I can’t believe it’s been a year since I picked up Italian.
I know I won’t become fluent but it’s fun to tell my friend what I’ve learnt.
She says she’s proud of me which means a lot.
A random story that happened a few months ago:
I ask my friend on book recommendations on the history and culture of Italy, she said “hang on I’ll ask the parents!” When she came back she said “I’ve started an argument” whoops lol
Hey guys, it’s ye boy langblr trash back at it again with another neat and nifty post on tumblr dot com.
My language learning journey has taken me to Germany, where I am currently an exchange student. Here I met another young polyglot who’s got a pretty cool idea for a new language learning app centered around finding cognates in your target language based on languages you already know. It’s called Rootify and it’ll be launching in beta soon!
I managed to hop on board the team for this thing and I wanted to do my part by spreading the word around to people like yourselves who may be interested. This seems like a great way to get a speed boost for part of your study of a new language. It’s all free too!
You can sign up for the beta here https://www.rootify.me/ and follow the official instagram and facebook for more updates
I’d also really appreciate giving this a quick reblog so more of the langblr community can see it! I think I may have been offline a bit too long to know a lot of the new members!
Germans when i ask why they drop english in the middle of our german coversation when i can clearly speak german: yeah i just consume so much english language media that i sometimes use phrases from it because they both sound cooler and honestly come to me faster than German equivalents
Americans if German phrases come faster and sound cooler to you : will you shut up about the war
Reading rec list for chinese learners. This is not exhaustive, if you find stuff that works for you then go for it! This is also not perfect, you may find stuff a bit easier or harder is more ideal for you. (By “know” below I mean you recognize the word as familiar, have studied or looked it up at some point, and so if you need to look it up again in reading you will learn it longer term fairly easily because of the repeated exposure to it in reading).
Know ~500 words?
Mandarin Companion Graded Readers. I recommend the Sherlock one, and the Journey to the Center of the Earth one. All Mandarin Companion books are excellent for beginners though.
Pleco Graded Readers - I recommend The Butterfly Lovers. There are a lot of Pleco Graded readers though, so you can pick based on amount of unique words (some Graded readers on Pleco go up to 2000 unique words).
Know ~1000-1500 words?
Sinolingua Chinese Graded Readers. There are several, and I started with the 500 word one. They somewhat match up with HSK and I found them more challenging than the Mandarin Companion graded readers. They have a vocabulary list in the back of the book and footnotes to help you study. They are a good bridge to get you from graded readers to other materials. I found the 1000 and 2000 word book equally difficult.
Pleco Graded readers, which include readers from 1000-2000 unique words.
Start delving into manhua! If you’re ready and feel like it! Easier manhua will be slice of life setting ones, and ones based on something you’re already familiar with. So if you’ve watched the Untamed or read 魔道祖师, then the manhua will be easier for you. If you’ve watched The Lost Tomb Reboot, then try out the slice of life comedy manhua spin off 盗墓笔记重启日常向 https://m.ac.qq.com/comic/index/id/649452. My Story 他们的故事 is a gl manhua which is slice of life and easy to read, as is 19天. There’s also more genre specific manhua which I waited a bit to read, but if you’re familiar with the story they may be doable like 2ha’s manhua and 破云 manhua.
Know ~1500-2000 words?
Start getting into easier novels. Suggestions include 活着 (anything by this author is often recommended to learners, I have not actually read anything by him yet), 小王子 (this was my first not-graded-reader novel I finished reading in chinese, it was a bit challenging, I used a english/Chinese copy so I could look up words occasionally), 笑猫日记: 会唱歌的猫 (I highly recommend this series of books, they’re for kids and fairly straightforward, set in a city so decently useful words are used, with a lot of chengyu that’s commonly used so they’re worth learning, I read 2 of these novels), 他们的故事 by 一根黄瓜丝儿 (a bl novel that’s first person, generally uses a lot of common daily life words, and is fairly straightforward, I’ve read half and it was the first real novel I tried to read in chinese). These novels can be tried earlier on if you’re more willing to use a click dictionary, which is what I did (except for 小王子 since I had a print copy). 论如何错误地套路一个魔教教主 The Wrong Way to a Demon Sect Leader (a fairly easy wuxia bl read).
Also in general anything you’ve read before in a language you understand, is going to be easier to read in chinese than something brand new.
Feeling brave? Up for a challenge?
撒野 and anything by that author uses a lot of more everyday language and is an easier read than some other webnovels. 盗墓笔记 does not use particularly hard language outside of the tomb genre words which if you’re reading then you need to look up and learn anyway eventually (the slang in it is a bit hard but also worth learning so the cursing etc trips you up less later in other stuff you read), if you’ve seen the show before its doable to read. Scum Villain Self Saving System is on the easier end of mxtx novels to read, especially if youre already familiar with the plot.
Know ~2000 words?
The same novels as before apply. But now you may need a dictionary a bit less. Stuff like 撒野 will now be a bit less difficult, still challenging. Now other novels will start to be doable as desired, if you’re using a dictionary. So go have fun looking into whatever webnovels you’re interested in.
(I made a list of difficulty ratings of various webnovels in my rec list tag, you may want to check out that list. A quick gadget though is like… 撒野 author is easier than 盗墓笔记 author, then mxtx, then priest (and tian ya ke and zhenhun are easier than silent reading and sha po lang), and poyun was higher on the difficulty scale, 2ha was fairly hard. Basically the more vocabulary or thicker the paragraphs, the harder it’s gonna be. Or the less familiar you are with a given genre).
At ~2000 words or more I’d say reading with a click dictionary feels quite doable, although a slog if you pick a harder novel so gauge what feels an okay level for you personally to read. And if you feel like reading without a dictionary, you’ll have to explore a bit to see what’s comprehensible to you without one.
Although Chinese characters aren’t used in everyday life in Korea anymore, they are still crucial to your understanding of the Korean language: with the help of Hanjas, you can easily find patterns in the way Korean words and Chinese idioms (사자성어 — generally 4 syllable sentences made of Chinese characters) are built. Moreover, it can help you with your Korean vocabulary learning, since 70-80% of Korean words have Chinese origins. This post is aimed at intermediate level Korean learners who wish to better their vocabulary skills.
Korean words that come from Chinese (we call them sino-korean words) are usually composed of one or more Chinese characters. In Korean, these characters are all pronounced according to a Korean pronounciation, not Chinese. For example, the character “人”, which means “person” in Chinese, is pronounced 인 in Korean. This does not mean that the word for “person” is 인 in Korean — since, as you all know, it’s 사람 —, it simply means that when the syllable 인 pops up in a word, you can deduce that the word has something to do with the person, the being. For example, the word 한국인 is composed of the word for Korea, 한국, as well as the Hanja for “person”, 인 — you can deduce that 한국인 means “Korean person.”
Chinese characters were created thanks to a rule called 육서(六書), literally “Six Writings”, which sorts Chinese characters into 6 types. Four of them are classified according to the structure of the character (called 체), meaning the way a character is built graphically. The last two are classified according to their usage (called 용).
Characters classified according to their structure 체
상형자: these are pictograms, meaning they are stylized drawings of an object — this object can be drawn from any angle, which might explain why they might be hard to recognize at first glance. The simplification of characters might also explain the reason why the object drawn does not look like reality, while still being classified as a pictogram. If you look at the way the same simplified character was written with the Oracle Bone Script (the very first Chinese script), you might be able to recognize the character more easily. For example:
These are two exemples of pictograms. Can you recognize the character for “rain” (비 우), with the rain falling on the windows, and the character for “fire” (불 화), representing flames? The drawings from left to right highlight the way the same character changed throughout the centuries. The far left corresponds to the Oracle Bone Script, while the one at the top corresponds to the more simplified version we use now.
지사자:ideograms are icons that generally express an abstract idea. Numbers from 1 to 3, for example, are represented respectively by 1 (一), 2 (二) and 3 (三) lines. They are pronounced 일, 이 and 삼 — familiar, right?
Among these, can you guess which one means “above”, which one means “under” and which one means “middle”?
On the character on the left, you can see that the small horizontal line is above the long horizontal line: this character means “above”, because the smaller line is above the longer line. On the other hand, on the far right character, you can see that the small line is under the long line so, you guessed it, this character means “under.” The last character is made up of a square which is cut in the middle by a long line, so it is the character meaning “middle”.
회의자:compound ideographs are some of the most interesting types of Chinese characters in my opinion. They are characters composed of two or more 지사자 or 상형자 in order to form another word. They are always composed of a key (부수), also called radicals. These keys are semantic indicators, meaning they are an indicator of the meaning of a character. (Example: 물 수氵is key 85 meaning “water”. This key can be found in the phono-semantic compound character — cf. 형성자 —, 江. If you knew the meaning of key 85 before even seeing the character 江, you might be able to deduce that this character has something to do with water — and indeed, it is 강 강 江 meaning “river”.)
Examples of 회의자:
-> 사람 인 人 (person) + 입 구 口 (entrance, gate) = 가둘 수 囚 (person stuck in an enclosure = a prisoner, a convict)
-> 나무 목 木 (tree) + 나무 목 木 + 나무 목 木 = 나무빽빼할 삼 森 (three trees together = forest)
형성자: phono-semantic compound characters are, as indicated by their name, a compound word made of a key (부수) — which gives us the meaning, so the semantic part of the character — as well as a phonetic component, which gives us roughly the sound of the character. To use an example we used before, the character 강 강 江 is composed of the semantic indicator 물 수氵, which relates to water, while 장인 공 工 (which is pronounced 공 by itself) is the phonetic component: so 江 means “river”, and it is pronounced 강 (which is close to 공).
Note: 장인 공 工 means “labor, worker”, so you can see the meaning of this component has nothing to do with the reason it is in the character — here, it is used purely for phonetic, not semantic, reasons.
Characters classified according to their usage 용
전주자: I’m not sure what to call them in English… they are simply characters whose meaning has evolved as time passes due to an extension of its meaning (we call that process 파생). This phenomenon can sometimes be paired with a change in pronounciation. For example, from “bad” (악알 악) to “hate” (미워할 오). Or from “music” (풍류 악) to “pleasure” (즐길 락) to “like” (좋아할 요).
가차자: these are sometimes called phonetic loans. They are characters that were once used to mean something else, but were borrowed because of their similar sound to another word and have now completely changed meaning. They might spring from : 1) a lack of existing character to write a word, which results in the use of another similar-sounding character or 2) an error made by accident or by ignorance. These are often used to transcript foreign words or names.
In the search bar, you can choose to type the way a character is pronounced in Korean, but you can also copy-paste the Chinese character. Once you press enter, you will be able to see all of the Hanjas that correspond to your search.
A Hanja is always written this way : Korean equivalent to the Chinese word (which is called 훈 and corresponds to the meaning of the word) + pronounciation of the character(called음). On the picture above, we have 사람 (the 훈, the meaning in Korean) followed by 인 (the 음, the way you pronounce the Hanja).
Bellow, you can see the key or radical (부수), which are very important to learn. Next to it, 획수 corresponds to the number of strokes needed to write the character. Right below, if you click on the small arrow-head, you can see the 획순, which is the stroke order (because stroke orders are very important when writing Chinese characters — they are not random). You might also see stroke order written as 필순.
Now, let’s click on 사람 인 人. If you scroll down, you will find this: first, in what 육서 it is categorized (some characters have no 육서 written — some you can guess by yourself, others are just not categorized because we just don’t know what category to put them in). Here, you can see that 사람 인 人 is a 성형자, meaning it is a drawing of a person. Then, followed by the little explanation, you can see the way its writing has evolved throughout the centuries, and the drawings they give help a lot in remembering the character.
How Hanjas Can Help Vocabulary Building
We now know that 인 人 means “person.” By knowing that, can you guess the meaning of these words?
-> 인형 (with 형 形 meaning “shape, appearance”)
-> 인종 (with 종 種 meaning “race”)
-> 거인 (with 거 巨 meaning “large, enormous”)
-> 군인 (with 군 軍 meaning “army, military”)
-> 노인 (with 노 老 meaning “old”)
(Answers: 인형 = doll, 인종 = human race, 거인 = giant, 군인 = soldier, 노인 = old person)
Decipher is a great little app for stretching your Mandarin reading abilities! It’s an interactive graded reader, available for AppleandAndroid devices. It’s also available online!
The web version.
Readings are available in all levels of the HSK. Vocabulary words within readings are also subtly color coded to indicate what HSK level they belong to. If you’re struggling with a word, Decipher lets you click on it to see Pinyin and a translation. You also have the option to save words to review and hear them pronounced.
Translation on Decipher.
Users can toggle between traditional and simplified, which is invaluable if you’re learning Taiwanese Mandarin. Decipher’s got a lot of useful features, an easy-to-use interface, and best of all, it’s free! I haven’t been using it long, and I love it already.
It’s not for absolute beginners - Decipher says you need about 100 words of Mandarin to start using their app. But once you’re to that point, check it out! It’s the most painless way to practice reading Mandarin that I’ve found, but it pushes you at the same time.
as the explanation for the second test explains, you should only click on a character if you know both the pronunciation and definition since it’s fairly easy to guess a character’s pronunciation. you can take both tests in simplified or traditional
according to these tests, i know somewhere between 2,800 and 2,900 characters! what about you?
(if you study japanese you can give these tests a try too just for fun!)
Want to practice your Korean speaking and listening skills?
And find new Korean YouTube channels (with subtitles!) while you’re at it?
Check out YouGlish! You can type in any word or grammar point that you want to hear pronounced and used naturally in a sentence, and this site will find subtitled videos on YouTube where the speaker uses whatever phrase you searched up!
You can skip from one video to another, slow down their speech, and discover really interesting channels super easily =)
This website is available for 18 languages, including Spanish, Russian, Greek, Japanese, and even American Sign Language!
Our Korean professor introduced us to this site last week and I’m already in love, and I wanted to share it with you guys! Hope it helps!
