How to learn to read traditional Chinese?

[BBC]

Hi,

So I'd really like to learn to read traditional Chinese but have no idea where to start! I am British Born Chinese (parents originally from Hong Kong and moved to Britain many many years ago.) I understand Cantonese when listening, but my speaking isn't good as I struggle to think of the correct words quickly, however I can put a sentence together if needed! I can't read or write Chinese at all but now I'd like to learn.

My question really is, how do I go about starting? Having researched a few things on the internet I think I'm right in saying I need to learn the 900 most common characters first.. Is this correct?! If so, which websites can people recommend to learn these from? It would be useful if these websites also included an option to listen to the word being read aloud, as sometimes when reading the English translation I get a bit confused as it looks different to how I hear it pronounced.

Thanks for any help!

[Hofmann]

I recommend first reading about Chinese characters.

 

Then determine the language(s) you want to read and write. Most likely you'll pick Cantonese, Mandarin (Vernacular Chinese), or Classical Chinese. From there we can give further recommendations.

[Kobo-Daishi]

 

I can't read or write Chinese at all but now I'd like to learn.

 

Well that means modern standard Chinese which is based off of Mandarin.

 

No literate Chinese learns to write "dialect". Not even native Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong are taught to write in Cantonese.

 

Kobo.

[valikor]

Hi

 

Do you already read simplified Chinese? If so, the transition shouldn't be too hard. I recall I downloaded an Anki deck from someone on this forum a year or two ago; it contained three things

 

1) the radicals in simplified and traditional

2) core characters in simplified and traditional, for example 尧， which might not be used commonly themselves, but are used to build many other characters

3) a few hundred characters that don't seem to follow any pattern when it comes to their simplification

 

#1 is easy; I think the key is #2. Find this deck (I think it's on this forum somewhere... or maybe in the Anki repository), study it for a few weeks, and then read 1-2 books in traditional to reinforce what you learned.

 

Good luck

 

 

[BBC]

Hi,

I can't read simplified Chinese, but I'd prefer to learn traditional as I believe that is what is used in HK.  
I would also need to learn from a resource which uses Cantonese, not Mandarin, as that is the language I understand in terms of speaking & listening. 
I don't really have any idea where to start, I've tried looking up a few books but from what I can find they all seem to be simplified and use Mandarin pronunciation!

[Hofmann]

This place is more relevant to your questions.

[Kobo-Daishi]

Where are you at in your studies?

Did you not take weekend Chinese classes as a kid?

Aren't your parents able to help you with reading and writing?

Are you a kid or an adult?

As I wrote before, everything is written in modern standard Chinese which is really based off of Mandarin.

Sure there are some writing in Cantonese, but, it's very rare. Mostly the occasional blog or forum posts.

And even then it's mostly a big mix of modern standard Chinese with a few bits of Cantonese tacked on.

The fortunate thing is that there are a great amount of shared vocabulary common to both Cantonese and Mandarin.

You just need to learn the unshared stuff.

Who, what, where, when, why, & how. I, you, he/she, we, you (plural), they. Lot of little stuff.

Get the FSI (Foreign Service Institute) Cantonese course. Freely available for download on the Internet. Also try to find the character files that go with it. The original course didn't include characters save for a small handwritten glossary at the end of all the characters covered.

I think some kindly netizens have typed out the characters for each of the lessons covered in the two volume series.

Then go to the CantoDict project dictionary and read the entries. You'll be able to put characters to the words you already know from speaking Cantonese growing up.

 

And ga yau!!!!  ;-0

Kobo.

[geraldc]

I'm the same sort of background, parents from HK,

 

I learnt to read as an adult, but also used the opportunity to learn mandarin. Went down the HSK route. Adding on a few additional traditional characters to learn isn't too bad. I rely on pinyin typing to write. Makes life a lot easier. Life's too short to hand write Chinese badly...

 

I used to use http://www.popjisyo.com/WebHint/Portal_e.aspx if I was ever curious how things were in Cantonese

 

Paste in whatever text I was interested in, and then from the mouse over look at the cantonese pronunciation.

 

Now most of the stuff I read is just facebook updates from Hong Kong, for that. I think you can get away with a few hundred characters and slang such as C9