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Yeah, the list isn't perfect (for example, 羊肉 is listed even though 牛肉 isn't). 牛肉 isn't common enough to make the list, but for some reason the Chinese governme

Yeah, the list isn't perfect (for example, 羊肉 is listed even though 牛肉 isn't). 牛肉 isn't common enough to make the list, but for some reason the Chinese government decided 羊肉 should be one of the first 300 words you learn (it's in HSK 2), so it ended up high on my list because my list partially pulls from HSK, in addition to another list called SUBTLEX-CH. In this case, I think actually neither should be on the list, and you should instead learn 牛，羊，and 肉 separately and infer the meaning of 牛肉 and 羊肉 from those. I'll change it.

philliphaydon 8y ago
How do you learn to infer the meaning of the 2 put together? Is there a method or is it something you just learn over time?
- peterburkimsher 8y ago
  I built my own dictionary with 114,326 words for Pingtype. I based it on the word spacing from the romanised Bible and Apple's option-right-arrow method, and I've made over 5000 edits. In my opinion, reading traditional characters with spaces is much easier than simplified characters without spaces.
- Nadya 8y ago
  I don't study Chinese, but I do study Japanese which shares the issue of combination words being multiple kanji (not a big surprise since kanji come from hanzi after all...) It's something you learn over time for the ones that are more obvious at least. Not all combination words are straight forward, but many basic words are straightforward. "羊肉" is literally "lamb meat" and if you're told 牛 means "cow" you can probably guess "牛肉" means "cow meat". And if 豚 means "pig", what do you think "豚肉" means? And 魚 means "fish" so "魚肉" means? They aren't always so perfectly straight forward, but I bet you can guess what this means too: 消防士 "extinguish (a fire), defend, gentlemen." This type of meaning inference doesn't always work, though it will for the vast majority of what many would consider "basic vocabulary".

philliphaydon 8y ago

How do you learn to infer the meaning of the 2 put together? Is there a method or is it something you just learn over time?

peterburkimsher 8y ago
I built my own dictionary with 114,326 words for Pingtype. I based it on the word spacing from the romanised Bible and Apple's option-right-arrow method, and I've made over 5000 edits. In my opinion, reading traditional characters with spaces is much easier than simplified characters without spaces.
Nadya 8y ago
I don't study Chinese, but I do study Japanese which shares the issue of combination words being multiple kanji (not a big surprise since kanji come from hanzi after all...) It's something you learn over time for the ones that are more obvious at least. Not all combination words are straight forward, but many basic words are straightforward. "羊肉" is literally "lamb meat" and if you're told 牛 means "cow" you can probably guess "牛肉" means "cow meat". And if 豚 means "pig", what do you think "豚肉" means? And 魚 means "fish" so "魚肉" means? They aren't always so perfectly straight forward, but I bet you can guess what this means too: 消防士 "extinguish (a fire), defend, gentlemen." This type of meaning inference doesn't always work, though it will for the vast majority of what many would consider "basic vocabulary".