# How do Chinese kids learn their ABC when there's no ABC to learn? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 17, 2013, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-chinese-kids-learn-their-abc-when-theres-no-abc-to-learn/676584 "2013-12-17T19:03:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![jebert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ec9cab/32.png) [@jebert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jebert)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2013, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-chinese-kids-learn-their-abc-when-theres-no-abc-to-learn/676584/41 "2013-12-22T00:05:33Z")
How is a Chinese dictionary constructed? Is there some ordering of the characters that would allow the equivalent of alphabetization? If not, how would one go about looking up a definition? ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2013, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-chinese-kids-learn-their-abc-when-theres-no-abc-to-learn/676584/42 "2013-12-22T00:12:51Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > There are lots of “roots” that are put together to form words. > > For instance the symbol for [water is this.](http://www.standardmandarin.com/chinese-phrase/water) > > The symbol for alcohol [is this](http://www.words-chinese.com/images2/chinese_symbols_for_drink_8631_2_0.png) > > The three lines on the left are a squashed-up “water” root added to another character. This is very common. > [@Giles](#): > > A more obvious example are the Han characters [木](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%9C%A8) for tree, [林](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%9E%97) for woods, and [森](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%A3%AE) for forest. I see what you did there. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2013, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-chinese-kids-learn-their-abc-when-theres-no-abc-to-learn/676584/43 "2013-12-22T00:15:58Z")
Nm ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2013, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-chinese-kids-learn-their-abc-when-theres-no-abc-to-learn/676584/44 "2013-12-22T00:30:28Z")
> [@JoseB](#): > > No. Too many homophones. There are loads upon _loads_ of words that _ **sound** _ the same, but they are all written with different characters. Ironically, alphabetical writing would tend to create a problem. This phenomenon happens both in Chinese and Japanese. > > It is not unusual, when you are (for instance) giving your name to somebody, to say “My name is X-Y, written with the character for \”. Or to quickly “air-draw” the character in question with your finger on the palm of your other hand to demonstrate. > > As an example of the humongous amount of homophones in Chinese, I introduce to you the poem “The Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den”, … > > [snip] > (Taken from [Wikipedia.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion-Eating_Poet_in_the_Stone_Den)) Followed link. Then this: **88** looks very similar to 白白 “báibái” which is pronounced similarly to 拜拜 “bàibài” or the Chinese loan word for “bye-bye.” This is reinforced by the similar pronunciation of the word for eight as “bā.” It has therefore become a common way of saying “see you later” when leaving a conversation, similar to “ttyl” or “talk to you later” in English. From: [Homophonic puns in Mandarin Chinese](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homophonic_puns_in_Mandarin_Chinese) ::sound of head exploding:: ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2013, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-chinese-kids-learn-their-abc-when-theres-no-abc-to-learn/676584/45 "2013-12-22T00:54:12Z")
> [@jebert](#): > > How is a Chinese dictionary constructed? Is there some ordering of the characters that would allow the equivalent of alphabetization? If not, how would one go about looking up a definition? Number of strokes. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2013, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-chinese-kids-learn-their-abc-when-theres-no-abc-to-learn/676584/46 "2013-12-22T03:28:39Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Number of strokes. Like [this](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-M1dgvR25BA4/ULiMrgUqR5I/AAAAAAAAaSM/XiGfPJtiivQ/s1600/Chinese+Dictionary+1+and+2+strokes.jpg). The bolded sections indicate the # of strokes, starting from 1 at the upper left. The thing in brackets, like [-], indicate the first stroke. So if you look at an unknown character, you can count the number of strokes and then break it into radicals and (through your learning and experience) guess which stroke is likely to be the first. ---
**Author:** ![jovan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@jovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jovan)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2013, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-chinese-kids-learn-their-abc-when-theres-no-abc-to-learn/676584/47 "2013-12-22T04:32:50Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > Which reminds me, the word order for Japanese now is the straightforward a-i-u-e-o, ka-ki-ku-ke-ko, etc., but this used to not be the case. It was based on the order given in a song, [i-ro-ha](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%81%84%E3%82%8D%E3%81%AF%E9%A0%86). (wiki link in Japanese). And to add a tidbit relevant to the OP: Even though the _iroha_ ordering is now mostly archaic (you can still, rarely, find it used in lieu of roman numerals when numbering lists) the expression _“iroha”_ is still used to mean exactly the same thing as _“ABC”_ in English. Such as: _ryori no iroha_ -\> “the ABC of cooking.” ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2013, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-chinese-kids-learn-their-abc-when-theres-no-abc-to-learn/676584/48 "2013-12-22T04:38:47Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Number of strokes. There are also radical based dictionaries combined with the number of strokes. And since about 1980, thank Mao, there are pinyin based dictionaries. I remember as a first year Mandarin student, I was able to look up words faster than a couple of Mainland scholars who were part of the first wave of scientists that were chinese government sponsored to come study. REALLY interesting group those scientists in their 50’s or 60’s that came over in the early 1980’s, families were back home, lived on a $300/month stipend. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2013, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-chinese-kids-learn-their-abc-when-theres-no-abc-to-learn/676584/49 "2013-12-22T11:01:01Z")
There is also the [SKIP](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodansha_Kanji_Learner%27s_Dictionary) method of looking up Chinese characters. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2013, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-chinese-kids-learn-their-abc-when-theres-no-abc-to-learn/676584/50 "2013-12-22T11:28:25Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > Followed link. Then this: > > **88** looks very similar to 白白 “báibái” which is pronounced similarly to 拜拜 “bàibài” or the Chinese loan word for “bye-bye.” This is reinforced by the similar pronunciation of the word for eight as “bā.” It has therefore become a common way of saying “see you later” when leaving a conversation, similar to “ttyl” or “talk to you later” in English. > > From: [Homophonic puns in Mandarin Chinese](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homophonic_puns_in_Mandarin_Chinese) > > ::sound of head exploding:: In Japanese, “thank you” becomes “san kyuu” (the only real difference being the lack of a “th” sound in Japanese). “San” is the number 3 while “kyuu” is the number 9. So “39” can be written to mean “thank you”. (Japanese also say “bai bai” to mean “goodbye”, derived from the English “bye bye”, but that’s not a pun.) ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2013, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-chinese-kids-learn-their-abc-when-theres-no-abc-to-learn/676584/51 "2013-12-22T11:40:00Z")
> [@Mangosteen](#): > > I’m not “parroting” anything. I don’t give a crap what the Taiwan Department of Education thinks. I’m just saying its a better system for the reasons I gave. Students may “know” the English letter sounds are different than Mandarin sounds, but having to pronounce the same “letter” two different ways when speaking two different languages is a little confusing. I agree with most everything Mangosteen is saying here, except for typing being phased out. 我常常用注音符號來打子 (I frequently use zhuyinfuhao to type) and have no problem with it at all. I’d add that since zhuyinfuhao symbols are derived from Chinese characters (in fact, many are characters in their own right), they’re a much better introduction for elementary school kids to learn to write before they go on to full characters. There’s a particular method to writing characters (up-to-down, left-to-right) that’s wholly irrelevant to writing ABCs, making the latter a distraction to their native language. I get that pinyin is a superior transliteration system for foreigners to use, for the most part, but OTOH you won’t believe how many college students persist in their third or fourth year of the language with blatant mispronunciations because they’re reading pinyin as if they were English words. (Most commonly, a lot of advanced year students still can’t get it through their heads that the word for “I” (我), is not pronounced like a Keanu Reeves-style “whoah”, even though the pinyin rendition is spelled _wo_. Finally, zhuyinfuhao is incredibly _easy_. Before I could speak a word of Chinese, I still managed to learn it in the course of a weekend (taught by a high school friend from Taiwan). I really don’t get what the big deal is in saying how excruciatingly complex it is – tens of thousands of five year olds are mastering it every year. I learned it, and I’m also fully proficient in pinyin. If you learned pinyin first and now find it impossible to learn zhuyinfuhao, well, that’s saying something, isn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2013, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-chinese-kids-learn-their-abc-when-theres-no-abc-to-learn/676584/52 "2013-12-22T11:47:46Z")
Missed edit window: the above Chinese sentence should be “我常常用注音符號打字” (note the last character). As somebody above said: homophones. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-chinese-kids-learn-their-abc-when-theres-no-abc-to-learn/676584.md?page=2)