In recent years, many countries have sparked a craze for learning Chinese, which also prompts more Chinese to re-examine their own language and culture. When it comes to the Chinese language, Chinese characters cannot be overlooked. This square and extremely aesthetic script has always been a treasure left by ancestors for the Chinese people.
However, under the sweeping tide of digitization, it is now rare to see someone using pen and paper to record text all day long. Instead, keyboards and various input methods are used. Coupled with the integration of different cultures, the Chinese linguistic environment in China can be said to have become chaotic. Many people experience issues such as inaccurate word usage, incorrect pronunciation, and forgetting how to write characters when they pick up a pen.
Recently, during CCTV's "Chinese Character Dictation Competition," the pronunciation and writing of some words like “熨帖” (yù tiē) or “熨贴” (yù tiē), and “咋（zé）舌” or “咋（zhà）舌” have sparked controversy among the public. For this reason, the domestic media, the Yangtze Daily, specially interviewed Wang Ruojiang, a scholar of Chinese phonetics and vocabulary and professor at Peking University’s College of Chinese as a Second Language. She told reporters that the pronunciation and writing of Chinese characters should follow national standards such as the "Xinhua Dictionary" and the "Modern Chinese Dictionary." The characters on the internet are very messy, and the results from a Baidu search cannot be used as a standard.
The shape of characters and their pronunciation should follow national standards
This Chinese character dictation competition uses the "Modern Chinese Dictionary" as its word bank, compiled by the Institute of Linguistics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
At the competition site, the correct rate for the term “熨帖” among the adult experience team was only 10%. According to the reporter's inquiry, in different versions of the "Xinhua Dictionary," there are cases where the term is written as “熨贴.” Wang Ruojiang said that even in standardized dictionaries, there will be annotations indicating the existence of variant characters. For example, in the "Kangxi Dictionary," many characters with the same meaning will have completely different writings.
The standard pronunciation for the character “咋” in the term “咋舌” is zé (pronounced as 'ze'), but many people read it as zhà (pronounced as 'zha'). Regarding this, Wang Ruojiang explained that pronunciation has been passed down from ancient times. When the National Language Committee determines the standard pronunciation, they consider multiple factors such as ancient pronunciation and dialects. As pronunciation habits change, so does the standard pronunciation. For instance, the character “荨” in the term “荨麻疹” was originally pronounced qián ('qian') in early dictionaries, but later, considering everyone's pronunciation habit, it was unified to xún ('xun').
Wang Ruojiang also mentioned that the country has now started providing free copies of the "Xinhua Dictionary" to primary and secondary school students. "This is from the national level to standardize the language."
If I were to set questions, I would test “的,” “地,” and “得”
Wang Ruojiang introduced that now for junior high school students, it is required to master at least 2500 Chinese characters, and high school students at least 3500 characters. "Many children have no problem recognizing characters, but the forgetfulness rate is quite high." The same applies to adults, who often forget how to write characters when picking up a pen, "they recognize but cannot write."
Wang Ruojiang believes that this has something to do with the increasing use of computers, mobile phones, and Baidu searches. "Now the country advocates incorporating calligraphy into the primary and secondary school classrooms to guide children to write more," Wang Ruojiang laughed, "writing brush characters definitely requires picking up a pen."
"Not only should one write more, but also write well." Wang Ruojiang recounted an interesting story she encountered at a school in France: This school, while conducting Chinese teaching, printed upright, reversed, and tilted Chinese characters on the first few pages of the textbook, and teachers asked students to find the correct writing method. Surprisingly, these foreign students who did not know any Chinese could all find the right answer. "Because that character looks the best," Wang Ruojiang said, Chinese characters possess formal beauty, which should not be overlooked.
Wang Ruojiang said that if she were to set questions for the "Chinese Character Dictation Competition," she would test commonly spoken and used Chinese characters, such as “的,” “地,” and “得,” reminding people to pay attention to the norms of commonly used characters, "letting everyone realize that they have already started forgetting how to write when picking up a pen."