Remembering traditional hanzi : how not to forget the meaning and writing of Chinese characters. Book 2

At long last the approach that has helped thousands of learners memorize Japanese kanji has been adapted to help students with Chinese characters. Book 1 of "Remembering Simplified Hanzi" and "Remembering Traditional Hanzi" covers the writing and meaning of the 1,000 most commonly used characters in the Chinese writing system, plus another 500 that are best learned at an early stage. (Book 2 adds another 1,500 characters for a total of 3,000.) Of critical importance to the approach found in these pages is the systematic arranging of characters in an order best suited to memorization. In the Chinese writing system, strokes and simple components are nested within relatively simple characters, which can, in turn, serve as parts of more complicated characters and so on. Taking advantage of this allows a logical ordering, making it possible for students to approach most new characters with prior knowledge that can greatly facilitate the learning process. Guidance and detailed instructions are provided along the way. Students are taught to employ 'imaginative memory' to associate each character's component parts, or 'primitive elements', with one another and with a key word that has been carefully selected to represent an important meaning of the character. This is accomplished through the creation of a 'story' that engagingly ties the primitive elements and key word together. In this way, the collections of dots, strokes, and components that make up the characters are associated in memorable fashion, dramatically shortening the time required for learning and helping to prevent characters from slipping out of memory. This book is the second of two volumes designed to help students learn the meaning and writing of the 3,000 most frequently used traditional Chinese characters. (A parallel set of volumes has been prepared for simplified characters.) The 1,500 characters introduced in Book 1 include the top 1,000 by frequency, plus another 500 best learned at an early stage. Book 2 adds the remaining 1,500 characters to complete the set. The lessons of Book 2 have been arranged in such a way that they may be studied either after those of Book 1 or simultaneously with them. Students who wish to focus initially on the 1,000 most frequently used characters in the language can do so by studying Book 1 before moving on to Book 2. Many, if not most, learners will find this preferable. Students who wish to apply the logical ordering found in these pages to the entire list of 3,000 characters from the very beginning can take the more exacting, but also more rationally satisfying, approach of studying the parallel lessons of the two volumes together. The lessons in this book are followed by two short, additional sections, one that introduces a number of compounds, or characters that are best learned in pairs, and another that adds two postscripts. The book also includes a number of comprehensive indexes that are designed to facilitate work with both volumes. Of central importance to the approach found in these pages is the systematic arranging of characters in an order best suited to memory. In the Chinese writing system, strokes and simple components are nested within relatively simple characters. These characters, in turn, can serve as parts of more complicated characters, and so on. Taking advantage of this allows a logical ordering, making it possible for students to approach most new characters with prior knowledge that can greatly facilitate the learning process. Guidance and detailed instructions are provided all along the way. Students are taught to employ imaginative memory to associate each characters component parts or primitive elements with one another and with a key word that has been carefully selected to represent an important meaning of the character. This is accomplished through creation of a story that engagingly ties the primitive elements and key word together. In this way, the collections of dots, strokes and components that make up the characters are associated in memorable ways, dramatically shortening the time required for learning and helping prevent characters from slipping out of memory. Cover Introduction How To Use This Book Compounds, Postscripts, Indexes On Characters And Their Key Words Acknowledgments Lessons Lesson 1 Lesson 2 Lesson 3 Lesson 4 Lesson 5 Lesson 6 Lesson 7 Lesson 8 Lesson 9 Lesson 10 Lesson 11 Lesson 12 Lesson 13 Lesson 14 Lesson 15 Lesson 16 Lesson 17 Lesson 18 Lesson 19 Lesson 20 Lesson 21 Lesson 22 Lesson 23 Lesson 24 Lesson 25 Lesson 26 Lesson 27 Lesson 28 Lesson 29 Lesson 30 Lesson 31 Lesson 32 Lesson 33 Lesson 34 Lesson 35 Lesson 36 Lesson 37 Lesson 38 Lesson 39 Lesson 40 Lesson 41 Lesson 42 Lesson 43 Lesson 44 Lesson 45 Lesson 46 Lesson 47 Lesson 48 Lesson 49 Lesson 50 Lesson 51 Lesson 52 Lesson 53 Lesson 54 Lesson 55 Compounds Postscripts Postscript 1 Postscript 2 Indexes 1. Hand-Drawn Characters 2. Primitive Elements 3. Characters by Number of Strokes 4. Character Pronunciations 5. Key Words and Primitive Meanings A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z