with tone marks to tell the reader how the word should
be spoken – so those not learning characters have a visual
reference.
For children studying Mandarin at school, learning
characters is important – not only is it essential for
progression, but it brings an added cultural dimension.
But there are no shortcuts – you have to learn to recognise
as many characters as you can. Rhian explains, “With
most European languages, if you heard an unfamiliar
word, you could have a guess at the spelling. But if you
hear a new word in Mandarin, you have no idea what
the character looks like [and] so could not write it.”
Similarly, if you read a character you don’t know, you
can be stumped to its meaning, and how to pronounce
it. Building up a good knowledge of radicals (common
components shared by many Chinese characters) can help
give an idea of what the character might be related to –
for example, the radical for water is used in more than 153
characters including river, ocean, ferry, injection, wave,
steam and tears – but this alone will not provide a precise
translation. With less room for an educated guess, the
learning curve for a beginner can appear much steeper
for Westerners learning Mandarin than other European
languages, as they have to learn to decode every character
they come across.
Character study
Mandarin teacher Terry Tang recognises that special
techniques are needed to teach characters to Western
students. She explains, “Learning characters is difficult
as there are just so many to remember. With Japanese or
Korean, you can read and write after learning the basic
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