How long did it take YOU to be able to write...?

[iteachchina]

Hey everyone, I have a serious research question. I have read bunches of your comments on these forums and respect many of you for your diligence, efforts, goals, and ability. I would love to get some accurate info on 4 questions. Both of these questions have to do with from the time you STARTED studying Chinese.

1) how long did it take you to reach the level where you could accurately recognize approximately 1000 characters (the 90% level)?

2) how much could your write at the six month point?

3) how long did it take you to reach the point where you could WRITE 1000 characters from memory?

4) if the point of question 3 still hasn't been reached, how many characters CAN you write from memory and how long have you been studying?

Again, I'm asking here because from your comments on these forums, it seems like there are quite a number of very serious students here, mostly IN China. It also seems that there are quite a number of methods being used, and quite a number of people still searching for a 'better' way. I think the comments might be very enlightening.

Thanks (in advance) for your input.

[imron]

By writing, does that also include typing?

[iteachchina]

No, not typing. I mean handwriting. To me typing is just punching in pinyin and then character recognition. That's not the same as actually writing. But this writing could be on a screen, like in pleco or phone, etc. I mean your really being able to write characters. Thanks for clarifying that before I got a long string of answers that weren't what I was asking!

[roddy]

I don't see the value of a 'six month' point - surely it's the hours that count?

[iteachchina]

Point taken. Different people study in different quantities per day/wk/month. However, to ask an hour count might be impossible for people to remember. At an average of one hour per day, in six months that 180 hours. And I guess for my purposes, I'm more interested in what people accomplished in six months as a general insight into that initial study period.

In other words, what do people in general ACCOMPLISH in the first six months, not how much do they study. That 'how much per day' might be an interesting string to pursue too...

[OneEye]

You have to realize too, one somewhat popular approach is to learn characters separately from actually learning the language. They'll cram 1000 or 3000 or however many they've chosen to learn, and just learn how to write them and an English meaning. Not how to pronounce them, how they form words with other characters, or anything else. Just the writing and an English word (some people will learn the pinyin or other things too, there are different variations). Then later they'll go on to learn everything else. I did this myself, so I was able to recognize and write 1000 characters way before I could ever put a sentence together, or understand anything but the most basic phrases. In hindsight that probably set me back in some ways, but it also made learning new characters much, much easier.

I haven't kept records of this stuff though, so who knows when all this happened.

[iteachchina]

Well, what you say is true, and that's exactly why I'm asking. It seems that most everyone learns Chinese in parts. I know bunches of people who are studying, but the different elements of Chinese (reading, writing, speaking, even tonal ability if you want to call that a part, and also level of pronunciation) are rarely if ever learned together. That's why I'm asking about the writing, as that seems to be the part that comes last for many.

[iteachchina]

Your comments also make me wonder, how much effort do people put into their chinese studies in the first six months. I know for me it was a bunch. A couple hours a day, and more on days when I had the time. I still put in a good 30 min to 2 hours a day. How about you?

[OneEye]

Like I said above, I didn't keep records, so I have no idea. It's been several years since then. Whatever it was, it should have been more.

If you're asking about now...I live in Taiwan now and am getting ready to do an MA in Chinese here. Pretty much my entire day is spent using Chinese, studying Chinese, and using Chinese to study Chinese.

If you ask me, "tonal ability" and pronunciation both fall under the same category. I'd even argue that it's more important to have solid tones than it is to get the rest of the syllable right. I once argued with a lady for a good 2 minutes about the fact that I ordered 鳳梨清茶 but she gave me 蜂蜜清茶. The problem is that I was saying fènglì, which she heard over and over again as fēngmì, even when I told her to look at my lips to see if I was saying 'm'. Still, 「對啊，蜂蜜啊。」 Finally I realized my mistake, said fènglí, and she had a good laugh at my expense. Moral of the story: tones are more important than just about any learner thinks they are. They may even be even the most important thing to really master.

[drencrom]

After learning to write in Japan, I pretty much gave up writing after I had to start over with my language study in China. I made a conscious decision that learning writing wasn't worth the huge effort, and that I would be dependent on computers and mobile phones my whole life. It's worked well, the only real writing I ever need to do is writing a note for my housekeeper. Heck, the only English I ever write these days is shopping lists or meeting notes.

[tooironic]

@OneEye I agree that tones are usually more important than correct/standard pronunciation of sounds. I imagine the reason she could accept fēngmì as fènglì is because a significant number of native Mandarin speakers pronounce "l" as "n", and "m" is not much different to "n".

@drencrom But there is a slight difference there between the languages, I think. While writing a list in English only requires one to know spelling (which is an intuitive part of typing anyway), writing a list in Chinese requires both a comprehension of Chinese characters and the muscle memory to write them clearly and correctly.

[JonBI]

1 year in traditional. It gets easier once you have the first 1000 though, because then you see patterns. Studying the classical as well as a bit of phonology also helps to make more sense of the stuff. Still, I find that if I don't write for a week I forget how to write quickly.

[ZhangKaiRong]

I guess the six month point depends on the teaching/learning style. After half a year, I was only able to write about 90-100 characters, because my teacher thought in the first few months, acquiring good pronounciation and listening skills are more important than Hanzis, so during classes, we practiced these, and at home practiced writing Hanzis. So six month later, I could speak way more words and expressions than I could actually write.

After arriving to China, my writing skills started to raise quickly. Around last december I touched the 1000 characters milestone, that time I was preparing for the HSK4, so I learnt how to write the characters necessary for the words in HSK4, and also knew the characters necessary for my other exams at school. But 1000 characters isn't really a big deal, I guess you won't be able to write a proper story just using those 1000 characters

[Steingletscher]

I guess you won't be able to write a proper story just with using those 1,000 characters

I forget the name of the it and the author, but someone did write in modern Chinese a novel using only 1,000 characters (and it's considered a modern classic). But of course to get the point where you can read it well would require a lot of time (and knowledge of far more characters) just to get a feel for the complexities of (I'm assuming would be) the unusual grammar and ways in which the characters are being used.

I only started learning Chinese just over 7 months ago when I arrived here in China. Except for most of the first month, I've been studying the language full-time, so I don't know how many people I represent. During this time, I've mostly been using the BLCU textbooks which focus mostly on character combinations. After the first 3 weeks, I stopped counting how many characters I could recognize, but it was around 400 then. So I guess that after only two months I knew about 1,000 characters. It was probably a month longer before I could write them from memory (and of course when combined with other characters). Now it certainly is double that, more like 2,500, with me constantly practicing my Chinese (especially in reading and speaking). Now I have no problem learning new characters and can remember how to write them quite easily after reading them once. I think it was a little after the first 1,000 I was able get a really good feel for them and be able to remember them easily. I still have trouble transcribing spoken word though even though I know the characters. If I wasn't in China, I'm sure it would be far lower. Plus it would be near impossible to find kids books, and or other materials for native kids to learn their own language. Those things have helped me immensely. There might be a better way, but I think that in the end, you are going to have to put aside trying to figure out which is the best way and just do it.

A friend of mine studied in America for only one year. After studying here full time, he has gotten to the point where he can talk to anyone on the street about almost anything, both in 普通話 and 四川話 (though he pronounces both the same, he can speak both by using different vocabulary for the same thing); accents don't hinder his progress at all. He has been able to skip years worth of class-time in only a few months (in addition to studying Japanese and Tibetan at the same time). But like me, he is constantly studying--either reading, writing, or having conversations with Chinese people. His English has plummeted though.

[OneEye]

I imagine the reason she could accept fēngmì as fènglì is because a significant number of native Mandarin speakers pronounce "l" as "n", and "m" is not much different to "n".

I think 'n' and 'm' are different enough to make that implausible. 'n' and 'l' get mixed up because they're pronounced with the tongue in the same place, it's just that one is a nasal and one is a lateral. 'm' isn't pronounced with the tongue at all, but with the lips. I told her to look at my lips, and said fènglì very clearly, and she still thought I was saying mì.

I have Taiwanese friends who say things like "méi à wǎ" (沒辦法) or "jiǎ à zē" (腳踏車) when they're being lazy, but people understand them just fine because their tones are right. I've experimented with throwing this sort of thing into my sentences on purpose, and haven't run into any problems being understood. Get a tone wrong though, and it's "蛤？"

[iteachchina]

Your varied comments make for interesting reading. It seems that the bottom line or common denominator is TIME. No matter what method a person uses, it seems that spending time to learn Chinese, more than many other languages, is vital. That being said, it also appears that a persons METHOD can also greatly affect the amount of time one person has to spend to reach a particular level. In other words, all other things being equal, two people spending the same amount of time but using different methods will likely not progress at the same rate. Would you all agree with that/has that been your experience?

[OneEye]

I'd think that's fairly self-evident. It takes a lot of time to learn a language. Two people learning the same language for the same amount of time using different methods will have different results. Not exactly a big breakthrough there.

[freakyaye]

c'mon everyone most people just complained that he shouldn't be asking that rather than just answering the question. As for me, I know I am no-where near that level, but if I were I would be telling you right now :-).

[OneEye]

Yes, that was a much more helpful response.

[iteachchina]

Well, the reason I asked what might seem like the obvious is that I'm always surprised reading these and other posts at the variety of answers that come out of every discussion. Actually, I was just looking for some simple numbers, regarless of the variety and reason.... I'm just doing a little research project.

Still, the answers are interesting and enlightening.