4 ms·

For me to seriously consider that app you should have a mode where hanzi is deemphasized (or even gone entirely). For me it's just not worth the effort to lear

For me to seriously consider that app you should have a mode where hanzi is deemphasized (or even gone entirely). For me it's just not worth the effort to learn. I have enough trouble with spoken Chinese as is and I have little to no use for hanzi symbols. My Chinese teacher used to tell me that most of her students had the same attitude. It's to be expected. Few people stay in China for very long. Other than that the app looks really nice, actually. The examples are well-chosen and I like how it shows you how the words are constructed.

rb2k_ 14y ago
I seconds this. If there was a mode to enable the latin transliterations below the hanzi, that would be great!
danso 14y ago
I agree...I started learning mandarin through the Rosetta Stone program and skipped all the Chinese character reading parts. It's just too much to learn when there's already enough to grasp with just speaking
- loceng 14y ago
  I disagree. This is how you learn things deeply. It may take more effort and focus initially, and feel harder - though that's a bit of the point -- you remember things better during stressful situations, and the additional information allows your mind to connect more different pieces together, and in different parts of your brain (visual and langage). It might take a year of review before it starts to really click, and understanding the process of learning and so setting your expectations accordingly is how you can be more successful, faster.
  - danso 14y ago
    So obviously I am only speaking through assumption here, but isn't the Chinese character set almost entirely orthogonal to the language? That is, very little is lost by learning it through Pidgin? The extra year it might take to fully memorize the Chinese characters would seem to have only a glancing effect on how much conversational Chinese you could speak
    - tel 14y ago
      Largely true in my experience, but without hanzi you're illiterate in China. Definitely a plausible thing for a short visit, but if you stay for a longer period I think it'd be very paralyzing. This comes from an experience I had traveling with a friend when I was a beginning fluent reader and speaker and he just a speaker. Over the few months in Beijing his confidence deteriorated and he ended up staying at home ordering the same food from the nearby market every day. I think his illiteracy contributed to that.
      - dakota 14y ago
        This is very true. I studied abroad last year, and some of the students who could not read had an incredibly difficult time. Eventually, they were forced to catch up, and life got much better for them. They could explore the city much easier, do things on there own, without having to have someone who could read with them.
        DigitalTurk 14y ago
        Could you elaborate. How was not being able to read a problem? Did they have trouble navigating the city? Was this perhaps in a city without subways?
        matthewrudy 14y ago
        As an example, lets imagine we're in Taipei and we're ill. We're walking down the street, but all the shops look the same. http://goo.gl/maps/sj3ft http://goo.gl/maps/sj3ft Where can I get some medicine? The answer is the one that says ”藥行“
        DigitalTurk 14y ago
        I thought we were talking about people who spoke Chinese? Can't they just ask? On a few occasions, in my own country, I've had old immigrants ask me to read something for them. I don't know if they are visually impaired or illiterate but it wasn't a big deal. (Though it is sad when you consider these people have probably been living here for a long time.) Anyway, if it's someone who doesn't speak English it's not _that_ difficult to find medicine. Go on the Internet, google a picture of the medicine you need, and show it to people? Or use Google Translate? I've communicated with realtors using Google Translate. It was a frustrating experience, but it worked. And if that doesn't work then I'm sure you can find _someone_ who speaks English. That wouldn't take half an hour, I'm sure. You can also try using gestures or drawings. This strikes me as fairly trivial stuff. I mean, I'll grant you that I'd be worried sick if my mother was running around in Taipei on her own, as she's not used to traveling and doesn't speak English. But we seem to be talking about young, smart, educated English speakers here. It's not that big a deal. Edit: said->sad
- tehwalrus 14y ago
  But each spoken syllable (even separated by tone) can have 5 or 6 meanings depending on context (which are different characters)! You can't get passed a few basic phrases without hitting this. By learning the characters (especially if you learn the radicals inside each character first) you can build up an understanding of the context of each character that you're using. For example, how would you go about learning the response to the question "Which zhong?" zhong guo de zhong / 中国的中 ("the 'middle' character from 'middle kingdom' (China)") and knowing to give the correct response when someone is confused about what you're saying in a sentence (which can happen a lot when you're a beginner who makes word order mistakes.) I used to use Memrise for this ( http://memrise.com http://memrise.com ) but since they updated the UI you can no longer clearly see which dependent radicals a character has easily, so I've accidentally stopped practising.
alan_h 14y ago
Thanks for the feedback, this is something my test users also suggested. I'll prioritise this when I add new features.

rb2k_ 14y ago

I seconds this. If there was a mode to enable the latin transliterations below the hanzi, that would be great!

danso 14y ago

I agree...I started learning mandarin through the Rosetta Stone program and skipped all the Chinese character reading parts. It's just too much to learn when there's already enough to grasp with just speaking

loceng 14y ago
I disagree. This is how you learn things deeply. It may take more effort and focus initially, and feel harder - though that's a bit of the point -- you remember things better during stressful situations, and the additional information allows your mind to connect more different pieces together, and in different parts of your brain (visual and langage). It might take a year of review before it starts to really click, and understanding the process of learning and so setting your expectations accordingly is how you can be more successful, faster.
- danso 14y ago
  So obviously I am only speaking through assumption here, but isn't the Chinese character set almost entirely orthogonal to the language? That is, very little is lost by learning it through Pidgin? The extra year it might take to fully memorize the Chinese characters would seem to have only a glancing effect on how much conversational Chinese you could speak
  - tel 14y ago
    Largely true in my experience, but without hanzi you're illiterate in China. Definitely a plausible thing for a short visit, but if you stay for a longer period I think it'd be very paralyzing. This comes from an experience I had traveling with a friend when I was a beginning fluent reader and speaker and he just a speaker. Over the few months in Beijing his confidence deteriorated and he ended up staying at home ordering the same food from the nearby market every day. I think his illiteracy contributed to that.
    - dakota 14y ago
      This is very true. I studied abroad last year, and some of the students who could not read had an incredibly difficult time. Eventually, they were forced to catch up, and life got much better for them. They could explore the city much easier, do things on there own, without having to have someone who could read with them.
      - DigitalTurk 14y ago
        Could you elaborate. How was not being able to read a problem? Did they have trouble navigating the city? Was this perhaps in a city without subways?
        matthewrudy 14y ago
        As an example, lets imagine we're in Taipei and we're ill. We're walking down the street, but all the shops look the same. http://goo.gl/maps/sj3ft http://goo.gl/maps/sj3ft Where can I get some medicine? The answer is the one that says ”藥行“
        DigitalTurk 14y ago
        I thought we were talking about people who spoke Chinese? Can't they just ask? On a few occasions, in my own country, I've had old immigrants ask me to read something for them. I don't know if they are visually impaired or illiterate but it wasn't a big deal. (Though it is sad when you consider these people have probably been living here for a long time.) Anyway, if it's someone who doesn't speak English it's not _that_ difficult to find medicine. Go on the Internet, google a picture of the medicine you need, and show it to people? Or use Google Translate? I've communicated with realtors using Google Translate. It was a frustrating experience, but it worked. And if that doesn't work then I'm sure you can find _someone_ who speaks English. That wouldn't take half an hour, I'm sure. You can also try using gestures or drawings. This strikes me as fairly trivial stuff. I mean, I'll grant you that I'd be worried sick if my mother was running around in Taipei on her own, as she's not used to traveling and doesn't speak English. But we seem to be talking about young, smart, educated English speakers here. It's not that big a deal. Edit: said->sad
tehwalrus 14y ago
But each spoken syllable (even separated by tone) can have 5 or 6 meanings depending on context (which are different characters)! You can't get passed a few basic phrases without hitting this. By learning the characters (especially if you learn the radicals inside each character first) you can build up an understanding of the context of each character that you're using. For example, how would you go about learning the response to the question "Which zhong?" zhong guo de zhong / 中国的中 ("the 'middle' character from 'middle kingdom' (China)") and knowing to give the correct response when someone is confused about what you're saying in a sentence (which can happen a lot when you're a beginner who makes word order mistakes.) I used to use Memrise for this ( http://memrise.com http://memrise.com ) but since they updated the UI you can no longer clearly see which dependent radicals a character has easily, so I've accidentally stopped practising.

alan_h 14y ago

Thanks for the feedback, this is something my test users also suggested. I'll prioritise this when I add new features.