Talk:Written Chinese

The author (CrossTimer) will hold responsibility for his updates of this document; and the update timelines will be posted here. Generally, CrossTimer will be writing the whole Written Chinese tutorial, however not regularly (i.e, don't expect a new lesson per week/month, etc) as some articles need longer time.

Suspension in June
I have other works to do in June from now on thus will stop updating the article for the time being. Others please feel free to continue writing this book.

back now
I am pleased to announce that I am back now, periodic updates will be seen here.

Crosstimer 16:40, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * I have some doubts about this Wikibook... I can imagine a Wikibook on Mandarin or on Cantonese, but on written Chinese in general? What do we aim for in our student exactly &mdash; that he/she can read a text in Chinese without thinking about Chinese words and Chinese pronunciation?
 * When a Chinese speaker reads, the process is exactly the same as when an English speaker reads, it is based on pattern recognition linked to spoken language. When I read Chinese, each of the characters seem to form a "sound" for me in my head, telling me what it is, almost as if one part of my brain (the visual pattern recognition area, probably) is interpreting the shapes into spoken language and then reading it out loud to another part of my brain (probably Broca's area). Any reading done in any written language, English, Chinese, whatever, works like this. I don't see how this can be done (in any language) by bypassing the process altogether. -- Ran 23:03, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * I am not trying to bypass it, as I will include the pronunciation of Cantonese and Putonghua after the text - and include reference where the learners can learn the pronunciation of those words (to their corresponding Wikibooks of course). I am trying to bypass the dialect barrier in China and create a Wikibook about the general Chinese such that it fits for most of the dialects. For pronunciation, it is supposed to be universe - just use the own dialect's pronunciation at the users' wishes. Crosstimer 09:26, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * If that's the case, then what's the difference between this wikibook and the Mandarin wikibook or the Cantonese wikibook? Which learner, for example, would use this book rather than the Mandarin or Cantonese one? -- Ran 17:49, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Stroke Order
May I suggest to the people working on this that one of the very first chapters should deal with the idea of stroke order. Without understanding this it is very difficult for a person familiar only with the Latin alphabet to grasp how a Chinese character is drawn. Perhaps the articles could include progressive diagrams where each adds one stroke to the previous diagram until the character is finished. Eclecticology 18:15, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * That would be the job of CJK, which covers stroke shapes and stroke order. -- Ran 23:03, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Division of Dialects
I noticed on the page the statement "[Chinese] can be mainly divided into Mandarin and Cantonese...". While Mandarin and Cantonese are arguably the two Chinese dialects that are most prominently spoken (because of various diaspora populations, number of native speakers, etc.), I think the statement is misleading.

For example, Shanghainese (Wu) is considered to be a separate dialect from Mandarin or Cantonese, and some sources indicate that the number of speakers of the Wu dialect is considered to be more than that of the Yue (Cantonese) dialect. Therefore Wu should be counted as one of the major dialect groups in China also.

There are others (such as Min and Gan) Chinese dialect groups. In short, saying that Chinese can be mainly divided into only two dialect groups is an oversimplification, in my opinion.