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Yun Xian, thank you for your reply.
>> I didn't say that after learning 17 most frequent characters we will really be able to understand 20% of written texts.
It's true, you didn't say that explicitly, but that's what most people would understand as implication from the article. If 17 most frequent characters account for 20% of all the characters in a given text, but still after knowing these 17 characters I'll be able to understand 0% of the text, then why speak about those 20% at all? The said 20% is just a technical trick, but it doesn't have any practical meaning. That's why I say that people reading the article might be fooled. I'm not saying it was your intention to fool them, but that's what might actually happen.
>> ...the point of the article is that it is important for learners to proficiently master high frequency characters...
I have no objections to that.
>> ...the statistic come from scientific research and published by authorities...
Again, I do not doubt that. I'm just saying that this statistics is useless for any practical purpose. To say that 140 most frequent characters account for 50% of all the characters in a text is useless because in fact it will give you understanding of only 1-2% of the text, and it's misleading because it might get the readers to erroneously think that after learning 140 most frequent characters they will actually understand 50% of the text, which is not true.
0 votedMarch 24, 20170- Every now and then I encounter articles similar to this one, which try to impress people with these magical percent numbers. I really don't understand why people write such articles again and again. Who do they want to fool? Isn't that obvious that such "magical" percent numbers are just an illusion?By the way, I don't doubt that learning the most frequent characters first is the way to go for us learners. Of course, this is a good idea. We just shouldn't fool ourselves thinking that after learning 17 most frequent characters we will really be able to understand 20% of written texts. Or that after learning 140 characters we'll be able to understand 50%. This is simply not true.Why? Suppose you only know the said 17 most frequent characters according to the list given in the article, and you don't know any other characters. Yes, I don't doubt that they constitute about 20% of all the characters in a given text, but how much would you really understand? Nothing, right? 0%! The magical number of 20% doesn't help us at all.Now suppose you only know the said 140 most frequent characters. They do constitute about 50% of all the characters in a given text, but I doubt you'll understand more than 1-2% in any real Chinese text. Just try a simple experiment. Take any real text in Chinese and replace the characters not in the list with dots (...) and see for yourself how much you will understand. The result will be sobering!If you don't know Chinese and are only learning it (like me), you can do a similar experiment with a text in your native language, with words instead of characters. The result will be similar. You need to know at least 3000-4000 words in any language to at least get a general idea of what the text is about.0 votedMarch 23, 20170
- <ul class="list-inline text-light-gray no-margin-b">William, thank you for your reply and explanations. What you said really makes perfect sense. It is interesting though that in this case it looks like the 了 particle here really marks the past tense, contrary to what most textbooks say. Well, I guess, reality does not always follow theoretical rules...</ul>0 votedMarch 20, 20170
Why do we need 了 in the following sentence?
情人节的时候你做了什么？
The textbooks say that 了 is not used as a replacement for the past tense. They say, if it is obvious from the context that it happens in the past, no 了 is needed. That's why I don't understand why 了 was used in this sentence. Could someone please explain?
Also, is it possible to say the above sentence without 了? Would the meaning be the same?
0 votedMarch 17, 20170- Привет всех -> Привет всеМ, Как по-анлийски эта фраза: -> Как сказать по-английски эту фразу: <<Прибежали и начали колотить волка - кто коромыслом, кто ведром, чем кто попало>>. Translation: <<They came running to the wolf and started beating it—some with a shoulder-yoke, some with a bucket, and the others with whatever was handy.>>0 votedJanuary 20, 20151
- Enrica, are you sure you wanted to ask about the usage of the hyphen (-) and not about the usage of the em-dash (—)? As "LiLandra Leal" already pointed out above, the hyphen is mostly used in compound words (in Russian, English, and I guess in Italian too), and is in fact not used on the sentence level at all. The em-dash (which is called "тире" in Russian) is a completely different story. And if you really meant to ask about the em-dash, then no offense, but I think it's no use asking such a general question here, you should simply consult a grammar reference first. (I think, a description of all the rules in regard to how a hyphen is used in a sentence in Russian is several pages long.) Only after that, if you didn't understand a particular example, would it make sense to ask a question here. Good luck!0 votedJanuary 19, 20150
- Алёна, слово "извиняюсь" в русском языке конечно же существует. Другое дело, что слово это очень разговорное, а также (я здесь с Вами согласен), не очень вежливое. (Например, я сам так обычно не говорю, и я подозреваю, что и Вы тоже так бы не сказали.) В то же время, на мой взгляд, слово "извиняюсь" в переводе как раз довольно точно соответствует разговорному выражению "I'm terribly sorry" в оригинале. При этом автору вопроса (Farid) следует иметь в виду, что не все люди будут рады подобной форме извинения. :)0 votedJanuary 19, 20150
