ANOTHER PRACTICAL EXAMPLE OF USING THE TOOLS MENTIONED ON THIS SITE

As emphasized at the beginning, this site is to help those with some basic knowledge of Hakka, Cantonese and Mandarin without formal Writing and Mandarin skills, to upgrade their knowledge to be proficient in an increasingly important Chinese Official Language, that is used by almost 1 in 5 inhabitants of Earth.

This is NOT a Didactic Collection of Lectures, but more a Do-It-Yourself Manual/Resource.

It is a Collection of Data and Resources to help Accelerate and Formalize a Teaching and Learning method peculiar to your specific needs and goals.

Here is a REPEAT TUTORIAL on its actual IMPLEMENTATION.

First of ALL, THERE IS NO WAY TO BYPASS THE MEMORIZATION OF SPECIFIC BASICS – ESPECIALLY TONE, BUT IF WE SET OFF WITH THE PREMISE THAT THERE IS ALREADY SOME SPOKEN BACKGROUND IN HAKKA OR CANTONESE, THIS ASPECT HAS ALREADY BEEN ADDRESSED AND ITS MORE A PROCESS OF UTILIZATION TO GET THE PERFECT TONES – 7 -9 in Hakka, at least 7 in Cantonese and only 4 in Mandarin.

Memorizing the Chinese Characters can be accomplished by Referring to the 214 Generally accepted Radicals, deciding whether to learn SIMPLIFIED (Mainland Chinese) or TRADITIONAL (Non-Mainland Chinese – including Taiwan) Chinese characters. This can be simplified down to the ESSENTIAL 54 RADICALS – the ones statistically found to be used the most often and by various memorization techniques e.g. FLASHCARDS, MNEMONICS OR STORY-LINES – as popularized by the HEISIG METHOD.

Then, it boils down to putting things into practice, hence this tutorial.

Let us take the English word for clothing. These r just illustrations of programs mentioned in this blog and can be interchanged for any program that works best for your circumstances.

CLOTHING:

First look up the Chinese Character. I find the programs based on the Cantodict Databases or CC-CEDIT Databases the most useful personally, especially the ones accepting English, Handwritten, Voice, and even OCR. My favorite in NCIKU:

LET US CHOOSE ZHUANG (by clicking on “more” below the word after the character):

NOW CLICK ON “STROKE ORDER”:

Unfortunately the Adobe Flash portion is not captured. BUT, MORE IMPORTANTLY, CLICK ON THE “PRACTICE WRITING ON SKRITTER” LINK.

Again, apologies for the non screen-capture of the Adobe Flash components. NOW CLICK ON THE MAGNIFYING GLASS ICON ON THE EXTREME RIGHT:

THEN – LOOK UP THE INDIVIDUAL CHARACTERS, OR EXPLORE WORDS THAT CONTAIN THE SAME CHARACTERS, ETC. NOTICE THE NEXT BUTTONS AT THE TOP RIGHT OF THE NEW FRAMES THAT POP UP THAT GIVES U MORE RESULTS. ONE WORD OPENS UP A MYRIAD OF NEW WORDS. FADSCINATING AT THE LEAST – ESPECIALLY AS FAR AS ETYMOLOGY IS CONCERNED.

NOTICE, ON THE MAIN PANEL/FRAME – THERE IS A “DICTIONARY LOOK-UP” BUTTON, WHICH IS PREPOPULATED WITH NCIKU, AS THIS WAS THE SITE REFERRING U TO SKRITTER. IF U CLICK ON THIS – IT TAKES U BACK TO THE NCIKU SITE. BUT, MORE IMPORTANTLY – IF U HAVE A REGISTERED NCIKU ACCOUNT – IT SAVES THE CHARACTERS INTO YOUR WORD-LIST”.  There is NO CHARGE for an NCIKU Account (but a donation is encouraged) or to use SKRITTER thru NCIKU – Skritter is an Excellent resource and is otherwise about $20/month to use. A NCIKU Account allows u to also print out free FLASH CARDS and is almost a complete ANKI Alternative.

FINALLY, if u want to see the other Dialects, especially Cantonese, or even Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese, character and do a search on Yellowbridge, which opens up more explanations and links:

Click on the VARIOUS FOLDERS AT THE TOP LEFT:

WALLA, Cantonese – Jtutping and Yale, (together with Japanese and Korean).

HAKKA PHRASES – 2

HAKKA PHRASES – 1

A list of Hakka phrases.

 

 

HAKKA IN HISTORY

For the size of their Population, the Hakka have played a disproportionately larger role than expected.

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHINESE CHARACTER TIPS

THE BASIC 3 TYPES OF CHARACTERS

Traditionally in China, characters are divided into three groups:

1. Pictograms.

These are a representation of the object. As such they are similar to hieroglyphs. At the outset, the character for horse represented a horse. Chinese writing has evolved over the centuries, and today, the character for horse 马,  although directly descended from the original drawing, no longer really resembles a horse. However, it is still possible to recognize this animal in the unsimplified character: 馬 . In the same way, the character elephant was originally a drawing of an elephant’s head: 象 . The character for bow represented a bow: 弓 . the character for fishing net represented a net: 网 .

2. Ideograms.

These are more abstract, in that they are the representation of a concept; so to rest is written with the element person, 亻 , and the element tree,  木  (A man under a tree being a perfect image of restfulness!): 休 .

The word crowd is made up of three person elements 众 , the word for peaceful is made up of the element for woman, 女. under the 宀 – hence 安 .

3. Ideophonograms.

These are characters composed of two elements: one gives an approximate idea of the meaning, (this part is the “key” or radical, and the other gives an approximate idea of the pronunciation – the phonetic ).

Every character has a radical. According to the traditional listing in classical Chinese, there are 214 radicals. As a result of simplification of the script, in modem dictionaries, the number varies at around 200.The radical indicates the semantic field of the character. There is a water radical, and one for fire, wood, the hand, the moon, the sun, the foot, the heart, etc. For example, many of the characters for weather conditions have the rain radical: the names of many plants and flowers have the grass radical; most of the words for movements of the hand have the hand radical; vocabulary for feelings and emotions have the heart radical. Different methods of cooking all have the fire radical, etc. ldeophonograms are characters that contain an element that indicates the meaning (or the area of meaning) and a second element that gives the pronunciation, or an idea of the pronunciation.

So the word虫国, cricket, is composed of the insect radical: 虫 ; the other element 国 pronounced guo is the phonetic part. Cricket is indeed pronounced guo.

The word ammonia, 氨, has the gas radical: 气 : and the phonetic element is 安 – an; “ammonia” is pronounced an.

Eel, ,鳝 is composed of the fish radical  鱼 and the element 善 that indicates the pronunciation: shan. Mother, 妈 , has the woman radical  女 , and the element 马  giving the pronunciation (apart from the tone!): ma.

GRAMMAR 1

Chinese is essentially based on mono-syllables, with newer words made of poly-syllables – mono-syllables strung together, which now make up 90 % of the modern language.  However, the characters representing the spoken syllables are still written and represented by the mono-syllable character equivalent. That means that newer words are represented by 2 or more characters. this is different from e.g. English, where each word is written completely as one representation containing the whole poly-syllable. But, etymologically, except for borrowed words, more advanced scholars, especially those versed in Latin and Greek will break up complex English words into their basic syllabic equivalents of their derivative originals in Latin or Greek, especially if they are unfamiliar with the exact meaning of the new words. So, essentially the same rules and concepts apply.

The Chinese language is usually more compact than English – in other words, the same ideas can be communicated with less syllables. One of the cited reasons is that Chinese writing was started and written almost 3500 years ago, as found in Shia dynasty writings and the Shia/Zhou dynasty tortoise shell and Ox wing/scapulae writings. Tortoise shells, Ox scapulae  and the subsequent bamboo “writing surfaces”, silk and eventually paper were smaller surfaces and expensive, as compared with cave drawings of Western cultures in caves, pyramids etc and so conservation of space was imperative as a driving force for development of the oral and written language.

This is comparable to the digital age of electronic social media, where text messages, twitter postings, e-mails and Facebook postings  r replete with limited text, abbreviations and “Smileys”, the idea being that in a mobile society – the less number of characters to write or read, the more efficient the communication and the less the distraction, especially if one is driving or in a “chat” mode. This brings up the concept of using “fill words” to fill gaps in communication, when there is temporary gap in thought flow – as is used when one says “um”, “u”, or “you know”, to keep the listener’s attention. And the extended use of these “fill words” to substitute for what one is too lazy to say – e.g. “u know” instead of explaining a commonly held and accepted idea.

With this in mind, let us examine the grammatical “rules” used in the various dialects of Chinese  with the main focus on Mandarin – the officially accepted dialect spoken by over 90 % of Chinese, whether their home dialect is Mandarin, Cantonese, Shanghai, Hakka or Min – the more common dialects.

1. INTERROGATIVES – ASKING A QUESTION

Instead of the question mark or using the interrogative equivalent of “how”, Mandarin uses the word “ma” – which is usually at the end of the sentence or phrase. And this is combined with a change in the tone of the word prior to that, as the previous word is now the second last syllable instead of the last – this is particularly true for 3 rd and 4 th tones. As stated previously in this blog, we will not focus too much on tones, as these tones come automatically when using the language and we supposedly ALL have some exposure to previous Cantonese, Hakka or possibly Min. We should all be already familiar with the common practice of differentiating between tones of ma – horse, ma- mother – and other homophemes of the word.  It’s all contextual anyway, as tones may change depending on context and meaning – even its the same character. the character is what really counts.

* – As stated interrogatives are usually at the end of the phrase or sentence. But in Hakka/Cantonese, that’s not always true – e.g. the use of ke after ma or use of mo instead of ma – as in “Zhou ma ke” – “What are you doing”, and “Hao mo” instead of “Hao ma“.

2. AFFIRMATIVE AND NEGATIVE

Yes and no may be expressed by repeating the verb in the question. No, is expressed by putting the negative Bu before the verb, changing Bu’s tone.

3. IMPERATIVE/COMMAND

The Imperative is often expressed by repeating the verb, even without a Pronoun – the pronoun is understood as it is contextual.

4. ALTERNATIVE INTERROGATIVE

As indicated above, a question can be asked by using “ma” at the end or by using the “alternative interrogative” – which is the verb followed by it’s negative e.g. “yao-bu-yao” – “want/not want”

CHINESE CULTURAL LINKS

The Metropolitan Museum of Art Collection on Youtube

Chinese New Year – 2013 – Official CCTV Spring Festival Celebrations:

Part 1 of 4 (Includes Yanni, Celion Dion singing in Mandarin and Na Ying): 

Part 2 of 4:

Part 3 of 4 (Includes Lang Lang and Li Yundi:

Part 4 of 4:

CCTV 9 – ENGLISH COMMENTARY ON THE OFFICIAL SPRING FESTIVAL GALA 2013.

Part 1 of 4:

http://english.cntv.cn/program/newsupdate/20130210/100313.shtml

Part 2 of 4:

http://english.cntv.cn/program/newsupdate/20130210/100290.shtml

Part 3 of 4:

http://english.cntv.cn/program/newsupdate/20130210/100293.shtml

Part 4 of 4:

http://english.cntv.cn/program/newsupdate/20130210/100314.shtml

A SAMPLE OF TRADITIONAL CHINESE MUSIC

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=B2CFDC94ED219184

CELION DION’S VERSION OF JASMINE FLOWER:

3000 MOST COMMON CHINESE CHARACTERS

Here r the 3000 most common Chinese Characters according to one web site.

Obviously these should be learnt first.

PRACTICAL USE OF THIS SITE – AN EXAMPLE

Here is a practical example of using the Tools on this site.

First, type in or copy the text or web site you want to work on:

Note: Double-click on Image if it is too small. Also make sure you have downloaded and installed the free MBDG Reader – see link in Windows Resources!!!!!

This is Youdou – the Chinese equivalent of Youtube

Note MBDG gives you a translation as soon as you put the mouse over it.

Then use MBDG to translate/pronounce the Mandarin.

Open up the MDBG Reader, and Right-Click for options – in this case, to Breakdown the word and to get its Etymology.

Open up MBDG Reader

Click on History. This will bring up the words, MBDG has translated.

After you have clicked on History – its at the bottom left on the screen

Choose your characters – click or double click.

Choose the characters you need info on.

With your mouse over the word, right click for more options – pronunciation etc. – in this case choose “breakdown”

This will breakdown the character into its radical and phonetic if it is in the MBDG database, which u can edit on the Professional version.

Then, copy the text – choose copy +, which unfortunately also copies the URL –  and u have to edit. And then go to CantoDict and paste to see the equivalent Cantonese and Mandarin pronunciation of the characters – i.e. Jyatping and Pinyin.

Copy and paste character into Cantodict

Make sure you choose Chinese Character

Choose Chinese Character in first Column before hitting search.

This will give you more info and especially the Cantonese pronunciation vs the Mandarin. If you click on the LINK ON THE LEFT OF THE CHARACTER, it gives you a list of more Characters with the same radicals and compound words.

Results of search – Cantonese vs Mandarin pronunciation.

Other options  results:

Compound words.

And finally, if you want to learn to write or practice writing the Character, use Skritter. If you don’t have an account – u can bypass this restriction by using NCIKU’‘s links.

Paste the character into NCIKU search button:

Result of search in NCIKU

Choose the character:

Notice the box on the right – Stroke Order.

If you click on Stroke Order, a NEW WINDOW pops up. Note that it is a small window and if your browser is not set to show it immediately, it could be easily missed in the background!!!!

Pop-up Window after hitting Stroke Order on NCIKU.

If you look closely at the bottom of the window, you will see a link to Skitter.

After you hit – Practice on Skritter.

And finally, notice the “Lookup” link on the extreme right of the Skritter screen – a Goldmine lies there – including Etymology of the word and the explanation of each “Meaning Radical” and how to write it!!!!

The Goldmine in Skritter.

At this point, we have the Character for the Pinyin and the strokes required to write it, but what about homophemes and phonemes – i.e. the similar sounding Pinyin with slightly different tones, and therefore different meanings and Characters. To double check on that and to learn all the more common homophemes, let’s use the online dictionary at CLEARCHINESE.COM:

http://www.clearchinese.com/chinese-english-dictionary.htm

20 Homophemes of “wang”

Page 2.of 20 Homophemes returned by CEDIT of “wang”

http://www.clearchinese.com/chinese-english-dictionary.htm

AS STATED, THIS ROUNDABOUT LEARNING METHOD WAS NECESSITATED BY PREVIOUS KNOWLEDGE OF HAKKA AND CANTONESE AND DEFICIENCIES IN MANDARIN/PINYIN AND CHINESE CHARACTERS. THIS RESULTED IN MY RESEARCHING ALTERNATE METHODS TO BYPASS THE RIGOROUS ROUTINE AND ROTE LEARNING OF OTHER ESTABLISHED WEB SITES AND LEARNING PROGRAMS – FOCUSING ON COMMON BACKGROUND OF THE DIALECTS AND HENCE CHINESE CHARACTERS. IT’S MY PECULIAR ROUTINE, BUT I FIND IT A LOT MORE INTERESTING AND PERTINENT – TYPICAL OF MOST SOUTH AFRICAN BORN CHINESE WHO NEGLECTED THEIR CHINESE LANGUAGE BACKGROUND. I HOPE IT MAKES SENSE FOR OTHERS AND HELPS THEM IN THEIR QUEST TO RE-CONNECT TO THEIR CHINESE ROOTS. A SITUATION BECOMING MORE RELEVANT WITH CHINA’S ROLE IN AFRICA AND SPECIFICALLY SOUTH AFRICA’S INVOLVEMENT IN BRICS.

CHINESE CALLIGRAPHY

General Introduction of Chinese Calligraphy

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Calligraphy is one of the most important genres of art in China.  Historically the Chinese have regarded calligraphy as a unique expression of scholarship, character, and cultural attainment, and as a sublime art form. (Even though Chinese calligraphy can be practiced as a hobby, Chinese people never consider calligraphy as a “craft.”)

The earliest extant examples of Chinese writing are the inscriptions that appear on so-called oracle bones (animal bones and turtle shells) and on bronze vessels, the oldest of which date back to the Shang Dynasty. The kings of the Shang Dynasty used these objects in important divination rituals, and some scholars have argued that this early association of writing with ritual and political authority helps to account for the special status conferred upon those who could read and write.

These early inscriptions were made on the surface of an oracle bone or a bronze mold with a sharp and pointed instrument such as a knife. Before the molding, the scripts were written with brushes and ink in most cases. As a result of these processes, the Chinese characters (or “pictographs” as they are also called, but not symbols) were already rich in emotions and variations in brushstrokes and other attributes. Serious studies point out that Chinese calligraphy was born as the same time as the Chinese characters were invented or evolved. (Some sources state that the Oracle Bone and Bronze Inscriptions generally lack the kinds of linear variation and other attributes to be considered true Chinese calligraphy. This is very misleading and incorrect! In fact, many great Chinese calligraphers spend tremendous amount of time studying and emulating the Seal Style calligraphy of the Oracle Bone and Bronze Inscriptions, especially the latter. They regard those early scripts as “mature” paradigms and “paramount” models to practice Seal Style calligraphy.)

Chinese characters have a long history of evolutions. Records of formal Chinese writings date back more than 3300 years to the Shang and Zhou Dynasties. The development and spread of writing, driven by progress and growing requirements of society and the introduction of brush and ink, set the stage for the gradual evolution of the unique art of Chinese writing.

ORACLE BONE – CIRCA 1300 B.C.

Readers may visit the following websites to enhance their understanding about Oracle Bone Inscriptions and Bronze Inscriptions (Jin Wen):

http://www.chinavista.com/experience/oracle/oracle.html

Click to access IRGN1119Old_Hanzi_Oracle_PRC.pdf

http://www.erols.com/bcccsbs/chisacw.htm

http://www.indiana.edu/~libeast/oracle.html

http://www.npm.gov.tw/english/index-e.htm

http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9394.html
(“Reading the Past Chinese” written by Dr. Oliver Moore)
http://www.art-virtue.com/introduction/2-general.htm