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Unanswered Questions

33 questions with no upvoted or accepted answers
9 votes
0 answers
76 views

Online course or resources on speed reading in Chinese

In a comment to my previous question about the transfer of speed reading skills to other languages, someone wondered whether this would be affected by the writing system. This is very plausible. In ...
8 votes
0 answers
220 views

Learn alphabet by replacing letters in native text

I've read before somewhere about a way to quickly learn how to read a foreign alphabet. You take an unfamiliar letter and put it in English words where the sound of that letter makes sense. That ...
6 votes
0 answers
59 views

I want to train myself to use the Chinese grammar particle 了 correctly: how do I go about doing that?

Motivation: In Chinese grammar, there's a particle 了 which has two main uses: completion 了 (post-verb) and change-of-state 了 (end of sentence). I'm bad at using this particle (see How does someone ...
6 votes
0 answers
92 views

What is the proper etiquette for a nonnative speaker who wants to practice Mandarin at a Chinese supermarket in the US?

There is a Chinese supermarket in the US I often shop at. I often hear the staff speaking Mandarin or Cantonese, and occasionally Hakka or Fujianese, amongst themselves and to Chinese customers. I can ...
6 votes
0 answers
58 views

Is it more advantageous to learn the writing system or the spoken form of a language first?

There are several primary aspects of a language, including both the writing system and the spoken form of a language. What does scientific research say about the order to learn these two factors when ...
6 votes
1 answer
235 views

Evidence that learning radicals speeds up character learning in Japanese?

Characters — in Chinese or Japanese (or Korean Hanja) — can be learnt in various ways, and it is plausible that paying attention to radicals helps memorization and retention. But is there any hard ...
5 votes
0 answers
478 views

High-qualilty videos for New Practical Chinese Reader

新实用汉语课本 or New Practical Chinese Reader is a series of textbooks for learning Standard Chinese published by Beijing Language and Culture University Press. There are six textbooks, containing 70 ...
5 votes
0 answers
82 views

What are general cognitive principles that could explain why Heisig's method works?

This is a follow up to this question on Remembering the Kana. James Heisig is author of a famous series of books involving learning Chinese and Japanese characters. These books are Remembering the ...
5 votes
0 answers
156 views

How to overcome language learning fatigue when learning Standard Chinese?

An acquaintance of mine has been learning Standard Chinese in his spare time for a number of years. He passed the HSK3 test with a very high score and started preparing for HSK4. However, he recently ...
5 votes
0 answers
59 views

What can teachers do to promote or increase mastery of 把 structures in Standard Chinese?

Each lesson in the Chinese series of texbooks New Practical Chinese Reader contains a section entitled "Master the following phrases". Below are a few examples from lesson 16 (in volume 2): 现在就去 - ...
4 votes
0 answers
222 views

How many words give 98% coverage in Mandarin?

For Chinese characters, Jun Da's dataset implies 1566 characters gives 95% coverage, 2285 characters gives 98% coverage, and 2838 characters gives 99% coverage. I'm wondering if there's a similar ...
4 votes
1 answer
95 views

Resources for teaching children Chinese

My nine-year-old son is bilingual English/French (British father, French mother) and absolutely devours books for his age in both languages (ie his reading age in both languages seems roughly equal), ...
4 votes
0 answers
181 views

Practice AP and WebCAPE Exams and study guides

I'm creating a language teaching curriculum which will follow ACTFL and World Readiness Standard guidelines. My end goal is for students to pass the US domestic AP exam (with a 4 or better) and/or a ...
3 votes
0 answers
47 views

What level of schooling does it take for a native-Chinese speaker to understand CCTV news?

One of my iTalki teachers and I study China Central Television (CCTV) news. The hosts are noted for the extremely fast pronunciation (sometimes 280+ characters per minute) and their use of precise, ...
3 votes
0 answers
34 views

How does the proportion of Chinese-language students who learn handwriting change with level?

Many students of Chinese as a second language opt out of learning handwriting characters. My impression (from my personal experience) is that the proportion of beginner students who learn handwriting ...

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