This general introduction to the study of Chinese traces the language's history from its beginnings in the second millennium B.C. to the present, and provides a clear picture of the contemporary language and its sociolinguistic status. Chinese, in its numerous dialects, has more speakers than any other language in the modern world, and this vast extension in time and space brings to its study an exceptional complexity. Nevertheless, Norman's crisp organization and lucid elegance make this extraordinary range of material easily accessible even to those with an elementary understanding of linguistics. Chinese includes information on the genetic and typological connections of the language, the writing system, the classical and early vernacular tongues, the modern language and non-standard dialects, and the history of linguistic reform in China.

Chinese: A Comprehensive Grammar is a complete reference guide to Chinese grammar which presents a fresh and accessible description of the language, concentrating on the real patterns of use in modern Chinese.

The volume is organized to promote a thorough understanding of Chinese grammar. It offers a stimulating analysis of the complexities of the language and provides full and clear explanations. Throughout, the emphasis is on Chinese as used by present-day native speakers. An extensive index and numbered paragraphs provide readers with easy access to the information they require.

The new edition features a revised and expanded chapter on prosody (Prosody and Syntax), as well as four completely new chapters:

- Morphology and Syntax (I) looks at Chinese word formation

- Morphology and Syntax (II) explores the interaction between words, expressions and sentences

- Intralingual Transpositions reviews the possible conversions between sentential constructions

- Interlingual Conversions examines the differences between Chinese and English.

The Grammar is an essential reference source for the adult learner and user of Chinese. It is ideal for independent study and for use in schools, colleges, universities and adult classes, up to an advanced level.

• Find characters quickly, reliably and intuitively– from their visual appearance alone.
• Quickly check the meanings, pronunciations, stroke-counts and radical characters.
• Look up traditional characters to see how they have been simplified.
• Look up newly encountered characters or check on those you have temporarily forgotten.
• Find elusive characters more easily in large character dictionaries.
• Simply browse and explore, comparing similar characters.
• Lists 3,200 characters, including all those prescribed for the Chinese government's official HSK Language Proficiency Test (Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi).

Learn to write 100 characters in Chinese

Billions of people worldwide speak Chinese--and now you can learn to write 100 characters in the world's most-spoken language Whether you're taking a course, looking to get ahead at work, or just want to up the ante when you're communicating with Chinese-speaking family and friends, Chinese Character Writing For Dummies gets you up to speed fast.

This workbook will guide your first steps in learning Chinese characters. It contains 100 basic characters, including 44 simple characters (pictograms and symbols) and 56 composite characters (ideograms and ideo-phonograms). It helps you little by little to familiarize yourself with the pieces of the puzzle most frequently used, as well as some basic Chinese writing rules.

• Offers online bonus content that includes instructional videos, downloadable flashcards, and printable writing pages
• Shows you how to write 100 Chinese characters
• Provides instruction for beginners, students, and lifelong learners
• Gives you helpful tips on how to memorize characters

For at least 2,000 years Chinese scholars have conducted research into the writing system. In addition to the study of origins and the processes by which new characters are created, Chinese scholarship has been especially interested in creating a rational classification of characters for dictionary use, which would show historical relationships, idea relationships, and phonetic features. This volume, by one of the most profound Sinologists of the twentieth century, summarizes such traditional Chinese scholarship and carries research farther into the analysis of the writing system.
The heart of this book is a series of etymological lessons, in which approximately 2,300 Chinese characters are classified according to 224 "primitives" upon which they are based. For each character Father Wieger gives the modern form, its archaic form, literary pronunciation (Wade system), explanations of origin, semantic content of component parts, related characters, variant forms, quotations of classical usage, and similar material. The explanations of symbolic content are particularly rich, and gather the most important traditional explanations (especially the Shuo-w n of Hs -shih) as well as the author's own research.
To make his book more useful Father Wieger has also incorporated a tremendous number of reading aids for the student: listings of the primitives; an index of the characters analyzed, arranged by number of strokes; a listing of 858 phonetic elements, arranged by number of strokes; a listing of about 10,000 characters by phonetic element; a lexicon by transliteration, comprising about 7,000 characters; and a lexicon of about 10,000 characters according to the customary modern system of 214 radicals devised by K'ang-hsi. With this most extensive apparatus students can locate any character they are likely to meet. Indeed, this supplementary material is so useful that it serves the purpose of a dictionary in its own right.
Recent archeological research has, for the most part, sustained the historical analyses of traditional Chinese scholarship and Father Wieger. For the student, however, more important than the historical and classificatory concerns of the book are the analyses of characters in semantic terms. In the Far East analysis of characters has long been taught in such terms, but unfortunately this very valuable mnemonic technique has been largely overlooked in the West. With Wieger's book, however, both teachers and students will find learning easier and more lasting when phonetic components are understood and the relationships are perceived between various characters, between original forms and present forms, and between idea and symbol. Father Wieger's book is an indispensable aid to every student of Chinese and Japanese.

Learning Chinese is a no-brainer with Demystified

Chinese Demystified walks you step by step through the fundamentals and moves on to more advanced topics. Each chapter concludes with a self-test that allows you to track your progress, and a comprehensive final exam at the end of the book gives instant feedback on new language skills. The book includes characters in simplified and traditional formats along with pinyin phonetic translation for easy pronunciation.

The fun way to learn to speak Chinese

With more than 1.2 billion speakers across the globe -- and with nearly 3 million in the U.S. alone -- Mandarin Chinese claims the top spot as the world's most common language. If you want to learn this language to get ahead at school or work, or to make your travel to China easier, this is the handy reference you'll want by your side.

Chinese For Dummies teaches basic grammar, as well as the necessary vocabulary to make introductions and greetings, use proper etiquette, make small talk, make transportation arrangements, order food and beverages, ask directions, deal with money, shop, access recreation, and handle an emergency.

• Concentrates on Mandarin Chinese and features new and revised content
• Includes major updates to all the necessary foundational information needed to speak Chinese
• Covers grammar, verb conjugations, and pronunciations
• Offers a refreshed mini-dictionary complete with even more vocabulary
• Find free conversational audio tracks online

As the Chinese economy continues to grow, the importance of Chinese as a trade language will also increase. If you're a student or business professional who has a basic understanding of the language, you'll be poised to surpass your peers when it comes to dealing with international markets. So get started today

Designing machines that can read handwriting like human beings has been an ambitious goal for more than half a century, driving talented researchers to explore diverse approaches. Obstacles have often been encountered that at first appeared insurmountable but were indeed overcome before long. Yet some open issues remain to be solved. As an indispensable branch, Chinese handwriting recognition has been termed as one of the most difficult Pattern Recognition tasks. Chinese handwriting recognition poses its own unique challenges, such as huge variations in strokes, diversity of writing styles, and a large set of confusable categories. With ever-increasing training data, researchers have pursued elaborate algorithms to discern characters from different categories and compensate for the sample variations within the same category. As a result, Chinese handwriting recognition has evolved substantially and amazing achievements can be seen. This book introduces integral algorithms used in Chinese handwriting recognition and the applications of Chinese handwriting recogniers. The first part of the book covers both widespread canonical algorithms to a reliable recognizer and newly developed scalable methods in Chinese handwriting recognition. The recognition of Chinese handwritten text is presented systematically, including instructive guidelines for collecting samples, novel recognition paradigms, distributed discriminative learning of appearance models and distributed estimation of contextual models for large categories, in addition to celebrated methods, e.g. Gradient features, MQDF and HMMs. In the second part of this book, endeavors are made to create a friendlier human-machine interface through application of Chinese handwriting recognition. Four scenarios are exemplified: grid-assisted input, shortest moving input, handwritten micro-blog, and instant handwriting messenger. All the while, the book moves from basic to more complex approaches, also providing a list for further reading with literature comments.

A trip to China is magical, especially when you can speak the language. So before you visit the Great Wall, take the first step here. This book with its new digital download is a complete and fun, hands-on language learning experience. Useful study tools, fun interactive computer games and easy-to-use English phonetics make learning Chinese effortless and enjoyable. And with a focus on practical words and phrases, you'll be able to order a meal, shop for those incredible bargains and find your way around town, with absolute ease. Spend just "10 minutes a day" with this program and you'll be speaking Chinese in no time

A trip to China is magical, especially when you can speak the language. So, before you visit the Great Wall or stroll the streets of Beijing and Shanghai, take the first step with CHINESE in 10 minutes a day with CD-ROM. This book and interactive CD-ROM combo is a complete, and fun, hands-on language learning experience. Useful study tools, fun interactive games and easy-to-use English phonetics make learning Chinese effortless and enjoyable. And with a focus on practical words and phrases, you'll be able to order a meal, shop for those incredible bargains and find your way around town, with absolute ease Spend just in 10 minutes a day with this program and you'll be speaking Chinese in no time