Here you will hopefully find answers to your questions regarding learning chinese.  This is compiled mostly from my answers to questions that people have emailed to me since my learning Chinese pages went online in 1994.

• 1. about the Learning Chinese pages
• 2. computer resources for learning chinese
• 3. audio-visual learning
• 4. more about the chinese language
• 4.1 sounds
• 4.2 pin yin
• 4.3 characters
• 4.4 writing-general
• 4.5 writing -by hand
• 4.6 writing - by brush
• 5. info from other sources
• 6. where can I get the books from?
• My main learning Chinese page

Chinese text display programs
Chinese editing programs
flashcard character learning programs
sound playback for recognition learning
teaching packages either on CD-ROM or via internet

GB:     this only displays simplified characters.
Big5:   this displays both simplified and complicated characters.
HZ:     I forgot what this has, but it's quite common on Chinese newsgroups.

Netscape can display Chinese encoding (see the Options->Document Encoding menu)
if you have these fonts, read the Netscape documentation for more details.
For general use I use cxterm (Chinese xterm) which allows entry of Chinese
characters in a number of ways such as by entering pinyin or even by entering
the English word for it to translate!
An editor must be run under cxterm.  For simple things, 'celvis', a Chinese
version of 'vi' seems to work quite well.
'cnprint' allows a GB coded file (can include English text) to be printed
as postscript, and 'hc' converts between GB and Big5 encoded Chinese.

I'm not convinced about the usefulness of video courses, but a good audio cassette tape full of example sentences is a must, even if you have access to a Chinese speaker to practice with. Maybe others will disagree, but I believe in these components for learning (not in any particular order):

• being able to read from pinyin (ie. know what sound to make)
• being able to read from written characters
• being able to correctly make the sounds and tones - practice speaking the 4 tones for each sound
• being able to speak sentences - read exercises (first in pinyin, and maybe later from characters) aloud
• being able to recognise sounds - practice using an audio tape (but don't expect to go at anything approaching conversational speed)
• being able to recognise tones - as above, but ensure you get the tone marks right
• being able to understand sentences 1 - by interaction with a speaker
• being able to understand sentences 2 - by listening to recorded conversation
• being able to converse - by interacting with a speaker or other learners
• understanding spoken grammar
• understanding written grammar
• being able to write pinyin, and remember tones!
• being able to write characters
• being able to write sentences
• being able to trascribe from spoken to written Chinese
• being able to translate from Chinese to English and vice versa

Some say that computer-aided learning will replace traditional book and cassette based learning. However the diligence and hard work of the student more than compensate for the differences in teaching method, and as long as plenty of resoures are available (written, verbal feedback, aural etc..) then any method will suffice.

I would recommend video taped news programmes in Mandarin (from China, Singapore or Malaysia), audio tapes of news programmes - the BBC World Service Mandarin broacasts are extremely good in this respect, although you may have to write to the BBC directly to obtain them if you don't have a good shortwave receiver.

Standing alongside a good text book to teach grammar, an interesting reader, and access to a native Chinese speaker to ensure correct pronounciation, video or audio resourses are very useful. Additional internet-based resources are slowly coming on-line. These include reading material, a homework-checking page, sound clips of Mandarin conversation, online dictionaries, guides to writing characters etc.. There are more resources coming on-line every day; do a web search in Yahoo or Altavista to find the latest.

• 1st tone: a high level pitched tone
• 2nd tone: rises from midway through the tone range to near the top
• 3rd tone: starts midway before dropping and then rising above midway
• 4th tone: starts high and drops rapidly to low, often results in a shorter sound
• 5th tone: actually an absence of tone, called neutral and is usually confined to the second[last] character in a two[multiple]-character word/phrase

• There is a scheme to help learners to speak the tones correctly. I didn't learn using this, and beware that you may look a little odd using the scheme all of the time!
• For first tone, open the mouth fairly wide and hold the head up to speak.
• For second tone, as the tone rises, move the chin upwards to follow the tonal increase.
• For third tone, starting from a normal chin position, move it downwards into the chest before raising it slightly.
• Fourth tone is accompanied by stamping the foot.

Deng XiaoPing      Teng Hsiao-P'ing
Beijing            Peking
Chou               Zhou
Mao Zedong         Mao Tse-Tung
Guan Ying          Kuan Yin

Due to the much more balanced and elegant appearance of fan-ti zi, these complicated characters may still be used for shop signs, adverts, Christmas and New Year cards and on certificates, even when jian-ti zi are used in everyday life.  For the learner the simplified characters are much easier to remember and write, although it must be said that knowing the fan-ti zi will be better for total understanding, and does convey a certain advantage in determining the roots of a character (see below).

Printed characters may also be in a variety of fonts, Song and Ming are common, and can cause an unwary learner to learn the same character twice (especially look for small vertical lines drawn horizontally)!.

Characters generally consist of two parts, a radical and a phonetic part. The radical, almost always found as the separate left-hand side or bottom of the character generally classifies the character into subject, whilst the remaining part gives some clues as to the pronounciation.  In addition, most dictionaries work by indexing the character by its radical and the number of strokes remaining (ie. the number of lines required to write the character excluding the radical). This is not always as easy to count as it sounds!
I noted above that there was some advantage in knowing complicated characters, and that is due to the simplification process used in forming the simplified characters. This not only removes many of the pronounciation clues, but also merges certain classes of radical together.
A final note; whilst the radical does convey some information on the meaning sometime, do not rely on it doing so. For example;

chair         wood radical
table         wood radical
cup           wood radical (it probably was made of wood once-upon-a time)
thigh         meat radical
kidney        meat radical
friend        meat radical!!
snake         insect radical
ant           insect radical
rainbow       insect radical!

I don't think anyone agrees on the total number of characters, however a figure of above 10,000 is likely. A well-educated Chinese person may know 4000 to 6000, but could get by with less. John DeFrances publishes some very interesting information about the number of characters used, and required for reading everyday texts, in Beginning Chinese Reader vol.1. That is the place to look at for definitive information (unfortunately I no longer have my copy of the book). If you want to read a fairly simple newspaper story you will need to know over 1500 characters, and still be prepared to spend time in your dictionary (believe me, I know about this!).

Numbers may be written using Western (Arabic) characters, or using Chinese characters. Even when using the latter, the Western '0' will usually crop up because it is easier to write than the Chinese 'ling' character. In addition to the normal characters, another set of numbers are used for security on cheques and other monetary trasactions (this is because it is very easy to add a line or two to alter the amount written with standard numeric characters).
 

There are no gaps between "words", requiring the reader to mentally clump together groups of characters into sets of phrases. Often, the mental dividing lines are difficult for learners to apply because the last one or two characters in one phrase may equally as well join the first one or two characters in the next phrase, both meanings may be possible! It gets easier with more practice though.  Chinese writing has evolved with a predominant use of double characters, rather then single characters.  The single characters may be found in historic texts, but more recent writing uses two characters that, together, impart the same meaning, but with less possibility of error.

Punctuation: Chinese has a sort of reverse comma that is used as a list separator (read it as "and"), quotation marks may look a little weird at times, and full stops are often open in the centre. Peoples names may be underlined, and sometimes the separation between translated Christian name and Surname for foreigners may have a dot.
 

For the learner, it is useful to start by writing large characters in a grid. Each square may be further subdivided into quarters, and possibly with diagonal lines as well. This is to teach correct proportions.
When I first learnt characters I was amazed how Chinese could spot any lines that I wrote in the wrong direction, and were sensitive to small variations like whether lines should cross, should meet, should miss by a small margin or by a large margin. Beware that it will take you a while before you appreciate these subtleties, and don't be tempted to take a short-cut or do it "your own way - its easier"!

The good news for learners is that due to the fairly small set of line types, and the repetition of basic character components, you can quite quickly attain a state where you will be able to correctly write any new character you come across. Perhaps I should note here that many Chinese teachers will repeat that new characters should be written 100 times or more before you can say that you "know" them.
 

I've received many, many emails from different people telling me of their experiences, recommending software or books. Some of these emails have been reproduced below (and often edited a bit too). Where possible the people below have been asked if they mind their information appearing here, although I have not been able to check with everyone. If you have something you wish to add, or any comments to make, then please email me.

• The Internet Bookshop
• Amazon
• Waterstones
• Heffers
• Dillons