Download or read book Beginning Chinese Reader written by John DeFrancis and published by . This book was released on 1977 with total page 1012 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This second edition, like the earlier first edition, introduces some of the main varieties of Chinese as found before and after the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949. While continuing to stress the basic importance of the traditional usages, such as the regular characters to be found in all materials published before the adoption of the simplified forms in 1956 and still in use in some areas, the present revision goes further in contrasting variant usages and in providing additional material relevant to the PRC. Closely related with the author's Beginning Chinese and its companion volume, Character Text for Beginning Chinese, this text is based on a new approach which not only takes into account the advantages of the oral-aural method but gets the student more quickly into material that he is likely to encounter in actual written Chinese. Unique features are the emphasis on compounds and their extensive use in various types of exercises. The 1,200 combinations are based on 400 characters; in all, the book contains 120,000 characters of running text. All compounds appear in illustrative sentences accompnied by English translations, in dialogues as a means of audio-lingual reinforcement, and in narrative or expository form. Additional exercises include maps, booksellers' book lists, correspondence, poems, table of contents, and brief passages from the works of outstanding writers such as Sun Yatsen, Hu Shih, Mao Tse-tung, and Lu Hsun. Supplementary lessons present reading material using the simiplified characters adopted in mainland China.

Download or read book Tuttle Learning Chinese Characters written by Alison Matthews and published by Tuttle Publishing. This book was released on 2011-12-20 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This user-friendly book is aimed at helping students of Mandarin Chinese learn and remember Chinese characters. At last--there is a truly effective and enjoyable way to learn Chinese characters! This book helps students to learn and remember both the meanings and the pronunciations of over 800 characters. This otherwise daunting task is made easier by the use of techniques based on the psychology of learning and memory. key principles include the use of visual imagery, the visualization of short "stories," and the systematic building up of more complicated characters from basic building blocks. Although Learning Chinese Characters is primarily a book for serious learners of Mandarin Chinese, it can be used by anyone with interest in Chinese characters, without any prior knowledge of Chinese. It can be used alongside (or after, or even before) a course in the Chinese language. All characters are simplified (as in mainland China), but traditional characters are also given, when available. Key features: Specially designed pictures and stories are used in a structured way to make the learning process more enjoyable and effective, reducing the need for rote learning to the absolute minimum. The emphasis throughout is on learning and remembering the meanings and pronunciations of the characters. Tips are also included on learning techniques and how to avoid common problems. Characters are introduced in a logical sequence, which also gives priority to learning the most common characters first. Modern, simplified characters are used, with pronunciations given in pinyin. Key information is given for each character, including radical, stroke-count, traditional form, compounds, and guidance on writing the character. This is a practical guide with a clear, concise and appealing layout, and it is well-indexed with easy lookup methods. The 800 Chinese characters and 1,033 compounds specified for the original HSK Level A proficiency test are covered.

Download or read book Remembering the Kanji 2 written by James W. Heisig and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2012-04-30 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following the first volume of Remembering the Kanji, the present work provides students with helpful tools for learning the pronunciation of the kanji. Behind the notorious inconsistencies in the way the Japanese language has come to pronounce the characters it received from China lie several coherent patterns. Identifying these patterns and arranging them in logical order can reduce dramatically the amount of time spent in the brute memorization of sounds unrelated to written forms. Many of the “primitive elements,” or building blocks, used in the drawing of the characters also serve to indicate the “Chinese reading” that particular kanji use, chiefly in compound terms. By learning one of the kanji that uses such a “signal primitive,” one can learn the entire group at the same time. In this way, Remembering the Kanji 2 lays out the varieties of phonetic pattern and offers helpful hints for learning readings, that might otherwise appear completely random, in an efficient and rational way. Individual frames cross-reference the kanji to alternate readings and to the frame in volume 1 in which the meaning and writing of the kanji was first introduced. A parallel system of pronouncing the kanji, their “Japanese readings,” uses native Japanese words assigned to particular Chinese characters. Although these are more easily learned because of the association of the meaning to a single word, the author creates a kind of phonetic alphabet of single syllable words, each connected to a simple Japanese word, and shows how they can be combined to help memorize particularly troublesome vocabulary. The 4th edition has been updated to include the 196 new kanji approved by the government in 2010 as “general-use” kanji.

Download or read book Planning Chinese Characters written by Shouhui Zhao and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2007-10-30 with total page 430 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents the most comprehensive synthesis and analysis of major developments in reforming programs in modernizing the Chinese writing system. It traces the language policy and planning related developments for Chinese characters, with particular emphasis on post-1950 period in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the more recent challenges that technology, and particularly the World Wide Web, have posed for the language.

Download or read book The Chinese Language written by John DeFrancis and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 1986-03-01 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "DeFrancis's book is first rate. It entertains. It teaches. It demystifies. It counteracts popular ignorance as well as sophisticated (cocktail party) ignorance. Who could ask for anything more? There is no other book like it. ... It is one of a kind, a first, and I would not only buy it but I would recommend it to friends and colleagues, many of whom are visiting China now and are adding 'two-week-expert' ignorance to the two kinds that existed before. This is a book for everyone." --Joshua A. Fishman, research professor of social sciences, Yeshiva University, New York "Professor De Francis has produced a work of great effectiveness that should appeal to a wide-ranging audience. It is at once instructive and entertaining. While being delighted by the flair of his novel approach, the reader will also be led to ponder on some of the most fundamental problems concerning the relations between written languages and spoken languages. Specifically, he will be served a variety of information on the languages of East Asia, not as dry pedantic facts, but as appealing tidbits that whet the intellectual appetite. The expert will find much to reflect on in this book, for Professor DeFrancis takes nothing for granted." --William S.Y. Wang, professor of linguistics, University of California at Berkeley

Download or read book Remembering Simplified Hanzi 1 written by James W. Heisig and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2008-10-31 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At long last the approach that has helped thousands of learners memorize Japanese kanji has been adapted to help students with Chinese characters. Book 1 of Remembering Simplified Hanzi covers the writing and meaning of the 1,000 most commonly used characters in the simplified Chinese writing system, plus another 500 that are best learned at an early stage. (Book 2 adds another 1,500 characters for a total of 3,000.) Of critical importance to the approach found in these pages is the systematic arranging of characters in an order best suited to memorization. In the Chinese writing system, strokes and simple components are nested within relatively simple characters, which can, in turn, serve as parts of more complicated characters and so on. Taking advantage of this allows a logical ordering, making it possible for students to approach most new characters with prior knowledge that can greatly facilitate the learning process. Guidance and detailed instructions are provided along the way. Students are taught to employ "imaginative memory" to associate each character’s component parts, or "primitive elements," with one another and with a key word that has been carefully selected to represent an important meaning of the character. This is accomplished through the creation of a "story" that engagingly ties the primitive elements and key word together. In this way, the collections of dots, strokes, and components that make up the characters are associated in memorable fashion, dramatically shortening the time required for learning and helping to prevent characters from slipping out of memory.

Download or read book Chinese Writing and Calligraphy written by Wendan Li and published by . This book was released on 2010-05-31 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The work covers three major areas: 1) descriptions of Chinese characters and their components, including stroke types, layout patterns, and indications of sound and meaning; 2) basic brush techniques; and 3) the social, cultural, historical, and philosophical underpinnings of Chinese calligraphy---all of which are crucial to understanding and appreciating this art form. --

Download or read book Scripts and Literacy written by I. Taylor and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 381 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Literacy is a concern of all nations of the world, whether they be classified as developed or undeveloped. A person must be able to read and write in order to function adequately in society, and reading and writing require a script. But what kinds of scripts are in use today, and how do they influence the acquisition, use and spread of literacy? Scripts and Literacy is the first book to systematically explore how the nature of a script affects how it is read and how one learns to read and write it. It reveals the similarities underlying the world's scripts and the features that distinguish how they are read. Scholars from different parts of the world describe several different scripts, e.g. Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Indian Amerindian -- and how they are learned. Research data and theories are presented. This book should be of primary interest to educators and researchers in reading and writing around the world.

Download or read book The New Wellness Revolution written by Paul Zane Pilzer and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2012-06-12 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Read the Preface, Introduction, and Chapter 1 at thewellnessrevolution.paulzanepilzer.com. Five years ago, Paul Zane Pilzer outlined the future of an industry he called “wellness” and showed readers how they could get in on the profitable bottom floor. The New Wellness Revolution, Second Edition includes more guidance and business advice for entrepreneurs, product distributors, physicians, and other wellness professionals. It’s an industry that will only grow, so get in while you can.

Download or read book Mandarin Chinese Teacher Education written by Fotini Diamantidaki and published by UCL Institute of Education Press (University College London Institute of Education Press). This book was released on 2018 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection addresses the current lack of literature specifically aimed at supporting Chinese language teachers. It will be useful for PGCE Mandarin students, teacher trainers and those involved in the development of Mandarin Chinese in schools across the UK and further afield.

Download or read book Linguistic Engineering written by Ji Fengyuan and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2003-11-30 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Mao and the Chinese Communist Party won power in 1949, they were determined to create new, revolutionary human beings. Their most precise instrument of ideological transformation was a massive program of linguistic engineering. They taught everyone a new political vocabulary, gave old words new meanings, converted traditional terms to revolutionary purposes, suppressed words that expressed "incorrect" thought, and required the whole population to recite slogans, stock phrases, and scripts that gave "correct" linguistic form to "correct" thought. They assumed that constant repetition would cause the revolutionary formulae to penetrate people's minds, engendering revolutionary beliefs and values. In an introductory chapter, Dr. Ji assesses the potential of linguistic engineering by examining research on the relationship between language and thought. In subsequent chapters, she traces the origins of linguistic engineering in China, describes its development during the early years of communist rule, then explores in detail the unprecedented manipulation of language during the Cultural Revolution of 1966–1976. Along the way, she analyzes the forms of linguistic engineering associated with land reform, class struggle, personal relationships, the Great Leap Forward, Mao-worship, Red Guard activism, revolutionary violence, Public Criticism Meetings, the model revolutionary operas, and foreign language teaching. She also reinterprets Mao’s strategy during the early stages of the Cultural Revolution, showing how he manipulated exegetical principles and contexts of judgment to "frame" his alleged opponents. The work concludes with an assessment of the successes and failures of linguistic engineering and an account of how the Chinese Communist Party relaxed its control of language after Mao's death.

Download or read book Chinese Characters written by Alan Hoenig and published by Dr. Alan Hoenig. This book was released on 2009 with total page 507 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A systematic, building block-style plan for mastering the most daunting aspect of learning Chinese--how to remember the meaning of more than 2,000 of the most common characters--is provided in this handbook. Beginning with the simplest of strokes, such as those for numbers, scepter, and earth, and progressing to the extremely complex, such as destroy, insert, and mouse, this manual presents a methodology employing memory techniques to associate meanings with the characters' visual components. A sequence of numbered panels displays each character in two font styles, and a notation in the adjacent margin describes the character's pinyin pronunciation. Graphics that identify the components or characters from which the featured characters are drawn, and a listing of both the names of these root components, and the panel numbers that cite their location in the book augment the presentation. Beginners will be best served by using this guide in conjunction with the development of language skills, while those who are familiar with the language will find this book to be a comprehensive reference and refresher.

Download or read book Classical Chinese for Everyone written by Bryan W. Van Norden and published by Hackett Publishing. This book was released on 2019-10-15 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In just thirteen brief, accessible chapters, this engaging little book takes "absolute beginners" from the most basic questions about the language (e.g., what does a classical Chinese character look like?) to reading and understanding selections from classical Chinese philosophical texts and Tang dynasty poetry. "An outstanding introduction to reading classical Chinese. Van Norden does a wonderful job of clearly explaining the basics of classical Chinese, and he carefully takes the reader through beautifully chosen examples from the textual tradition. An invaluable work." —Michael Puett, Harvard University

Download or read book Reading and Writing Chinese written by William McNaughton and published by Tuttle Publishing. This book was released on 2013-07-23 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a complete and easy–to–use guide for reading and writing Chinese characters. Learning written Chinese is an essential part of mastering the Chinese language. Used as a standard by students and teachers learning to read Chinese and write Chinese for more than three decades, the bestselling Reading & Writing Chinese has been thoroughly revised and updated. Reading & Writing Chinese places at your fingertips the essential 1,725 Chinese characters' current definitions, derivations, pronunciations, and examples of correct usage by utilizing cleverly condensed grids. This guide also focuses on Pinyin, which is the official system to transcribe Hanzi, Chinese characters, into Latin script, now universally used in mainland China and Singapore. Traditional characters (still used in Taiwan and Hong Kong) are also included, making this a complete reference. Newly updated and revised, these characters are the ones officially prescribed by the Chinese government for the internationally recognized test of proficiency in Chinese, the Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi (HSK). The student's ability to read and write Chinese are reinforced throughout the text. Key features of this newly-expanded edition include: The 1,725 most frequently used characters in both Simplified and Traditional forms. All 2,633 characters and 5,000+ compounds required for the HSK Exam. Standard Hanyu Pinyin romanizations. More mnemonic phrases and etymologies to help you remember the characters. An extensive introduction, alphabetical index, and index according to stroke count and stroke order. Completely updated/expanded English definitions. Convenient quick-reference tables of radicals. Updated and revised compounds, plus 25% more vocabulary now offered. Codes to assist those who are preparing for the AP exam or the HSK exam.

Download or read book Cross Cultural Design Applications in Cultural Heritage Creativity and Social Development written by Pei-Luen Patrick Rau and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-07-10 with total page 501 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This two-volume set LNCS 10911 and 10912 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Cross-Cultural Design, CCD 2018, held as part of HCI International 2018 in Las Vegas, NV, USA, in July 2018.The total of 1170 papers and 195 posters included in the 30 HCII 2018 proceedings volumes was carefully reviewed and selected from 4373 submissions. The 37 regular papers presented in this volume were organized in topical sections named: culture, learning and games; culture and creativity; cross-cultural design for social change and development.

Download or read book A Glossary of Words and Phrases in the Oral Performing and Dramatic Literatures of the Jin Yuan and Ming written by Dale Johnson and published by U OF M CENTER FOR CHINESE STUDIES. This book was released on 2021-01-19 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For many years, the oral performing and dramatic literatures of China from 1200 to 1600 CE were considered some of the most difficult texts in the Chinese corpus. They included ballad medleys, comic farces, Yuan music dramas, Ming music dramas, and the novel Shuihu zhuan. The Japanese scholars who first dedicated themselves to study these works in the mid-twentieth century were considered daring. As late as 1981, no comprehensive dictionary or glossary for this literature existed in any language, Asian or Western. A Glossary of Words and Phrases fills this gap for Western readers, allowing even a relative novice who has resonable command of Chinese to read, translate, and appreciate this great body of literature with an ease undreamed of even two decades ago. The Glossary is organized into approximately 8,000 entries based on the reading notes and glosses found in various dictionaries, thesauruses, glossaries, and editions of works from the period. Main entries are listed alphabetically in the pinyin romanization system. In addition to glosses, entries include symbolic annotations, guides to pronunciation, and text citations. The result is a broadly useful glossary serving the needs of students of this literature as well as scholars researching Jin and Yuan language and its usage.

Download or read book The Educated Mind written by Kieran Egan and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2007-12-01 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Educated Mind offers a bold and revitalizing new vision for today's uncertain educational system. Kieran Egan reconceives education, taking into account how we learn. He proposes the use of particular "intellectual tools"—such as language or literacy—that shape how we make sense of the world. These mediating tools generate successive kinds of understanding: somatic, mythic, romantic, philosophical, and ironic. Egan's account concludes with practical proposals for how teaching and curriculum can be changed to reflect the way children learn. "A carefully argued and readable book. . . . Egan proposes a radical change of approach for the whole process of education. . . . There is much in this book to interest and excite those who discuss, research or deliver education."—Ann Fullick, New Scientist "A compelling vision for today's uncertain educational system."—Library Journal "Almost anyone involved at any level or in any part of the education system will find this a fascinating book to read."—Dr. Richard Fox, British Journal of Educational Psychology "A fascinating and provocative study of cultural and linguistic history, and of how various kinds of understanding that can be distinguished in that history are recapitulated in the developing minds of children."—Jonty Driver, New York Times Book Review