So kids learn Mandarin differently these days. The strokes within each character all have a name!
Kind of like how we spell out each alphabet in a word, but way cooler because instead of words, Chinese writing is kind of pictorial.
Here’s what they look like – see “Basic Stroke” column on how to write it, and the “Chinese Name” column on how to say it.
(from 121chineselessons.com)
So when you’re ‘spelling’ a character, it sounds really beautiful.. almost like you’re singing! I asked Hunter’s teacher how many strokes there were, and she said about 30. THIRTY!!!!
Obviously, Hunter’s class is only learning the basic strokes that you see above.
It’s very awesomely cool and fascinating to watch and hear him write his characters. I just can’t get enough of it!
Errr you must not have been paying attention in class. :p That’s how it was like when I was in school too!
but I left when I was young! So either I missed that, or ermmm… forgot. I do know “heng” and “shu” and “dian” but the rest are new to me. Thought they’d ‘developed’ more strokes since and teach those to kids now!
I think we were probably older than Hunter when we got taught the strokes though. Merrill doesn’t remember too and he left when he was 8
Phew. Thank goodness it’s not just me! My parents both dunno as well…
They teach this in schools during my time too.
Oops.. I must have missed it..
It was the same in our time too.
I know some of them but only the first few!
My Mandarin teacher taught us the same thing, so it’s not just for kids! 🙂
I was surprised that Chinese words have more strokes than the English alphabet!