Situation #4.3: Character drilling (any exercise that requests one to repeat writing a character an excessive number of times) seems to be considered a major part of learning Chinese, but my child dreads it.Reality: Character drilling (see Situation #3.3) is important. The truth is, in light of other factors, how prioritized should this be? Character drilling is sometimes used as a primary part of a Chinese curriculum. It is how it is traditionally done, and therefore, what many curriculum materials are based on, and how everyone thinks Chinese should be taught.In some way, Chinese is different from English. It is not based on a phonetic system, but a tonal system. Many characters do have clues embedded in their structural formation in terms of meaning and sounds, but it does not always adhere to a definite rule, nor is it always present. Because of that, it is very logical to require children to memorize a large set of characters before emphasis is placed for them to read literary works and write their own sentences. Unfortunately, sometimes it is too long forgotten that memorizing a large set might take years to accomplish if the traditional method is used.

In recent years, studies from both Hong Kong (where Cantonese and Mandarin are taught using traditional characters) and China (where Mandarin is taught using simplified characters) have found that children will learn only about an average of 2500 characters by the end of elementary years, which is considered low since that is the minimum required to do any meaningful independent reading. In the United States and United Kingdom, the statistics is even more disheartening. Chinese schools can teach at most a few hundred characters by the teenaged years, a case which is considered quite an accomplishment.

As you can see, in a once-a-week, three-hour class, a child may never get a chance to read any great literary works besides readers, and he may never get a chance to write any substantial stories on his own, before their yearning for the language is exhausted and zapped by the repetition of character drilling. Before long, they outgrow the conceptual level of Chinese readers, and the amount of vocabulary demanded by their writing far exceeds what they know. This is definitely driving them toward disinterest and discouragement in the learning of the language itself.

Drilling in character recognition through oral recitation and memorization instead of character drilling, however, can be the method to learning Chinese characters speedily. Traditionally, that was how Chinese children learn characters throughout the ancient times anyway, using various Chinese canonical classic texts like the Three Character Classic (三字經), Hundred Family Surnames (百家姓), and Thousand Character Classic (千字文).

The most important lesson from using curriculum similar in nature to these texts is that the characters are arranged in a certain order (mostly in fours, sometimes in fives and sevens in ancient poems) based on their phonetic sounds, embedding within the most poetic and artistic meanings beyond measure. Therefore, cultivation in the rhythmic nature and the four-letter phrases of the language should be understood at a very early age. It brings forth the deeper magic of the language that does not exist otherwise in Western languages. The appreciation and gratification of Chinese learning will come as a result. Besides, this feature can be thought of as the means through which Chinese should be learned, much like the context and phonetic sounds as the mean through which English is learned. After all, Chinese is an ancient language that is a few thousands years old. On a different note, it can also be thought of as the most effective method to pass down values and thoughts as accurately as possible, much like the songs, folklore, sayings, ballads, or chants that are orally passed on through generations in many other cultures. Without having exposed to these types of text that undoubtedly are penetrated within the essence of the Chinese culture, a child will inevitably find studying ancient Chinese historical figures or cultural myths tiresome and dull in those modern curricula.

Even though it helps, learning a language is not simply a matter of repetition. Writing from the heart and allowing the language to make meaning in life (e.g. journals, poems, and scientific entries) are more important for a child than drilling on characters that make no impression. Besides, it is very likely that he will forget the characters soon enough if he does not make connection with them immediately and use them meaningfully and repeatedly in his life.

Even with this knowledge, it does still take much effort to learn a new language, especially when this is a very different language from English. All characters need to be memorized by sight. Even though there are sometimes pictorial and phonetic clues and a fixed set of radicals that commonly appear as components within the characters, these features do not appear consistent enough to be considered as rules. Overall, you need to pick your battle for your child whether character drilling is important enough among all that is necessary in learning Chinese.

Situation #4.2: My child thinks Chinese is too difficult to learn.Reality: It depends. The writing of characters is foreign to children mainly because they are familiar and more comfortable with the alphabet. It seems to them that there are only 26 letters (of course, they have not considered the different building blocks made from these letters) to build words with.So forget writing for a moment. Recognition of characters is actually the key because that can bring the child to reading independently as early as possible. That will in turn help her progress in the other areas of development such as writing, speaking and thinking in the Chinese context. Knowing too few characters impose many difficulties in learning Chinese. First, there is not as much literary material available for children in Chinese as in English. Therefore, finding developmentally and linguistically appropriate reading material (excluding textbooks) for a child is close to impossible. Second, reading a children’s book requires a much more sophisticated knowledge of the Chinese language than in the case of reading a children’s book in English. There is basically no phonetic help in reading Chinese characters (except through the use of pinyin, that is, if you are learning Mandarin). Moreover, illustrations are not as intelligently and craftily used in Chinese children’s books to help with context as the ones in Western books. Therefore, due to these practical reasons, character recognition becomes extremely important in Chinese acquisition.Top 1 character ~4%
Top 6 characters ~10%
Top 19 characters ~20%
Top 50 characters ~28%
Top 250 characters ~60%
Top 500 characters ~75%
Top 1000 characters ~90%
Top 1500 characters ~95%
Top 2000 characters ~97%
Top 3000 characters ~99%

Graph 1

Although the total of Chinese characters ranges from 50,000 to 80,000 characters*, one needs to know only about 1000 to 3000 to be in varying degrees of literacy**. Graph 1 shows the average percentages of appearance in various written materials*** of the top most frequently used characters in Chinese. As you can see, many Chinese characters repeat a lot.

One needs only about 400 to start some independent reading (in beginning children books) and about 1000 to read most of the text in common reading materials. The building blocks of Chinese characters are also mostly composed of radicals and combinations of simpler characters forming together. Once you have encountered a threshold of the most frequently used radicals, character learning will become much easier from then on. In reality, Chinese has no conjugations, no tense, and no gender forms. You can make far fewer grammatical errors than when learning other languages.

Even before character recognition, sound plays an immensely important part in learning Chinese. Research shows that a child hears sounds even when she is in the womb. For the early years, as with other languages, a child learns by hearing and speaking. Therefore, learning Chinese is no different. For the early years, you should provide as many opportunities as possible on hearing and speaking the language, even recitation on classic poems that she may or may not understand yet. Do not underestimate the number of words that she can memorize in mind and heart. After all, that is one of the ways she learns to speak the mother tongue.

*There are various debates over how many characters exactly are out there based on various dictionaries from different time periods.

**Interesting statistics on the number of characters one should know:
Peasants: 1500 characters
Workers: 2000 characters
Reading a newspaper: 3000-4000 characters
Educated citizen: 6000 characters

***Data collected based on averages collected by various agencies. Please refer to the online guide of YellowBridge, http://www.yellowbridge.com and the Miktam of Chinese International Inc., http://www.miktamchinese.com

When she is about four to six, she can start to recognize the characters, connecting back to the repertoire of phonetic knowledge that she had acquired in the early years. Many parents and teachers mistakenly overemphasize the writing of characters at this stage, thinking that that is the determining factor of the number of characters a child knows. Some children stumble right from the start due to less developed fine-motor skills and become frustrated early on. Some progress smoothly, but are hindered from the more speedy process of character recognition due to the character drilling process (see Situation #3.3). Again, do not underestimate the number of characters a child at this age range can recognize. If she is relieved from the burden of character drilling, she can place much more time and interest in the recognition, and not to mention the appreciation of and the confidence in the language itself. It is in such environment that one can be free to recognize a few thousands characters by the end of this age period.

When a child is about seven years of age or when she is ready to write her thoughts down, she is ready to learn how to write Chinese characters. By that time, if she has gone through the earlier stages aforementioned, she should have already acquired an abundantly rich analysis of how most characters are shaped. She can study and examine radicals, composition of components, original meanings and usages with other characters. Her vocabulary grows as she starts to be able to read a variety of materials. Hence, as it was mentioned, it is eminent that she should recognize as many characters as early and as soon as possible from the previous years. At this stage, she should be able to write as she remembers or as she gets help from dictionaries, adults, and her surrounding environment.

There are many theories about which Chinese characters should be learned first. Some start with forms; some with simplicity of strokes; some with context; some with high frequency characters; others with canonical classics. You can even pick a combination of these methods, not necessarily needing to stick with only one. The ticket is to recognize as many characters as possible as early as the child can. She should be read to by a human (not by a machine) on a daily basis with real reading materials like books, newspapers, magazines, comic books, brochures, advertisements, and grocery labels. She should also be spoken to as frequently as possible in real context like conversations over a meal, current events and happenings in the car, and chore requests. Finally, she should use the language in as many various contexts and setting as she can find that are safe and challenging enough, like talking to her grandmother, playing board games, telling stories in a group setting, or acting in a drama in front of an audience.