*internal pterodactyl screeches*
Oct. 1st, 2023 09:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cathywA few months ago Duolingo added pinyin training to their Chinese course. It's... a quick source of XP; it mostly challenges you to distinguish two syllables that are not actually that hard to distinguish. (Really, Duo, if you want to challenge me, give me the same syllable with different tones...)
And then a few days ago... they upped their game. Every unit now has associated hanzi lessons - every character introduced in the unit now has a 'trace this hanzi with your finger' lesson (*), which it will walk you through repeatedly, and which addresses one of my biggest challenges with the Chinese course: 'wtf is this hanzi?'
(well, they did not make me trace 一,二, or 三. they're giving me some credit. :) )
I am basically stopping all forward progress in the main course to go catch up with the hanzi (both 'trace this on the screen' and 'write this with a pen on paper', thank goodness I am not being graded on penmanship.) This will take me a while but I think it will pay off.
(*) they are not directly introducing the concept of radicals but they have at least brought up the idea that some characters are made out of other characters? 零 is 雨 on top of 令, 好 is 女 + 子.
And then a few days ago... they upped their game. Every unit now has associated hanzi lessons - every character introduced in the unit now has a 'trace this hanzi with your finger' lesson (*), which it will walk you through repeatedly, and which addresses one of my biggest challenges with the Chinese course: 'wtf is this hanzi?'
(well, they did not make me trace 一,二, or 三. they're giving me some credit. :) )
I am basically stopping all forward progress in the main course to go catch up with the hanzi (both 'trace this on the screen' and 'write this with a pen on paper', thank goodness I am not being graded on penmanship.) This will take me a while but I think it will pay off.
(*) they are not directly introducing the concept of radicals but they have at least brought up the idea that some characters are made out of other characters? 零 is 雨 on top of 令, 好 is 女 + 子.
