Guest guest Posted January 17, 2002 Report Share Posted January 17, 2002 Karla, What you're saying makes a good deal of sense. I've got some reference material that might interest you. Ken , Karla Renaud <karlarenaud@e...> wrote: > As Bob Flaws has in the interim told you, you can use dictionaries to look > up a character by stroke or radical(then ignore any pinyin pronunciation > that you see) to go straight to the English definition. > > I have gone through Bob's useful book when I switched fields and started > learning medical Chinese vocabulary, and I was not frustrated by it because > I already knew standard Chinese and how to use dictionaries. I know > several colleagues, however, who just couldn't use the book. Perhaps Bob > needs to use the book to teach in person, as it is always harder to learn > by oneself strictly from a book. These people felt the need to have some > aural/visual connection to the language, however, and were frustrated by > not having a teacher who could tell them how in the world to > " conceptualize " a character (which to them involved a sound, a shape, a > meaning to the Chinese radical, as well as a translated definition). > Obviously, different methods work for people with different learning > styles. And as you know more, you will ignore (in the interest of time and > infrequency of a certain word) and not memorize the pronunciatoin of some > new word you look up and translate, because you only care about the > translation and don't anticipate seeing it again soon. But for many > beginning students, this is very hard to do. I also think people are > embarrassed to talk to Chinese practitioners when they are saying " lou " > instead of " luo " because they can't pronounce " luo " properly. Or how do > you conceive of " qing " if you have no idea how to pronounce q in the > pinyin? I don't teach them to pronounce with native fluency using tones, > but basic proper pronunciation so any Chinese person could understand them. > > Also, the way I teach chinese, I actually teach the **sound components of > the characters, which almost no one talks about or teaches. ** This is the > secret key (along with the meaning radical components of characters) to > quickly increasing your ability. Chinese borrows other characters with the > same or similar pronunciation to make up other characters. Once you > realize this (which none of my teachers ever taught us, and I started using > this method on my own after a few years of slow study) you see the > connections between the characters, and it's so much easier to guess (quite > accurately) and look up a character in the dictionary using the > alphabetical pinyin index. Looking up every single charcter by counting > all the strokes and/or finding the radical plus the remaining strokes take > a long time. That's why it takes people 12 hours to translate one short > article. That's one important part of my method to speeding up the > learning and translating processes, and it works well. > > I also feel that learning the Chinese for the herb names and formulae gives > you a real edge in comprehending their nature. I may be developing a course > soon on teaching Chinese specifically for those starting to study Chinese > herbs. It makes it so much easier than memorizing pinyin names that are > meaningless gobbledygook to those students. It would give a huge advantage > in studying for the Board exam. > Karla > > At 09:05 PM 1/16/02 -0800, you wrote: > >Karla...your experience in teaching Chinese sounds great. > > I have a silly question. Is it possible to learn to read Chinese > >without knowing the Chinese word? In other words to go from charactor to > >English meaning. Its a conceptual question I've wondered about. > taiqi > > >- -------- > >-------------- > I have taught 40-50 American acupuncturists and acupuncture students > to translate Chinese without ever knowing how to pronounce the Chinese > word. In my class, we go straight from the written Chinese to the > English translation. If people want to learn spoken Chinese, that's > great too, but, in my experience, for students and practitioners > wanting to get at important clinical information, this is not an > absolute necessity. This is one of the themes of my book, Teach > Yourself to Read Modern Medical Chinese. > To verify if this is actually a possibility, you can check out the > translations published by Simon Becker, Sean Oldham, Lynn Kuchinski, > Jane Bean, and Joanne Ehret at various Blue Poppy sites and in various > Blue Poppy publications. Various of these translators' translations > have also been published in the JCM in UK, the Pacific Journal of OM > in Australia, and elsewhere. > I'm not saying that, in the best of all situations, this is the best > way to go about this, but I am saying, for busy adult students and > practitioners, it is possible, at least for getting started. Later on, > at least knowing the Pinyin, if not the actual pronunciation, is a > plus and tends to accrue with time and experience. However, I > routinely translate many hundreds of Chinese words without knowing > their Pinyin. > Bob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 17, 2002 Report Share Posted January 17, 2002 As Bob Flaws has in the interim told you, you can use dictionaries to look up a character by stroke or radical(then ignore any pinyin pronunciation that you see) to go straight to the English definition. I have gone through Bob's useful book when I switched fields and started learning medical Chinese vocabulary, and I was not frustrated by it because I already knew standard Chinese and how to use dictionaries. I know several colleagues, however, who just couldn't use the book. Perhaps Bob needs to use the book to teach in person, as it is always harder to learn by oneself strictly from a book. These people felt the need to have some aural/visual connection to the language, however, and were frustrated by not having a teacher who could tell them how in the world to " conceptualize " a character (which to them involved a sound, a shape, a meaning to the Chinese radical, as well as a translated definition). Obviously, different methods work for people with different learning styles. And as you know more, you will ignore (in the interest of time and infrequency of a certain word) and not memorize the pronunciatoin of some new word you look up and translate, because you only care about the translation and don't anticipate seeing it again soon. But for many beginning students, this is very hard to do. I also think people are embarrassed to talk to Chinese practitioners when they are saying " lou " instead of " luo " because they can't pronounce " luo " properly. Or how do you conceive of " qing " if you have no idea how to pronounce q in the pinyin? I don't teach them to pronounce with native fluency using tones, but basic proper pronunciation so any Chinese person could understand them. Also, the way I teach chinese, I actually teach the **sound components of the characters, which almost no one talks about or teaches. ** This is the secret key (along with the meaning radical components of characters) to quickly increasing your ability. Chinese borrows other characters with the same or similar pronunciation to make up other characters. Once you realize this (which none of my teachers ever taught us, and I started using this method on my own after a few years of slow study) you see the connections between the characters, and it's so much easier to guess (quite accurately) and look up a character in the dictionary using the alphabetical pinyin index. Looking up every single charcter by counting all the strokes and/or finding the radical plus the remaining strokes take a long time. That's why it takes people 12 hours to translate one short article. That's one important part of my method to speeding up the learning and translating processes, and it works well. I also feel that learning the Chinese for the herb names and formulae gives you a real edge in comprehending their nature. I may be developing a course soon on teaching Chinese specifically for those starting to study Chinese herbs. It makes it so much easier than memorizing pinyin names that are meaningless gobbledygook to those students. It would give a huge advantage in studying for the Board exam. Karla At 09:05 PM 1/16/02 -0800, you wrote: >Karla...your experience in teaching Chinese sounds great. > I have a silly question. Is it possible to learn to read Chinese >without knowing the Chinese word? In other words to go from charactor to >English meaning. Its a conceptual question I've wondered about. taiqi >--------- >-------------- I have taught 40-50 American acupuncturists and acupuncture students to translate Chinese without ever knowing how to pronounce the Chinese word. In my class, we go straight from the written Chinese to the English translation. If people want to learn spoken Chinese, that's great too, but, in my experience, for students and practitioners wanting to get at important clinical information, this is not an absolute necessity. This is one of the themes of my book, Teach Yourself to Read Modern Medical Chinese. To verify if this is actually a possibility, you can check out the translations published by Simon Becker, Sean Oldham, Lynn Kuchinski, Jane Bean, and Joanne Ehret at various Blue Poppy sites and in various Blue Poppy publications. Various of these translators' translations have also been published in the JCM in UK, the Pacific Journal of OM in Australia, and elsewhere. I'm not saying that, in the best of all situations, this is the best way to go about this, but I am saying, for busy adult students and practitioners, it is possible, at least for getting started. Later on, at least knowing the Pinyin, if not the actual pronunciation, is a plus and tends to accrue with time and experience. However, I routinely translate many hundreds of Chinese words without knowing their Pinyin. Bob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 18, 2002 Report Share Posted January 18, 2002 Karla, I think you're right. It most definitely does help to have a live teacher who can walk you through step-by-step. All the names of successful students I mentioned did attend live classes in which the book was used as the textbook. We tried to create a DL program to go with the textbook, but the task was too expensive for us. It definitely required video as opposed to audio in order to convey the characters. When we did the ROI, we just couldn't make the numbers work for the market size and interest. Where our textbook/workbook seems to work the best is when it's used in regularly scheduled classes with a live teacher. For instance, Daisy Dong used our book in a class she taught at Boulder SWAC and it seemed to work quite well. Bob , Karla Renaud <karlarenaud@e...> wrote: > As Bob Flaws has in the interim told you, you can use dictionaries to look > up a character by stroke or radical(then ignore any pinyin pronunciation > that you see) to go straight to the English definition. > > I have gone through Bob's useful book when I switched fields and started > learning medical Chinese vocabulary, and I was not frustrated by it because > I already knew standard Chinese and how to use dictionaries. I know > several colleagues, however, who just couldn't use the book. Perhaps Bob > needs to use the book to teach in person, as it is always harder to learn > by oneself strictly from a book. These people felt the need to have some > aural/visual connection to the language, however, and were frustrated by > not having a teacher who could tell them how in the world to > " conceptualize " a character (which to them involved a sound, a shape, a > meaning to the Chinese radical, as well as a translated definition). > Obviously, different methods work for people with different learning > styles. And as you know more, you will ignore (in the interest of time and > infrequency of a certain word) and not memorize the pronunciatoin of some > new word you look up and translate, because you only care about the > translation and don't anticipate seeing it again soon. But for many > beginning students, this is very hard to do. I also think people are > embarrassed to talk to Chinese practitioners when they are saying " lou " > instead of " luo " because they can't pronounce " luo " properly. Or how do > you conceive of " qing " if you have no idea how to pronounce q in the > pinyin? I don't teach them to pronounce with native fluency using tones, > but basic proper pronunciation so any Chinese person could understand them. > > Also, the way I teach chinese, I actually teach the **sound components of > the characters, which almost no one talks about or teaches. ** This is the > secret key (along with the meaning radical components of characters) to > quickly increasing your ability. Chinese borrows other characters with the > same or similar pronunciation to make up other characters. Once you > realize this (which none of my teachers ever taught us, and I started using > this method on my own after a few years of slow study) you see the > connections between the characters, and it's so much easier to guess (quite > accurately) and look up a character in the dictionary using the > alphabetical pinyin index. Looking up every single charcter by counting > all the strokes and/or finding the radical plus the remaining strokes take > a long time. That's why it takes people 12 hours to translate one short > article. That's one important part of my method to speeding up the > learning and translating processes, and it works well. > > I also feel that learning the Chinese for the herb names and formulae gives > you a real edge in comprehending their nature. I may be developing a course > soon on teaching Chinese specifically for those starting to study Chinese > herbs. It makes it so much easier than memorizing pinyin names that are > meaningless gobbledygook to those students. It would give a huge advantage > in studying for the Board exam. > Karla > > At 09:05 PM 1/16/02 -0800, you wrote: > >Karla...your experience in teaching Chinese sounds great. > > I have a silly question. Is it possible to learn to read Chinese > >without knowing the Chinese word? In other words to go from charactor to > >English meaning. Its a conceptual question I've wondered about. > taiqi > > >--- ------ > >-------------- > I have taught 40-50 American acupuncturists and acupuncture students > to translate Chinese without ever knowing how to pronounce the Chinese > word. In my class, we go straight from the written Chinese to the > English translation. If people want to learn spoken Chinese, that's > great too, but, in my experience, for students and practitioners > wanting to get at important clinical information, this is not an > absolute necessity. This is one of the themes of my book, Teach > Yourself to Read Modern Medical Chinese. > To verify if this is actually a possibility, you can check out the > translations published by Simon Becker, Sean Oldham, Lynn Kuchinski, > Jane Bean, and Joanne Ehret at various Blue Poppy sites and in various > Blue Poppy publications. Various of these translators' translations > have also been published in the JCM in UK, the Pacific Journal of OM > in Australia, and elsewhere. > I'm not saying that, in the best of all situations, this is the best > way to go about this, but I am saying, for busy adult students and > practitioners, it is possible, at least for getting started. Later on, > at least knowing the Pinyin, if not the actual pronunciation, is a > plus and tends to accrue with time and experience. However, I > routinely translate many hundreds of Chinese words without knowing > their Pinyin. > Bob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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