Back in 2006, I posted about wanting to
learning Zhong Wen. And from September 2006 to about June 2007, I was up to around 600 characters. I was getting good at it. But it took its toll on me. The review of the words went from 15 minutes to 1.5 hours per night. The opportunity to use it my daily life was very hard. Even in
the Heights, I don't spend hours on end at places with Zhong Wen.
Back in elementary school, while being schooled by my momz, I was at roughly 900 characters or at 3rd grade level. But its really the lack of opportunity to use it.
If I were living in a country where Zhong Wen was everywhere and I had no choice but to see it daily, I think I would make much better use of it.
I suck and it will be life long struggle to learn, re-learn my zhong wen.
On another note, my daughter is in an weekday Chinese school and her Zhong Wen is now far superior to mine.
This post was inspired by a blog post from
Christine about her inspiration to learn Mandarin in Beijing for 6 months. She has a great table of the % of understanding. However, at 100 characters, 42% is close to useless. Even with me at 600 before, 79% was pretty useless. I suspect that you really need to get to that 1500 threshold. Good luck. The major hurdles are to learn tones, pronounce sounds your mouth isn't use to, and use it daily among a people that use it daily. I can tell you first hand how quickly it goes.
