Problems working out new vocab when reading

[Guest realmayo]

I don't think this has anything to do with the fine and well-worn advice not to focus on learning individual characters at the expense of actual words.

I'm getting frustrated at myself for not being able to work out the meaning of new words I come across in newspapers which ought to be super-obvious -- ie words which I should be able to work out myself. Most of them have more than two characters.

What I mean is: I'm familiar which how 化 on the end of word tends to imply "-ation", so if for the first time I see 城市化 then I can guess that this means urbanisation. That's not so hard.

But just now I saw 关键词 in part of a sentence and thought ermm, dunno what any of that means. But one hover of my cursor later and the dictionary tells me this means keyword, and I kick myself because I know what 关键 means and I know what 词 means, but I didn't have the brains to put them together. I think it's compounded by the fact that there are no spaces in Chinese sentences. I'm also aware that arguably 关键词 isn't one word but two, but I picked this as an example because I just came across it now. & even if you say it's two words, my brain still didn't want to work out the obvious way that they're connected, it just thought: this is too hard, I don't know what it means!

Another one: 东汉末. I saw this and hadn't a clue. But once I see it means the last years of Eastern Han; the breakup of the Han dynasty around 200 AD, well, I know what the component words mean: east + Han + end of. So I kick myself for not at least having a better guess at the meaning.

This is just a moan really but does anyone else know what I mean, find any ways around it? I'm guessing more reading, patience, and not immediately running to the (esp mouse-over) dictionary is my best bet. Moan over.

[imron]

and not immediately running to the (esp mouse-over) dictionary is my best bet.

This is a big one I think. I find that mouse-over dictionaries and the like basically shortcut the part of the brain that does all the thinking and figuring out (i.e. the learning) and just gives you the answer For a long, long time I avoided electronic dictionaries in preference for a paper one for this very reason (it was more work, and therefore stuck more in my mind), and it was only the 'add word to flashcard list' feature of Pleco that finally converted me because it allowed me to look something up quickly but still provided an easy means to go back over all the words I'd looked up.

The other thing is really just practice and increasing your exposure. For example, now that you know 东汉末, next time if you see something like 明末清初 you'll probably be able to get it without any trouble.

[roddy]

Where's the one I had to stare at for a while the other day . . . 梯度. Hadn't seen it before, couldn't figure it out, eventually had to look it up. It means

gradient

. Which makes sense, when you know it.

[renshanrenhai]

Don't blame yourself too much, it's not your fault! In my opinion, this is a good chance for you to realize there are some phrases and collocations in Chinese. Once you equip yourself with these collocations and phrases you will find it easy to identify them from a non-space sentence.

“关键”is one word, and "词"is another word, so you can see "关键词"as a compound word.

[jbradfor]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again (until Roddy starts to delete my posts....): I think the ease of being able to figure out the meaning of "words" based on the individual "characters" in Chinese is significantly over-rated, especially in the beginning. Most characters have enough different meanings that I think it can be nearly impossible to pick out the correct one. It's a bit like being given tone-less pinyin and being asked what the characters are ;)

Take 关键词 for example. Even assuming you broke it apart correctly (i.e. 关键+词, not 关+键词), both 关键 and 词 have so many different meanings, 词 for example can refer to a word, a sentence, speech in general (e.g. 致詞, 證詞), parts of speech (動詞). So does 关键词 mean the climax of a speech? The important part of a sentence? The chorus of a song? A plot twist?

Certainly some words are obvious from their componant parts. But overall, until one reaches a certain point (and I'll let you know what that point is when I reach it!), I think it is to be expected that one needs to look up new words, even when one knows the characters.

[roddy]

Sally, while I appreciate that you're trying to help here, we're not actually idiots. We know Chinese has compound words and phrases and collocations. Some of us have even managed to work out that it has tones, and I, personally, am planning at the weekend to count them.

I'll also note that very often you're not trying to figure out the meaning from the characters - you 'll be paying just as much, if not more, attention to context.

until Roddy starts to delete my posts...

Imron keeps putting them back.

[Guest realmayo]

jbradfor, you're right, and actually I was wrong to write the subheading to this post the way I did (so I've now deleted it -- uber-ninja editing) , because I didn't mean to describe the process of putting two characters together, so much as putting two words together. Yes, these are moot terms in Chinese, but what causes me frustration is when I think I can legitimately kick myself for being stupid (once I've looked something up). If it turned out that the 词 in 关键词 was used to mean "a part of speech" and 关键词 meant something like "the key part of speech in a sentence" then I wouldn't be annoyed at myself because that's hard to guess (unless - as Roddy says - context hadn't been providing a hefty shove in the right direction). But based on my understanding of 关键 and of 词, I'm surprised I didn't quickly guess the right meaning.

[jbradfor]

While I understand what you mean, I still think the issue -- at least with the examples you gave -- is characters. For 关键词, for example, the 关键 part is a lot more straight-forward, as its meaning is more circumscribed. In contrast, 词 has so many meanings that I couldn't narrow it down. Similar with 东汉末. If some one had give you a hint, "it breaks down into 东汉 + 末", I bet you would have been a lot more likely to figure it out. With a bit more practice you'll start to see "东汉" as a unit -- and now, with this discussion, you'll start to see it now. B)

Show me an example of a word made out of two other words, where each component word has a fairly limited meaning, and you still are unable to figure it out, and I'd be surprised. In practice, what seems to happen, is that Chinese will take the two 2-character words, put them together into a new 4-character word, decide that is too long, and then drop two of the characters back into a 2-character word, except now you have no chance of figuring it out

[anonymoose]

Show me an example of a word made out of two other words, where each component word has a fairly limited meaning, and you still are unable to figure it out

东西

and I'd be surprised

Are you surprised?

[jbradfor]

Unless I'm missing realmayo's point, I don't think 东西 counts. What I think realmayo is asking about, given the comment "I didn't mean to describe the process of putting two characters together, so much as putting two words together.", is when you put together multiple-character words together to form a new word. To me, 东西 is a perfect example of why trying to figure out the meaning of a 2-character word from its component characters is problematic at best. While it is true that both 东 and 西 have fairly limited meaning (although 西 often has the meaning of "foreign" as well), they are obviously not two character words; further, I think they are often (although I don't have any evidence for this now) used as part of a word, e.g. using 西邊 instead of just 西, especially when spoken.

I was looking for examples of putting together multiple 2-character words in a way that isn't clear from the context. [but, given past history, I'm sure you'll find some examples of those was well :o]

EDIT: chengyu's don't count.

[jkhsu]

What about 小说 or 矛盾？Would those fit better than 东西?

Edit #2: Re-editing to respond to jbradfor's edit of removing 成语 terms.

I think there are quite a few examples of two character words where knowing only each character won't help you figure out the word such as 小说 (which I don't think is a 成语). Although it's harder to find combo words made up of multiple 2 character words that isn't clear from the context, it really depends on one's level of Chinese and exposure. Just the other day, I got tripped up by "注意力". If one hasn't seen the word before but has only seen "注意" and "力" used in other context one may not immediately get the exact meaning 注意力. Again, just my own personal experience.

[creamyhorror]

both 关键 and 词 have so many different meanings, 词 for example can refer to a word, a sentence, speech in general (e.g. 致詞, 證詞), parts of speech (動詞). So does 关键词 mean the climax of a speech? The important part of a sentence? The chorus of a song? A plot twist?

Some of these meanings are more likely than others. Context often determines this. Sometimes these words are direct translations of English terms, which makes them a bit easier to guess. This is not so much for 关键词, but for many other terms. I think you can view these compounds as coinages which solidify into a consistent meaning the more often they're used by writers.

Once you learn the "keyword" meaning of 关键-词, you'll learn to automatically break it down that way. And you'll start noticing all the adjectival uses of 关键 around if you hadn't before - 关键时刻，关键论点，关键数据，etc.

I find what's more complicated are words with meanings that aren't so directly linked to their component characters' common meanings, e.g. when they are allusions or metaphors. For example, 叫座, 青睐, 喝彩, 关照. Luckily they're nowhere near as common as more clearly linked words.

With combinations of 2 x 2-character words, I think it's clearly easier to guess what's being said, mostly because you know the unambiguous meanings of each 2-character word - things like 恶性循环 and 自首变节. It gets tougher with individual-character expressions (4 x 1) like 倚老卖老, 归根结底 and 蔚然成风; there are multiple possibilities. (I guess some of these qualify as chengyus.)

At the end of the day (to 归根结底), you have to learn as many words and expressions as you can, and this helps in understanding new or related coinages. It doesn't guarantee you'll get it all, or even most of, the time, though.

[Guest realmayo]

I think you can view these as coinages which solidify into a consistent meaning.

Yes, I think this is an excellent point. The apparent 'logic' to the word makes it easy to remember once you know what it means, but it's this same logic which makes it frustrating not to get it first time!

I do think characters that seem to act as suffixes, like +力 or +化 or +性 (hell, even +国?) are a special case. But not so much because they usually act in a uniform way (ie modify the preceding word in the same way), but more because once you're used to them they act as a flag: 'ah, I don't make immediate sense of these few characters, but hold on here's a 性, would that fit with the preceding 系统, yes it would, eureka! ...."

On further reflection I think it's the fact that I don't know if these characters are bound together or not that just makes me see a sea of characters but nothing solid, and then give up and jump straight to the dictionary. OK imron, I'll try keeping away from that most of the time.

[anonymoose]

But, given past history, I'm sure you'll find some examples of those was well :o

Aw, you've taken the fun out of it now. Anyway, one that always throws me off until I take a second look is 发展中国家.

[imron]

Anyway, one that always throws me off until I take a second look is 发展中国家.

Surely this means someone who is an expert at helping China develop

[Guest realmayo]

... not someone developing the middle of a country? B)

[renzhe]

This is a big one I think. I find that mouse-over dictionaries and the like basically shortcut the part of the brain that does all the thinking and figuring out (i.e. the learning) and just gives you the answer For a long, long time I avoided electronic dictionaries in preference for a paper one for this very reason

I knew that there had to be a good excuse for only using paper dictionaries

(the real reason is that I prefer reading long texts when they are printed on paper, but I will use this explanation in the future)

[roddy]

发展中国家

Pet hate for me also. Parsing fail, every time. I remember once I did a find and replace to change it into 发展里国家, just so it'd stop doing my head in.

[Glenn]

I'd never seen it, and it got me at first too. Luckily in Japanese it's 発展途上国/開発途上国. No ambiguity there.

[jbradfor]

发展中国家.

I knew you would come through for me!

That's a good example. Strictly speaking, as others have said, that's more of a parsing issue, but I really like that example.