Customer Reviews

Reading & Writing Chinese: Traditional Character Edition, A Comprehensive Guide to the Chinese Writing System

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

McNaughton's 'Reading and Writing Chinese' remains a very useful guide for learners attempting to acquire literacy in Chinese. It comprises two sections, the first listing some 1,062 elementary* characters with its stroke order, Mandarin pronunciation and meaning, as well as a few compound words using the character and the simplified version of the character if it exists. The second section comprises the remainder of the characters in the official list of 2,000 basic characters promulgated by the Chinese government, and gives much the same information as the first section, save the stroke order (which the learner should already be conversant with after learning the first section) and the compound words. The book contains a number of useful indices that may be used to look up unfamiliar characters by pronunciation, stroke-count, etc.

*McNaughton has adopted a largely pedagogical order in the presentation of characters. Unlike many books which present the most commonly-used characters first (although this is not to say that the characters he presents are not, in the main, common ones), characters that are geometrically simplest are first presented, and complex characters are built-up from the simpler parts already presented. This does, in many ways, aid the memorisation of complex characters, if their parts are already known, but it also has the effect of presenting some rare, obscure, archaic or otherwise obsolete characters early on, so that they may be used as a section of a more complex, but common, character later on. Similarly, the compound words are chosen so that they only use characters that have already been learnt.

One feature that I liked about this book is that it gives hints on learning the characters, and etymological information on the derivation of the character if it is useful for helping memorise the characters. As mentioned before, there is great emphasis placed on the building up of a character from its parts.

This edition is a revised version of the 1979 edition containing a number of changes. The most significant change is probably the switch from Yale romanisation to Pinyin. The former was designed for pedagogical purposes, and is perhaps more convenient for English speakers, but the latter is increasingly becoming standard and the switch was probably not unwise. The second notable change is the use of the kaishu (model script) in the head characters in place of the (often idiosyncratically) handwritten characters of the original edition. I thought there was some charm in the handwritten edition, but I suppose, for the sake of standardisation, the new format is better, for the kaishu script is something of a normative standard in Chinese. (The disadvantage is that it looks like it has been written with a brush rather than the pen, whereas most learners would probably use a pen. The differences between brush- and pen-written characters, however, are slight.) The compound words have also been increased in number, and chosen to better reflect the vocabulary of contemporary Chinese, an added bonus, although they really only illustrate the uses of the character, and does not constitute a resource for acquiring Chinese vocabulary.

All in all then, it is a very useful book for a learner beginning on the road to literacy in Chinese. I have not given five stars, not because I discovered any major flaws, but because I did not get the impression of outstanding excellence that merits it. I really have no complaint of note to make about the book. (Inclusion of Cantonese pronunciation in addition to the Mandarin, however, would be a welcome bonus.)

If you are serious about learning the Chinese writing system, this is one of the best books. It's a tough job and no resource should be overlooked, but this is one which can provide tremendous support.

Over ten years ago when I began my studies, this book served as my guide in the absence of formal instruction. There are two unique elements to the book. The first is the etymologies, which serve to make the language-learning process more interesting and fun, as well as an extremely useful mnemonic. For those who wish to explore Chinese literature, both ancient and modern, it is invaluable that this book does not pass over radicals and certain basic characters which are not in common use but which are fundamental elements of the language.

The second wonderful aspect of this book is its explanation, on a stroke by stroke basis, of how to write each character in its complex and original form. Learning to write Chinese is a skill acquired through repetition, and this book provides the background for the necessary rote-work. But if you follow the stroke sequence clearly illustrated in this book, the way to write any Chinese character will eventually come naturally.

This book was my constant companion during the initial period that I was learning Chinese, and now I have a gift the value of which is truly beyond measure.

This book systematically introduces the 2000 Chinese characters that McNaughton feels are the core of the language. Though it can be used this way, the book makes an even better reference source as a basic character dictionary. Its most helpful features are the dual-indexes of Romanized and original characters. Approximately half of the characters in the book (about 1000) have explanatory diagrams showing how to properly write them in the correct stroke-order. These are accompanied by etymologies explaining the origins of the character, the character's radical, and the simplified forms. A chart of all 214 radicals is also provided. The only drawback is that the romainization is Yale, not Pinyin, but a helpful conversion chart is provided.

I got this book few months ago, after coming back from China, where I found the characters very intriguing, and decided to study Chinese writing. After extensive research, I thought this book the best one and got it; I also decided to start taking private Chinese classes. I enjoyed the book a lot and find it a very good tool for learning to write Chinese - especially if you want to learn the traditional characters.

The book is very well organized. At the beginning it gives an introduction about the writing system and the way the characters were formed, and offers a student guide on basic principles in character writing and pronounciation. Then it gives the basic 1,062 characters and elements on the writing system, and then the remaining 1,020 characters from the "official 2000 list".
For each character the books gives the radical, the stroke count/order (which is critical in learning how to write them), the pronounciation and tone, the radical information, the character explanation (often including info on how it was formed, and ofering some ways to memorize it), and (most importantly) offers character/radical combinations (0-5 per character), also with pronountiations and meaning. There are about 2,000 characters in the book and about 2,500 combinations. The book is organized by traditional characters, but for each character it also gives the simplified version. (By the way, there is an equivalent of this book - organized by simplified characters. However, as I understood from my Chinese professor, it is easier to study starting with the traditional characters). The book also has an Index (looking-up a character by pronountiation) and two basic charts, for the traditional and simplified radicals. The only shortcoming of the book is that it does not give the stroke order for the simplified characters - I guess because one of the authors has another book dedicated to the simplified characters. However, if you want to focus on the simplified characters, this book may not be ideal - get the same authors, but the simplified edition.

I think the book is very good for for beginners in writing Chinese, it starts with the most simple characters (with low stroke count) and it goes to more complicated ones. It first introduce a radical, then some basic words that use that radicals, and for these words it further presents more combinations and meanings. I like a lot that it gives the stroke order, which is critical - if you don't respect it is very likely that you won't remember how to write the character, plus the character will not look very good.

The book is very well organized and it motivates me a lot, I already made a lot of progress, learning about 100 characters per month. Highly recommended!!!

I bought this book to learn simplified characters, since I read in the editorial and review that it contained simplified characters. I will point out that I read hastily and it was my fault that I didn't read more of the reviews. When I received the book I was suprised when I read in the first few pages that the book is on traditional characters. However as I continued on the author makes a case for why it is better to learn traditional characters and he makes a very good case. I started thumbing through the book, and the book shows the brush strokes for the traditional characters and then for the ones that have a simplified equivilant, the simplified character is given (although without the strokes). So my plan was to attempt to learn them both at the same time.

Now it has been almost two weeks since I've received the book and I've learned over 50 of the 1,062 "basic" characters. What I've found is that it's easier to learn the traditional characters than the simplified ones. A simple example is the character for book is composed of the characters for "brush" and "say". This makes it easy to learn and remember. Whereas the simplified character for book is totally different. In other cases the simplified character just reduces some strokes, for example the word "ma" in traditional has four horizontal dots whereas in simplified they're replaced with a line. So these are very easy to learn.

I like the book because its approach corresponds very well to how I like to learn. I need to learn 1,062 characters, give them to me and I will learn them one at a time. There are no exercises, no sentences, just characters. Often he shows how two characters come together to give a new meaning. For example "little" + "hand" = "pickpocket". Examples like that are really interesting and help to learn how the 1,062 characters give thousands of words.

The author's approach starts with basic elements and then builds on them. For example, you learn the character for silk. Why? It's not a common word. But the character is present in the character for "you", which is very common. So he presents the characters in order of their frequency, but also he introduces them gently. My teacher tried teaching me to write "wo" ("I") and I had a hard time. With this book I remember it as "hand" + "lance" and it's much easier. This is why I love this book.

Really I can't say enough good things about it. He says if you can learn 6 new characters a day you can learn the material in a year. I find 6/day difficult, as I'm also listening to the Pimsleur CDs (highly recommended) but I am making progress. At 50/1062 I'm 5% of the way to understanding 80% of Chinese. It seemed impossible at first but now I know I can do it, all with this book!

One final note: You will need something to help you learn to pronounce the words. Wenlin is good, if not a tutor could help.

this book is a good guide for those who want to learn how to write basic chinese characters. what's great about this book is that the simplifid characters (if available) of the traditional ones are shown in the same box where the trad. char. are shown. the only drawback is the glossary doesn't show the english meanings of the chinese words in pinyin.if you wanna look up the chinese character for an english word and you don't know its pinyin spelling and tone mark, you'd be lost looking up all the possible characters which are scattered all throughout the book. other than that, this book is a good buy.

This is a very helpful, easy-to-use book for beginners. It has a lot of the characters you come across at first. What I can't find here the What Character is It? is a good supplement for. The one caveat is that for the Additional Characters section, a good part of the book, the index is riddled with mistakes. I hope they come out with a new edition and correct this very frustrating flaw. But still, this is the book I refer to first and mostly.

This is a great book for learning how to read and write Chinese characters. The characters are presented in a stepwise fashion, and later ones build on earlier ones. The meaning, pronunciation, and step-by-step way to write are provided, as well as the abbreviated characters now used in mainland China. I'm about 150 characters or so in, after about two weeks. Given that a decent vocabulary is 1000 words, that's not bad! This is great for anyone who wants to read or write, in addition to conversational spoken Chinese.

This book is perfect for those of you who are interested in learning Chinese characters and how to write them. This book has all of the most important characters in the Chinese language, including the list of the 1020 characters students should know and the offical 2000 characters published by the People's Republic of China with over 2500 combinations. This book also includes the all-important pinyin romanization to help you with pronunciation. Definitions, explanations, memorization tips and stroke order is also given for every character. Overall, I think that this is one of, if not the best book out there for learning the written Chinese language.

I love this book! I use this in conjunction with Chinese in a Flash and it makes learning the characters so much easier.
The book is phenomenal because it is set up to teach you how to use a traditional Chinese dictionary and shows you how to write the character and even gives you some hints on learning them. It discusses radicals, meaning and idioms! I HIGHLY urge you to read the Student Guide in the book before using it.
Overall, it's worth purchasing and I will forever go back to it to practice my writing and brush up on meanings.