Quora: 我为什么要学汉字？ [美国媒体]

Why should I learn Chinese characters?

Quora: 我为什么要学汉字？




Kevin D. Aslan
Kevin D. Aslan, Entrepreneur, Author, Podcaster
Answered May 26
If you don’t know the characters, you will hit a wall.
It is a wall that will slow down your learning immensely, and eventually cap it off completely before you can even begin to say “I know Chinese.”
Let me put it this way - this is like if you were to say: Hey, I’m going to learn French, but not the grammar - is that ok?
Umm… no. Grammar is the backbone of French, and Chinese characters are the backbone of Chinese.

如果你不认识这些字，你就会碰壁。 这是一堵会让你的学习速度慢下来的墙，并且在你可以说“我懂中文”之前它最终会完全掩盖你的学习速度。
让我这么说吧——这就像你说:嘿，我要学法语，但是不学语法可以吗?
嗯…不。语法是法语的主干，汉字是汉语的主干。

Let me give you a more practical example: there are 412 pinyin combinations, times 4 tones, which gives you slightly over 1,600 unique sound combinations.
And there are over 100,000 characters, of which I’d say you’d need at least 5,000 to more or less be well-versed in Chinese. So for each unique sound, you’re going to have multiple characters that match to it. How are you going to differentiate them? Even Chinese have to ask sometimes:

让我给你一个更实际的例子:共有412种拼音组合，乘以4个音调，总共有略超过1600种独特的声音组合。 一共有超过10万个汉字，我想说的是你至少需要5000个汉字才能精通中文。对于每一个独特的发音，有多个匹配的文字，如何区分它们?甚至中国人有时也会问:

Chinese person 1: “Oh, in this word, the “na3”, which “na3” is it?”
Chinese person 2: “It’s the “na3 of na3li3”.”
Chinese person 1: “Oh ok.”

中国人1:这句话记得na3是哪个ma3？
中国人2:是哪里的哪
中国人1:好的

More importantly, the more characters you know, the easier it gets. Take a look at the word for butter, for example: 黄油 huangyou.
Now if you know the characters, this is the easiest word in the world to learn! The first, 黄，is yellow. The second, 油，is oil. Butter = yellow oil. You’ll remember it forever!

更重要的是，你知道的汉字越多，你越容易知道它的读音对应哪个词。看一下黄油这个词 eg:黄油 huangyou.
现在如果你懂汉字，那么这就是世界上最容易学的词语！ 首先，黄是yellow. 其次，油是oil。 Butter=yellow oil 你将会永远记住它。

Meanwhile, if you don’t know the characters, then butter might as well sound like 晃悠 ＝ swinging. Or even 皇有：Emperor Has (which makes no sense.)

如果你不懂汉字，那么黄油也许听起来像晃悠 或者 皇有

If you’re serious about Chinese… Learn the characters.

如果你对中文很认真，那么就学习汉字。

Victoria Weiya
Victoria Weiya, HSK5 working towards HSK6
Answered Jun 2 · Upvoted by Jessica Tang, Professional Chinese instructor and lover of the language
The most efficient way to learn Chinese is to learn the spoken language and the written language at the same time.
In the beginning it might seem like you can get by just learning the words using pinyin, but the moment you get to around an intermediate level, then characters become incredibly important to deepen you understanding of the language and broaden your vocabulary. Pinyin is a crutch that too many westerners rely on thinking that it is enough. But if you want to become anywhere near fluent you have to get away from using Pinyin as quickly as possible and start not only reading characters, but also writing characters.

学习汉语最有效的方法是同时学习口语和书面语。
在一开始你是可以通过使用拼音来学习单词的，但是当你到达一个中级水平的时候，那么汉字在加深你对语言的理解和扩大你的词汇量方面就显得非常的重要。很多的西方人认为它拼音已经足够了，但是，如果你想要到达接近流利的程度，你必须尽快远离拼音，开始读汉字，同时也要写汉字。

I would say it is pretty decietful saying that you know Chinese on a resume if you can only speak at a below intermediate level, though if you write that you know “conversational Chinese” it’s fine. You don’t want your boss giving you a control of an important meeting with Chinese clients only to find you can’t really say more than basic greetings and talking about the weather.

我想说的是，如果你的中文处于中级以下的水平，那么你在简历上说你懂中文是非常不诚实的说法，然而如果你写你懂“交际汉语”是没事的。你不希望当你的老板让你控制一个与中国客户的重要会议，结果却发现你只会基本的问候和谈论天气。

I’ll say it again, start learning the characters now. It will only waste your time in the future as you will have to go back and learn them all. And don’t forget the added bonus learning characters is that you will able to start memorizing new vocabulary much faster as you are able to visualize the character rather than just pinyin.
Here is some more useful information on how to efficiently learn Chinese characters.

我再说一遍，现在就开始学习汉字。否则它只会浪费你在未来的时间因为你必须回去学习它们。你将可以很快地记住新词汇当你能想象出汉字而不是拼音。

Murali Krishna U
Murali Krishna U, Engineer TechSavvy Entrepreneur Startupmentor Multilingual
Answered Aug 21
If you are living in China and learning Chinese characters is very important and useful for many reasons.
The following are some of the reasons

如果你生活在中国，那么学习中文是非常重要且有用。
以下是几点原因

1) Transportation – In China where ever you go, you will find the destinations in Chinese language, even the road names will be in Chinese. I suggest at least start learning the road names, subway map destinations, frequent bus destinations in Chinese characters. This will help you become more local and independent. Now a days subway is using English characters too but still domestic transportation still use only Chinese.
In this case if you don’t know the Chinese characters, I am sure will be lost.

1)交通——在中国，无论你走到哪里，你都能找到中文的目的地，甚至连路名都是中文的。我建议至少开始学习中文的路名，地铁地图的目的地和频繁的公共汽车目的地。这将帮助你变得更加本地化和独立。现在，地铁也在使用英文，但国内交通仍然只使用中文。 在这种情况下，如果你不认识汉字，我肯定会迷路。

2) Confusion in same type pinyin words – You know Chinese is a tone based language. For example as below
same “Shi” has different Chinese characters and different meanings. I hope now you will get convinced if you don’t learn basic characters, it will be a mess, isn’t it ?

相同拼音的单词的混淆 中文是一种基于语调的无言
例如shi有不同的汉字和含义 如果你没有学习基本的汉字那么我希望你现在被说服了，那将会一团糟，不是吗？

3) Use of DiDi (滴滴） – This is a car sharing app similar to uber and based in China. The app is completely in Chinese language. You need to type in Chinese letters to find the destination and then confirm the book of the cab. All instructions are in Chinese too.
Though recently there is a english version but still as you already know “ Chinese must be in Chinese “ , if you use Chinese pinyin ( romanisation ), it will be mess.

使用滴滴 理由和第1点差不多

4) Use of Taobao – Taobao is the the China’s largest E-Commerce portal. There is no english version of this website. But the website is very useful for shopping online due to its best deals. In order to browse the website, you must learn Chinese words. Atleast you should be able to identify your address in Chinese and also able to add your card to the website for easy payment.

用淘宝 理由同上

Now let us discuss how to learn some basic characters in order to survive in China
1) Use the Book - Tuttle - Learning Chinese Characters , which I feel is the best book to learn and visualise Chinese characters. I personally use this book for learning. The book starts with most basic characters and slowly move to bigger and complex characters. Complex characters are nothing but the combination of basic characters. The book also have the stroke order for each and every character and each character has its own story to understand and remember the meaning.
I think this book is the best book for anyone who wants to learn Chinese by self study.
I hope by this article, you are now convinced that you must learn Chinese characters. Best wishes for your Chinese language learning

大致内容就是介绍一本学汉字的书，这本书怎么怎么好

Monica Perry
Monica Perry, HSK Level 6 student, Chinese language lover
Answered Aug 22
Because if you don’t—you are going to get stuck in the Intermediate→Advanced Chinese Mandarin MUD!
Seriously, that was me after YEAR ONE, being lazy, not actually learning any Chinese characters.
I was just being stubborn. Tones, no problem (I do music and those were fun). I had a great tutor who would give me characters to memorize each week, but I was just too overwhelmed to start memorizing.
I thought I was doing fine with pinyin.
Wrong!!
As soon as I passed YEAR ONE I couldn’t get anywhere.
My tutor told it to me plainly:
“Monica, if you want to actually visit China and be able to GET AROUND, you HAVE to learn characters.”
I really, really wanted to visit China, so that was motivation enough for me.
And it’s true, man.
There is NO way you can do a trip to China without learning the Characters—subway station signs are NOT written in pinyin.
And no one there can hold your hand and walk you around. It’s too fast paced and has too much going on.
YOU have to learn these for yourself.

因为如果你不学汉字 你在从中级→高级中国普通话过程中陷入困难 说真的，那是在第一年以后的事，我很懒，所以实际没有学到任何汉字。 
我变得很固执。音调，没有问题(我做音乐，那些很有趣)。我有一个很棒的导师，他会给我每个星期要记住的汉字，但我太不知所措以至于无法开始记忆。 我以为我用拼音就可以做的很好。 但是错了! ! 一年级很快过去但我仍无法到达任何地方。 我的导师坦率地告诉我: “莫妮卡，如果你想真正地访问中国，并且能够四处走动，你必须学习汉字。
” 我真的，真的很想去中国，所以这对我来说是足够的动力。 这是真的，如果没有学习汉字，你就不可能去中国旅行。地铁的标志不是用拼音写的。 那里没有人可以牵着你的手，带你四处转转。你必须自己学习。

Megan Cox
Megan Cox, When you have no common language, you must find one. Fiancé is Chinese.
Answered May 27
So, Chinese is not easy to learn, even colloquially,
But learning how to speak and listen is easier than learning how to write and read, right? At least for me.
At the same time I was learning Chinese from my fiancé, he was learning English from me.
He sounded great. I was so jealous of his English learning skills.

所以，汉语很难学，甚至口语也很难学， 但是学习如何说话和倾听比学习如何写作和阅读要容易得多，对吧?至少对我来说是这样。 我从我的未婚夫那里学到了中文，他正在从我这里学习英语。 他英语听起来很好。我很羡慕他的英语学习能力。

But then, he would write (in text) things like:
“Did you see my helpman?” (he meant helmet)
I thought, wow.. “help man” and “helmet” really sound the same.
In English, that’s weird and would rarely happen, but in Chinese it’s totally normal, par for the course.

但是，他会这样写: “你看到我的help man了吗?””(他的意思是头盔) 我想,哇. .“Help man”和“helmet”听起来都一样。 在英语中，这很奇怪并且很少发生，但在汉语里，这是完全正常的。

The point is, even in colloquial Chinese, I have found myself making this helpman/helmet mistake a hundred times. It’s too easy to do.
If you force yourself to learn characters, you’ll find out where you’re taking illegitimate or legitimate shortcuts, and realize what’s exactly what, because Chinese has a lot of homophones.
Don’t slow down, but fact check yourself by practicing, and thank god for pinyin.

重点是即使是在汉语口语中，我也发现自己犯了很多次诸如 helpman/helmet 的错误。这太容易了。 如果你强迫自己学习汉字，你就会发现你在哪处是不符合或符合规则的，并意识到什么才是正确的，因为中文有很多同音异义字。 
不要放慢速度，要通过练习来检查自己，感谢上帝赐予我们的拼音。

Daniel Grey Myers
Daniel Grey Myers, studied Linguistics & Chinese at University of Iowa
Answered Mar 3
Yes you should. For one, when you learn characters, it allows you to make connections that you won't make otherwise. For example, in English, you might pick up that un- means not in a word. Because Chinese is much more limited in the sounds that are produced, you might not pick up that two words are related. For example, you might not understand that 马上 for immediately is literally “on horseback” or that to get married is 结婚、 where 结 is to tie, which is related to other words. You may learn the basics faster by skipping characters, but I think at least half my vocabulary I got from reading and being able to guess meanings of unknown words. If you choose not to learn them still, the proper way to note that on your resume is to break the language down into respective skills.

你应该学。首先，当你学习汉字时，它允许你建立你不会做的连接。例如，在英语中，你不会在一个单词中学到un -的意思，因为汉语在发音上的局限性要大得多，你可能不会理解两个词是有关联的。例如,你可能不会立即明白马上是字面上的“在马背上” 或get married 是结婚。结系在哪里,是和其他词关联的。
你可以通过跳过汉字来更快地学习基础知识，但我认为至少有一半的词汇是我从阅读中得到的，并且能够猜出不认识的单词的含义。如果你选择不学习它们，正确的方法是在你的简历上把语言分解成各自的技能。

Stuart Aitken
Stuart Aitken, HSK4 Chinese, Sichuan University (2015)
Answered May 26
Personally I think learning Chinese characters helped me immensely.
It cements the words into your brain, and makes it easier to read Chinese too. It generally gives you a more rounded capability with the language.

我个人认为学习汉字对我有很大帮助。 它将文字融入你的大脑，让你更容易读懂中文。它通常会给你一个更全面的语言能力。

Ken Metro
Ken Metro
Answered Apr 15
Chinese Characters is the core foundation of Chinese language.

汉字是中文的核心基础。