Read and Write Chinese: A Simplified Guide to the Chinese Characters [Paperback]

Rita Mei-Wah Choy (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, Chinese

Product Details

• Paperback: 349 pages
• Publisher: China West Books; 5 Exp Sub edition (June 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0941340112
• ISBN-13: 978-0941340113
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #400,973 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very clear and well arranged Chinese Dictionary, August 9, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Read and Write Chinese: A Simplified Guide to the Chinese Characters (Paperback)

I felt that the large font used for the Chinese characters helped in locating many characters in the dictionary. For anyone who has ever used a traditional Chinese dictionary, they usually have a tiny typeface capable of inducing severe headaches! Not so here! These Chinese characters are large and bold! Very nice feature, also including the cantonese pronuciation along with the mandarin. This feature alone makes the book worth twice what it is. The step by step drawings for each Chinese character are a great help. I highly recommend this book to any student of Chinese. It has helped me in my studies and I keep it with me everywhere. Also, each character is assigned a number which makes easy locating when I study. This is a great help. The multiple systems of looking up a word are also helpful. They include English, Mandarin PinYin, Cantonese, Stroke Number, and Frequency. Highly recommended. You won't be sorry.

27 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Recommended with reservations, April 8, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Read and Write Chinese: A Simplified Guide to the Chinese Characters (Paperback)

Do not buy this book expecting to be able to use it for anything more than a reference to look up individual characters; it contains no compounds. It is not easy to use when looking up by pronunciation because the index includes no tones. The English definitions are not enough that you can use the word because it does not list whether or not the character is as bound morpheme, that is can it be used by itself or only with another character. In addition, it only gives traditional characters, but simplified characters are at least equally as important for any student of Chinese as a foreign language as the traditional ones. If I were comparing this book to other foreign language books in other languages I would not recomend it, but because of the shortage of Chinese language materials, and the price, it will probably be useful if you cannot afford as big character that would cost around $70.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Useful guide but far from ideal, April 30, 2000

By 

"radagasty" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Read and Write Chinese: A Simplified Guide to the Chinese Characters (Paperback)

This book is a useful guide to Chinese characters, although it has many shortcomings and flaws. It lists 3,200 characters with both their Mandarin and Cantonese pronunciations, and their most common meanings. The main character of each entry is printed large, and the stroke order of the character is given. The relative frequency of occurence of each character is also given. However, no indication of how the characters are used is made, nor are any compounds included in the entries.

The characters are listed in the traditional order according to the Kangxi radicals. The book has indices which list characters according to their Mandarin and Cantonese pronunciations, but they of limited use because the tones are not distinguished in the indices. Moreover, the index lists page references rather than characters themselves, which makes it very tedious to find a character by means of the pronunciation as each page listed has to be checked. There is also an index of meanings, but again, only page references are given, and the meanings are not comprehensive enough to be useful. Basically, one must be familiar with the Kangxi radical system in order to locate characters with any speed.

The Cantonese pronunciations of characters are a great boon to this book, setting it apart from other similar works. However, the merit of this feature is marred by the fact that the vulgar Cantonese pronunciations are given for some characters, instead of the proper ones. These pronunciations are commonly heard in Hong Kong slang, but are nonetheless incorrect.

All in all, this book is generally useful, particularly for its Cantonese pronunciations. The definitions given are brief, and the characters are large and clear. This book is a character text suitable for the beginner in Cantonese or Mandarin.