Review: Read, Consider, Reflect.
Warm-Up Readings:
Readings About Tones:
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Before we talk about tones, we need to have an introduction to Chinese phonetics: the sounds of the language.
Chinese Phonetics: Guiding Questions
What is pīn yīn ?
What are 3 essential parts of a syllable?
What are common initial sounds? What are common final sounds?
Which are simple finals? Which are compound?
Click HERE for a spoken version of the alphabet.
HERE: a video from YangYang that recaps some basic ideas about Chinese phonetics.
HERE: is an advanced chart of Chinese phonetics, including all possible sounds in this language.
HERE: advanced information on the rules of the Hanyu Pinyin system.
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STROKE ORDER
1. Top before bottom
2. Left before right
These rules conflict whenever one stroke is to the bottom and left of another. Several additional rules resolve many of these conflicts.
3. Left vertical stroke (usually) before top horizontal stroke
4. Bottom horizontal stroke last
5. Center stroke before wings
6. Horizontal strokes before intersecting vertical strokes
7. Left-falling strokes before right-falling srokes
A final rule can contradict the others:
8. Minor strokes (often) last
Despite these conflicts between rules most students quickly acquire a natural feel for the proper stroke order.
Radical Order - Most Chinese characters are combinations of simpler, radical components.
Usually the two parts are written at top and bottom
or left and right
so that the main two stroke order rules readily apply. Occasionally these rules also conflict with respect to components.
When one component is at the bottom-left, and the other at the top-right, the top-right component is sometimes written first.
When there are several components, top components are written first.
These rules usually imply each component is written in its entirety before another component is written.
Exceptions may arise when one component divides another,
encompasses another,
or the individual components are no longer discernible in modern writing.
(source: www.zhongwen.com)
Remember! most online dictionaries offer stroke order animations, so check there when you're not sure how to write a character.
The stroke form demonstrations were a great way of refreshing the order the characters are written in and helped me remember some of the things I learned previously. The articles also proved a great help in remembering the sound and structure of basic Chinese words.
ReplyDeleteTones are very important because they distinguish words from one another. It always helps to write the tones with pinyin and read them allowed when reviewing. Speaking slower also lets others hear mistakes more easily, which makes it easier for them to correct us. Even though it might be embarrassing, being corrected is helpful and essential to becoming better at Chinese.
ReplyDeleteI especially found the articles about exaggeration and tones to be very helpful. The 'Big, then Small' idea makes a lot of sense, because it means that your mistakes are easier to catch. This sounds like a bad thing, but in reality it means that you can more easily correct yourself. This is huge part of learning any language, Mandarin included. The article on tones is very interesting also. The idea that a tone is just as important as a vowel sound was pretty surprising. All the articles were a great help and reminded me of how to go about learning Chinese.
ReplyDeleteThe article about being corrected was pretty interesting because it applies to more than just practicing chinese. Rule number one mentioned in the article is sometimes easy to forget. The article about learning by exaggerating was also good, but Ms. Epperly has already done a good job of instilling this idea into us already. Tones are also very important and I learned a few things that I could try (the color thing.) I found the article about 3rd tones particularly good because I still have troubles with them sometimes. I also learned that you should do the low tone before 4th tone, along with 1st and 2nd.
ReplyDeleteI found he first three articles interesting. The idea of taking things slow so you can get the movements down then gradually speeding up is something I will have to use this year.Being corrected is an essential part of learning and being corrected will in the long run be beneficial for our Chinese skills. The articles overall are saying that tones are the most important part of the language and that it will take time for me to develop my ability to say and hear tones, it is possible for me to get there. The rules on character writing were also a good refresher seeing as I had forgotten a few.
ReplyDeleteThe first three article are interesting in that they help the student understand the steps it takes to learn Chinese. Accuracy in a language is probably one of the most important points in being understood, and by allowing others to point out your mistakes and by starting off slow and ready to learn with tones and other points, one is much more likely to be accurate and more easily understood. The importance of tones in Chinese is a very important lesson for beginners, and needs to be engrained in a students head, which these articles do. Good handwriting is important in reading Chinese rather than speaking it, therefore it is important to practice stroke order, thereby allowing yourself to work on writing a character properly and making sure it looks right, even if one were to write it fast.
ReplyDeleteThese articles really help the student understand how to learn and be proficient in chinese. The first article is great for even everyday life learning to accept constructive criticism is a skill you need every where. The second article shows that exageration helps things stick in your mind and stay there. Learning proper stroke order and tone pronunciation are very similar because if you go up instead of down in a stroke or in your tone the meaning changes completely.
ReplyDelete