Learning to read Japanese or Chinese

As the Antimoon authors like to point out, extensive reading is a great way to improve one's ability in a language. But how do you go about doing that in a language like Japanese or Chinese, which uses characters?

With most languages, once you've learned the orthography, you can begin reading, using a dictionary or by context. This obviously works better for languages like Spanish or German--where the writing gives a good indication of the pronunciation--over languages like English or Danish. But even languages like Arabic and Hebrew--which don't indicate all vowels--give SOME indication of the pronuciation. With Japanese kanji and Chinese, each new character is a guess at best.

So what is the best way to go? Try to learn as much of the spoken language as possible before attempting reading? Look for materials (like children's books) that use romaji or pinyin (or zhuyin)? Try to learn many characters before actually reading? Or slowly grind your way through texts?

Any experience from learners or suggestions from native speakers would be appreciated.

You can't really 'just start reading' with these languages. You'll be restricted to textbooks designed for learners for a VERY long time.

I'd use Assimil's courses with its kanji/hanzi learning guides. To be honest, I didn't learn very well with all the distractions I had in second-rate schools. I was never taught stroke order, or I forgot it, and had to learn again last year.

But how do you know how peoples whose native languages have a deep orthography read? I think I listened more than looked up pinyin/IPA to learn all my languages so far.

As I wrote, I still don't know the pinyin for my first language, because I'm lazy and NOBODY except linguists in Guangzhou and Hong Kong would bother to use it. I can read it in CUHK's website, but I simply guess the form with my own knowledge. I can't write it at all.

That is to say, language starts with sounds, not written forms. Many people in South China can't read/write Cantonese pinyin at all (I know the Mandarin better) but they're perfectly fine with it and a few of them make buckets of money...

Most probably, foreign learners with no prior knowledge might have to learn pinyin, but this isn't really a must.

Btw, despite all the difficulties you might have, like when you are confronted with _multiple_ romanization schemes...

DARN! I don't really understand why western guys have created so many systems to make things chaotic. So, they have Wade-Giles and Yale for Mandarin, Sidney (who is Hong Kong Chinese) has his own scheme, and Yale has a second for Cantonese...

You can search for Cantonese FSI course online, and when you read it, you see they use something akin to the Yale system, or exactly Yale itself, and that stuff was very annoying. It should be pretty accurate, but I'd definitely be turned off by all those ugly letters. All I want to stress is pinyin in pretty daunting and quite pointless, especially for Cantonese, with a huge majority of its native speakers who never learn the pinyin.

I do check pinyin at times, since I have to learn Mandarin, but I was taught in lesson 1 that I should guess it. After reading the pronunciation guide, which should only take you a few hours, I just guessed. I check pinyin only when I'm too lazy and resort to quick fixes by reading my e-dictionary (lingoes; google it, it's free).

Xie, not knowing pinyin is nothing to be proud of!

You should go learn it now.

My message is simple: advanced learners know perfectly that they should listen more and try not to read pinyin at all. Many natives can't even read pinyin and they aren't written at all in most texts you can google, except lesson texts and children books.

Xie,

"...advanced learners know perfectly that they should listen more..." That is fine advice. But what about non-advanced learners? Assimil or other courses take you only so far.

gaijin:

For Japanese: It's a daunting task, to say the least. Much of learning to read will be grind, grind, grind. I suggest you try children's books first. They use only hiragana and katakana (usually). I think it would be best to try to avoid romaji, if possible. It really can complicate matters. It will be tough to give it up, but you need to train your eyes to "see" Japanese as soon as possible, and from the beginning is best. Romaji can become a crutch you can't throw away later, if you're not careful. Anyway, it will build your confidence a lot when you're able to read a book straight through, even if it's "just" a children's book!

Children's books can be a great way to build your everyday vocabulary, too. A series I like that can be found in most bookstores or libraries in Japan is called, "Kotoba Zukan" by Gomi Taro. (Sorry, I had to break my own rule about no romaji -- my keyboard is English only!) The only place I've found it available online is here: http://www.sasugabooks.com/product_info.php?products_id=3321. There are 10 books in the series, very colorful, funny, lively illustrations, and each book covers a different topic: Book 1 verbs, Books 3&4 adjectives, Book 6 "life" words - greetings, interjections, etc., Book 10, nouns (flowers, colors, animals, etc.) Any kanji in the books is always accompanied by furigana (hiragana written on the side to aid pronunciation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furigana) Because the books are written for Japanese children, you'll be getting the real thing, not something for students.

The most important thing is to choose material you will enjoy trying to read. Children's books with illustrations or magazines about your hobby will keep your interest and teach you useful vocabulary that you can use daily.

About me: I'm not a native speaker, but I lived in Japan for 13 years. My speaking/listening ability is much better than my reading/writing, but I keep trying! I hope you do, too.

I've actually read the lessons. No, those are too short, only enough for some small talks. A course comparable to Assimil French _is_ the standard I'd look for. So... I'd listen a lot to chinesepod (what I actually do) for huge supplements. It's been a shame that the Chinese offer too few audiobooks... and translated works.

I was assuming that the writer was a near beginner as far as reading is concerned. As a teacher and a student, I know how important it is to build confidence and maintain motivation while working on proficiency. That's not easy to do if one jumps into material over ones' head.

It is a big problem even for a native chinese or japanese speaker.

Generally there are two meteod to find a character in a dictionary, one is by Pinyin or Romaji, the other is by strokes. When we native speakers forget the pronounciation of one character, we always turn to the stroke. Of course it will cost more time, but through strokes you can find any character in a dictionary.

Agree. I was taught to use the dictionary properly right when I was about 8. But it doesn't really matter if I get something wrong even in my native (and semi-) language(s). First, no one cares about how bad you speak your native language, when you have roughly the same accent - and even accented speech doesn't always make you/others feel bad - and I'm personally even more forgiving if YOU try to practice with me.

Second, I think it's entirely stupid to be so analytical (and even about my own native language, at times). No one cares about whether I read at all. And I think conscious study could be minimized somehow... theoretically, there should be enough didactic materials (i.e. educational) for a "proper" accent, such as the CCTV robotic accent of Mandarin. But if you aren't Chinese... it isn't worth the trouble to speak like newsreaders. In this particular case, like me in your country, you'd be regarded as foreign (forever?) anyway... so, even imitating accented (Heilongjiang, Liaoning...or most provinces out there) speech is enough to make you Chinese.

And as for reading... I _bet_ that any random didactic materials are enough for at least some basic knowledge. And as I wrote, chinesepod's stuff serves as very superb supplements even for me. Until I want to take a Mandarin exam, I wouldn't be so concerned about reading pinyin. Of coz, I take an entirely different route, by since pinyin has no practical use except for learning (to read it aloud) and for exams, I focus more on listening and some background shadowing...

Nowadays, I believe you need the ability to read/ write the language in most countries otherwise you'll be like living in a glass globe, not getting access to all the information available. You need this ability to function and make part of the society (being a foreigner is already hard enough), not only to read the ingredients on some label when going to the supermarket, but also to read magazines, news, improve your speech (!), get a nice job...

Most people make it without this much, but many for just a small period of time, it's a temporary thing.
Of course I'm not saying everyone should write like a Nobel Prize in Literature, lol, but this ability is needed. For any language.

Anyway, as I'm now learning Japanese, I'm facing the exactly same problem: how to read what you can't read? When you get to a certain level it'll be easier to look up a few characters in a dictionary, but it's a daunting task when the characters you don't know are the majority of them.
Guess there's really no shortcut to it, one has to learn them like children do, one at the time, and be pacient.

>>living in a glass globe, not getting access to all the information available. You need this ability to function and make part of the society (being a foreigner is already hard enough)

Haha, this isn't true for Hong Kong. Foreigners could get by for their rest of life by living on linguistic islands. Every educated Chinese, like me, is willing to be your linguistic servant. Quel dommage! For the first time, and probably the last, I'd like to (get a bit off the topic) say that I've been learning English for the fun of it, and for its utter imperialism in and glass ceiling against all of us.

Now that I have more reflections about everything... I've been glad to know that, indeed, most likely only students, and anyone with even higher education levels, have the ability to do all this - like how to read characters. Among the many facets of language, I can see that it's imperative to learn _registers_ (??) and, before I have a good term, some "social" lingo. Before I can go to somewhere else, I wouldn't bother to learn slang very deeply; if I end up in somewhere where I can't start very soon (or even end up not knowing anything), I must at least pick up some survival phrases and swear words.

Characters are more important for the reading league...