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1000 CNY Challenge: How many characters needed to read Chinese?
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roddy -



Quote:


Originally Posted by ChineseSpeaker

Now you know how many Chinese characters you should learn as a simple outsider.


What about those of us who don't consider ourselves simple?

I'm sure I've said this before on here, but I'm going to say it again. Count the number of words
you know, and you might have a useful figure. The number of characters you know is only useful
insofar as it allegedly and indirectly measures the number of words you know.



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simonlaing -

Hey Guys,

How do you know how many characters you have learned? I remember when I was studying a lot they
said if you can handle this class you have about 2000 character mastery, but I haven't had a
course like that for a while though I am still learning.

Is there some way of measuring your character rate? I am working in a translation company so I
guess I am exempt, but my Friend James who started a dog shop speaks a lot of chinese.
The other thing is though he interacts with people about dogs and Mahjong, and stuff on TV all
which can be talked about with decent but not extensive vocabulary.
He also didn't test well on the HSK and got a 5 would he be a candidate.
(Anyone read Modern Express, 现代快报 newspaper, on K7 there is an article on him.)

But it is probably a different world for us outside of BJ and Shanghai, finding a job outside of
teaching where you don't have to speak chinese 95% of the time is difficult.

Have fun,
Simon

P.S. The was a point around 2500 probably when I was able to start guessing at the meaning of
characters and their sound (though the tone was off) . You have a word that means something device
and it has a huo in it you know it has something to to do with fire and from the context and guess
at the meaning. Lots of radicals, roof, water, emotion and others can help you guess this way .
And with redundant chinese half the time it is the exact same meaning as the second part of the
word.










Lu -



Quote:

My belief is that in the process of increasing your vocabulary so that you can pass the challenge,
you will, by default, also gradually be learning characters.

I am a professional translator. I have no idea how many characters I know, and don't really care
either. I do not understand everything I read right away, but I think I look up words at least 4
times as much as characters. In other words, I know almost all the characters I see, but I see
many words I don't know.
I strongly disagree with you that learning characters automatically implies learning words, and
because I think, like imron and others, that the key to fluent reading is words, not characters, I
think this challenge of yours is rather pointless.










gougou -



Quote:

How do you know how many characters you have learned?

I learn with a little computer program I wrote, it keeps track of the number of characters I know
(and yes, that function was included purely for self-gratification!)










sthubbar -

gougou - I think your time in Moscow would fall under exception #1. Were you living a professional
existence? I guess maybe you had a travel book and that book was in a language other than Russian.
To meet this challenge, if you had such a travel book for advise it would be in Russian. We are
not asking if a person can survive in a foreign country, I am surviving in China just fine, I just
can't read Chinese.

Roddy - I'm going to go even further out on the limb and say that knowing 4000 Hanzi is not only
necessary to read Chinese but it guarantees one can read Chinese. What I mean is that I informally
challenge anyone to find a person that knows 4000 Hanzi and does not know how to read. The sheer
magnitude of achieving that level guarantees that the individual has also learned vocabulary along
the way.

Lu - I understand you think this challenge is ridiculous. My purpose it to dispel the myth that
lower numbers of characters will allow a person to read Chinese. I don't know your background, but
you might fall under exception #2. What I mean is if you were to take a vacation would you use a
travel book all in Hanzi to plan your trip?

simonlaing - I worded the "excluded" section poorly. I have reworded it so hopefully you don't
think you are excluded. BTW, we are strictly taking about reading, not one's ability to speak.










gougou -



Quote:

I should be around 3000 characters now (maybe below, will let you know when I get home).

OK, just checked. My database has 2749 characters for a total of 6666 words. I am certain that I
know much more words than this, as by now I don't put all new words in there anymore, but the
character should be pretty exact.

Again, no problems reading Chinese - on the character side, that is.


(Even though given the number of posts that I have read about "how many characters" these days, I
should be below 95% Chinese by now... )










sthubbar -

gougou, great work on all those character and words.

The following quote typifies what I mean by "can read Chinese."

here heifeng said:


Quote:

Hmm..
Basically, (other then when I go online) almost everything that I read is in Chinese, so
definitely reading in general is helpful and will help out with vocabulary quite a bit.

A couple of other things you might be able to clarify:

1) Is 95% of the written material you see on a daily basis in Characters?

2) If you were planning a trip to say Egypt, would you, or better yet have you, used only Hanzi
websites to book plane tickets, hotels, tours, etc. Calling a travel agent does not count because
I can do that right now, that does not require reading. When you plan your trip and go to Egypt
are you able to ditch the Lonely Planet and only use Hanzi guide books?

3) If you are sick, are you confident to read medicine bottles when your life depends on it. (BTW,
this test is not extreme. I have been sick a couple of time since being in China, once where I
thought I might need surgery. I alway went to 100% Chinese speaking hospitals and had no problems
getting by or fearing for my safety. Though, I would not trust myself to read a medicine bottle.)










skylee -



Quote:

When you plan your trip and go to Egypt are you able to ditch the Lonely Planet and only use Hanzi
guide books?

I am Chinese but I can't do that. Is there a Hanzi (what a way to call Chinese btw) guide book out
there that is better than Lonely Planet? Would love to know about it.










gato -



Quote:

If you were planning a trip to say Egypt

It'd be realistic to talk about a tour guide to a Chinese city, a guide to Chengdu, HK, or Taipei,
for example.


Quote:

If you are sick, are you confident to read medicine bottles when your life depends on it.

Your example is a little extreme. If it involves a life and death decision, I wouldn't necessarily
trust my own medical judgment, whether the label's in English or Chinese. But it's for a cold
medication or a headache, yes, it's simple enough to read the labels and find what's appropriate.










gougou -



Quote:

1) Is 95% of the written material you see on a daily basis in Characters?

2) If you were planning a trip to say Egypt, would you, or better yet have you, used only Hanzi
websites to book plane tickets, hotels, tours, etc. Calling a travel agent does not count because
I can do that right now, that does not require reading. When you plan your trip and go to Egypt
are you able to ditch the Lonely Planet and only use Hanzi guide books?

3) If you are sick, are you confident to read medicine bottles when your life depends on it. (BTW,
this test is not extreme. I have been sick a couple of time since being in China, once where I
thought I might need surgery. I alway went to 100% Chinese speaking hospitals and had no problems
getting by or fearing for my safety. Though, I would not trust myself to read a medicine bottle.)

1) No. When I refused to read the English paper my boss gave me because of a challenge on the
internet, she threatened to fire me, so I had to give in.

2) I book all my trips through ctrip (for which I need a little more than 20 characters, BTW). And
I read up on the cities online - in Chinese.

3) I have a huge stack of semi-used up medicine in my cupboard, out of which I so far always have
been able to find the appropriate one (granted, I only have to distinguish between throat and
stomach, so that doesn't take too many characters either).


I think that your limit is way too high; around 2,500 characters should be enough for all but the
highly specialized texts. Maybe those statistics that you are trying to disprove are not so wrong
after all.












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