Small Workbook: Chinese Characters for Beginners

[martin2]

Dear China-friends,

 

this small workbook comes in response to my readers' lively interest in Chinese characters and will familiarise you with the way they work by practical example and exercises. The characters used for the exercises are often taken from Tai Chi-technical terms.

 

Having works through this book you will be able to recognise the structure of Chinese characters independently and to look up characters new to you in a Chinese dictionary.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Workbook-Characters-Beginners-Martin-Boedicker/dp/150854820X/

 

Content: 

 

- Strokes in Chinese Characters

- Structure of Chinese Characters

- Radicals

- Using a Chinese Dictionary

 

For those of you who want to start to learn Chinese or just play around with the beautiful characters, this might be interesting.

 

All the best 

 

Martin

[Shelley]

Thanks for the info.

 

Feel I must point out that

Having works through this book

 

is incorrect. It should be Having worked through this book.

 

I noticed this mistake is also on the back of the book on amazon.Not sure what you can do about it now.

[martin2]

Hey Shelley,

 

thx for your reply. Was done by a professional translator. Will check again - can be changed.

 

Hug

 

Martin

[Shelley]

It looks like a nice little book, a bit basic for me but useful for beginners.

[martin2]

Hey Shelly,

 

yup, it is for the beginner with a lot of exercises.

 

All the best

 

Martin

 

 

 

[Hofmann]

From the description, I wouldn't pay for it. What makes it unique? Why don't I just read Wikipedia?

[martin2]

Hey Hofmann,

 

thx for the questions.

 

All the information is on the internet - of course.

 

But this is a workbook - full of exercises with solutions.

 

So you can test yourself if you got it and can check if you are right.

 

All the best

 

Martin

 

[martin2]

Here comes a little example of an exercise as an attachment:

 

 

[imron]

The spaces you have provided to draw the character are rectangular, when they probably should be square to prevent people getting the proportions incorrect, and preferably have faint guidelines in the shape of a 米 or a 十.

[martin2]

Hey Imron,

 

thx for your response -  rectangular makes sense.

 

Faint guidelines I think not:

 

The student should think about the question and try to find a solution.

If there are faint guidelines already - I think it is too much a help,

because then the beginner knows the answer already.

 

This way, the exercises would not make much sense.

 

All the best

 

Martin

[imron]

I mean faint grid outlines, not faint outlines of the character. See for example this: hanzigrids.pdf

 

Gridlines help the learner get a feel for the correct proportions of the character (e.g. this stroke is in the upper left, that stroke is in the lower right and so on).

[martin2]

Ah, now I know what you mean - that makes sense - thx.

 

All the best

 

Martin

 

 

[Shelley]

 

rectangular makes sense.

 

No it doesn't.

 

Square is the correct way to do it.

 

I worry that if this simple basic thing is wrong and its importance is not understood by the author, what other mistakes are there? 

 

I don't have the time or the skill necessary to check the whole book but it might be worth getting a professional to to do so.

[Hofmann]

Put tone diacritics on the Pinyin too.

[imron]

Yes, definitely that too.

[Junso1]

Sorry, it just seems like you may have had an interesting idea, but not a lot of thought of effort went into it. Perhaps the required expertise or experience in the subject isn't there either. What's your experience with learning or teaching Chinese?