Opting for characters over pinyin
By Burcu Celebi(China Daily)
Updated: 2006-06-16 06:19
I am a Turkish woman, aged
29, who has been living in Yantai of East China's
On top of my list was, of
course, learning Chinese. However, I did not imagine that it would be my only
purpose at the time.
After realizing that my
English in Yantai was as useful as my Turkish and neither was particularly so I
decided to take advantage of this break from professional life. I thought, if I
could learn Chinese language within this break, it would lead to different
career paths in the future.
There was one small problem
I totally neglected: How?
I talked to some of the
foreigners who have tried different methods since their arrival and made up my
mind that learning pinyin (the phonetic system for Chinese characters) was
easier and faster than learning Chinese characters.
At that point I met Wang
Shuda, my current teacher, who has been studying this language for many years
and developed his own method of teaching Chinese to foreigners. We decided to
have one-on-one lessons and in the first lesson he convinced me that learning
Chinese characters would provide a stronger base for my further studies.
He explained that although
pinyin is easier, it may cause a lot of misunderstandings in the future. He
proved it by simply choosing a sound and showing the dictionary pages of that
sound. The example was "shi" and there were at least 10 pages of
characters with this sound. Some even had the same tone.
After nine months I am
still having trouble with the tones, so if I had studied only the pinyin I
would still be having difficulty. At least now I can read some of the
characters and I am not totally lost.
He showed me his own books,
which were hand-written and copied for me. The first one consisted of the most
common characters, their pinyin and English translations starting with basic
and relatively simple ones and continuing with more complex characters.
He included not only the
characters but their combinations with other characters so that once I learn a
new character I would learn at least six to 10 combinations and expand my
vocabulary.
The second book contained
simple sentences constructed using the characters in the first book and very
little grammar. Characters were written big and very clear, so as not to scare
me.
Finally the third book
contained sentences, dialogues and stories prepared by the characters in the
first book. But this one contained more grammar and writing examples and was
closer to handwriting, which made it overwhelming at first glance.
In the beginning it was
painful for the same reasons of learning any foreign language making very slow
progress, losing motivation, and "losing face" trying to practise
what I have learned with locals who didn't seem to understand what I thought
was correct.
I started to have fewer
classes and even thought about giving up though I was so determined and
motivated in the beginning. It was my teacher who saved me from my dilemma and
helped me re-build my interest.
First he suggested I practise
writing the characters. He told me that for other languages the key to learning
is to speak as much as possible, but with Chinese the trick is to write and
repeat the process as much as possible.
So I bought a notebook,
which has boxes instead of lines and in which you repeatedly write the Chinese
characters. Then he began to relate some of the characters with well-known
legends, stories and sayings.
This way he pulled me into
the culture and, as he always, "created an interest" in me to
continue learning.
Thousands of years of
history has made this culture so rich that once you have a taste of it, you
really want to pursue more. This helps your motivation stay fresh and
furthermore gives you a totally new perspective.
And finally I realized that
self-study is one of the most important things to learn Chinese, as it is with
all other languages. I started to study at home at least three to four hours a
day and come up with my own questions.
I don't know if I would
have the same determination if I had a job and was working here. Depending on
the nature of this language, the progress is still slow no matter what I try
and I have to keep my spirits high through this interesting adventure.
I consider myself very
lucky to have met my teacher and have taken his advice of studying the
characters in the first place.
It is much easier to find
the right way and to stay on it rather than changing paths and trying different
methods.
(China Daily 06/16/2006 page14)