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Can I learn Oral Chinese without learning the characters?


Jing Xi

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Just like to add some small qualification to my reply after that scientific smack down.

 

@BadCaocao

 

The OP did just ask if he thought the goal was achievable, not what the peer reviewed literature says, I'm not a linguist nor was I at all aware of these studies. Online forums are, for better or worse, mostly for the exchange of experience, opinion and anecdote, fallacious as they can be when held up against peer reviewed work which I am, despite all my wounded pride, thankful you have brought to light. I shall check them out if I have access. Next time I will do some more research.

 

It is interesting however that a lot of people do agree with me. It could be related to what other people have mentioned, the fact that adults and children do have different learning methods and means available to them, and that so much content is available in hanzi and not in pinyin. My, and probably most peoples, problem with the "forget learning characters" tribe is that they often seem to be of the opinion that characters are "annoying and stupid and why can't they just get a decent alphabet for Christ's sake," (I know a few) and so some of us, who like learning characters, feel obliged to point out their utility, beauty and rich history. Nevertheless, I haven't read the papers yet so that's my last word on the matter.

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I have a very dear friend who has attempted to do exactly what the OP has asked, so far all she has achieved is a basic level of understanding (based on conversational context not learned concepts). As one person has said (Altair, I think), it's rather difficult to learn basic grammer without some character knowledge. For example, I once tried to explain the grammtical use of 得 to my friend when she had only ever seen 的, massive failure. She kept insisting I was saying the same words because the pinyin (de1). So while linguists and studies say it possible to learn only from pinyin, (and I suppose it is possible given enough motivation), I wouldn't recommend it to anyone trying learn more than the most basic chinese.

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The OP was making a few posts to look like a legitimate member in order to post this. The discussion that got started is genuine and useful though. Will suggest it continues here, and any questions go in that topic. 

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Bad Cao Cao's posts compares the learning of Chinese children and illiterate adults to the learning of people who don't speak Chinese yet. Typically, once a Chinese child starts learning characters s/he has already spent 4-6 years learning to speak, and their level is not all that high. I've said it before and I'll say it again: if, like a Chinese child, you have 1-2 native speakers catering to all your basic needs and also patiently talking to you and with you all day every day, then by all means learn like a child. You'll probably learn faster, too. Most adult learners, however, need to spend a large part of their day catering to their own basic needs and also don't have native speakers helping them learn all day long. Hence, they need to adopt other methods, and fortunately they can use shortcuts (sitting down to study new words and grammar) that children can't.

 

I'm also curious how Bad Cao Cao has read Chinese books without learning characters. Unless he means he learned to read but not write.

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I don't think Bad Cao Cao suggests that you shouldn't learn characters at all, just that you should delay it until your level is high enough. 

 

With the comment regarding electronic books I guess that he meant that it is very easy to look up unknown characters (with just a mouse-click or by hovering over them). 

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I think Altair's point is probably the most important if we are talking about adult learners in a non-Chinese environment learning in their spare time. No one is suggesting that pinyin isn't useful, or that you can't get by using OCR and other handy gadgets when in China. The problem is that many people start out on this journey with a negative attitude towards learning characters, they go out of their way to avoid them, thinking that they can just do it later. So many people whine and moan about learning characters (both Chinese and Japanese learners in my experience), part of this may be due to poor teaching methods and the general perception that you "have to learn SO MUCH and it will take SO LONG." If they actually want to learn characters then they will learn them later, however, because a lot of people actually don't they find themselves stuck in the end; they kind of sort of know they need to learn characters and so they kind of sort of try, but because they have such a negative attitude and because they have already achieved a high level of oral-aural proficiency they find it too frustrating and boring to go "back to square one" in their eyes. This is probably what leads to so many people plateauing, in a real sense, until they learn to enjoy learning characters. Therefore, I think the reason so many people say to learn characters from the start is because what we are really trying to say is that you should develop a "positive attitude" towards characters "from day one." Even if you don't actively try to learn them accept their existence and the eventual necessity of at least being able to read them.

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I have always had "positive attitude" to learning characters, in fact that was my main motivation for starting to learn Chinese. I have and still do, enjoy learning them, but that doesn't mean to say that aren't times when I get frustrated, but I persevere and work through it.

 

The first time I could read the text in my lesson from start to end without the need for a dictionary was a wonderful feeling. When I get stuck I think back to that and it helps to drive me on over the latest obstacle.

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Besides -- and let us for all our politeness be quite honest here -- you'll never be accepted as a member of the Brotherhood if you can't read 汉字.

 

I dunno, if you got to a really high level of spoken Chinese whilst being almost completely illiterate, I reckon you could make a name for yourself as "that girl/guy with a really high level of spoken Chinese who's nevertheless almost completely illiterate". People might pretend to look down on you but would secretly admire your dedication to not learning characters.

 

It would be like having level 99 woodcutting and only level 1 combat in an MMORPG. You get a certain amount of prestige for being 与众不同, and kudos for having dedication to your cause, but it would also make life difficult when you got attacked by orcs for trying to cut down their trees.

 

I admit, that analogy was imperfect.

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I once knew a guy in Beijing who had lived out somewhere beyond the forth ring road and learned Chinese by chatting to the locals. I think he could read a few basic characters, but mainly he got by with pinyin and by not giving up, constantly chatting about stuff and slowly building up an understanding. His spoken Chinese was great, and he had a very good Beijing accent. However, he had decided to finally become literate and enrolled into a university course in BNU. He was in my Newspapers and Periodicals class and struggled with reading what I considered to be very easy words, and yet when he spoke with the teacher it was like they were having a real conversation — I both envied and pitied him (although more envious, if I'm honest). I think he found it pretty frustrating to start from the beginning like that after so much hard work. So, to echo what others have said here, yeah you can definitely live without characters, but it's demoralising and tedious once you inevitably have to learn them. The guy I mentioned worked hard, but neglected characters. If he myopically focused on characters to the detriment of his pronunciation, he'd have the opposite — but equally frustrating —problem. Instead of rushing forwards with one skill and neglecting everything else, it's better to build a solid foundation in all areas and start as you mean to go on. Slow and steady wins the race.

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I would love for my speaking and listening to be above my reading and writing. Sadly it's the total opposite. I guess it's a product of my environment, where the former is much more difficult to access than the later. My reading and writing is so far above my speaking and listening I almost thought about giving up on it entirely and just focusing on becoming "literate" but not "fluent"

 

Anyway I got some free copies of the DeFrancis textbooks which are all in pinyin. I found it really fun to try and read it. It was infinitely more difficult for me than reading characters because I had to employ the same part of my brain which decodes by sound alone. I wonder though, does reading pinyin actually help you with listening more than reading characters? I guess it doesn't. But my "intuition" (for lack of better word) can definitely feel the benefits of skipping characters and just sticking to speaking and listening, and even just with pinyin too.

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Without exception: those who spoke good Chinese were avid readers with great knowledge of characters, and those who spent years with innovative learning methods on how to avoid characters had elementary Chinese at best and stopped progressing shortly after beginning.

 

Renzhe, I'm sure there's some kind logical fallacy at work here. I mean, everyone you know who started learning characters from Day 1 ended up with good Chinese?

 

Surely the key point is that, to speak "good Chinese" takes a few years. And most people you are likely to bump into who have spent years learning Chinese will want to be able to read. And those who have attended classes or used textbooks will have had to learn how to read because that's what those methods require.

 

Even where that is the case, I don't think it's necessary to 'learn' characters for a long time, but if you've got some free time it probably makes sense to 'study' a few, perhaps completely separately from the speaking/listening work, so you get a feel for how characters work, what stroke order is and why it is important, how radicals are treated, how components carry sound and so on. 

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I mean, everyone you know who started learning characters from Day 1 ended up with good Chinese?

No, the opposite.

If learning to speak Chinese fluently is so easy if you skip characters, then where are all the fluent people? If not learning characters is the Right Way to Do it, and learning characters is a waste of time that will hurt your progress, then I would expect that there would be at least ONE guy who got to C2 easily without learning many characters (*)

That was my point basically -- you can make fast progress without characters in the beginning, but you will need reading for advanced levels.

(*) Second language learners, C2 and above, please (I know you can reach A2 without characters).

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Do you need it? Or do characters just become more helpful, and the time involved seems more reasonable as progress slows anyway?

 

It's like (watch this, Duck, I'll show you how to do a proper analogy*) you're running from orcs who found you cutting down their trees, so you decide to escape on your Scooter of No-Characters. At first it's a smooth road and the scooter speeds you up quite nicely. But then the road starts going uphill and becomes rocky, so you start carrying the scooter - but it slows you down, so you dump it and put on the Hanzi Boots of Springheel Jak so you can make better progress. Theoretically you could keep carrying the Scooter - but why would you, except to make a point about how good you are at running from orcs while carrying scooters?

 

*I have to confess I'm only posting for the analogy. 

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