Can you read Chinese without knowing the language?
To understand it not to speak it? Of course you can. An excellent example could be that many Chinese are capable of understanding written English without knowing the pronunciation. In addition, the sound and shape of Chinese characters are not associated, so there should be no problem for your doing that.
How do Chinese people read characters they dont know?
Many of the characters in Chinese have become phonologically standardized over time and in a number of variations of Chinese. Many of the rhymes and phonetic information comes down to memorization and sometimes down to hints within the character.
Can Chinese read without knowing Chinese?
The answer is NO. You can’t read or write Chinese without characters. The Chinese language is always written in Chinese characters, as opposed to pinyin. In my opinion the only good way to learn pinyin is to repeat after native speech, hear the sounds and map them to the pinyin you read.
How long does it take to learn 1000 Chinese characters?
According to research, knowing the top 1,000 most common characters would allow you to understand about 90 percent of the Chinese language. And if you learn 11 characters per day, you’ll be able to get through the 1,000 most common characters in about three months.
Is learning to read Chinese hard?
Learning to read Chinese is not impossible, but it’s not easy either. Exactly how difficult it is depends on a lot of factors, some of which are beyond your control, but ShaoLan definitely has a point when she argues that learning Chinese needn’t be as hard as people think.
Should I learn to read or speak Chinese first?
It is best to learn how to speak first. In fact some people can speak but cannot read or write. Over time, it is good to learn to speak and write because, you can learn so much faster, the ability to read and write will mean you actually know the language well.
How do Chinese read letters?
Traditionally, Chinese text was written in vertical columns which were read from top to bottom, right-to-left; the first column being on the right side of the page, and the last column on the left.
How can you tell a Chinese character?
Break Down the Characters Remember that every Chinese character represents a syllable. It’s never just a letter, and sometimes it’s a whole word. The most important component of every Chinese character is its radical. Character radicals often indicate the meaning of the character and sometimes the way it’s pronounced.