Want to Teach in China?

I attended an ALESN seminar event on Teaching English in China recently. ALESN is a volunteer-run program that I am fond of who is focused on teaching Chinese and other Asian languages in New York City. All program and events are free and I encourage anybody who is in or near Manhattan to participate and take advantage of such a wonderful program.

While I do not have any plans to teach English in China, I thought I would collect information for those who were interested. The seminar was held on April 28^th, 2012 so all information should be more or less up-to-date at the time. After attending the lecture, I am sure that I would rather stay online with my little blog to entertain and educate my readers. I don’t think teaching in China is for everybody, but I believe it is for flexible educators who want a sense of adventure or a change of environment and of course, have a passion for teaching.

Our guest speaker is Bob Angles who is an ESL/EFL teacher since 1993. He is in semi-retirement, but would not mind teaching again if the right opportunity comes along. Mr. Angles spoke about the Chinese education system in China and not in Taiwan or Hong Kong, which has a different education system.

Historically:

In 1949, China reset their education system for all schools at the city/provential, state, and federal level.

Culturally:

Typically in Asian culture, a person is defined by their job, especially if that job has a distinguished and respectable title like a teacher, doctor, lawyer, president, etc. A teacher in China will always be addressed by surname first followed by the title, which for teacher is “lǎo shī ” in pinyin. Mr. Angles would be addressed as “Angeles lǎo shī” since he is a teacher by profession in all situations whether or not the addressee is his student or not. Even when he goes to the grocery store, a familiar acquaintance would still call him by his surname and then title. If Mr. Angeles is teaching at a university, then he would be known as professor Angeles  or “Angeles jiào shòu .”

Teaching in a Government-Run School:

The benefits package in a government-run school includes housing, airfare, healthcare, and vacation incentives. Back when the Soviet Union had a major influence on China’s education system, teaching contracts could not be negotiated and jobs were categorized in rigid job classification systems, but a lot has changed now. Contracts can always be negotiated. The worst that can happen is that an applicant may get rejected or the school representative may reject the request.

Usually, foreign teachers with a B.A. or B.S. degree will get an airfare incentive of a one-way trip. Foreign experts (those with a master’s degree) will usually get a round-trip airfare ticket. 

Every teacher is allowed a standard of one month of vacation which is usually the summer or winter vacation recess time. If a teacher was hired in the fall season, then the teacher would get the coming winter vacation off.

There are insurance benefits as well. Every teacher within the dān wèi receives the same type of health insurance. I will explain more about dān wèi in the “life” section. From the impression I am getting from Mr. Angles, the health insurance only covers basic health. Teachers who think they have a serious health condition or need more than basic health care should try to purchase additional health insurance elsewhere.

The wages at a public university are low. The pay would be slightly higher in big cities such as Beijing or Shanghai (or Guangzhou?), which would pay $1000-2000 dollars more. There are two classifications of teachers in government-run schools: Foreign Teacher (those with a Bachelor’s Degree) and Foreign Expert (those who have a Master’s degree or higher). A foreign teacher can typically make $6100 per month while a foreign expert can typically make $6500 per month. Those numbers were derived from the influence of the Soviet Union and can always be negotiated.

The big hiring season for the general education systems are next fall or around the time of Chinese New Year. Sometimes, there are summer jobs available. Chinese grade schools, both public and private, hire a lot of part-timers.

Workload:

The teaching contract would generally state that the workload is 12-20 periods a week. Each period is about 40-45 minutes. Bob recommends teaching 14 periods or less in order to spend quality time grading papers and having enough time to teach.

Schools like to give direction to the subjects their teachers are teaching, but will generally leave the teacher alone for the Oral English class. If English Writing is taught, there will be a lot of homework to grade. Phonetics may be taught as well. Mr. Angles was asked to teach subjects that he has little experience with such as British Culture and the History and Anthology of American Literature. I took a look at these bilingual textbooks, History and Anthology of American Literature Vol. 1 and Survey of Britain & America, which looked boring and old. 

Teachers do not need to speak Chinese as Chinese students should be already adept at speaking general English. Most students are too shy to speak and may need to be coaxed into speaking English.

Life:

Teachers live in their dān wèi units, which are life-influencing work units linked to the employer. Mr. Angeles describes his apartment as a two bedroom apartment with an okay kitchen, balcony, etc. The impression I have of the apartment is a decent apartment. There is also a doctor inside the dān wèi should a teacher feel sick. Teachers live on campus and work on campus.

China has all the basic items that one would need in his or her daily life for purchase so there is no reason for teachers to pack anything extra. According to Mr. Angles, the internet is somewhat censored in China. Spouses of teachers will have the option to also teach whether or not he or she has the credentials. Spouses can come to China on a tourist visa, which costs about $141.

Teaching at a Private School:

Private education sector consists of private training centers and private schools. The pay is about double more than a government-run school, but there are fewer benefits. Usually, an apartment is not part of the contract. Private schools and training centers are in the business to make a profit and their practices may not be honest. There might be instances where the school cannot make the payroll. In other words, as Heidi Klum, the host for the TV show “Project Runway” says, “one day you’re in, and the next day you’re out.” Mr. Angeles talks about a story where he was asked to hire some teachers for the private school where he was teaching. Mr. Angeles ultimately hired two teachers who flew over from Hong Kong to Guangzhou and Mr. Angeles was going to pick them up at the airport. Just before Mr. Angeles arrived at the airport, he received a call from the school that those teachers were no longer needed and the school had already hired somebody else. Needless to say, the teachers from Hong Kong were extremely upset since they packed everything for the move and were now homeless.

Teachers who work for government-run schools are forbidden to privately teach anywhere else such as a corporate training center, yet a majority of them do in secret in order to earn extra money. The law of China states that a person may only find employment within their dān wèi.

Requirements/Qualifications:

There are two departments that will be responsible for hiring teachers: The Bureau of Foreign Experts or Foreign Affairs Office and the English department.

Applicants should be at adult age and no older than 60 years old, though this too can be negotiated.

For international schools, teachers must have a teaching license and a foreign passport. International schools are filled with kids of diplomats and businessmen so they expect a higher quality of education as well as a higher reputation of the school.

1.       Resume:

In most cases, an applicant needs a bachelor’s degree. Applicants with a bachelor’s degree in education or linguistics or a Master’s TESOL (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages) degree are most likely to be hired. Schools may explain that they need the bachelor’s degree in order to process the visa, but Mr. Angeles doesn’t think that is true.

Applicants should include a photo only if he or she believes it will help his or her chances in getting hired. According to Mr. Angles, Caucasian-looking applicants should include a photo. Including a photo when an applicant is non-Caucasian will hurt the applicant’s chances especially in the private sector.  It is a biased world even for Asian-looking people. Everybody expects a Caucasian teacher to teach English. I felt sad when I heard Mr. Angles recount a story about a Chinese-American teacher who went to a training center in China to teach English and the employees in the company were outraged because she looked Chinese. The Chinese-American teacher was born in the United States, had a United States passport, and didn’t speak any Chinese, yet her students created a bias that was skin deep.

Additional items to mention on your resume if applicable:

• CELTA (Certificate in teaching English to speakers of other languages) or DELTA (Diploma in English Language Teaching to Adults) certification is helpful to include in an applicant’s resume. CELTA and DELTA certifications derived from the U.K. DELTA is aimed specifically for experienced teachers who are already in the teaching field.
• TEFL (Teaching English as a foreign language) certification.
• Teaching assistant experience
• Volunteer teaching experience
• School Transcripts
• Having student teaching experience is a big plus.
• References
  Applicants who have no references should ask a teacher to write one.
• Medical Check
  For hired teachers, the actual physical is usually done in China. A representative from the school should be able to guide the new teacher through the process.

Recommendation:

Teachers with no experience in teaching in China should look for jobs in universities or state schools. The teaching contracts are standard contracts and the schools are not-for-profit. Trying to look for a job in the private sector is riskier even though the pay is higher. Teachers will have fewer benefits than in a government-run school and may be fired at any moment due to the school’s financial situation and private schools are more interested in profits than in education.

Two major websites that offer employment for English teachers:

www.eslcafe.com –The employer pays a fee to the website directly in order to post a job. There is no middle man.

http://anesl.com - The employer pays a fee in the case they decide to hire an applicant on this website. ANESL acts as the middle man who collects the fee prior to releasing the full information about the applicant and the full details about the school to the applicant.

Tips:

Applicants should not ever send money to anybody. It is likely a scam. Usually, the employer is charged recruiting fees. Applicants should be wary of anybody who simply asks the applicant to send all the applicant’s documents with the promise of helping the applicant secure a job.

One curious attendee asked Mr. Angeles if employers in China would do interviews over Skype. Mr. Angeles says employers in China usually try to verify everything on the resume or related documents by phone. A teacher can always bargain his or her contract with their employer once they arrive in China. Mr. Angeles recommends applicants to always speak positively when bargaining.

A Simple Explanation of The Actual Process:

1. The applicant answers the ad/letter.
2. The employer will send a hard copy congratulations letter informing the applicant that he or she got the job.
3. The applicant will accept (or reject) the job offer by reading and signing the contract before sending the contract back.
4. The employer will send a formal letter of invitation to the newly hired teacher.
5. By using the formal letter of invitation as proof of work in a foreign country, the newly hired teacher can now apply for a temporary Z visa. The newly hired teacher may need to get a physical, permit, etc.
6. The newly hired teacher begins packing his or her bags to begin his or her adventure in China.

That’s all I gathered from the seminar. Good luck to the teachers out there!

Interview - Is Chinese Important in Society?

I was interviewed by a NYU student one day after my Mandarin class for her research paper on why learning Chinese is so important for society. At the time, I was at a loss for words and it seemed to me like the answer is very obvious. I have Chinese roots. I am Chinese. Why shouldn’t I learn Chinese?

My interviewer was more specific. She asked me why is learning Chinese so important to our society? I was at a loss for words. Chinese is important because…

we do business in China?

That’s the only thing I could come up with. Living in the United States, there is no real reason to learn Chinese just like there isn’t any reason to particularly learn French unless we are doing business with people who speak those languages. The only important languages in the United States are English and Spanish in my opinion because it is so apparent everywhere. Sure, a lot of documents and forms in the New York state are slowly being translated into Chinese, but what for? Chinese people only make up 3% (2010 U.S. Census Bureau data for New York) of the population in New York City.

I’m not saying Chinese culture is not important, but when I think of culture as a whole, it’s not very significant in the United States. Most Americans do not take a day off on Chinese New Year nor do they know when the Chinese New Year begins. Ask a random person what zodiac year we are in and they would probably draw a blank. Only Chinese or people who work with Chinese people would know the answer.

Then, my interviewer started asking me questions about whether or not I use it at work. I sheepishly replied that we don’t because I work in a laboratory who aids in clinical trials. Unless we had a Chinese client, I don’t think I’d be using Chinese any time soon at work. I believe we would use Chinese most often when we’re buying something at the Chinese supermarket or store and when we’re eating at a Chinese restaurant.

Sadly, I came to the conclusion that unless we’re interested in Chinese entertainment or Chinese business, there is no other major reason to learn Chinese. The last Mandarin paid class I attended in Manhattan was full of students who needed to go to China at some point in their lives to do business and maybe do a little sightseeing on the side.

Why learn Chinese then?

I have a natural interest in learning Chinese and its culture. I’m sure I am different than my brother or cousins in that I constantly want to learn more and I often fantasize that I am actually from China or Hong Kong. I am a bit of a hypocrite because I use English when speaking to Chinese people and I’m more comfortable communicating in English more than Chinese. Even then, my interest in Chinese never wanes.

Lastly, my interviewer asked me how long I plan on learning Chinese. One year? Two years?

I thought of it as a ridiculous question and simple replied, “forever.”

My interviewer opened her mouth in wonder. She then released her “ah~” moment with the realization that my answer had a deep meaning. She was expecting a short time span while I was expecting lifetime commitment. What more was there to say? We concluded our short interview. I actually had so much more to say, but I didn’t have much time to think it through. I enjoyed the opportunity to speak with my interviewer who was a Chinese Cantonese speaker. I wonder if she would continue her lifelong commitment to learning Chinese as well, but at least she is writing a paper about how important the Chinese language is in society for school.

No matter what language we are learning, I believe there is no end to learning. We are constantly learning even when we’re outside the classroom. We all learn at different levels, different comprehension speeds, and from difference experiences. Hopefully, I can compile the most interesting subjects in the hopes that it may interest you. Never stop learning!

Intro to Radicals / Section Headers

I don’t want to linger on the topic of strokes too long because you will have a better understanding of the big picture when you see how the parts work as a whole. When a combination of known strokes is used over and over again, it is likely to be a radical. As a recap, radicals are the basic forms to create a character. I went ahead and did a little research on the definition of a radical.

Dictionary.com:

4. Forming a basis or foundation.

The Free Definition by Farlex:

4. Linguistics Of or being a root: a radical form.

Merriam-Webster.com:

1b : of, relating to, or constituting a linguistic root

I think if we mesh all three definitions together, it explains “radical” the best. Radicals are the basic foundations or roots for each Chinese character. Without them, we might as well be scratching our heads while looking at symbols that we can’t decipher.

REFERENCE LINKS:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_%28Chinese_character%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Kangxi_radicals

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_headers_of_a_Chinese_dictionary

Many radicals are semantic, which means that the radical itself has a meaning. Others may be phonetic or what Wikipedia states as “artificially extracted” from another character, which normally does not exist by itself. The Chinese dictionary also includes artificial extractions or “glyph extractions” as is explained in Wikipedia.

I have not forgotten from our previous stroke post that our mission here is to be able to find a word in a Chinese dictionary. A standard Chinese dictionary has 214 radicals in the section header (部首 bùshǒu) and these radicals are indexed by using the stroke count method. Thus, radicals with one stroke count are listed first. Throughout history, the number of radicals in the section header kept changing depending on how a character should be classified and how many characters end up being classified in the section of a radical.  

Even if you recognized the radical from a character, you may still have trouble finding it in the dictionary because there is constant debate over the placement of a character in the correct radical section. What if a character has more than one radical? Which one would dominate? What if a radical from a traditional character is now gone in the simplified version of that character? So many questions and the only answers are to eliminate the possibilities and start with the best guess. The character has to be listed somewhere under a radical so we’ll find it…eventually.

I also want to mention that there is a great debate over the usage of the term radical to as a way to index the dictionary. It would have been nice if the classifications were set in stone, but it isn’t. Apparently, the word “radical” has a variety of meanings for the purposes of indexing a dictionary by acting as the root, semantic, or a artificially extracted component of a character. People are confused when they can’t tell the difference or assume all the indexers in the dictionary are radicals roots. Wikipedia calls the radicals section of the dictionary, “section headers” instead. When I speak of a radical, I am referring to the root definition and not the semantic component definition for the time being. Don’t worry if you don’t know what I’m talking about. All you need to know now is the definition I have given to you in this post when it comes to radicals.

To recap, there are three types of radical indexers listed as section headers of a Chinese dictionary:

1) Radical Root (the one and only)

2) Semantic Radical (a borrowed radical root just for sound or pronunciation purposes)

3) Artificially Extracted Radical (a part of a radical which has no meaning by itself)

The radical of a character can be any of the three categories above for the purposes of classification in a dictionary.

In order to find out which section header or radical section a character is classified in, we must make our best guess and look into the section header or radical section the character is most likely to be in first. Our success rate in finding the character on the first try will be much higher.

My tips in finding the correct section header is to find the radical in this order:

1) Does the character have a dominant radical on the left side?

2) Does the character have a dominant radical on the top?

3) Does the character have a dominant radical on the bottom?

4) Does the character have a unique or rare radical in it?

I just gave you an fuzzy overview of radicals, but what are the radicals? I'm sure you want to know what all 214 radicals look like!

I searched around Google and found that this website is the best when it comes to listing all the radicals or section headers.

http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/radicals.php

Go ahead and study it. It acts as a great guide for radicals.

If you want to go in depth, this is a great site for further study of the individual radicals.

http://www.clearchinese.com/chinese-writing/radicals1.htm

Once you are more familiar with the radicals or radical parts, you can officially start looking up characters in the dictionary using your stroke counting powers and radical detective skills.

You need to guess:

1) What radical would this character most likely be associated with? What is the stroke count of this radical?

2) How many strokes does this character have in total?

 There are a bunch of online dictionaries out there to search for a character by using the stroke count method. Let's use this website to look up our characters:

http://www.archchinese.com/arch_chinese_radicals.html

 Let's say, we see the word 好 and we have no idea what it is. (For intermediate or advanced students, let's just pretend we don't know!)

好

What is this?

I know! I'll consult the dictionary...

Now, if I had to take a wild guess, radicals are usually on the left side if there is a left side available.

What do we have in the left side? The character: 女 (pronounced: nǚ)

If you have no idea which part of the character is the main radical, try to figure out the stroke count of one radical and go from there.

How many strokes does 女 have? 

Answer: 3 (piědiǎn stroke, piě stroke, and a héng stroke)

Checking the nǚ at the archchinese.com website above, you'd see that it is radical number 38.

(Note: If you happen to mess up and thought 子 (zǐ) was the main radical, you would have searched and realized that it was radical number 39, but if you try looking in that section, you wouldn't be able to find the character 好.)

Going back to the 好 character we were so curious about, let's figure out the total stroke count. 

Answer: 6 (女 = 3 strokes as previously covered, 子 = 3 strokes)

If you didn't know the answer, you're just going to have to take your best guess and then go from there. Perhaps, you can add or minus a stroke or two if you were wrong the first time.

If you clicked on the 女 radical link, you will arrive at the following page:

http://www.archchinese.com/arch_radical_characters.html?rad=5973    

Next to stroke count #6 section, we will see, to our delight, the third character is the 好 character. Clicking on the character will give you all sorts of information such as definition, audio pronunciation, pinyin, stroke order, useful words, etc. Excellent..or, err...  好 (hǎo)!

This concludes our mini tutorial on how to look up words in the dictionary. Use this power well.

Introduction to Strokes

Unlike the English alphabet which includes 26 letters, the Chinese work with radicals, which are the basic forms to create a character. Knowing the radicals is like knowing the letters to create a word. Once you know the radicals, you can go on to create many combinations to form different characters. After doing a quick online search, there are 214 radicals. Don’t feel overwhelmed. It’s not as hard when you start recognizing them. If you want to read Chinese, you have to be able to recognize the radicals because the majority of the Chinese characters did not derive from pictograms as many believe, but from phono-semantic compounds where the radical tells you the general meaning of the character and then you base your pronunciation based on the rest of the character. Even if you couldn’t understand the character, you can at least get a hint from the general meaning of the radical. You may not memorize all radicals, but you need to at least recognize them. Some radicals are very common while others are not. If you are an overachiever and want to understand it fully, I recommend recognizing traditional radicals first and then moving on to simplified radicals because then you can often see the process of how a traditional radical became simplified.

Before we move on, I want to clarify that the Chinese writing system does not have letters. I’ve heard people call Chinese characters “letters” all too often and it drives me mentally crazy. Please refer to Chinese characters properly as “characters” and not as “letters.” Characters have the potential to become a word by itself while letters cannot. There were people who come to me and ask me how I would “spell” a character.  We do not “spell” characters, we “write” characters in Chinese. By the way, I have been a hypocrite and used the wrong terminology before, but I do make effort to correct this misconception. We all make mistakes.

In this post, I’ll teach you the most important skill you will need for reading Chinese: HOW TO LOOK UP A CHARACTER IN A CHINESE DICTIONARY. While I don’t have any experience looking up words in a simplified characters dictionary, I believe it uses the same method as the traditional characters dictionary.

I know that there’s a bunch of English to Chinese dictionaries online, but there will be instances where I can’t find a word and I have to resort to using the stroke count method to find a word in the dictionary. I have yet to find an online dictionary that is fully complete with every single English word so chances are, you will need to resort to the stroke count method at some point. Even if you use the pinyin method, which is the most popular method of romanization for Chinese pronunciation, you might not be so sure what sounds you are hearing. What’s great about online dictionaries is that all you have to do is click on links to get to the character you are looking for. When I was young, I had an actual dictionary and I had to find the page with the correct stroke count of the radical first, find the section the radical was in, and then find the character by the total stroke count. It was a lot of work and frustrating. Even so, a Chinese dictionary is fun to have if you want to spend the money and time. You can brag to all your friends who will be amazed how you can figure it out or they may call you stupid for not figure it out online instead.

How do we figure out how to look up a word? As I mentioned before, you use the stroke count method. Interestingly, when I researched this topic on Wikipedia, I found that people from Hong Kong or Macau use the stroke method as an IME (Input Method Editor) to type on their mobile phones where one key is one type of stroke. Cool! 

Stroke count is written or typed 笔画 and  in pinyin romanization, bǐ huà. As aforementioned, pinyin is reserved for romanization in Mandarin. I’ll explain more about pinyin in the future.

I definitely learned stoke marks as a child in Chinese elementary school, but I have long since forgotten the formal lessons. According to Wikipedia, we have six basic strokes and four combination strokes. Before I get to that part, let’s define a stroke. After searching the word “stroke” in the dictionary, I became overwhelmed at all the many meanings it had. I think this Merriam-Webster definition is the best official definition I can find: 

12a : a mark or dash made by a single movement of an implement

  http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/stroke

Well, I’d like you to think of it simply as a mark you make from the time you place your pen or brush down on paper to the time you lift up your pen or brush from the paper. This is assuming that most people write on paper with a pen or less commonly, a brush (for calligraphy.) There are, of course, other ways to write besides with a pen or brush such as in romantic scenes where a guy would write on the sand with a stick at a beach to profess his love or when a jailbird tries to scratch a message on a wall with a rock or something, but we’re not going to focus on the alternatives, which is why the Merriam-Webster’s use of the word “implement” in the definition is appropriate and my definition is too narrow. When I was in Chinese elementary school, it was a common practice to mentally envision what I was writing by writing the characters with my finger either in mid-air or on my desk. You should try it too. When I didn’t remember how to write a word, I stuck out my hand, palm up, and my mom would write the character on my hand with her finger. It’s a complicated form of sign language.

To recap, as soon as you lift your pen or brush up from the paper, the stroke ends. Think about how many strokes it takes to create a character. My maiden surname “龔” (Gong1) has twenty-two strokes. My Chinese teacher always uses my surname as an example for the class to demonstrate strokes because it’s one of the most difficult surnames if not, the most difficult surname to write.

One important rule to note about writing strokes is that you always start from the top left and end at bottom right. There are exceptions, of course, but you can’t go wrong if you stick to my basic rule of top left to bottom right. 

According to Wikipedia, there are eight basic rules of stroke order in writing a Chinese character:

1. Horizontal strokes are written before vertical ones.
2. Left-falling strokes are written before right-falling ones.
3. Characters are written from top to bottom.
4. Characters are written from left to right.
5. If a character is framed from above, the frame is written first.
6. If a character is framed from below, the frame is written last.
7. Frames are closed last.
8. In a symmetrical character, the middle is drawn first, then the sides.

For more a more in depth explanation, please check:
http://www.archchinese.com/chinese_stroke_order_rules.html

I feel that you are not going to understand these rules unless you’re actually writing the strokes. Allow me introduce the six basic strokes:

  

BASIC STROKES:

Credits to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroke_%28CJK_character%29

 

Dot (、) 

 

Diǎn, 點/点 "Dot" Tiny Dash, Speck 

Dots look similar to commas. Even in the word for “dot” which is “diǎn,” you see there are four dots on the bottom (the left character 點 is the traditional character for diǎn and the right character 点 is the simplified character for diǎn. In Cantonese, 點 is pronounced "dim2." A diǎn is written just like a backwards comma in a rightward direction with a slight hook to the left as you see in the picture. You should always write the diǎn from top left to bottom right and then hook it slightly. I usually don’t do the hook when I’m writing, but you should do it if you’re practicing calligraphy. Based on the information you know already, do you write the four Diǎns first or last in the simplified character for 点?

(Answer: Last as they are located at the bottom!)

Horizontal (一)  

  Héng, 横 "Horizontal" Rightward Stroke

This horizontal stroke looks just like an em dash or just a line across. The word for a horizontal stroke is “héng.” or in Cantonese, "waang4." I think it’s only natural that we would be inclined to write the héng stroke from left to right so I don’t need to explain this one too much. If you take only the left-hand tree radical "木" from the character 横, at which point do you think you would write a héng stroke?

(Answer: First. Not only is it located near the top, but horizontal strokes are written before vertical strokes.)

 

 

 Vertical (丨)

 Shù, 豎/竖 "Vertical" Downward Stroke

The vertical stroke, shù or syu6 in Cantonese, looks like a pipe or the number one. Naturally, we write it from top to bottom. It looks like the shù character 竖 is more harder to write than the actual stroke itself. The actual character 竖 has shù strokes located at the top left. Do you think we write them first or last?

(Answer: First, since the shù strokes are located at the top left. We usually write from the top left.)

 

 

 

Rise( ‘ ) 

 

 Tí, 提 "Rise" Flick Up and Rightwards

The "rise" or tí is a stroke going in a upper-right direction. The reason why the bottom of the stroke is thicker is because when you are using a brush, the brush naturally stays longer in the initial spot than at the end of the stoke where you lift up your hand while keeping your wrist in place and the brush lifts away from the paper. When using a pen or pencil, a simple stroke to the upper right will suffice.  As usual, the stroke is written from left to upper right. 提 is pronounced "tai4" in Cantonese. The shou3 or “hand” 扌 radical is located on the left hand side of the word 提. This may be a trick question, but can you tell me when you would write the tí stroke  in the 扌 radical?

(Answer:  It is the fourth and last stroke. It is one of the exceptions to the stroke order rule. At least we finish it up on the right side! That could be considered the bottom right. By the way, the bottom of the 扌character is a hook or gōu stroke, which we haven’t covered yet.)

Right-falling (丶)

Nà, 捺 "Press Down" Falling Rightwards (fattening at the bottom)

The nà (or naat6 in Cantonese)  stroke is always written from top left to bottom right. The reason why the bottom of the stroke is thicker is because the brush stays longer on the paper at the end of the stroke since your brush is closer to your body than when you first started. This stroke is often used last when writing a character since you would end up in the bottom right. From what I see, the word 捺 itself has two nà strokes. If you break down just the right hand side of the character "奈" from 捺 into a top half 大 and bottom half 示, at which stroke would you write the nà?

(Answer: The nà  stroke is the last stroke each time. As mentioned before, usually the nà stroke is used as the last stroke since we usually end up at the bottom right.

Left-falling (丿) 

 Piě, 撇 "Throw Away" Falling Leftwards (with a slight curve)

Lastly, we cover the piě (or pit3 in Cantonese) stroke. This stroke is a little tricky since we actually start from the top-right and end up at the bottom left. Doesn’t this go against all rules?  We already run into one exception in stroke writing. You would write this the opposite way of the previously covered tí stroke, only steeper in the degree angle. There are three piě strokes in the character 撇, but to make it easier, let’s focus on the right side radical of the character, 攵 (pu1.) At which point would you write a piě stroke?

(Answer: First. It is located at the top left. Yay, at least we’re following rule orders again. If you were studying, you’d see there is another piě stroke. The third stroke is a piě stroke after the héng stroke.)

COMBINATION STROKES:

 When you mastered all the basic strokes, we can go into combination strokes. Combination strokes require a basic stroke and at least one combination stroke. Remember, all these strokes are done in one stroke without lifting your pen or brush. A full list of possible combinations is found in a chart located at Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CJK_37_Strokes_%288%2B29%29.png

Also, http://www.clearchinese.com/chinese-writing/strokes.htm is a great resource for strokes. The rules for strokes still apply from top left to bottom right.

Zhe: ( 90° angle)

Zhé, 折 "Break" 

Indicates a change in stroke direction, usually 90° turn, going down or going right only.

You cannot actually write the zhé (or zit3 in Cantonese) stroke by itself because it depends on the direction of the last stroke you are writing. If you were writing a héng stroke, then your zhé stroke would always go 90° downwards. It is like writing a horizontal line followed by a vertical line downwards in one stroke. Remember, we usually write from top to bottom. If you were writing a shù stroke, your zhé stroke would always go 90° to the right. To recap again, we usually write from left to right. If we were to add another Zhé as in Shù Zhé Zhé, we would make something like a staircase. Are there any zhé strokes in the word, 折?

(Answer: No. Surprising, huh?)

Hook: (亅, 乛) 

Gōu, 鉤/钩 "Hook"  

Appended to other strokes, suddenly going down or going left only.

Just as it looks, the hook makes a type of check mark shape and ends quickly with a flick of a pen or brush. Depending on the last stroke you made, the hook can go upwards-left or downwards-left, but never to the right side. The gōu (or ngau1 in Cantonese) stroke is best understood when in combination with other strokes since it cannot be by itself. There are five types of gōu strokes: Hénggōu, Shùgōu, Wāngōu (乚), Xiégōu, and Pinggou.

In the character 鉤, let’s break down the character to just the right side: 句. This may be an advanced question, but when would you write the gōu stroke?

(Answer: At the end of the second stroke after you complete the héngzhé stroke. This second stroke becomes the héngzhégōu stroke since you never lifted up your pen or brush.)

Let’s be more ambitious with the character, 句. Why do you think the héngzhégōu stroke is not written last? Doesn’t the stroke end up at the bottom right? It is because characters are written from top-left to bottom-right. The piě stroke is obviously the first stroke followed by the héngzhégōu stroke, which begins right next to it even if it ends below the 口 next to it. This question might be tricky, but can you finish off the 口to complete the character 句? 

If you use rule number four (characters are written from left to right) followed by rule number three (characters are written from top to bottom), the answer would be: a shù stroke, back to the starting point to make a héngzhé stroke, and then a héng stroke to close it off the bottom (using rule number seven: frames are closed last.) The kou3 口 character is the actual character for “mouth” and this character is the basis for the creation of “frames.” Kou3 does not have to be completely closed where one of the four sides is missing and that is what we mean be framing. I’m probably going a little too far with this topic since we’re supposed to concentrate on combination strokes right now.

You should already have the knowledge to write hénggōu and shùgōu. Try to write them!

Bend: ( ) )  

Wān, 彎/弯 "Bend" 

A tapering thinning curve, usually concave left (convex outward right.)

The wān (or waan1 in Cantonese) stroke is a bend. I’ve seen on an online forum where a person asked about the difference between a wān stroke and a piě stroke. My opinion is that when you are writing a piě stroke, you naturally make a slant, but not enough to make it a bend. To me, writing a piě stroke is like writing a line-like comma on paper. The wān stroke, however, does have a circular appearance. I think of it as an English right-sided parenthesis ")" punctuation mark.  As previously mentioned in the gōu section, the wān stroke is usually written in combination with the gōu stroke.  I think it’s easier if we saw some examples: 乚, 乙, etc.

I do want to mention another type of wān stroke that is horizontal. The horizontal wān stroke is called a ping1 stroke or a biǎn stroke. Ping means “leveled” in English and Bian means "flat." The ping stroke is written from left to right and typically followed by a gōu stroke. The perfect example of a ping gōu stroke is the character for heart: 心

Does the character 彎 have a wān stroke?

(Answer: Surprisingly, no. The last stroke at the bottom of the wān character is considered a shùzhézhégōu stroke.) 

Slant:  ((,)

Xié, 斜 "Slant" 

Curved line, usually concave right (convex outward left).

The xié (or ce4 in Cantonese) stroke is a right or left slanted stroke which is usually combined with a gōu stroke at the end. As usual, you start from top and end at the bottom.  It is different than the nà or piě stroke in that the slant is almost straight in the beginning or very steep and then curves as you move toward the bottom. It is like drawing a side of a tree trunk. You would write a slanted shù stroke towards the direction you are going (either left or right), but as you reach the bottom the curve intensifies. Think of a rollercoaster as we go from a high point into a drop.  Does the character 斜 have a xié stroke?

(Answer: No. One would think it should have one, but surprisingly, it doesn’t.

http://www.archchinese.com or http://www.mandarinstrokes.com is a great resource for viewing the stroke order for Chinese characters. Check out the stroke animation and dictionary.

You may notice some of the strokes may look the same when writing them, but keep in mind that the strokes are based on calligraphy writing and not regular pen/pencil writing. Many fine details such as thickness of a stroke are left out when writing with a pen or pencil. If you understand and practice your strokes, writing a Chinese character will be easier than before.

The great part about knowing stroke order is that you can also successfully write Korean and Japanese the same way, from top left to bottom right as the rules are basically the same with some exceptions. No matter how complicated a character is, it still takes up the same amount of space so when you write, be careful to keep the characters about the same “block” size. Having a Chinese or an Asian type of workbook can help you practice writing characters.

If you are interested in typing by using the stroke method, you should take a look at the Wubihua Chinese input method that is very popular for cellphones. The Wubihua method only uses the numerical keypad. The numbers 1-5 are used:

#1 – Héng or Tí Stroke
#2 – Shù Stroke

#3 – Piě Stroke

#4 – Diǎn or Nà strokes

#5 – Compound and other strokes

I have yet to find a program for Wubihua though.

I think we covered everything regarding strokes. 

Check out this website which recaps all the strokes I covered: 

http://www.chinesehour.com/library/chinese-cards/cbfe148216fb7e910116fb893a350005/

I have created a cheat sheet to help you learn all the stroke names:
https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=BF8AED0897926D3C!176

When you are more familiar with the strokes, let’s move on to radicals in my next post!

First Thing's First

If you are an absolute beginner, it is important to know the basics of any language or else confusion will follow later on. I strongly believe in learning the foundation of a language so no matter where a student goes, he or she will be armed with enough knowledge to figure out the answer based on his or her knowledge of the basics. I want everybody to be able to rely on themselves as much as possible. You have to believe you can do it. There are so many times when I don’t know something, but I make an educated guess and I often get it right.

The basics are reading, writing, and typing. If you can do this, grammar will follow. Then, ultimately, you can form your own sentences. You have to learn to walk before you can run.

Here are my recommendations:

I’m not trying to scare you, but this is an overwhelming subject. Luckily, if we break it down into parts, everything is easier. It’s best to learn Chinese from a historical viewpoint, as in a timeline.

Some History on Chinese Reading and Writing:

Chinese words are based on characters. Many combinations of characters were created so naturally it took people a long time to write a thought down. How can China keep up with the modern times if writing a sentence took forever? Yes, I exaggerated the last question.

In 1952, Mao Zedong, the leader of the People’s Republic of China, decided to “reform” the characters and tried to make Chinese characters more easier to write. As a result, simplified characters developed from traditional characters and eventually became the official character writing system of China. Some say the characters became uglier looking and unattractive, but faster to write. Imagine, we were cursive writing in English, which takes a longer time, but then changed to print writing. 

Not everybody adapted the Simplified writing system. Taiwan and Hong Kong kept their traditional writing system intact. China would get into political debates on whether or not it is beneficial to go back to the traditional writing system since everybody types nowadays and there’s character confusion with the Simplified writing system, but we won’t get into a political debate here.

Today, we have two character writing systems in existence: Traditional and Simplified. What do we have in the U.S.? I can’t speak for other areas, but in New York, we have both. When I was in Toronto, I only saw traditional characters. I think it was the same for San Francisco and Los Angeles when I visited too. Unfortunately, you’ll be at a disadvantage if you don’t know both systems of writing.

Many people ask, what system should I learn first, traditional or simplified characters? I think it depends on your needs and where you want to focus on. I think I’ll make a chart so it’s easier. The more the questions apply to you, the more you must know. It doesn’t hurt to be ambitious, right?

QUESTION: IF ANY ONE OF THESE APPLY TO YOU…	LANGUAGE YOU SHOULD CONCENTRATE ON	WRITING SYSTEM YOU SHOULD CONCENTRATE ON
Do you not have a clue what type of Chinese to learn? Do you want to learn the most popular or the official language of China? Are you going to visit China? Do you want to learn more about China? Are you interested in China’s music/movies/celebrities, etc?	MANDARIN	SIMPLIFIED
Are you going to visit Taiwan? Do you want to learn more about Taiwan? Are you interested in Taiwanese music/movies/celebrities, etc?	MANDARIN	TRADITIONAL
Are you going to visit Hong Kong or Guangdong? Do you want to learn more about Hong Kong (or Guangdong)? Are you interested in Hong Kong music/movies/celebrities, etc?	CANTONESE	TRADITIONAL

If all of them applies to you, then learn all!

While there are other dialects of Chinese, I just listed the most common dialects. In my other blogs, I also focus on the dialect of Toisanese (or referred to as Taishanese), but unless you have roots in Toisan (or referred to as Taishan) or you have a reason to learn it, then you should be even more ambitious and head on over to my Toisan Descendent blog to learn more about it. Most people consider it hillbilly language and won’t bother to learn it, but I think it’s still important as a Toisanese descendant to learn my roots and have a sense of pride. I don’t have experience in any other dialect so I can’t really talk about it in my blogs.

In my next blog post, we’ll explore more READING and WRITING.