Review Questions for Writing

Why is speech primary and writing secondary?

Why is it wrong to say Pinyin is not Chinese?

Why is the saying that Chinese language is 5000 years old wrong?

What are the 4 ways to create new characters and 1 way to use existing characters?

What is the Rebus principle?

How many kinds of simple characters there are?

How many kinds of compound characters there are?

How many kinds of meaning-based characters there are?

How many kinds of sound-based characters there are?

What is the difference between pictographs and simple indicative characters?

What is the difference between compound indicative and semantic-phonetic compounds?

What is the relative importance of the semantic and phonetic components?

What kind of characters can tell us about ancient Chinese society and culture?

Which kind of characters constitutes the majority of Chinese characters?

Why can there be discrepancy between sounds of phonetic component and those of whole characters?

What are the different kinds of evidence for people’s preference of phonetically-based characters?

What are dialect characters?

What is dialectal use of standard characters?

What are popular characters?

What is the significance of errors of homophonic substitution?

When were oracle bones inscriptions discovered?

When were oracle bones inscriptions used?

What were oracle bones inscriptions used for?

When were bronze inscriptions used?

When did characters acquire the present shape?

When was the first book on Chinese characters written? Who wrote it?

When were simplified characters proposed in the 20^th century?

What are the strategies for the simplification of characters?

What are some invalid arguments against simplified characters?

What are some valid criticisms about simplified characters?

What are some inconsistencies in simplified characters?

What are some improvements in the simplified characters?

What are one-to-many morpheme-character correspondences in simplified characters?

Is using Chinese dictionaries easier or harder than using English dictionaries?

What are the difficulties in using the Chinese typewriter?

What are the difficulties in using Chinese telegraphy?