Learning Chinese characters is one of the major challenges CFL learners face, and it may in some cases become overwhelming and cause learners to lose their motivation for learning the language....Show moreLearning Chinese characters is one of the major challenges CFL learners face, and it may in some cases become overwhelming and cause learners to lose their motivation for learning the language. However, the character script is one of Mandarin Chinese’s most salient features, and is indeed one of the aspects that draws learners to learning Mandarin in the first place. This brings us to an important question: How should Chinese characters be taught to CFL learners? In The Netherlands, Mandarin is now being taught at more and more high schools, but as this is a relatively recent development, not that many Dutch textbooks are as yet available for Dutch high school student CFL learners. This study has examined: What research has had to say about how to teach Chinese characters to CFL learners (‘Theory’); How several beginner-level textbooks in use at Dutch high schools teach Chinese characters (‘Practice’); The views and approaches of a group of Chinese CFL teachers and a group of Dutch CFL teachers regarding teaching Chinese characters (‘Practice’); and finally: To what extent practice, especially practice in Dutch high schools, appears to correspond with theory (‘Practice versus Theory’). Insofar as research has provided clear results or suggestions, and insofar as the present study has touched upon the corresponding topics, practice in fact appears to closely correspond to theory. It is also clear, however, that more research is needed.Show less
The phonetic component in Chinese characters is assessed automatically in reading. The psychology of reading characters reveals that native readers have a genuine assessment of the phonetic...Show moreThe phonetic component in Chinese characters is assessed automatically in reading. The psychology of reading characters reveals that native readers have a genuine assessment of the phonetic component. It facilitates the reading of compound characters with beneficial statistical values in the corpus. This highlights the importance of reading experience. The native reader serves as a blueprint for an "ideal" near-native reader. In the psychology of learning Chinese as a second script, there are possibilities and constraints regarding this goal. In order to approximate near-native reading, non-native learners need to acquire a flexible and comprehensive assessment of the phonetic component. Long-term study of graphs and their individual parts as well as reading experience are essential.Show less
