Question

People often have the impression that Chinese characters are extremely difficult to learn. In fact, if you were to try to learn how to write Chinese characters, you would find that they are not nearly as difficult as you may have imagined. And they certainly qualify as forming one of the most attractive, beautiful, logical(合乎逻辑的), and scientifically constructed(构造) writing systems in the world. Each stroke(笔画) has its own special significance. If you are familiar with the rules of Chinese characters, you will find it very easy to remember even the most complicated looking character, and never miss a stroke.

The earliest known examples of Chinese written characters in their developed form are carved into tortoise shells and ox bones. The majority of these characters are pictographs. Archaeologists of various countries have learned that most early writing systems went through a pictographic stage, as did the Egyptian hieroglyphics. Most writing systems, however, eventually developed a phonetic(表示语音的) alphabet to represent the sounds of spoken language rather than visual images observed in the physical world.

One notable feature of Chinese characters is the "radical." "Radical" in English means "root". For example, the characters yu "language," shuo "talk," i "discuss," "opinion," and lun "discuss" all share the yen radical, which means "language," and gives the reader a clue to the meaning of the character as a whole. The characters hsiu "rotten," shan "cedar," " t'ao "peach," and lin "forest," all contain the mu "wood" or "tree" radical, indicating one of their shared key characteristics. If you know the radical of a character, you can usually get a general idea of the meaning of the character it is a part of. Although there is a theoretical total of almost 50,000 written Chinese characters, only about 5,000 of these are frequently used; and the total number of radicals is only 214. So learning to read and write Chinese is not nearly so formidable a task as it may at first seem.

1.According to the author, Chinese characters are ________.

A. extremely difficult to learn

B. scientifically constructed

C. difficult to remember

D. as difficult as you may have imagined

2.Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the passage?

A. There are rules in forming the Chinese characters.

B. Some strokes are more important than others.

C. All the Chinese characters are pictographs.

D. Some writing systems eventually developed a phonetic alphabet.

3.The passage is mainly about ________.

A. pictographs

B. the strokes of the Chinese characters

C. the Chinese writing system

D. the radical of the Chinese characters

Answer 1