Being educated in Japanese, it was only after he became an elementary school teacher that he began to read classic texts such as The Three Character Classic, Chinese Surnames and Treasury of Knowledge for Children. Lacking guidance, even though Chung relied on the Kangxi Dictionary to look up Chinese characters, he was still unable to read out the correct pronunciations. The challenges were thus considerable.
受日本教育的他，最初是基於在小學任教的迫切需要，開始閱讀《三字經》、《百家姓》、《幼學瓊林》等古書，但這些書沒有老師指導，即使他用《康熙字典》所教的方法還是切不出正確的音，學習猶如隔靴搔癢。