QUESTION:
Anyone
who has attempted to learn the Chinese language
will tell you how hard it is to learn the
characters that make up the written Chinese
language. Chinese language experts have recorded
a total of 54,000 unique characters - making
learning the Chinese language something of
an enormous feat for anyone.
Unlike
English with its 26-letter alphabet, Chinese
'words' cannot be sounded out letter by letter
and characters are usually learned by rote.
How
many characters are Chinese students in the
fourth grade expected to know?
A. 2,000;
B. 40,000;
C. 500;
D. 2,500;
ANSWERS:
If you said A, you are right. The
school curriculum is designed to teach students
around 2,000 characters by the fourth grade
and further 3,000 by the end of college or
university. Each character is learned by looking
at it, memorizing it and writing it over and
over.
Sometimes
you will see young children and their parents
practicing with 'flash-cards' that are used
to aid the process.
