Minimum requirements for reading

[Chief123]

Please don't get all technical on me but a character has several different components that would need to be understood for complete fluency. Pronunciation, radical, stroke order, parts of this character matched up with that character creating a whole new character, meanings, what characters this would go with to make a word, explanations (this is a man sitting under a tree with a hole in it and the hole is so he can throw his beer cans to the other side without arousing the anger of the Gods), etc.

If you're trying to get started reading how much of that is necessary before you can say you "know" the character or word? In other words I might on sight recognize the character for morning but have no clue about any of the parts and pieces that make it up outside pronunciation. Is that okay or what's the best way to go?

Thanks,

Mark

[anonymoose]

You don't actually need to know any of that stuff. If you can remember the pronunciation and meaning of the character, that is enough.

However, you'll find the radicals and phonetics are a useful aid to remembering the pronunciations and meanings. So, it's probably worth paying attention to the frequently-used radicals. You don't need to spend a lot of effort on it though. Most of it you will just pick up in the process of learning characters.

[icebear]

You don't need to spend a lot of effort on it though. Most of it you will just pick up in the process of learning characters.

I think you'll pick up a lot of the radicals etc just through repetition in learning the first 1-2,000 individual characters. As above, it may be helpful to study a bit of radicals independently, but it isn't necessary if you aren't having trouble with character recognition.

[Shelley]

I agree with anonymoose and icebear. But knowing or at least being able to recognize the radicals will help you look the character up in a dictionary.

Because there are lots of ways characters can be combined i think it will be difficult to arrive at a point where you can say I "know this one"

i find that knowing the parts can help me to remember the character because of the "story" it can tell. The character for morning is the sun rising in the east, so knowing those parts (sun and east) helps me to remember its meaning. this helps a lot more for more complicated characters. Your example made me laugh and that would help me remember too, cos if its fun it less like work.

But as has been said above, you will probably pick this up up as you go along.

I'd say just dive in and start reading and solve things as they come up

Best of luck

[abcdefg]

In other words I might on sight recognize the character for morning but have no clue about any of the parts and pieces that make it up outside pronunciation.

That's enough to get started reading, as others above have said. Otherwise your reading will be painfully slow and you will lose the flow of the article or story.

[yialanliu]

Etymology is completely overrated.

7 year old people in China can read chinese. 7 year old people from the US can read in English.

I will bet you that they never really learned anything about etymology. And it is not a requirement at all to read. If you look at how native people learn their language. You hear first, then speak, then read, then write. All of which takes place starting at or before 3-4 years old with no training on etymology until much later. And I think most foreigners would be extremely satisfied to get a 2nd grade level of fluency.

If you are interested in etymology then by all means study it, but:

1) It is not a miracle cure making you suddenly fluent

2) It is not a requirement to become fluent and able to read

I think to read at a good level, you need maybe 1500 characters/2500 words. Once you are at that level, you should be able to read most things upto newspapers. No trade journals, but most mainstream things you can chug along.