How knowledge of context and radicals influences a person's ability to learn to read Chinese characters

Thesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2012.

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Kortz, Tanya M
Other Authors: Patrick H. Winston.
Format: Thesis
Language:eng
Published: Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2013
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/77437
_version_ 1811096680417722368
author Kortz, Tanya M
author2 Patrick H. Winston.
author_facet Patrick H. Winston.
Kortz, Tanya M
author_sort Kortz, Tanya M
collection MIT
description Thesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2012.
first_indexed 2024-09-23T16:47:21Z
format Thesis
id mit-1721.1/77437
institution Massachusetts Institute of Technology
language eng
last_indexed 2024-09-23T16:47:21Z
publishDate 2013
publisher Massachusetts Institute of Technology
record_format dspace
spelling mit-1721.1/774372019-04-12T21:39:46Z How knowledge of context and radicals influences a person's ability to learn to read Chinese characters Kortz, Tanya M Patrick H. Winston. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Thesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2012. Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. Includes bibliographical references (p. 36). Learning a new language is not always easy. This is particularly the case for native English speakers, who are used to letters combining to form words and tones expressing emotion, trying to learn Chinese. Mandarin Chinese is a logographic language, meaning that each character represents a word and voice tone is used to differentiate between what would otherwise be homophones. In this thesis, I present two hypothesized methods for improving a student's ability to learn to recognize Chinese characters. The first is the use of radicals, components that make up Chinese characters almost like letters make up English words. The second is the use of studying example sentences when learning new words. To test these hypotheses, I performed a pilot experiment using 10 MIT undergraduate students, none of whom were native speakers of Mandarin Chinese. There were not enough Chinese II students to test the second hypotheses, but the results suggest that the use of radicals does improve a student's ability to learn to recognize characters both more correctly and more quickly. by Tanya M. Kortz. M.Eng. 2013-03-01T15:04:42Z 2013-03-01T15:04:42Z 2012 2012 Thesis http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/77437 826502734 eng M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission. http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582 36 p. application/pdf Massachusetts Institute of Technology
spellingShingle Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
Kortz, Tanya M
How knowledge of context and radicals influences a person's ability to learn to read Chinese characters
title How knowledge of context and radicals influences a person's ability to learn to read Chinese characters
title_full How knowledge of context and radicals influences a person's ability to learn to read Chinese characters
title_fullStr How knowledge of context and radicals influences a person's ability to learn to read Chinese characters
title_full_unstemmed How knowledge of context and radicals influences a person's ability to learn to read Chinese characters
title_short How knowledge of context and radicals influences a person's ability to learn to read Chinese characters
title_sort how knowledge of context and radicals influences a person s ability to learn to read chinese characters
topic Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
url http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/77437
work_keys_str_mv AT kortztanyam howknowledgeofcontextandradicalsinfluencesapersonsabilitytolearntoreadchinesecharacters