I have always been too intimidated to start studying the Chinese characters, until yesterday. We were invited to come over to Ling’s house again and I grabbed the kids character flash cards on the way out the door. I figured Ling could show me at least the order of the strokes, and maybe we could number the first 50 or so.
When I arrived I was introduced to Bai Lu, Ling’s niece. She is a student here in the U.S. and is originally from Wuhan. She was extremely helpful and is talking about starting a Chinese pre-school. I hope she does!
Ling, Bai Lu and I sat down at about 11:00 to study and didn’t stop for two hours. By the end of our time together I was getting the stroke order right about 99% of the time and had stopped numbering the cards. I think I know enough now to continue with my studies, with occasional help from Skritter. Of course, Ling is excited to help me along and I’ll probably be calling her often for pronunciation help!
As of tonight, I’m totally hooked on writing the Chinese language! I told Da that the characters are 1/2 puzzle and 1/2 dance. What a fun fun language!
Yep- I felt the same way about Japanese, but the characters are like art. It is so fun once you can start recognizing them, and they are so exciting to write unlike our alphabet. I would love to know how many have the same meaning in Chinese as in japanese like the character for river…..
Ok that didn’t make any sense- my last comment. Wouldn’t they all have the same meaning since Japanese use Chinese characters? Only the verbal would be different? I don’t know
Good for you!