Learning To Read In China

Learning Chinese can be frustrating and difficult, partly because it's very different from European languages. Following a teacher, textbook or language course is not enough. They show you the characters, words and grammar you need to become proficient in Chinese, but they don't teach you how to learn them! Regardless of what program you're in (if any), you need to take responsibility for your own learning. If you don't, you will miss many important things that aren't included in the course you're taking. If you study on your own, you need to be even more aware of what you need to do, what you're doing at the moment and the difference between them. Here are some of the questions I have asked and have since been asked many times by students: How do I learn characters efficiently? How do I get the most out of my course or teacher? Which are the best learning tools and resources? How can I become fluent in Mandarin? How can I improve my pronunciation? How do I learn successfully on my own? How can I motivate myself to study more? How can I fit learning Chinese into a busy schedule? The answers I've found to these questions and many others form the core of this book. It took eight years of learning, researching, teaching and writing to figure these things out. Not everybody has the time to do that! I can't go back in time and help myself learn in a better way, but I can help you! This book is meant for normal students and independent language learners alike. While it covers all major areas of learning, you won't learn Chinese just by reading this book. It's like when someone on TV teaches you how to cook: you won't get to eat the delicious dish just by watching the program; you have to do the cooking yourself. That's true for this book as well. When you apply what you learn, it will boost your learning, making every hour you spend count for more, but you still have to do the learning yourself. This is what a few readers have said about the book: "The book had me nodding at a heap of things I'd learnt the hard way, wishing I knew them when I started, as well as highlighting areas that I'm currently missing in my study." - Geoff van der Meer, VP engineering "This publication is like a bible for anyone serious about Chinese proficiency. It's easy for anyone to read and written with scientific precision." - Zachary Danz, foreign teacher, children's theatre artist About me I started learning Chinese when I was 23 (that's more than eight years ago now) and have since studied in many different situations, including serious immersion programs abroad, high-intensity programs in Sweden, online courses, as well as on the side while working or studying other things. I have also successfully used my Chinese in a graduate program for teaching Chinese as a second language, taught entirely in Chinese mostly for native speakers (the Graduate Institute for Teaching Chinese as a Second Language at National Taiwan Normal University). All these parts have contributed to my website, Hacking Chinese, where I write regularly about how to learn Mandarin.

This book presents policies in language and education, and implementation in specific settings. It describes the historical background that led to the development of these policies, and presents the institutional context of the schools where reading is taught. Based on a study conducted over four years, involving daily observation in two different elementary schools and one kindergarten in Nanjing, China, this study describes the literacy acquisition process for Chinese children today. This study is recommended for Chinese language teachers, English as a second langauge instructors, linguists, students of comparative education, and sociologists.

This text reviews both similarities and unique cultural, linguistic, and script differences of Chinese relative to alphabetic reading, and even across Chinese regions. Chinese reading acquisition relies upon children's strongly developing analytic skills, as highlighted here. These 16 chapters present state-of-the-art research on diverse aspects of Chinese children's reading development. This edited volume presents research on Chinese children's reading development across Chinese societies. Authors from China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan, among others, present the latest findings on how Chinese children learn to read. Reading acquisition in Chinese involves some parameters typically not encountered in some other orthographies, such as English. For example, Chinese readers in different regions might speak different, mutually unintelligible languages, be taught to read with or without the aid of a phonetic coding system, and learn different scripts. This book both implicitly and explicitly considers these and other contextual issues in relation to developmental and cognitive factors involved in Chinese literacy acquisition. One of the clearest themes to emerge from this volume is that, across regions, Chinese children, despite lack of explicit teaching of phonetic or semantic character components, learn to read largely by integrating visible print-sound and print-meaning connections. Rather than learning to read Chinese characters by rote, as is sometimes mistakenly believed, these children are analytic learners. Chapters in this book also cover such topics as Chinese children's reading comprehension, cognitive characteristics of good and poor readers, and reading strategies of bilingual and biscriptal readers. This book is a useful reference for anyone interested in understanding either developing or skilled reading of Chinese or for those interested in literacy learning across cultures.

This book showcases 50 pioneering retail projects in China and explores them as windows into the industry’s future. As e-commerce uproots the norms and conventions of physical retail, Chinese retailers are showing the way forward. What can designers, architects and industry leaders learn from this melting pot of innovation? Departing from Frame’s successful Powershopseries, Learning from China showcases 50 retail designs developed by a troupe of national and international designers in China. From multifunctional lifestyle destinations and food kiosks to multi-brand stores and themed pop-ups, this curated selection of case studies provides a window into the future of the industry. Features •This 320-page reference book collects 50 pioneering retail designs in China. •The book explores the multifunctional lifestyle destinations and food kiosks to multi-brand stores and themed pop-ups that are setting the scene in the Chinese retail. •Featured projects are accompanied by descriptive text, stunning photography, drawings and sketches, and designer profiles in four to eight pages features. •Each of the book’s four chapters is prefaced by a short introduction highlighting leading trends in the retail industry in China. •Closing the chapters, key takeaways provide an indispensable tool for interior designers, architects and clients alike as we tackle the future of the brick-and-mortar store.

Published research and conference presentations on the Chinese language in the last decade have tended to focus on adult language processing. This book provides a comprehensive resource for the critical discussion of major issues in learning to read Chinese from a child acquisition perspective. The combined contributions from researchers in Asian studies, linguistics, psycholinguistics, psychology, cognitive psychology, reading, and education inform international comparative studies of literacy by making apparent the features of the Chinese culture, language, writing system, and pedagogy that may facilitate or impede the acquisition of literacy.

This edited volume explores how Chinese school-based educators learn from others and attain awareness in dialogue with the world in an era of increasing globalization and information exchange. Minzhu Primary School in Shanghai, China, and Bay Street School in Toronto, Canada, have been connected as sister schools of cross-cultural exchange since 2008. Together, they have explored ways to reciprocally learn in a cross-cultural partnership while remaining grounded in their home culture and language. In this book, chapter authors examine how Chinese school-based educators view themselves, understand others, and grow and develop as a consequence of a decade of cross-cultural reciprocal learning as sister schools. Further, the authors discuss prospects for future educational interactions between Canada and China.

This book offers historical, philosophical and cultural perspectives on literacy in China, providing a comprehensive, cross-disciplinary look at changes in Chinese literacy education from ancient times to today. A companion volume covers English literacy.