Reading & Writing Chinese: Traditional Character Edition, A Comprehensive Guide to the Chinese Writing System

by William McNaughton, Li Ying

This is a compete and easy–to–use guide for reading and writing traditional Chinese characters.

Reading and Writing Chinese has been the leading text for foreign students and teachers of the Chinese writing system since it was first published in 1978. This completely revised edition draws on the lessons learnt from the use of the book in classrooms so as to provide a more convenient and up–to–date introduction to the Chinese writing system. Over 1,100 new combinations of characters have been added, increasing the total vocabulary significantly to about 4,500 items. There are also new notes on usage to give students insight into the contemporary state of the language. The student's ability to read Chinese and write Chinese are reinforced throughout.

For each of the basic 1,062 characters, the pronunciation, definition and derivation are given, with examples of the use of most words and a chart showing how to write each character. Memorization tips and cautionary cross–reference to look–alike characters are also provided, as well as notes to help clarify those overlooked aspects of the Chinese writing system.

Key features of this book:
-The Student's 1,020 List.
-The Official 2,000 List.
-Over 2,000 characters and 2,500 combinations.
-Definitions and explanations. Standard Hanyu Pinyin romanization.
-Memorization hints and stroke–order diagrams.
-Hong Kong/Taiwan and China/Singapore forms.
-Traditional and modern radical systems.

Genres: Language, Reference, China, Nonfiction, Linguistics, Textbooks

352 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1979

About the author

William McNaughton was the founding teacher of Chinese at Oberlin College. From 1986 he taught at Hong Kong’s City University, where he was the founding program leader of the BA (Honors) program in Translation and Interpretation.

Reviews

[Hyrum · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent reference book for beginning and Intermediate-level Chinese. Well laid out with several ways to look up characters. Common phrases are also listed with each character. The reader should be aware of some obvious errors in this book that may have been made during the printing. However, they are mostly minor and can easily be corrected with a pen.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent resource except for one thing. The authors advise you to learn the radicals but they never tell you under which radical a character belongs. They only tell you which characters are radicals which is a step, but the other is more important. OR create an index. It's not always obvious which radical a character belongs. And, for a perfect book, more help in ways to memorize characters.

[Evan · Rating 1 out of 5]

It wasn't what I wanted/needed. It's nice that things are labeled by HSK levels but the book is basically just a list of characters and meanings. It's like trying to study from a dictionary. Would be better to study the characters in context and it would be nice if the characters were laid out more systematically. If you introduce a radical, then you should follow that with all the level-appropriate characters that use the radical. It's also super weird to jump from a number, to learning how to write woman, to learning how to write another number. Why not put all the numbers together since they're all level 1 and pretty easy to write?

I was hoping to simply review how to write chinese and perhaps learn some more but the random layout made that challenging so I put it on my DNF list.

[ten thousand bees]

not giving a star rating, as it doesn't really fit the criteria for me
but if you're a learner of chinese, beginner or advanced, this is a very useful book
i specifically like how they label the characters with which hsk lvl they correspond to

[Kimhu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book for beginners to learn Chinese characters

[Harry Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bought this book years ago! Helping me on my journey to go through the 1000 Chinese characters.

[Adam Balshan · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars [Lexicon]
I have read 6 books now on almost nothing but words, but this is my first completed dictionary, of sorts. It is the "Student 1,020" list of characters, supplemented with "The Official 2,000" list, that is, another 980 briefly described. I read most of it 7-8 years ago in Taiwan, and picked it up again a short while ago. It is the best characters-book for the median Western learner that I have seen. (In other words, there might be a shorter book that does a better job explaining with pictures, or a more comprehensive book that does a better job explaining to a scholar.) It features radicals, stroke order, the bastardized "Simplified" character in a corner for reference, and a few common usages.