六百十二 － 612

我知道六百十二漢字。

It says, I know 612 Chinese characters. 

I just did a test on NCIKU and based on my scores their estimate is 612. Here are the results: 

What do I think about it? They're generous! 

I am trying to read texts aimed at beginners who know at least 500 characters and every second or third sentence there crops up an unknown Hanji. No, I am not complaining. I love it. Perhaps I didn't know readers also include some new vocabulary.

Now I know how to say: 明天我跟外星人一起去看電影。(I am going to watch a film with an alien tomorrow.)

Back to traditional characters

It turns out giving up traditional characters isn't easy. I didn't do any lessons for two days. And I am now returning to traditional characters. 

There is nothing wrong with the simplified script. It's simply that when you are used to the traditional writing system, you find the simplified a little incomplete.

I remember perfectly how I didn't even care about traditional characters only a few months ago. I knew they existed, a few people used them but they were not mend for me! Then for some reason which I don't even remember I started learning traditional characters. Initially I grumbled about 國 (国) and 個 (个), thinking they were too complicated. Now I just can't get out of the trap which makes me visualise these characters as complete and thus more beautiful.

Chinese Reading, Goodbye to traditional characters

Today ends the fourth week of Assimil Chinese with Ease. I had been successfully doing a lesson a day until only a couple of days ago. A sluggishness has crept in in the past two days now. I didn't do today's lesson. Instead I found this. It is a short story aimed at beginners. The title is 问问题 which roughly translates as "Ask a question."

Here is how it goes:

问问题

小王问小李一个问题。他问小李在吃什么。小李说他在吃苹果，他请小王也吃一个苹果。小王很客气，他谢谢小李。小李说不客气。

wen wen ti

xiao wang wen xiao li yi ge wen ti. ta wen xiao li zai che shen me. xiao li shuo ta zai che ping guo, ta qing xiao wang ye che yi ge ping guo. xiao wang hen ke qi, ta xie xie xiao li. xiao li shuo bu ke qi.

Ask a question

Xiao Wang asks Xiao Li what he is eating. Xiao li replies he is eating an apple. He offers Xiao Wang an apple. This makes Xiao Wang blush. He thanks Xiao Li. Xiao Li replies you are welcome.

Finally, I am no longer learning Traditional Characters. Albeit I still use Cangjie to write Chinese. I could have gone with Wubi but then I decided to stick with Cangjie. I don't want to spend another month learning a new Input System and Pinyin based IMEs are not for me. 我受仓颉。