Chinese
I found a webpage that lists the 2,500 most common Chinese characters, in order of the frequency they are used. This is interesting to me, because it seems to mean that someone who is studying Chinese (such as myself) can effectively study the characters that are most useful in daily life. I decided this after the lesson in my Chinese book that was teaching us about Beijing and Shanghai opera - the stuff is marginally interesting but I kept thinking that for all the work I was doing to memorize characters and vocabulary, at least I should be doing it for something more useful than the remote chance I get into a discussion about opera with a Chinese person.
The site also has a table of how many characters one must know in order to reach a certain percentage of understanding of the language:
100 characters → 42% understanding
200 characters → 55% understanding
300 characters → 64% understanding
400 characters → 70% understanding
500 characters → 75% understanding
600 characters → 79% understanding
700 characters → 82% understanding
800 characters → 85% understanding
900 characters → 87% understanding
1000 characters → 89% understanding
1100 characters → 90% understanding
1200 characters → 91% understanding
1300 characters → 92% understanding
1400 characters → 93% understanding
1500 characters → 94% understanding
1600 characters → 95.0% understanding
1700 characters → 95.5% understanding
1800 characters → 96.0% understanding
1900 characters → 96.5% understanding
2000 characters → 97.0% understanding
2100 characters → 97.4% understanding
2200 characters → 97.7% understanding
2300 characters → 98.0% understanding
2400 characters → 98.3% understanding
2500 characters → 98.5% understanding
2600 characters → 98.7% understanding
2700 characters → 98.9% understanding
2800 characters → 99.0% understanding
2900 characters → 99.1% understanding
3000 characters → 99.2% understanding
It takes 1100 characters just to understand 90%, so it looks like I still have a lot of studying to do.
The site also has a table of how many characters one must know in order to reach a certain percentage of understanding of the language:
100 characters → 42% understanding
200 characters → 55% understanding
300 characters → 64% understanding
400 characters → 70% understanding
500 characters → 75% understanding
600 characters → 79% understanding
700 characters → 82% understanding
800 characters → 85% understanding
900 characters → 87% understanding
1000 characters → 89% understanding
1100 characters → 90% understanding
1200 characters → 91% understanding
1300 characters → 92% understanding
1400 characters → 93% understanding
1500 characters → 94% understanding
1600 characters → 95.0% understanding
1700 characters → 95.5% understanding
1800 characters → 96.0% understanding
1900 characters → 96.5% understanding
2000 characters → 97.0% understanding
2100 characters → 97.4% understanding
2200 characters → 97.7% understanding
2300 characters → 98.0% understanding
2400 characters → 98.3% understanding
2500 characters → 98.5% understanding
2600 characters → 98.7% understanding
2700 characters → 98.9% understanding
2800 characters → 99.0% understanding
2900 characters → 99.1% understanding
3000 characters → 99.2% understanding
It takes 1100 characters just to understand 90%, so it looks like I still have a lot of studying to do.
posted by Aaron at 9:59 AM
2 Comments:
I believe it. Course, when you think about it, how much comprehension do you really get when you understand 42% of the sentence?
"I xxxxxxx it. xxxxxx when you xxxxx xxxxx it, how much xxxxxxxxxxxxx do you xxxxxx xxx xxxx you xxxxxxxxxx 42xx of the xxxxxxxx?"
See, that was 42% of that paragraph. Rough approximation of the concept...
Yeah I hit the 400 mark once. (It's been all slowly fading away since then.) And yeah I remember those seemingly useless lessons about opera and history and other stuff like that -- some teachers and/or textbooks just weren't meshing with the reason we were taking the class.
It's funny how the 30% you don't know ends up being the most important; usually because it's more specific. I remember many times where my friends and I would laugh about how all we could tell on signs and stuff was (for example) "Warning! Do not xxxxxxxxxxxxx! 100Y fine."
On the bright side, it seems they have just as much trouble at times... ;-)
yeah qeyleb, that's exactly right, because you can understand all the pronouns and simple connecting words, but the important ones slip right past, because they're both harder and more important.
I think you have to reach a certain, fairly high, minimum before you can start using context clues to guess at the words that you didn't understand. I can do it sometimes, but not all that often - and I can do it much better when I'm listening than when I'm reading.
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