Jump to content
Chinese-Forums
  • Sign Up

Reading manga to improve spoken Chinese


Recommended Posts

Posted

@grawrt: Some comics on the list are easier than others, so you might be able to read a few after only a year of study. Unfortunately Walking Dead is not one of the easier ones. My personal recommendation is to know at least 1000 characters before tackling Doraemon or Yotsuba. For comics aimed at preteens and above, I would recommend 2000+ characters. You'll still need a dictionary at hand, but at least you won't be looking up every other word (hopefully).

Posted

@feihong, Yah I figured. I took a glimpse at the first page and my eyes glazed. xD I just got excited seeing one of the comics I read often in chinese hehe. Major motivation!

Thank you, I will try with the smaller stuff and work my way up :)

Posted

Comics have been a great source of learning for me. Comics have helped a bit with my speaking. Probably not as much as watching a tv show, but more than the average book simply because comics are so dialogue heavy.

I've been reading Walking Dead over the last week or two, up to about issue five. Never read it in English, but had seen a few episodes. I am really digging it. I'll try to get a thread together for the comic project when I have a minute to collect vocab. Despite the fact it is about zombies, I find it to be one of the more practical comics I've read. Plenty of real life problems being discussed in between beheading zombies. Definitely on the tougher side, but thankfully much easier than Ravages of Time.

Posted

+1 for the Natural SRS.

I am only just starting to read comics. So far it is painfully, slow, I am slowly improving, and its much more enjoyable than Anki! (:

  • Like 1
  • 3 weeks later...
Posted

+1 for the Natural SRS.

I am only just starting to read comics. So far it is painfully, slow, I am slowly improving, and its much more enjoyable than Anki! (:

Yay I inspired someone!

I have been using Naruto as a center-ofknowledge for Chinese and Japanese. Find a comic you can completely become absorbed in. huoying renzhe for me!

Posted

I also get quite engrossed in the comics, however I find it hard to get into it initially because I am so off-put by how slow it can be, but when I put the time in its quite fun.

My main issue at the moment is, I might be able to go through half a page in a few minutes, but then for the second half of the page it might take me an hour of word lookups and google searches.

I have been recommended Doraemon due to it apparently still being relatively interesting but at a lower reading level. Need to track some down and try it out.

Posted

It's actually a good idea to keep up the dictionary look ups, because the way I see it, if you need to look that much up in the dictionary, then you probably have a lot of dictionary work to do anyway. I used to do this a lot with Japanese, but now that I've ALREADY done the dictionary "frenzy" (as I call it...) now I only have to look up words every now and then, and can sit back and enjoy the rest without being lost.

I figure it wouldn't be any different with Chinese. Put in the time and you'll get results.

Posted
My main issue at the moment is, I might be able to go through half a page in a few minutes, but then for the second half of the page it might take me an hour of word lookups and google searches.

Had a look at comics a few times too. This is exactly the reason I dropped out. There are too many characters I don't know and its all manual look up as it's graphic and consequently pop-up dictionaries don't work.

Granted, pop-up dictionaries make it very easy to lookup characters with the pitfall of not putting in enough effort to recognize/interpret it yourself. But the higher reading speed that follows gives more 'natural' srs which is good. Not sure about the balance. I try to mix a real book with pop-up dictionary and lower level material for 'natural' reading. There I should have covered most of the vocabulary and the remaining are mostly clear from context consequently only sporadic use of a dictionary is needed.

  • Like 1
Posted
I have been recommended Doraemon due to it apparently still being relatively interesting but at a lower reading level. Need to track some down and try it out.

You might want to read this thread. We have some word lists, etc.

Join the conversation

You can post now and select your username and password later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Click here to reply. Select text to quote.

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...