Learning Chinese

Chinese is a very difficult language for most to learn. Among the factors include certain sounds which are foreign to speakers of English and most European languages and the writing system, in which complex strokes are used to create characters. These characters must simply be memorized. No ifs, ands, or buts about it and no way around it – there is no way to learn them except for pure rote memorization and visual memory recall. Most estimates say that you must learn 3,000 characters in order to understand about 95% of the Chinese you’ll encounter on a day-to-day basis.

Today, however, I want to talk about forms of writing Chinese, as there are several different forms.

The first, and most obvious, is writing characters. This is called 國字 (Guózì), which means “Country words.” The characters themselves are called Hànzì. This is what every schoolchild in China and Taiwan learn to read and write (with the help of of alphabet, which I’ll discuss in a bit). Characters are made up of several strokes in a particular order – mastering these strokes and knowing which order to write them in is essential to identifying and writing characters.

The second way to write Chinese is by using ZhùyÄ«n fúhào, also known as the bopomofo (named for the first 4 sounds of the Chinese alphabet). This is an “alphabet” of 45 very simple characters, each one representing a distinct sound in Chinese. These are placed next to Chinese characters to assist children and people learning Chinese how to pronounce each character. This is what zhùyÄ«n fúhào looks like:

ㄅㄆㄇㄈㄉㄊㄋㄌㄍㄎㄏㄐㄑㄒㄓㄔㄕㄖㄗㄘㄙ一ㄨㄩㄚㄛㄜㄝㄞㄟㄠㄡㄢㄣㄤㄥㄦ

If you can’t read the script, you may need to install a Unicode Chinese font. Otherwise, I have a picture of Zhuyin Fuhao here:

Here you can see the Chinese character on the left with the bopomofo characters on their right. Most children’s books, as well as dictionaries, will give the bopomofo pronunciation for a character to assist those learning it. Learning the bopomofo characters is not essential to learning Chinese – one could, for instance, simply develop pronunciation and listening skills by listening and speaking and trial and error. Learning the bopomofo, however, helps you learn new characters when looking them up in a dictionary or reading them in a book that uses them.

The final way to write Chinese is through the use of HànyÅ­ PÄ«nyÄ«n or “Spelling the sound of Chinese.” The words I’ve used to write “HànyÅ­ PÄ«nyÄ«n” and “ZhùyÄ«n fúhào” are pinyin – they are the English transliteration of Chinese sounds, complete with tone markers. There are several forms of pinyin (Hanyu, Wade-Giles, Yale, etc) but the most accurate and one I prefer is HànyÅ­ simply because it’s the most standardized and it’s the one used in (some) dictionaries in Taiwan, so it’s the most appropriate for me.

Children in Taiwan are not taught HànyÅ­ PÄ«nyÄ«n and asking them to “write something out” for you in pÄ«nyÄ«n will only net you confused looks. You can, however, ask them to write things out in bopomofo and they’ll be happy to do that. PÄ«nyÄ«n is used only in some dictionaries and to help foreigners (typically, those that speak English) pronounce or write out Chinese words. It isn’t very useful in Taiwan or, I Imagine, China and Hong Kong. (Update: Since I’ve written this, it’s been pointed out to me that I was wrong. Pinyin is used everywhere in China, whereas Zhuyin is used only in Taiwan. See the comments for more information.)

So, there you have it: the three ways to write Chinese. I’m still working on my bopomofo and, once I have that thoroughly memorized, I may try writing characters. Some of the characters, however, are incredibly complex and I don’t foresee myself ever being proficient in writing them.