By Chung-Lin Hsu
The vocabulary tables are created to help students do their Chinese homework independently without asking their parents for help. Not only do they enable students to find words and phrases easily, they also remove the tension and frustration between students and parents at homework time. As students, how many times did we all have all the text books spread before us, trying to find if a word had ever been taught, when, and in what context? As parents, how many times did we simply give up and do the homework for
them?
If all parents can encourage their kids to use these tables often instead of telling them the answers to their questions, each table lookup is a reinforcement to the youngsters’ Chinese learning experience. It’s also a great way for them to get familiar with pin-yin and realize the practical use of it. Students in 5B have been using these tables for the past year and they won’t go anywhere without them 
.
There are four tables available here. In each of the table entries, you will find the following information (per column):
- a Chinese vocabulary word (character)
- its pin-yin
- its meaning
- the phrase in which the word is first introduced in the textbook
- the pin-yin of the phrase
- the meaning of the phrase
- which book and which lesson the word is first introduced
The tables are indexed and sorted by:
- sound of the word
Use this table if you know the pronunciation of the word but don’t remember how to write it.Example: How to write the word “ai4″ (love)? Look under the sorted “sound of word” column. - meaning of the phrase
Use this table if you only know the English counterpart of the Chinese phrase you want to write.Example: What’s the Chinese phrase for “apple”? Look under the sorted “meaning of phrase” column. - parts-of-speech
Use this table when you want to find an appropriate adjective/adverb/noun/verb/etc that you’velearned when you are writing a composition. Look under the sorted “parts of speech” column.Example: What are the adjectives I can use to describe a tree (tall, green, etc) - book # / lesson # This table is mainly for the reference of teachers and parents. Look
under the sorted “book/lesson”column.
The tables are by no means perfect as they are the midnight project of a full-time working mom and teacher. If you find any errors in them, or if you have any suggestion for improvement, please contact Teacher Hsu (Chung-Lin Hsu, elainehsu5@yahoo.com). Thanks.