A little help with characters...!
jeremy123
August 05, 2008, 07:05 PM posted in General Discussion大家好！ Just subscribed today! I'm really excited because I've been listening to these podcasts a lot lately, but never had the chance to subscribe. I'm glad I did!
Ok, so I just got back from living in Taiwan for two years (and just like Amber, I'm going to have to adjust my 說法 a little bit. Ok.. maybe more than just a little bit). But as you know in Taiwan, they only use traditional characters （繁體字。 《這個你們看得懂嗎？ 哈哈） I'm going to continue studying Chinese, but I know that studying simplified characters will be a lot more advantageous. I have a little over 2,000 characters memorized, and I'm trying to find out the tips and tricks of how to recognize simplified characters with a traditional character background. Does anyone have any similar experiences? Or is it just 'hey, just get used it to it!' type deal? Let me know!
RJ
August 12, 2008, 10:35 AMI think with your background you will do just fine. Simplified characters usually make sense when put next to the originals so learning the 20% or so that have simplified counterparts should not be difficult for you to remember. You will then be blessed by knowing both. Not a bad place to be. My suggestion would be to study the simplifications, but try to relate them to the traditionals from whence they came as a memory aid. Surely some will be obvious from context as you read and you will find that picking them up may be somewhat automatic.
tvan
August 12, 2008, 02:19 PMsensationalist, I started with traditional and just began learning simplified characters last year in school and via CPod. You probably know all this, but I'll list my observations in order of importance:
1. First, learn the new radicals (e.g. 言 in 说 v. 說 and 車 in 较 v. 較). This takes care of a significant portion of the simplified characters.
2. Second, learn common non-radical components (e.g. 传 v. 傳 and 场 v. 場). This takes care of another big chunk.
3. Third, learn common phonetic components. For example, simplified characters exclusively use 中 as a phonetic component (e.g. 种 v. 種), whereas traditional characters' phonetic components are more varied.
4. Finally, just memorize. The remaining simplified characters don't seem to bear much resemblance to their traditional forbears, and these gave/give me the most problems. For example 导 v. 導？Where did that come from?
mayor_bombolini
August 12, 2008, 02:30 PMsensationalist,
Try taking dialogues that you are very familiar with in traditional and then convert the dialogue to simplified. There are a number of software tools/dictionaries that can do this conversion.
I work with simplified and convert to traditional on occasion just for fun (no real time to learn all the traditional).
My reader text books are in simplified and have a conversion of the main dialogues in the appendix. Maybe you can find a text book with both.
jeremy123
August 18, 2008, 08:15 AMAwesome, thanks for the insights. I didn't realize how there really are a lot of phonetic components while using 简体。 It's really helped a lot. I'm also starting the idea of using a book that has both traditional and simplified characters. Its lots of fun!
heaveneyes
August 20, 2008, 03:28 PMhey~
I have studied 繁體字 too, I think it's fun and very challenging...
and now I'm trying to get myself to learn some 简体...(I think it wasn'y so hard if you knew the original characters before)
and tvan....thanks for the tips
多谢噢 >_<
jeremy123
August 12, 2008, 05:02 AMAnyone?