Q & A 3 : Why doesn’t Le Le Reading System have any phonetic symbols aligning with their characters?
There are two popular phonetic systems used by Chinese learners. One is the phonetic system used in Taiwan and another is the Roman Pinyin system used in mainland China. Neither system is used in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong children learn Chinese characters by copying the pronunciation in Cantonese directly without the help from any phonetic system.
First, let’s look at the practicality of the phonetic system in learning Chinese:
There are two main advantages for adopting any phonetic system. One is to help shape and retain the correct pronunciation. Another is to aid those fluent in oral language but have low character literacy to comprehend Chinese text aligned with phonetic symbols.
The disadvantages that develop from these systems although are; One, it takes more time to learn either of the phonetic system. Another is that it is easy to develop some dependence on the phonetic symbols while reading the text rather than focusing on the characters themselves to comprehend it. Another significant drawback is that children who just begin to learn English have to delay the learning of Pinyin system in order to avoid the confusion with the phonetics of English language.
We believe in literacy through literature. Le Le reading system emphasizes on learning characters directly and developing the reading skills at the same time. We direct the beginners' COMPLETE attention on the characters themselves without any distraction by any phonetic symbols to cultivate their best comprehension of the reading text.
Secondly, we provide a tailor-made audio pen for our reading system. Our audio pen helps beginners to shape and retain the pronunciations. It also provides them with the freedom to repeat and listen to the individual characters or whole text as needed, promoting better retention from learning. This allows them to learn Chinese independently and provides the freedom to learn at their own pace.
In addition to this, the time and energy spent by children for learning phonetic systems can be utilised more effectively through this system, allowing them to start learning Chinese at an EARLIER age.
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