As the basic unit in making up sentences, words, or rather cí, naturally become the focus of instruction and acquisition in elementary Chinese. This leads to the question of how many characters/zì and words/cí students should learn at each level. Integrated Chinese, Level 1/Part 1 by Yao et al. introduces 581 new cí (not zì), Level 1/Part II introduces another 602 new cí Integrated Chinese Level II compiles 1068 new cí. Since one zì can be compounded with another zì to form different cí, the number of zì included in these two textbooks is substantially fewer than cí. These numbers are comparable with textbooks of the same level.
The New Practical Chinese Reader 1–4 (which are suggested by the authors Liu et al. as elementary and intermediate textbooks) includes 326 new cí in Book 1 and 447 new cí in Book 2, 449 new cí in Book 3, and 514 new cí in Book 4.
Another reading series was written by DeFrancis and has been used by many students for several decades: Beginning Chinese Reader introducing 400 characters/zì (1250 compounds/cí), Intermediate Chinese Reader containing 400 new characters/zì (2500 compounds/cí), Advanced Chinese Reader providing another 400 new characters (over 3,000 compounds/cí). Hence, the three levels of Chinese readers by DeFrancis present a total of 1200 new characters and some 7,000 compounds.
In comparison, native Chinese students learn approximately 2,500 characters at elementary school and another 1,000 characters at middle school and high school (cf. List of Frequently Used Characters in Modern Chinese, 现代汉语常 用字表, Xiàndài hànyŭ chángyòng zì biăo, 1988). With the acquisition of 3,500 characters, students can read 99.9 percent of newspaper articles. Most Chinese newspapers use approximately 2,500 Chinese characters. According to Yin’s estimation (1997: 69–70), students of Chinese may understand more than 95 percent of newspaper articles after they learn 1800 characters, and students who know 1,000 characters may understand 90 percent of newspaper articles, and students who know 400 to 500 characters may understand 75 percent of
newspaper articles. These estimations are based on the assumption that the characters in newspaper articles refer to general topics and that these characters fall on the list of most frequently used characters. If ordinary native literate Chinese know and use somewhere between 3,000 to 4,000 characters (cf. Norman 1988: 73), it is quite encouraging for students of Chinese as FL to be able to learn 1,000 to 2,000 characters and read over 90 percent of newspaper articles. A broad and quantitative reading would undoubtedly enhance students’ reading ability and language competence.
To better understand and use new words, students have to own, and consult, at least one reference book, such as a dictionary. A good dictionary should have clearly printed characters (both traditional and simplified versions), phonetic notation, pīnyīn spelling with tones, part of speech, and examples illustrating usage. This dictionary should enable students to look up a word by radical and number of strokes or using pīnyīn spelling. Following is a short list of dictionaries that students may like to acquire:
• Oxford Chinese-English Dictionary by Oxford University Press
• Far East Chinese-English Dictionary by US International Publication
• A Reverse Chinese-English Dictionary (汉英逆引词典) by Shangwu Chubanshe
• Modern Chinese Dictionary (现代汉语词典) by Shangwu Chubanshe
• New Chinese Dictionary (新华字典) by Shangwu Chubanshe
• Wenlin (computer software)
• Chinese Characters – A Genealogy and Dictionary by Rick Harbaugh
The Oxford dictionary has a simple explanation for each entry and comes in pocket size; therefore, it has become the most popular dictionary among students of Chinese in the US. The dictionary published by Far East is an excellent reference book for students of Chinese as FL because it includes 8,000 entries, each of which is explained and exemplified in such a way that students can easily understand its use. The Reverse Dictionary may be most beneficial for students of intermediate and advanced levels. It sorts compound words based on the last character and illustrates their functions in both Chinese and English. Finally, the Modern Chinese Dictionary and New Chinese Dictionary are completely in Chinese and may be most useful for advanced students of Chinese or students with near-native Chinese competence. The last two references in the list are computer dictionaries. In recent years, it has become increasingly convenient for students to use online dictionaries when computer access is available and purchasing a new one online is affordable for almost every student. These dictionaries contain information about the development of characters, various writing styles and are a rich source of compound words. Wenlin allows students to create their own flash cards and compose sentences and essays, but Chinese Characters is limited to the meaning of characters.
5.7 Conclusion
Characters are challenging for students of Chinese as FL. This is a fact that cannot be denied. However, learning characters can be made enjoyable and rewarding as long as students are motivated to learn and teachers know how to teach and enjoy teaching. It has been demonstrated throughout this chapter that characters are logically structured and conceptualized. Once they understand the two basic components — semantic and phonetic — and their functions, students will have built a foundation for using characters in speaking, listening, reading, and writing.
Certainly, this assumes that the purpose in learning characters is to use them in communication, not simply to identify and write individual characters in isolation.
Following is a short paragraph illustrating the use of the two most frequently used characters: 你 nĭ “you” and 我 wŏ “I”.
(5.13) 你 ni , 我 wo 你是你，我是我。
nĭ shì nĭ, wŏ shi wŏ.
“You are you; I am me.”
你的东西不是我的东西，我的东西也不是你的东西。
nĭde dōngxi búshì wŏde dōngxi, wŏde dōngxi yĕ búshì nĭde dōngxi.”
“Your stuff is not mine; my stuff is not yours.”
我们不要把你和我，你的和我的混在一起，好不好？
wŏmen bú yào bă nĭ hé wŏ, nĭde hé wŏde hùn zài yiqĭ, hăo bù hăo?
“We should not mix you with me and yours with mine. Is that okay?”
In this short paragraph, the discourse functions of 你 nĭ and 我 wŏ and their plural forms (你们 nĭmen vs. 我们 wŏmen) used as pronouns, and possessive pronouns (你的 nĭde vs. 我的 wŏde) at both subject and object position are clearly demonstrated. These functions, I conclude, should be acquired by the beginning students when they learn the two characters 你 nĭ and 我 wŏ, along with their semantic (i.e. the radical) and the phonetic properties. In other words, the acquisition of characters should emphasize a character’s form, sound and meaning.
Neglecting any one of the three components may seriously hinder students’
development of communicative competence in Chinese.
Sentences
6.1 Introduction
Western linguists and Chinese grammarians, regardless of their theoretical preference, generally agree that the sentence is the basic unit for studying a language. Sapir (1949a: 33) considers a sentence the “primary functional unit of speech and esthetically satisfying embodiment of a unified thought.” Chao (2001[1968]: 41) points out that a sentence is the major language unit for grammatical analysis. Li and Thompson (1981: 85) specify a simple sentence as any sentence “that has just one verb in it.” Norman (1988: 166) categorizes sentences into two types, major and minor, based on their grammatical constituents and frequency in discourse, including both oral and written. The major sentence, according to Norman, “contains both a subject and a predicate”
while “a minor sentence contains only a predicate.” Norman also asserts that “the frequent omission of pronominal subjects means that minor sentences are more common in Chinese than in English.” All these definitions and explanations of sentence are instrumental for Chinese language teachers because they help teachers understand not only the nature of sentence, but also the importance of sentences in teaching Chinese. Comparing the assessments of sentence given by those great minds just mentioned, we see that Sapir’s definition is function oriented, while Chao, Li and Thompson, and Norman definitions clearly lean towards grammatical, or rather syntactical, aspect of sentence. This difference may reflect the tendency of Chinese grammarians’ tradition of emphasis on studying syntactic structure of the sentence rather than communicative functions of the sentence.
Students benefit little by learning only sentence structures; they must learn the function of sentences in order to communicate with them. That is, they have to learn when, where, why and how to use which sentences where natural in communication. It should be noted that this does not mean that students should not learn sentence structure at all, but rather that they learn sentence structure along with discourse and pragmatic functions, so that they can use them accurately in communicative discourse.
6
There are a number of different sentences in Mandarin Chinese. Based on their word order, function, and frequency in communication, we can divide them into two types: the basic sentence constructions and the unique sentence constructions. Basic constructions include the topic + comment and/or subject + verb + object (SVO) word order and constitute approximately ninety percent of written discourse in Chinese (cf. Xing 1993; Sun and Givón 1985), while the unique sentences include those special constructions such as the “disposal”
construction, the passive construction, and the focus constructions. From a pedagogical point of view, students need to acquire the basic constructions first because of their commonality in both frequency and function. Unique sentence structures can be added as communicative competence grows. In what follows, I first discuss the acquisition of the basic constructions using three examples: the topic comment construction, the verb + complement construction, and the le (了) construction. Then I demonstrate the common practice in teaching and learning the unique constructions at American colleges and universities and provide recommended classroom activities which can help students learn those constructions. Considering the trouble students may have in learning subordinate clauses, I will briefly address the issue and then lay out the important facts that students should be aware of in composing and interpreting subordinate clauses in Chinese. The last section will conclude the chapter with a brief summary.