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

by William McNaughton and Li Ying

Book Overview

This is a complete and easy-to-use guide for reading and writing Chinese characters. Learning written Chinese is an essential part of mastering the Chinese language. Used as a standard by students and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0804832064
• ISBN13: 9780804832069
• Release Date: September 1999
• Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.0" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Very well organized and complete - focused on traditional characters

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!!!

Excellent book

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.

The Best Way I Found to Learn Chinese Characters

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.

Highly recommended as a reference source

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.