How do children begin learning Chinese characters? I mean, for English, our daughter is learning her ABC’s. From what I remember of my own childhood, you learn the sound(s) of letters of the alphabet and then use that information to help piece together words. But for Chinese where do you start? Straight onto characters?
Regards,
rathpy
Starting Children on Characters
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rathpy
Re: Starting Children on Characters
Our child's vocabulary probably has about equal English and Cantonese. But now that she is beggining to learn the ABC's I am concerned that she will develop much faster in written English than written Chinese. We read some Chinese story books to her, but I couldn't imagine trying to teach her a character for quite a while.
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HKB
Re: Starting Children on Characters
When I was in Kindergarten in Hong Kong, they taught us both English and Chinese at the same time. I remember that while I was saying my ABC's I was also learning how to write one, two, three... in Chinese. We had both english and chinese classes on the same day, everyday. For Chinese, they started with teaching the simplest characters up to the vocabulary we kids all knew, then they started teaching new vocab. I suppose if a child gets used to this duality, they will have no problem with learning two languages at the same time, especially for kids so young. I grew up to speak and write both language equally well. I would teach my child both languages at the same time before he/she becomes too accustomed to one system. But this is just a suggestion, keep doing your research. Cos every person has a different affinity for language.
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Lisa c
Re: Starting Children on Characters
My boys are learning Chinese characters and ABCs simultaneously. Chinese is actually much easier to learn at first b/c a character is a word while reading English requires phonics, special rules etc. In the beginning they were absorbing more characters and could read more than English. Now my son is in Kindergarten and can read English books (like Dr. Seuss or baby books) but can only read every other character in baby books. It exposes him to the proper Chinese grammar and he enjoys picking out the words he knows. Also he can pick out some items on menus when we go out like beef, pig, lamb, fish etc.
Do keep reading to your kids in Chinese though. We also got some Chinese workbooks with exercises like the ones they have in English for Pre-k to 6th grade. You know matching, pick the right one, fill in the word etc. He likes those to and they're familiar in teaching style to work he does in Kindergarten.
Lisa
Do keep reading to your kids in Chinese though. We also got some Chinese workbooks with exercises like the ones they have in English for Pre-k to 6th grade. You know matching, pick the right one, fill in the word etc. He likes those to and they're familiar in teaching style to work he does in Kindergarten.
Lisa