, but the Japanese have restricted the number of them and use only the basic ones).

7. Beginner's Chinese Script/ (Teach Yourself).

8. Understanding Kanji Characters by their Ancestral Forms/ Go (Simplex).

9. Fun With Chinese Characters/Peng (Infini). Another classic which has been around - only since the 80's?

10. The Complete Guide to Everyday Kanji/Habein (Kodansha).

11. 250 Essential Chinese Characters for Everyday Use/Lee (Tuttle).

12. Chinese Characters: Their Origin, Etymology, History, Classification, & Signification: A Thorough Study From Chinese Documents/Wieger. This appears to be the book which most people refer to as the authority, next to the ancient dictionaries. Skim pages 397 to 664 for the "phonetics series".

STAGE 2 - BISYLLABICS - by browsing dictionaries and bisyllabic compound usage books. Chinese is said to be a "bisyllabic language" and so this must be important to see how two characters together change in weighting and flavoring the new compound.

1. What Character Is That?/ Go (Simplex). You combine the radicals yourself. Radicals have English names in this basic-words dictionary.

2. 2001 Kanji/Ching (Barron's). Better coverage of elements than "Fast-Finder" and references to "The Nelson".

3. The Modern Reader's Japanese-English Character Dictionary/Nelson. Also referenced in Kanji Gold.

*4. Student's Four Thousand and General Pocket Dictionary/Soothill. *This is Chinese, but I haven't seen it yet.

STAGE 3 - TRISYLLABICS - Grammar; Easy Readers; Dialogs; Phrasebooks; Spoken Language; Hanyu Pinyin Pronounciation; Sequence of Character Arrangement in phrases using adjectives and prepositions.

1. Chinese/H.R. Williamson (Teach Yourself). Dialogs. This is the old edition; I haven't seen the new edition yet.

2. Short Cuts to Chinese/Giles (Padell). Basic words nice introduction.

3. Chinese for Beginners and Advanced Beginners/Mok (Ungar).

4. 1200 Chinese Basic Characters for Students of Cantonese/Whitaker (Lund Humphries). Short stories with translations.

5. How to Study and Write Chinese Characters/Simon (Lund, Humphries). Companion reference tool to Whitaker.

6. any cassette course (for words and pronunciation in hanyu pinyin, which is the Western alphabet with a new name).

7. Dictionary of Chinese Classifiers With English Equivalents/ (Heian International).

8. Passport to Chinese: 100 Most Commonly Used Chinese Characters/Shan (Heian). Lots of common use combinations.

9. A Reference Grammar of Chinese Sentences/Tiee (Arizona).

*10. Chinese Unmasked Simplified Character Edition/Ma (Cheng & Tsui). I haven't seen this one. Is this a good book? Schools like this publisher? Simplified or Traditional edition?

STAGE 4 - QUADRISYLLABICS - these are used to make pithy philosophical sayings.

1. Fun With Chinese Idioms/Yee (Federal).

2. Learn Chinese the Fun Way/Peng (Heian).

3. Chinese Idioms/Peng (Heian).

4. Easy way to Learn Chinese Proverbs/ (New World).

5. Easy way to Learn Chinese Sayings/ (New World).

6. Easy way to Learn Chinese Idioms/ (New World).

[beirne]

You have done a lot of work here. Why not just start with common words and move to less common ones rather than work from one to four syllables? Also, nearly all of the books are oriented toward characters and phrases. Is your goal to learn characters or to know the language? If you want to speak, read, and write I would suggest a general instruction book like you would find with other languages. Something like Teach Yourself Chinese, the Practical Chinese Reader, Integrated Chinese, etc. I think these fall in your section 3, but they should really be the starting point and the other books should be references to accompany them.

[Pravit]

I think learning how to connect all these words through context is much more important than learning the words themselves. It's one thing to open up a pinyin dictionary and see about 100 listings for the word "zhang", it's another one to learn each of these meanings through context. A person with no knowledge of Chinese could memorize a full dictionary's worth of words and still not be able to speak it. But it does seem you've done quite a bit of work, so I congratulate you.

[geraldc]

I agree the previous comments.

Plus:

Put the audio element in stage 1 of your plan. Learn to speak a bit first.

Learning to read and write by yourself will be very very difficult. At least get someone to teach you the basics of writing first. Stroke order and placement etc.

Not a good idea to mix Japanese, Mandarin, and Cantonese text books.

Need to figure out if you want to learn simplified or traditional text. I'd learn one then convert, rather than try learn both at once.

Stage 4, you'll probably need a book on classical Chinese. It's practically a completely different language.

[Wonderland]

I think some of my inspiration for Chinese came from Barry Farber's book, "How to Learn Any Language", page 159. I read that learning Chinese is a "life involvement". I thought I could accommodate and assimilate the characters like using flash cards and eventually gain access to the written language in this way without getting burned out.

I thought that it was important also to learn the etymology of the characters.

http://www.internationalscientific.org/why_study.aspx - "Why Study Chinese Etymology"

I see some merit in learning about words and sentences and I don't want to be overly cautious and slow in my learning, but I don't see any context between syllables of compound words such as kwai dze (chopsticks) and gung gung chee chuh (bus). And how would it help me to learn "conversational Chinese" in Central Florida if I would have no opportunity to use the spoken language, there are no language classes and the people are hostile to foreign languages altogether.

I don't think that learning characters from Wilder or Ann is like trying to memorize from a pinyin dictionary. These books have an order and grading to learning the characters which show logical groupings.

Why isn't it a good idea to "mix languages"? I thought that the Asians have some foundation which makes it much easier for, say, a Japanese person to learn Chinese than it is for any Westerner to learn Chinese.

What I wanted to avoid was the mistakes of the last generation who, during the war, rushed to learn only the spoken language. They missed all the richness of the written language in their misplaced priorities.

Textbooks generally seem designed to instruct students in a classroom and a lot is left unexplained or in a Teacher's edition (Integrated Chinese has one). The reader's reviews at Amazon.com said that it is not easy for a "self-learner" to see which word in Chinese coresponds with which English word and even when you see the corresponding words side-by-side, how do you make the connection in your mind to remember them?

[Pravit]

From what I understand, you want to learn the written language. It is obviously a good idea to know lots of characters in order to read the written language, but you will need to understand how they work with each other(this is a rule for any language). It's true classical Chinese has a lot of one-syllable words, but I don't see why you want to learn the words in this order(one to two to three syllable). Do you plan on learning the pronunciation along with these words, or just the meaning?

As an example, download the DimSum reader at mandarintools.com and paste a Chinese text into it. It will give you the meaning of each character, but the text is still incomprehensible, unless you have some knowledge of grammar.

Why isn't it a good idea to "mix languages"? I thought that the Asians have some foundation which makes it much easier for, say, a Japanese person to learn Chinese than it is for any Westerner to learn Chinese.

The Japanese use some characters which are no longer used in modern Chinese; in addition to this, the meaning of a character in Japanese may be different from the meaning in Chinese. Don't know if this applies to back in the day when the Japanese wrote things in classical Chinese, though.

The reader's reviews at Amazon.com said that it is not easy for a "self-learner" to see which word in Chinese coresponds with which English word and even when you see the corresponding words side-by-side, how do you make the connection in your mind to remember them?

A lot of those people are the type that order a bunch of books, sit down for three hours, and give up. It is difficult to see which words correspond to which in any language. The solution is to learn grammar and understand the different structures of the sentences in each language. As for remembering them, you learn them through context and repetition(in context). It is not a good idea to learn words in isolation - not only is it difficult, but you don't learn how this word can be used with other words. In my early stages of learning Russian I kept a notebook and wrote down every word that I had to look up in the dictionary, along with its meaning. Unfortunately, looking back a week later, I did not remember the meaning of any of these words. I discontinued this practice, but recently I had a look at the notebook to see how much I knew - and I knew all of them, save a few. One way to train your mind to learn new words is to not use a dictionary for a while. Over time, you keep recognizing a certain word over and over again, used in a particular context, and you begin to guess at its meaning. You then look it up and figure out that your guess was right, or almost right, and then you remember the meaning because you've seen it so many times. As an added perk, with this method you don't learn any useless words which crop up only once or twice in a given text.

[Claw]

The Japanese use some characters which are no longer used in modern Chinese; in addition to this, the meaning of a character in Japanese may be different from the meaning in Chinese. Don't know if this applies to back in the day when the Japanese wrote things in classical Chinese, though.

Not to mention that Japanese characters can also differ in the way they are written from Chinese. It's already an inconvenience learning the difference between traditional and simplified Chinese, so it's just an added hassle to learn their Japanese version. For instance:

Traditional Chinese: 龍 Simplified Chinese: 龙 Japanese: 竜

Traditional Chinese: 廣 Simplified Chinese: 广 Japanese: 広

If you're only interested in learning Chinese, it's just an added complication that will cause confusion. You will typically never see the Japanese versions of such characters in Chinese writing.

[Pravit]

Anyone up for learning Hanja?

[Claw]

Anyone up for learning Hanja?

Let's throw in Hanviet while we're at it.

[beirne]

I think some of my inspiration for Chinese came from Barry Farber's book, "How to Learn Any Language", page 159. I read that learning Chinese is a "life involvement". I thought I could accommodate and assimilate the characters like using flash cards and eventually gain access to the written language in this way without getting burned out.

I think you will get more burned out learning all the minutiae of characters without being able to form sentences and use the language productively. By studying etymology you will find that most characters are based on a phonetic similarity that may still exist or may not. There aren't that many characters like 好 and 大 to keep you interested when isolated from the rest of the language. This can be interesting stuff but it won't really help you learn basic Chinese. A lot of books teach the written language at the same time as the spoken language so just pick out the right general instructional book.

I see some merit in learning about words and sentences and I don't want to be overly cautious and slow in my learning, but I don't see any context between syllables of compound words such as kwai dze (chopsticks) and gung gung chee chuh (bus).

The connections will come as you learn the language, both spoken and written. When I started it drove me nuts that the whole language seemed to be built on random sounds. Since nothing sounded like the words I know in European languages it was hard to memorize strings of meaningless syllables. Over time I learned their meaning through repetion and practice and they started to make sense. For example, I learnd qi4che1 early on since automobile comes early in study. I later learned that gong1gong4 means public. Now, it may be interesting that in character form gong1gong4 qi4che1 means public affairs-share-air-vehicle, but I was a lot more interested in learning the word for bus than learning a syllable that means share since I could use the word bus in everyday life.

If you are really set on the written language then at least look at something like John DeFrancis' Beginning Chinese Reader series. These books are all characters and have you start reading at a simple level and add characters to the passages as you go. You will still need an instructional book to go with it but you will be immersed in the characters while learning the language itself.

[geraldc]

Any chance of an update? It was an intriguing plan, and I'm interested in how your finding it.

[Wonderland]

Thank you for your interest and I am still seeking input.

The books I finally chose still look new. I spent some time learning Hiragana and Katakana and am now about one-third of the way through Heisig's book on Kanji. For recognition of characters, sometimes I remember and am encouraged; sometimes the explanations are too outlandish and don't stick or need more action and interest. The need for repetition; to speed up the pace; and for a change from "dictionary-reading" all direct me toward more "real reading".

So I have added four textbooks to make the transition to reading. They are:

1. Rapid Literacy in Chinese: New Approaches to Learning Chinese/Pengpeng (Sinolingua) 2001 (I like the tone and the 1:1 correspondence of characters to Pinyin);

2. Short Cuts to Chinese/Giles (Padell) 1943;

3. Japanese for Everyone: A Functional Approach to Daily Commuication/(Gakken) 1990; and

4. Nakama 1/Makino (Houghton Mifflin) 1998.

I consider Heisig to be my central book because other books cross-reference to him; he has two super-good indexes which will serve as study aids; there are still volumes 2 and 3 for repetition; and he seems to reach out and offer "ownership" of the language. He said somewhere (I can't find the reference) that he is offering, "not a crutch, but a new way of walking." He seems to say, "these Chinese characters are an important body of knowledge and they belong to the whole world and to you, too, since you are part of the world. Satisfy your need and aspirations toward the Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world."

Every morning, I turn on my computer and see the icon for "Kanji Gold". It is inspiring to me to have a goal of learning a basic set of characters, even knowing that these characters change meanings when used in combinations to make words. I keep thinking I should learn the sounds for each character for conversation and so I could look them up in a pinyin dictionary instead of using the "radical root" method of regular dictionaries.

I have questions about the best way to make my own dictionary and about how I could talk/communicate with my limited knowledge. I have been thinking about making a dictionary with entries like the Go dictionary, that is, writing the English names of the elements or graphemes using "component analysis" (and in spatial orientation) and adding an entry for every permutation and keyed to Pengpeng or to Ho's Chinese-English Frequency Dictionary: A Study Guide to Mandarin Chinese's 50 Most Frequently Used Words (Hippocrene) 2002. I also wonder if I could point to the Kanji to "talk" to Oriental people and make my meaning understood. Also, which Fuzambo dictionary is keyed to "The Nelson"? I got a Fuzambo dictionary and it doesn't correlate with Nelson at all.

[wushijiao]

Certainly an interesting plan! When in doubt, err on the side of being too ambitious.

When i started I also used "Rapid Literacy in Chinese: New Approaches to Learning Chinese/Pengpeng (Sinolingua) 2001'. Great book, many becasue of the cross refrencing of characters so that you understand how they work as words.

I'm also a fan of T.K. Ann. I thought he had a unique system for learning the written language and his sense of humor comes through as well.

Like some other people, I'd still recommend that you put a bit more emphasis on listening (a free site: http://www.china.org.cn/e-learning/1.htm). Good luck!

[junebee]

I learned alot from a book and tape set by Barron's called "Learn Chinese (Hanyu) the Fast and Fun Way. Granted, it's mostly tourist info, but you can learn words for articles of clothing, days, numbers, family members, etc which are always useful. I was hooked by the cartoon-type illustrations when I borrowed the book from the library. The lessons are short and well-organized. It's new and used on amazon.com A great starting point for your language adventure.