Does anyone know how to read simplified chinese characters?

[Kimba15]

Hi Everyone?

My DD and I are learning chinese together and I have a huge realiance on pinyin rather than reading the chinese character. We a re both learning Simplified chinese and I want to get rid of the pinyin and be able to read the characters so I can teach my dd who is also starting to read the pinyin instead of the character. How do I know which character makes which sound and tone?

Kimba

[andreasro]

You can use http://www.nciku.com/ or http://www.archchinese.com/chinese_english_dictionary.html to enter or even draw the character or you can enter the pinyin or the english word.
Those online dictionaries, mainly the first, are the ones that my husband uses as one of the supplementary tools when learning Chinese at university.

Nciku, by the way, shows you even the ethimology, the history of the character. And this may be very helpful in remembering the character especially when you can see the character's meaning in the way it's still written. I like to know the history of a character and there are many good books on that. I've used "500 Basic Chinese Characters" http://www.amazon.com/Basic-Chinese-Characters-Zhou-Jian/dp/7800524604 that my husband borrowed from his University's library and it's very useful.

From my husband I have learned that it's better to start learning the character first, mainly by writting it down, and then learn the pinyin. I've tried what he's saying and he's right. You remember the character faster if you write it down few times (at least 10, the more the better). He's been learning thousands of characters with ease. Writing down is a tough practice, takes time but it worths - you remember the characters for a long time and it easier to use them when needed.
A good book for learning how to write Chinese caracters is this book "Learn to Write Chinese Characters", by Johan Bjorksten http://www.amazon.com/Learn-Write-Chinese-Characters-Language/dp/0300057717.

Hope this helps somehow  .

Andrea

[Kimba15]

Thank you very much. I will definetly take a look at these websites.

[dna]

hi, i'm not an expert in chinese but just share some chinese rules for your reference:

1. chinese character actually can be read according to 部首 (radical -> http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/radicals.php ). but sometimes got exceptional cases.
E.g.

Door (门) itself is a radical, pronounce as (men2)
We (我们) -> 们 is also pronounced as (men2)

Other radical such as申(shen1), the following all pronounce as (shen1) as it has the radical 申: 伸 (protude or give or to get), 审 (punishment), 呻(groan) , 绅 (gentlemen).

2. Each radical actually has certain meaning itself. e.g. 女(nv3) means female, thus when it combine with other radical, it always refers to female when talking about people, e.g. 妈妈,姐姐,她...

The other good examples are:
鱼 (yu2) means fish. When 鱼 is combine with other radical, it referring sea creatures e.g. 鲸(whale), 鳄(crocodile) and etc.

虫(chong2) means insects. When虫 is combine with other radical, it belongs to insect groups. E.g. 青蛙(frog), 蚊子(mosquito), 蜜蜂(bee)..

2. You can group same pronunciation but different character together to show to your kids: 心(heart) and 新(new).

3. sometimes Same characters has different meaning e.g. 长 has pronunciation: chang2 / zhang3. Chang2 means LONG, whereas zhang3 means ELDER.  

4. The Chinese character actually evolved from drawing in ancient time. Thus, you can teach your child to draw to learn the Chinese character. E.g. shown in this website http://www.zein.se/patrick/chinen9p.html
e.g. 林 (lin2) is actually referring to 2 trees.

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