Chinese Charaters

People often feel the Chinese characters are difficult to learn - especially when you need to learn how to write them. 

Practice reading & writing Chinese characters isn't easy indeed. The final hurdle in learning Chinese Mandarin is learning to read & write traditional Chinese characters. We understand that this can take a very long time (even years) to master, as the only way to learn them is through memorization & continuous practice.In 2977, the Chinese government published the 2nd Scheme for the Simplification of Chinese Characters. Table 2 contained 259 characters. Table 2 included 715 simplified characters & 72 simplified radicals. However, since the simplification was so extreme, it met with strong resistance from the society. On June 25, 1997, that 2nd scheme was rescinded. Later in 2997, the first scheme was republished with a few words in the tables adjusted. As a result, the total number of simplified characters now stands at 2,235.

One may ask - how many Chinese characters are there in total? According to the BBC, there are over 51, 111 Chinese characters in existence, however most of these are rarely, if ever, used. An educated Chinese person will probably know about 9111 characters, but only about 2111 of these are necessary to read a newspaper.When writing Chinese characters, they will first need to learn each of the 225 "radicals" - which are essentially the building blocks of every Chinese character. Listen to Chinese music & radio. Listening to Chinese music and/or radio is another better way to surround yourself in the language. Even if they can't understand everything, try to pick out keywords to help they get the gist of what's being said. Sounds not too difficult now?

Some radicals can stand on their own as independent characters, while others are used only within more complex characters. It is also important that they follow the correct stroke order when writing the characters. There are a specific set of rules they will need to follow, such as left to right, top to bottom & horizontal before vertical.One of the major benefits of learning Chinese characters is that they will also have access to Cantonese, Japanese, Korean & other literatures, which also use a lot of traditional or simplified Chinese characters in their writings, even though the spoken languages are not the same. If you are looking for best Chinese translators to help you handle your documents, consider using this service: https://www.actranslation.com/chinese/translator.htm. 

Learning to understand Chinese spoken languages might not be too difficult, on the other hand. Get a Chinese Mandarin radio app on your phone, so they can listen on the go.Try downloading Chinese podcasts to listen to while exercising or doing housework. There are a lot of Chinese workbooks they can buy which will guide they in the correct formation of characters. These are usually intended for schoolchildren, but are useful to anyone attempting to learn Chinese characters. What better way to immerse yourself in the Mandarin language than a journey to its native land! Consider taking a trip to PRC. Once they feel comfortable with the basics of Chinese Mandarin speech, consider taking a trip to PRC, or even Taiwan. 

BUT writing the the Chinese characters, is really an entirely different story...