HSK5 Final Prep - Mnemonic Memorization

 So, its Monday morning and yesterday marked the end of the first week on the HSK 5 exam prep. I'm at 91 / 1300 words so far. Stats for this week:

• 7% complete on exam prep
• 91 new words learned this week

Let me first update on what I need to achieve to consider a word "learned":

1. I can recall the meaning and pinyin without too much guessing when practicing character memorisation on Pleco
2. I have finished the chapters exercises, in both the HSK textbook and the workbook (finished means 50% or more scored on the practice questions with a review on the incorrect answers)

I am taking this approach to avoid a previous mistake I've made in exam prep, which is to focus too much on character memorisation. This is great for character memorisation, which is what you're practicing. It is a core fundamental of speaking Chinese and the exam prep, however it's usefulness is limited when it comes to meeting those words in context. 

I didn't get too much time to study this week, limited to just 2-3 hours at most. That being said, it's still decent progress. I have been through this textbook before in the past and familiar with some of the characters at the start of the textbook, so I expect the progress to slow as the weeks go past. It should also be noted that I use Chinese everyday with my friends so some of the vocabulary comes easier to me, as it might be words I already use on a day to day basis. 

Anyone else prepping for an exam, I would encourage these two points mentioned here. Learn the words in context (read widely, listen a lot) and to practice with native speakers outside of exam / study type practice.

See you all next week.

Hi all,

I wanted to start a blog here as I was recently inspired by @HSK Pro's post (link here to the original post).

My background is that I passed HSK4 some time ago, and been slowly building up to HSK but have been put off by the amount of vocabulary. I've been focusing more on reading, watching / listening and talking in Chinese, as HSK doesn't cover these areas all that well. That being said, now it's time to get the formal qualification and it seems like an excellent opportunity to put the mnemonic method to the test.

My method won't be to take a textbook full of mnemonic stories and learn them, but instead to create my own stories. This is because I believe that creating the story will be a big part of the memorization process. In the past I had relied on brute force memorization, with occasional mnemonic memorization of certain characters that had jumped out to me.

I've already been through the HSK 5 textbook before, so I have some understanding of it, but now the intent is to really internalize that vocabulary for passing the exam and hopefully for everyday use.

I'm not planning to set a daily learning goal or exam, life is too busy for that at the moment, but I will document my journey here to share the lessons learned, experience and also for my own accountability. The main updates will be here, but the final results and conclusion may end up on my Chinese learning blog, where I can share the list if it's of use to anyone else.

My starting format is as follows:

A few caveats on the method:

• The mnemonics are personal to me, based on the radicals or characters which are already very familiar to me. They may not make sense or be useful for others.
• I'm also not currently including the tones. This is again based on personal preference. I typically learn pronunciation through practice with Chinese natives as I never really found it useful to learn it through "textbook" practice.
• The definition is also not thorough or totally descriptive. The objective is to learn the characters and general meaning, rather than understand the word totally. Again my preferred style for this is learning in context, so I will be reading and listening, as well as having conversations to learn the deeper meanings of the word. Again, for me personally I never had much success in rote memorization of the subtle meanings of the words and had much more success in contextual learning or practice.

All comments and suggestions are welcome. Wish me luck!

Kris