Nobi

Nobi:

长 is a polyphonic character and has different meanings. Though '长zhang3' means 'grow/to develop' when it's a verb, but it's spelled 长chang2 when it's used as a Go term. In fact 长chang2 means 'length' when it's a noun and also means 'long' when it is a adj.. It reall make no sense but i don't know why.

There have many polyphonic characters in chinese and on the other hand they can be combined to words. So 3000 characters is enough for chinese while american have to remember 12000 english one.

I finally got back to listening to chinese lesson podcasts last night. All this go / chinese studying is motivating me to work harder at things :)

I visited Chinese Lessons with Serge Melnyk , a site I hadn't seen before. Looks like a good resource for beginners.