Tag Archives: phonetics

Jul10

Who could benefit by having Chinese by Numbers?

Posted on July 10, 2012 by davidjmspearce

Many readers would appreciate having this book
• The serious student of Chinese will be interested in having a near-complete list of all the simplified Chinese characters with concise definitions
• Any user would appreciate how the book vividly distinguishes the importance of each character via the font size
• Students reviewing vocabulary can easily pick out the characters that they should know
• Anyone reading Chinese will welcome the comprehensive and unique indexing system that reduces search time by about 60%
• They will be thrilled that their knowledge of basic characters gives them new strategies for finding characters quickly
• The advanced student can gain additional knowledge searching the phonetic patterns illuminated by the various indexes
• The beginner student can find any character just by piecing together parts of each character, even those with ‘difficult-to-classify’ radicals
• Even the non-student will like having a book that gives them a glimpse into the complexity and subtlety of the Chinese language

http://www.amazon.com/Chinese-Numbers-ultimate-method-characters/dp/1922022241

http://www.bookdepository.com/Chinese-by-Numbers-David-Pearce/9781922022240

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/chinese-by-numbers-david-j-pearce/1110603411?ean=9781922022240

http://www.vividpublishing.com.au/chinesebynumbers/

Jul5

Find it fast and avoid frustration!

Posted on July 5, 2012 by davidjmspearce

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Find it fast and avoid frustration! That was the key theme in designing this book. Finding characters fast means more productive study. And frustration is an emotion shared by many who have used a Chinese Dictionary.

Finding characters fast? Try searching for the character, It looks complex but contains two very common characters, 目mù and大dà. Using this basic knowledge and this book to find this character takes about fifteen seconds! The same search in a Chinese dictionary took me over two minutes.

Frustration using Chinese dictionaries can be illustrated by trying to look up the character, 里 (lǐ). To look up a Chinese character in a typical Chinese dictionary you search on the ‘radical’, which is the component of a character that carries the sense or meaning (the other part of the character is usually called the ‘phonetic’ part, which conveys the sound.) Both 田and 土are radicals and里 looks like a combination of these two radicals, but if you look up either of these in a traditional radical index, you will never find里. That is because里 is itself a radical so you look it up under itself! That is frustrating, but say you look up a character that contains 里. There are many that contain里, but if you look for characters which have this radical (里) you may find only six of the thirty-one characters that actually contain里! That is because the other twenty-five characters contain里in the ‘phonetic’ component. Of course there is no way knowing that when you start your search!

My book indexes all parts of the character so that you can be sure to find any character, no matter what, even starting with just one small part of the character. What is more, my book permits you to search for combinations of components, which is something that no other book attempts!

I wanted to make a book that I would like to use and I believe that I have done so. I recall a few minutes after arriving home with a printed draft I was already using this book to search out new characters from a Chinese novel that I was reading. I suddenly felt a great sense of freedom. It was so quick!

I hope that many other readers find the same satisfaction using this book.

Jul4

Sample search in Chinese by Numbers

Posted on July 4, 2012 by davidjmspearce

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You may be looking for the character shown below (撞) which, although quite a common character, is not in my Oxford Concise Chinese-English dictionary.

Perhaps you are already familiar with the components that make up the right-hand side of the character, top and bottom. By coincidence they both share the pinyin (li). Chinese by Numbers has an index of the pinyin value of each component so finding this character is a cinch.

Rather than look up the 400 or more characters that share the same radical, in Chinese by Numbers you can easily look up the right-hand side, and by adding the two index numbers and using the dual component index your search gets the correct answer in seconds.

You see, the book allows readers to make the most of their existing knowledge of the basic characters to minimise the wasted time spent searching through the radical indexes of traditional dictionaries. This improves reading speed, comprehension and enjoyment. It also trains the eye of readers to see the whole character.

When you look at this example you can easily see why the book is called Chinese by Numbers!

Jul2

Phonetic patterns revealed in the index

Posted on July 2, 2012 by davidjmspearce

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One of the incidental benefits of the indexing method of my book is how it gives users insight into the phonetic patterns of Chinese characters.

Consider this little extract from the dual component index:

The sounds for these related characters are all very similar, but all a little different. Having seen this pattern helps readers to understand the range and variation of this phonetic pattern. The next time they see the same phonetic element they will have advance knowledge of what the likely pronunciation will be.

Here is a similar grouping:

You can see the consistency in the pronunciation and the variation in tone of these related characters. I find this gives real insight into Chinese phonetics.

Finally, here is another grouping by the phonetic element:

Again, you can see the consistency and the exceptions in the pronunciation of the phonetic element.

There are, of course, hundreds of examples of this in the book, and only in this book.