A brief history of Zhuyin for you: Zhuyin was initially invented in China (not Taiwan) and later treated as an outcast while being imposed on Taiwanese people (whose first language had been Japanese for decades) by a small group of Chinese people fleeding to Taiwan in the 40's. For your questions: 1) Pinyin is good for tones..zhuyin doesn't give info about the tone? In fact, Zhuyin DOES give info about the tones. For all the five tones (the fifth tone known as a neutral in Pinyin system which claims that there are only four tones in Mandarin Chinese language), the Zhuyin system denotes them in order: (nil) for the first tone, ˊ for the second tone and dotted at the right side, ˇ for the third tone and dotted at the right side, ˋ for the fourth tone and dotted at the right side, ˙ for the fifth tone BUT dotted on the top. e.g. 　　　ㄒ ㄅ　　ㄧ ㄚ　　ㄡ　　ㄞ　(first tone) ㄅ　　ㄋ ㄛˊ　ㄚˊ　(second tone) 　　　　　　ㄐ　　ㄏ ㄔˇ　ㄕ　　ㄧ　　ㄨ　　(third tone) 　　　ㄨˇ　ㄡˇ　ㄛˇ ㄉ ㄠˋ　ㄙˋ　(fourth tone) ˙ ㄅ　　˙ ㄚ　　ㄗ　(fifth tone, NOTE: on the top, not at the right side) 2) Anyway zhuyin could be helpful for me for knowing how to read a character? Zhuyin hardly helps anyone know how to read a character, so does Pinyin. However, Zhuyin can help you have a good catch in some cases connecting it to its mother character whereas Pinyin can not. The reason lies in the way Zhuyin is invented, for several Zhuyin-s are taken as parts of certain characters. e.g. This Zhuyin ㄅ (sounded 'b') is based on the upper part of this character 包 (sounded 'bao') This Zhuyin ㄎ (sounded 'k') is based on the lower part of this character 考 (sounded 'kao')

Hi, as you i'm a foreign student who is studying chinese, in my case, I studied the traditional characters cause the language school where i was studying use the taiwanese method.. and of course I learn the zhuyin phonetic. Zhuyin has the same goals as pinyin.. it has nothing to do with how to learn characters.. beucase as pinyin you might learn each words in the same way: the meaning, the characters strokes, and the pronounciation Zhuyin also marks the tones as in pinyin, the difference is that zhuyin use another symbols that don't come from the latin alphabet. are more chinese symbols hehe If it's helpful or not.. it dependes more on the hability of each student..on my personal opinion and experience.. Zhuyin was very helpfull, i think it was my best choice,, better if I'd probably have studied with pinyin.. What i think is that Zhuyin, as new symbols you must learn, it helps you to feel more familiar with chinese characters since the beginning... while when you learn pinyin.. you feel quite complicated to use learn characters.. because you fell so confortable with pinyin (that use the symbols that you use everyday in your own language).. Another I notice, you need more time to learn the pronounciation correctly if you use pinyin... as pinyin uses our alphabet.. people is used to pronounce chinese as they read the pinyin in their native language.. i met many guys who are learning chinese with pinyin.. and they pronounce as it where spanish, and they always forget the tones.

>zhuyin doesn't give info about the tone? Zhuyin uses the same kind of tone marks as Standard Hanyu Pinyin. > Anyway zhuyin could be helpful for me for knowing how to read a character? When I learn characters I usually have to learn writing, meaning and pronunciation separately. Is it true that if I learn zhuyin I may be able to pronounce even a character that I never studied before? Sadly, no. Zhuyin is just another way of representing the sounds of Chinese using phonetic marks. So it works the same way as Pinyin. It's just a way of writing down the sound. >Should I take a look at the character and identify some strokes? No, Zhuyin has very little to do with character strokes. Some of the symbols are similar to characters with similar sounds, but not enough to make it worthwhile, especially for a beginner. I personally use tonally spelled Hanyu Pinyin (TOP romanization). Three ways of marking tones helps them stick in my mind.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bopomofo http://media.huayuworld.org/lang/basic/ch_kindergarten_new/english/page/sa.htm 歡迎 世界 各地 的 朋友 ㄏㄨㄢ　｜ㄥˊ ㄕˋ　ㄐ｜ㄝˋ ㄍㄜˋ ㄉ｜ˋ ˙ㄉㄜ ㄆㄥˊ　｜ㄡˇ 來 台灣 作客 ㄌㄞˊ ㄊㄞˊ　ㄨㄢ ㄗㄨㄛˋ　ㄎㄜˋ 一起 體驗 台灣 的 ｜　ㄑ｜ˇ ㄊ｜ˇ　｜ㄢˋ ㄊㄞˊ　ㄨㄢ ˙ㄉㄜ 山川 與 人文 之 美 ㄕㄢ　ㄔㄨㄢ ㄩˇ ㄖㄣˊ　ㄨㄣˊ ㄓ ㄇㄟˇ

4) Should I take a look at the character and identify some strokes? Strokes are for writing. Both phonetic systems Zhuyin and Pinyin are to help you denote and/or memorise the pronunciation. If you want, you can even denote every character in your Italian alphabet according to the rules you make. A Croatian fellow of mine learnt Chinese characters via Croatian alphabet (he simply ignored the Pinyin, Zhuyin and whatsoever, it never became an issue for him at all :D :D) all his way down. Just remember, the Zhuyin-s or Pinyin-s should only come to you during this transition period. Sooner or later you will cast them away and use Chinese characters directly. Here a suggestion for you, the problems the students who learn Chinese characters by Pinyin only are prone to have: i) -ui is in fact pronounced like -uei, despite its standardised denotation -ui in Pinyin system ii) the u in these three xu, ju and qu sounds very differently from its look as in bu, pu, mu . . . iii) the i in these seven zhi, chi, shi, ri, zi, ci, si is quite another story as point ii). iv) . . . v) . . . and so forth I guess here is all I can answer now. I am a native speaker, TCFL and TCYL certificated teacher, but I am not interested to show this part of me on my italki profile here. Anyway, hope it helps :-)