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Nicked's avatar

As a Chinese native who’s trying to learn English on my own, I stumble upon this fascinating article about Chinese. It’s really a shame of me never doubt the etymology of the Chinese character 家, which I always thought comes from a pig under roof.

I totally agree that early using of pinyin may have a bad effect on children’s reading skill. So when teaching Chinese to my children I prefer reading the character and displaying the stroke of character to them.

Thanks for this heuristic article.

BTW, there is a mistake about your handwriting in the photo at the bottom of the article. The character 顽 and 损 both have a component of 贝, but you writes 见.

:)

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Debbie Liu's avatar

What a great musing on 汉子, pigs, children and home, and the impact of technology on learning. Many studies regarding reading and writing in English have also shown that handwriting is important for remembering the stuff you are writing down. I've had people tell me they have forgotten how to write certain more complicated 汉子 because they never handwrite any more, just text. That's so interesting about the neurostudy about reading and writing. Now, back to shuffling my bamboo slips with my yarrow sticks. 😀

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