Re: How many years dedicated to characters learning in China ?

LEE Sau Dan wrote:
"Colin" == Colin Fine <news@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

Colin> LEE Sau Dan wrote:
>>>>>>> "Peter" == Peter T Daniels <grammatim@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
>>
Peter> You're not likely to encounter a character that _isn't_ a
Peter> radical + phonetic that you didn't learn in school in the
Peter> first few years.
>> I don't think so. Many basic and frequently occurring
>> characters aren't radical + phonetic. Many of them are
>> pictorial or indicative. e.g. characters for "one", "two",
>> "three", "sun"/"day", "moon"/"month", "up", "down", "forest",
>> "fish", "cow", ...
>>
>>
Colin> You've ignored Peter's caveat: "that you didn't learn in
Colin> school in the first few years".

I did. We had lessons in kindergarten, during which we learn how to
read/write characters for very common objects. (e.g. "sun", "moon",
"sky", "ground", "man", etc.) We also had dictations.


I think we're at cross purposes, perhaps because Peter's syntax is a bit
convoluted.

His remark can be rephrased as: "You're not likely to encounter a
character that _isn't_ a radical + phonetic, except for some that you
will have learnt in school in the first few years", and I don't think
you disagree.

Colin
.

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