shénme : 甚麼 or 什麼 ?

My old Taiwanese textbooks always use 什麼 but my dictionary says that the old character is 甚. So I guess no conclusion there! I have to admit, I'm far more used to seeing 什. Maybe it's an old "spelling"?

Calkins, how long have you been learning for? I found that when I took up the language again last year, that I was visualising the pinyin, but that was because I was doing a spoken course, and that's the only "visual" element I had to work with. When I was younger, and was being lazy, I would often read the Taiwanese version of pinyin rather than the characters. I have found that it's better in the long run to try to avoid relying on pinyin too much - if you read the pinyin, you're not looking at the character! Also, I find writing as much as possible very helpful, seeing as characters are built up of component elements, rather than just being random dots and lines. Reading aloud is rather important for me, and sometimes just listening over and over again. Goulinky, on a related note, I love the way that 虫 "chong2" (worms) turns up in loads of insect related vocabulary: 蚂蚁 ma3 yi3 - ant 蚊子 wen2 zi - mosquito 蟑螂 zhang1 lang2 - cockroach 苍蝇 cang1 ying - fly 蜜蜂 mi4 feng1 - bee

calkins: 甚麼, 什麼: are both used in Traditional scripts. So as long as you know both, you're good to go!

Thanks everyone! I'll just learn them both then. I've only been studying characters for a short time now, but find this interesting that there are two possibilities. This doesn't happen very often, does it?

calkins: It happens very, very infrequently. Don't worry. The harder thing about characters is to learn the different tones and / or pronunciations. EG: 和 has many different pronunciations. Among them are: He2 He4 Huo2 Huo4 Huo (neutral) And more that I've forgotten because they are used so seldomly. I'll have to dust off my notes from that lesson about the many pronunciations of 和!

That's a great point Xiaohu! The majority of characters I've learned, so far, are ones that I already knew the pinyin. What are your suggestions on learning characters that are completely new (i.e. don't know the pinyin or the hanzi)? I mean, I guess it is good to know both, but I'd love to hear your approach (and others with a lot of character study) on learning the pronunciations/tones of characters. Thanks much!

I would not try to learn characters without learning the pronunciation at the same time. Of course this happens spontaneously anyhow (sometimes I remember the meaning of a character, but am in doubt about the correct pronunciation). Another thing is that many characters have a "most usual" pronunciation. When you first learn the character 看, you will most likely learn that it is pronounced kan4. Later you will discover that it can also in some less common cases be kan1. Unfortunately, this is a very common situation with characters. In those cases I would say it makes most sense to only learn the "most usual" pronunciation when you first learn the character, and pick up the alternatives along the way, when you need them.

Thanks Marcelbdt. I should have phrased my question a little better.... I'm curious how most non-native Chinese learn characters. I assume the majority here learn the character and the pinyin at the same time (thus learning the tone and pronunciation as well). What blows my mind is that Chinese learn the character, pronunciation, and tone, without the pinyin (pinyin is for us non-native Chinese of course, and many Chinese don't even know what it is). In one sense, I feel like we are at a disadvantage because we have to learn 4 things for every word (character, pinyin, pronunciation, and tone), as opposed to native Chinese learning 3 things for each word. But at the same time, I can't imagine learning characters without the help of the pinyin. Are there any non-native Chinese here on CP that learn characters without learning pinyin?

I'm not sure native Chineses learn tones as such, i.e. explicitly learn the tone number. I'd rather think they learn the melody, the tone is really a notation of that melody. Same with English, you do know how to emphasize the 2nd syllable of "terrific", but the 1st syllable of "terrible" without any specific representation (fact is, in a noisy environment, emphasis is more important than sound in that example). Anyway, learning characters without learning pinyin, or any pronunciation whatsoever, is how I got into learning Chinese. That was many years ago, and needless to say, I failed miserably. Gave up after 3 months, took me a long time to get starting again, mustering the energy to learn the language in all its aspects.

'scuse the typos :-(

Hanzibar appears to have two entries: (Traditional shown first) 甚麼 甚么 [shén me] /what/ 什麼 什么 [shén me] /what?/who?/something/anything/ Maybe they're very slightly different although pronounced the same.

The correct traditional characters should have been 甚麼, not 什麼. However, the Taiwanese are also in the process of adopting some simplified characters. Change 甚 into 什 is one example. They also start to use simplified 台 for 台湾.

sebire, I have limited but systematic experience with natives from PRC that reading, let alone writing pinyin isn't 2nd nature and they make quite a number of mistakes (been doing this with SMS at some stage). I'm obviously not talking about language teachers here. The primary mechanism for writing sth down is, again obviously, characters, not pinyin. So, while for foreigners, learning pinyin (resp. bopomofo) and pronunciation is one and the same, I don't think it's true for people growing up in China. That distinction doesn't exist for Western languages, but still when you write sth down as a memory aid, you won't explicitly note the pronunciation, even English words with esoteric pronunciation (e.g. variations on the 'ough' sound)

I never imagined that a native Chinese person would bother learning pinyin (though I really don't understand how they type Chinese). Although in English, it's certainly helpful for a child to be able to learn to read/write using phonics, I imagine a fair proportion of reading comprehension comes from context. There has been a lot of debate recently in the UK about synthetic phonics as a method of learning to read, because the fashion recently has been to get the child to recognise the whole word, as opposed to sound it out (which apparently has left whole swathes of teenagers only semi-literate). I suppose Chinese children have no choice in that respect, however Chinese characters probably look more distinct than English words. For someone learning Chinese as a foreign language, I see it as learning four separate things, I see it more as two: character and pronunciation, because from the pronunciation, I can "spell" the pinyin.

Sebire, I commend you for being able to learn the pronunciation and tone just from the character - I wish I were able to do that. I feel like I need the pinyin as a crutch. Do you have any tips / tricks for remembering the tone from the character only...or do you just assimilate it through blunt memorization?

Oh no, I don't mean you learn it from the character. I mean, I just associate the character with a sound. Obviously, I wouldn't know what the sound was if I didn't hear it or read it using pinyin, though I am beginning to get a feel for guessing pronunciation with certain words. What I mean is that I don't sit there and think 看 is spelt "kan" and is 4th tone. I know some people rote memorise the tones for each character, whereas I rote memorise the sound. It's a bit like learning a song, I suppose. It rather depends on the source I'm learning from - e.g. in the Intermediate lessons, Jenny refers to "意思" a lot for obvious reasons, but I don't think "fourth tone and neutral", I can hear it in my head. If I come across a sentence with a new word or two, then I have to look it up, but then I try to memorise how it sounds and catch the melody of the sentence a bit more than thinking "it's 2 and 3". I personally need to see the characters to learn Chinese. If you read the dialogue whilst listening to them (and try your best not to read the pinyin, because I have to force my eyes not to stray), then you associate sounds with characters. You know what it's like to get a song stuck in your head - try and get Chinese phrases stuck in your head instead! I imagine we probably learn in more similar ways that I have made out on here, and that's probably my fault because I don't think I'm explaining myself very well. By the way, I like they way you've done your avatar, it's pretty cool.

:) Thanks Sebire! Oh, and you explained yourself perfectly well. I'm still at the point that when I look at the character 看, I think kàn and 4th tone. My studies of characters are still fairly new, so I guess visualizing (and thinking about) the pinyin will become less frequent the more characters I know. I hope!

thx Sebire, that's also the way I learn, don't think n-th tone and m-th tone either, and the song analogy is what I meant by melody... As far as guessing character pronunciation, that's something one can do by separating the phonetic component from the radical. Doesn't always work still is pretty useful, but doesn't say anything about tones.

example of phonetic component I just came across with one character I didn't know how to pronounce: 纠 [jiū] as in 纠正 jiūzhèng rectify (e.g. s.o.'s pronunciation) 叫 [jiào] cry out; call, as in 叫做 jiàozuò be called 丩 [jiū] /phonetic/

Surely learning the pinyin and pronunciation are one and the same? I don't think I learn the tone numbers either, at least not explicitely for a lot of characters. I think I learn how they sound.