[echance]

I have an interest in studying Chinese characters. Does anyone have an idea where I could do this? In the normal Cantonese or Mandarin conversation classes are Chinese characters taught?

[kimchee2]

cantonese use traditional characters and mandarin uses the more simplified however, some langauge classes may focus on character study, just depends on who you go through. some courses that are for business people focus on speaking. there are plenty of classes available for both dialetics. i am taking an online course and it focuses on characters, including how to correctly write each character. pm if you wan more information.

[kostas]

One addition, Taiwan uses traditional writing form but uses mandarin as a spoken language.

[Teronke]

If you're looking to study Chinese characters the best place is the New Asia Yale-in-China Chinese Language Center (an offshot of Chinese University). The have an absolutely fantastice program that caters for all levels of proficiency. However, their courses are intensive full time courses, generally 3 hours a day. And while it's not cheap and it's all the way at Shatin it's a very well structured course that will give you exposure to reading, writing, listening and speaking. The website is at http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/clc/

Most of the private places only focus on speaking and listening. They also tend to be much more expensive than the Chinese Language Center.

[Simatai]

Originally Posted by kimchee2

cantonese use traditional characters and mandarin uses the more simplified however, some langauge classes may focus on character study, just depends on who you go through. some courses that are for business people focus on speaking. there are plenty of classes available for both dialetics. i am taking an online course and it focuses on characters, including how to correctly write each character. pm if you wan more information.

Hi Kimchee2,

The online course sounds interesting, can you please provide more details so I can check it out?

I am fluent in mandarin but cannot read chinese. I would like to learn basic conversational cantonese but also learn simplified chinese writing. ?!

good luck echance...btw, there is a good book out that i've been studying that covers the basics of simplified chinese, shows you how to write each character and has good descriptions for helping to remember. It's called '500 Basic Chinese Characters' published by Sinolingua Beijing. I bought it in Shenzhen though, don't know if you'll find it here easily.

[sri]

Hi,
can any one throw more lights about on line course to learn chinese?

[Bomberman]

That seems pretty cheap to have an online chinese course. Only thing is I hope they don't charge like an arm and a leg, just to give you electronic materials to study. I'm interested in this too. Anyone have any idea? Thanks,