In what way do you read chinese?

Answer 1

When I was in high school, that was way back during the 80s :). Ok, I am old :). We read and wrote it from right to left, top to bottom. Nowadays abroad, they read from left to right like in English. At times it is really confusing especially when old and new stores say like in Hong Kong are side by side, it gets confusing when I read it. Thankfully they have english with them so it isn't that hard. The words make sense once I read the english word for that store. I don't know about their papers though.

Our chinese books read from right to left and their format was from top to bottom even until now. Since Chinese is an elective subject in the Philippines, there wasn't a clamour for innovation. As a matter of fact, Chinese newspapers still write articles the old way, same as with our old books. Top to bottom, right to left. Mainly because those old chinese papers are traditionalists. Even the people there are ancient. :) No kidding.

Answer 2

In some Chinese communities like Taiwan and Hong Kong, where the writing system is Traditional Chinese, both printings printed from right to left and top to bottom and printings printed from left to right are very common. It's very easy to tell which way it should be read.

You can usually tell which way you should read by the context. If you read it one way and it doesn't sound right, it should be read the other way. In modern articles/documents or ancient documents reprinted by modern publishers, there are gaps between each line and a 2-character or 1-character space in the beginning of each paragraph. Ancient documents, however, are always read from right to left and top to bottom.

Answer 3

Sentences: Left to right, just like English. Traditionally, it was top to bottom but this changed. If you mean characters, then you need a good knowledge of them (around 3000 to read a newspaper) and if you get stuck, look them up by radical in a dictionary.

Answer 4

Chinese is read traditionally from top to bottom in columns and from right to left. Traditional signage on stores and labels is also written from right to left.

Due to the information revolution and other reasons, Chinese is popularly read from left to right in rows.