Chinese Language Stack Exchange
Chinese Language Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [reading]

Questions that concern the reading and comprehension of a written text

55 questions
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Recommendations for novels written in colloquial Chinese

Like many language learners, I enjoy reading Chinese novels as a way of learning new vocabulary and practicing my reading skills. Nevertheless, in the process of muddling through Chinese fiction, I often find myself learning a lot of literary words…
Alf
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Are there any readability measurement tools for Chinese?

For English (and some other languages), it's quite easy to find online tools that give a readability index of a specific text. Naturally, this doesn't necessarily match actual experience of reading the text, but it does seem to be reasonably…
Olle Linge
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At what rate can native speakers of Mandarin Chinese read?

This study found that Chinese native speakers read aloud at an average rate of 255 characters per minute (CPM) with a standard deviation of 29 CPM. Presumably this rate is significantly slower than if the test participants read silently. Are there…
Jack Elsey
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Is this how it feels to read Chinese?

I cam across this post a while back, its a discussion regarding the ease (and/or speed) of reading text in Chinese vs text in English. To directly quote what another person had quoted: I feel English is a reading language, if you are reading an…
小奥利奥
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How would a northerner pronounce 姊姊?

In many Taiwanese novels I encounter the word 姊姊 (older sister). This is of course one of the first words a Chinese learner will encounter. My question is more regarding the reading of it. On the mainland you are most likely to encounter the…
timseb
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Is 出国时船过香港 coherent?

围城 第一章（6） 苏小姐笑道：“方先生，你想得真周到！一天的事全计划好了。”她不知道方鸿渐只在出国时船过香港一次，现在方向都记不得了。 Does that mean Fang had only passed through Hong Kong once on his way abroad? Is 船过香港 coherent?
Administrator
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How to figure out the rhythm of new materials (poems, rhymes, etc)?

I'm always confused how to split up/figure out the rhythm & rhyme of new Chinese materials like poems, limericks and rhymes. If it's more pedestrian, it's easier to figure out like: (where x is a character) xxx xxx xxx xxx but usally they go…
Mou某
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How to parse 各在鏡腿上綹兩把

This is from a Taiwanese short story. 對方終於掏出了那塊嶄白的手帕，和老花眼鏡，他擦拭著鏡片，先擦右邊，再擦左邊，擦完了又各在鏡腿上綹兩把：「這裡是學校的答覆，你可以看看。至於將來嘛，我們祝福你，鵬程萬里，啊——前途遠大。」 I’m having a hard time parsing the bold part. I first read 各 as referring to each lens but for that to be the case,…
aguijonazo
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If it is possible to figure out pronunciation of Chinese text

I am new to Chinese and am wondering how it works to read texts. I read somewhere something like that Chinese characters can be pronounced multiple ways, or one pronunciation leads to multiple different characters (so when typing Chinese on a Latin…
Lance
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Isn't it confusing to have Japanese words just next to Chinese words?

I can't read Chinese but sometimes access the film database of Douban. I've noticed that they always place the original titles just next to the Chinese title - separated by a simple space, with no parentheses or anything. They do this even when the…
Chihiro
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