Ridiculous pace

[Language Guy]

Hi all,

I've been a member of this community for a while now, but I only recently starting studying Chinese. I'm a senior undergraduate in an American university taking Chinese 001.

I'm a veteran of several foreign language studies and have excelled in all of them. But the pace of my Chinese class so far is unbearably fast. Mainly what I'm having a problem with memorizing characters so quickly.

Ultimately, shortly after learning a character I can recognize it while reading and pronounce it easily with the correct tone, but what's hardest is writing the character out by only seeing its pinyin. I simply can't remember them fast enough to keep up with the 2 weekly quizzes that we have.

Chinese is one of 5 courses I'm taking this semester, and so far it's taking up more of my time that my other 4 courses combined. I was wondering if anyone here has any sort of tried-and-true technique for memorizing characters quickly(I'm already using flashcards). I've never really had a problem with memorizing vocabulary before because the other languages I've studied have had alphabets and they were more or less phonetic.

Any tips for a newbie barely keeping his head above water?

[Quest]

Break up ur characters into radicals, memorize common radicals.

[bianfuxia]

Hey, I'm a relative newbie too and at first I was really suffering in exactly the same way you describe. And, like you, it was particularly demoralising because until now I'd been pretty good at language learning.

I was taught a good way to learn characters. It's a little time consuming at first but the more you do it, the better it becomes as you learn more about the quirks of each character. It doesn't work for all of them and as you get better you need it less. But it is a really good way to get started.

You could call it the "Invent little stories about the character that will help you recall it by linking its image to its meaning or pronunciation". I can't think of a better name.

It's highly personalised so what works for one person may not work for the next. But here is an example.

The first one I tried it on was zhidao - to know.

知道

The first part, zhi, basically looks like a little dude who has just graduated. On his head he has a graduate's hat with the little pony tail thing hanging off the side. In his hand he's holding a degree. The second part, dao, which also means way or path, but combined with zhi means knowledge, to me looks like a path (the radical that looks like an "i" but has that long tail, like a path) and on top of it a fat bunch of books. Those books have a dorky hat too. So, for me, zhi is just a pictograph. Dao is a pictograph related to its meaning (way, and with zhi, knowledge (the little books on the way)).

The first time you make up such a story, you might think you'll never recall it, or, worse, it'll take you forever to get through the story. But after a while it just internalises. Now, the characters I remember most easily are the ones I made up stories about.

It's a little like when you learn to tell left from right because you wear a watch on your left. Or which way screwdrivers go by means of "lefty loosey righty tighty". It just internalises.

Once you've made up a story, do it for ten more characters. Then write out the pinyin in a different order, or get someone to read it to you, and see how you remember them. Come back an hour later or after dinner or something and try again. Then the next morning.

I died a sad death in our first few quizzes but after doing this method I was regularly getting about 85% right of a list of 35 characters/words that we had to learn each night. I was even reasonably effective when called to the dreaded blackboard to do it. I got about 3/4 of them totally right and another few were pretty damn close - just missed a squiggle here or there.

Here some other ones:

衣服 yifu, means clothes. The first one is quite clearly a little fashionista with head held high, arms out, cape flowing in the wind behind and big boots on as she strides down the runway. The second one reminds you that if you go out at night (ie the moon radical there on the left) you better make sure you iron your clothes (the right hand bit looks like an ironing board).

医院 yiyuan means hospital. The first bit is that graduate again, this time in a box. Well, if you go to a hospital building, you hope the doctors are graduates (preferably from med school). The yuan character, left component, looks like a drip stand. On the right is the yuan character for money, but under a roof. Well being from the US you'd know that if you want a drip and a roof over your head in hospital, it's going to cost you a lot of yuan.

每 mei, every. For me, being a geek, I saw the top component as a rocket ship, and the bottom component as Saturn, with the middle slash being the rings and the two dots being the moons. "Every" kid would want to take a rocket ship to Saturn. OK, I was desperate that night, but believe it or not, it worked! I never have any trouble recalling that one.

There are heaps of others.

As you get better, you'll start to recognise the radicals and what they actually mean, and this makes it a lot quicker to remember characters. I found that the further I went, the less I needed these little stories.

But, I have never forgotten a character I learned this way. I have forgotten plenty since I stopped doing this regularly.

I am sure many other people have better ways. But even if you only do it with a few, it might help you.

good luck!

[Yang Rui]

Different people learn in different ways, but here's what i found useful:

MAKING flashcards. I know you said you're using flashcards, but i don't know whether you made them yourself. I found that the act of making the cards was key to remembering the characters. For me, just looking at the cards (character on one side, on the other side pinyin at the top and english meaning at the bottom) was a bit too passive. I would look at the pinyin side of the card, and write out the character. If i got it wrong, I would write out the character ten times. You have to be hard on yourself. Only once you've written a character so many times that you feel sick will you remember it.

For me, actually writing the characters was key, and the whole "test yourself while waiting for the bus" thing was supplementary. Just looking at the cards, it's easy to trick yourself into thinking you know the character and the tone, and only by writing do you find yourself out.

[johnmck]

Try www.zhongwen.com It has a dictionary that gives explainations for why characters are they way they are. The site is based on traditional characters but it gives the simple equivilents as well. This will help with making up the stories suggested earlier

[Lugubert]

For me, mnemonic tricks like bianfuxia's suggestion don't work very well. I save time just memorizing the character. In doing this, agreeing with Quest, I find that a separation of radical and phonetic is indispensable. It makes learning easier, and saves time when looking up in a paper dictionary: scanning a column for a radical with umpteen characters with plus several strokes is so much easier if you can look for a phonetic you know, not just a bundle of seemingly incoherent strokes in addition to the radical.

On paper dictionaries: electronic things like Wenlin or Pleco may be faster until you get proficient, but using printed dictionaries will help your sense for characters through your looking even superficially at not only your target but adjacent ones, you can often judge the importance of a character when you see how many words it starts, and in a good dictionary there will be several sample sentences helping you to understand usage and nuances.

The most important thing may well be what Yang Rui wrote. Write. Don't fall for the convenience of entering pinyin from your keyboard. I made this mistake during my first semester, and it was really tough catching up later. You really have to get the characters through your hand into your system. Even in China, people complain that especially younger people forget handwriting because they only use computers for character output.

[leosmith]

Mainly what I'm having a problem with memorizing characters so quickly.

Ultimately, shortly after learning a character I can recognize it while reading and pronounce it easily with the correct tone, but what's hardest is writing the character out by only seeing its pinyin. I simply can't remember them fast enough to keep up with the 2 weekly quizzes that we have.

Hi Language Guy,

I recommend using the Heisig method. This is a combination of the excellent methods mentioned in the other posts. It was designed for Japanese kanji, but will work for hanzi. There isn't a book out yet for hanzi, but you want to learn in a particular order anyway, so a book wouldn't be as helpful to you. Here is a pdf of the first 100 pages of Remembering the Kanji, by James Heisig:

http://www.nanzan-u.ac.jp/SHUBUNKEN/publications/miscPublications/pdf/RK4/RK4-00.pdf

To sumarize, you assign a name to each primitive (a primitive is usually a radical, but not always; its just a recurring group of strokes), as johnmck suggested. Then you invent a story that ties all the primitive names to the keyword (the keyword is the primary meaning of the character), something like bianfuxia's method. Next you draw the character onto a flashcard, as Yang Rui mentioned, remembering the story as you go along. On the other side of the flashcard write the keyword. When you get a stack of flashcards, drill them. Drill from keyword to writing only; you'll get plenty of practice in the other direction. You can read my review on amazon, which includes my learning method;

http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/4889960759/ref=s9_asin_title_1/002-8530915-4478462

A couple notes:

1. You can include the pronunciation of the character in your story, and/or put it on the flashcard with/instead of the keyword, but this is not advised. Most find it's better to learn pronunciation by remembering a word that contains the character.

2. After you feel comfortable with a set of flashcards, it is best to put them into a good electronic flashcard program like supermemo. You'll be making thousands of these things, so the only way to avoid huge periodic reviews is to use a program that knows which ones you really need to review and when. Every day the program will feed you only what you need to maintain 90% retention, which greatly reduces your workload.

Good luck,

Leo

[Language Guy]

Yang Rui, I already do exactly what you described there. That's exactly how I study. I already have a notebook filled with written and re-written characters.

Quest, it's tough to memorize other radicals along with my characters, because I literally have no time. Along with the characters we have to memorize each week, there are also radicals, some of which are in the characters we learn. I really don't have time (right now) to learn even more radicals to try to make the characters easier (I figure eventually I'll know enough radicals so as to make the characters more recognizeable).

As for the story method, I know that some of my friends are already doing this. Although I remain skeptical as to how long I can do it. I already know at least 30-40 characters, and I wonder if I can eventually have over 100 and 200 "stories" that I know. It's worth a try even now I guess.

Thanks for your help everyone. Any more tips and tricks?

[bianfuxia]

Language Guy is at the beginning of the road - he knows 30-40 characters. If he could "save time by just memorising the character" he may not have asked the question in the first place.

The story method is best applied at the beginning of your learning. Later, you won't need it because you will be much more comfortable with the radicals "trick", I mean approach. So you won't have to retain hundreds of stories. Nor will you need initially to memorise the radicals - it's enough to know that they are there and get the meaning of some in the back of your mind. I found that around about 100 characters or so, I started to spontaneously recall the meaning and role of radicals, and it grew from there as I progressed. It became easier to analyse and memorise a character based on radicals and details like that, and less necessary to invent memory cues.

On writing, it's important to distinguish the valid point about not relying on pinyin typing systems (ie retaining the ability to reproduce them), from ways to actually memorise characters in the first place, which means not only being able to write them, but know their meaning and pronunciation. Once you know it, practice writing it by all means. But simply writing characters over and over will not necessarily make you learn them. (I have page after page of notebook filled with character after character for which I could recall neither meaning nor pronunciation the next morning, and a list of pinyin I couldn't write in characters, even though I wrote them out 100 times the night before, as my Chinese teacher told me to do. That's exactly why I sought a new method).

The poster who referred to the Kanji method I think had a good combination.

Anyway, good luck, and hang in there. I am sure you're a better student than me, and I made it through the first semester and I'm still going ok (just...).

[Strawberries513]

language guy, ignore what they said about memorizing radicals. its a waste of time. the only way to learn the radical is to look at characters. you will notice patterns and you wont have to memorize anything. it will just happen.

other than that, alot of beginners have this problem. obviously you will grow out of it. the fact that you have studied other languages before is irrelevant. Chinese is a whole new game.

[imron]

The problem with writing the same character out over and over again is that after about 2 or 3, you hand goes into autopilot and you copy the characters out without thinking too much about the process.

Rather than writing out pages and pages of characters on paper, I find it more effective to write the character in my mind.

When you're beginning, maybe first write the character once or twice so that you are familiar with the stroke order. Then close your eyes, and using your mind's eye imagine a nice big brush drawing out the strokes of the character. Try to get it so that you can clearly see the entire character with your mind's eye. Once you've done this, then try to make the character appear by components, having each one appear as a block (i.e. for 你 first you would make 亻appear then 勹 and then 小) then finally make it so that you can make the entire character appear at once (i.e. just have it 'pop' into view).

I've always found this a far more effective way to practise "writing" characters, because your mind is being actively engaged for the whole process (no autopilot), and you are also practising the ability to be able to visualise the character instantly (helpful when trying to remember how to write it). Finally, because you are regularly breaking the characters up into its component parts, it helps with learning the radicals too.

(Also, as far as learning the radicals is concerned, you don't need to try and memorise them all at once, just learn them as you encounter them, by making a mental note of the different parts that make up a certain character, and which ones seem to be recurring frequently).

Once you get better and better with this method, then you'll be able to make the different character parts appear faster and faster, and you won't need to go stroke by stroke.

Also, while you're "writing" the characters with your mind, it's not too difficult to "hear" the sound, and think about the meaning at the same time, which makes for a nice, fast method for learning each character.

[roddy]

language guy, ignore what they said about memorizing radicals. its a waste of time. the only way to learn the radical is to look at characters. you will notice patterns and you wont have to memorize anything. it will just happen.

Six years of looking at Chinese characters, and I'm still waiting for that to 'just happen'. Guess I must just be particularly backwards.

I suspect it might be useful to extend the character learning not just downwards into radical / components, but upwards into the words and phrases the character is used in. As a simple example, learning how to write 烦 as not just ‘火 on the left and 页 on the right', but as the 烦 in 麻烦，烦恼，烦躁, etc. As a part of your study of 烦 write out all the words you know that contain it. If you know words that contain it but not the character, write out the pinyin or learn the character. I guess it's a matter of not just breaking the character down into character-bits, but also extending it upwards into words to give you a broader view of ways to use it and hence more mental pegs to hang the knowledge on. I kind of made that up though.

Some exercises you'll often see in textbooks wich you may be aware of, depends on what you are using.

Take a component and write as many characters containing it as possible. ie.

古 ：据，苦, etc

Take a character and write as many words with it as possible

烦: 麻烦，烦恼，烦躁

To be honest I think you'll find it gets easier as you become more familiar with the components of the characters. 30 or 40 isn't a particularly big base to start from (especially if, as is often the case, these 30 and 40 are the first that come up in the textbook - obviously you need to know them, but they might not demonstrate how Chinese characters work particularly well) and each individual character will get easier as you acquire a larger base of knowledge to slot it into. It's a bit like when you learn to count to twenty and realise that hey, once you can count to twenty, getting up to ninety-nine is pretty easy*

Roddy

*Except lots more difficult

[leosmith]

The Heisig method probably requires the least amount of writing; less Carpal tunnel syndrome for old geezers like me. Also, although it's not well known to Chinese learners, it's growing very popular with Japanese learners. For example, these 2 websites are devoted to the Heisig method:

http://forum.koohii.com/

1422 members

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Remembering_The_Kanji/messages

377 members

And this thread is also useful for the interested:

http://www.crisscross.com/forum/m_328908/mpage_1/key_heisig/tm.htm#328908

It took me 300 hours, over about 7 months, to learn one meaning and how to write 2042 characters. Some people do it in less than 200hrs. Some finish in less than a month. It is considered a "long shortcut".

But you don't have to take everything out of context if you don't want to. Use the same method to study one or a handful at a time. Another interesting fact is often people who have studied Japanese for many years will try the Heisig method because other methods just don't work for them. Of course the method won't work for everybody, but it appears to work for the majority of people who try it.

Good luck with whatever method you choose.

[fulgentius]

I'm also a beginner, though I've managed to learn about 350 characters by now and I'm in the middle of my second semester. I completely sympathize with the original poster's feelings. I felt like I was drowning in characters for the first few months! I have an excellent memory and I'm a serious student, but I really thought characters would be leaking from my ears if the teacher didn't slow down. One nice thing about learning Chinese, it definitely shows you what you're truly capable of.

Everyone has offered great suggestions, but as someone who has just gotten past this stage I'd like to describe how I do it.

We are given around 50 characters at a time to learn over the course of about two weeks. I start out with flashcards and learn to recognize them and pronounce them. This is the easiest part, and if you have this out of the way before you start writing them I find that learning to write goes much more smoothly.

At this stage, there are some characters that work really well with the mnemonic method. It really does work: all the characters I've managed to come up with a mnemonic for I never forget. It doesn't have to be a story, and as you go along you'll naturally incorporate the meaning of the radicals. So, for instance, my mnemonic for 雞 (jī -- chicken) is the phrase "Big silky love bird", each of which is loosely based on one of its components. It's really easy to forget a part in such a complicated character, but since my mnemonic includes each one I find it much easier to remember how to write it than many simpler characters. I gather this is similar to Heisig's method.

Now, some people are resistant to silly mnemonics. I'm not sure why, maybe they think it's not serious enough. But believe me, the more ridiculous and absurd your mnemonic, the better it will stick.

Once I have the passive memorization down (i.e., I can recognize them, I know what they mean and how they are spoken), then I write each one out about ten times. For me, still a beginner, the practice in really writing them down is essential, but as others have pointed out if you do this too much it becomes less effective. Just write them until you are comfortable writing them.

Next, start going through your flashcards in reverse and use something like the visualization method mentioned above. What I actually do is look at the pinyin and write the character in the air with my finger. People stare at you but it's the quickest and easiest way to learn. In fact, I find that doing this on the train right before a quiz is a really effective cramming technique.

Everyone's a little different and has their own preferences and needs. But being strategic about your time is essential when learning Mandarin and I'm pretty satisfied with my routine.

[fulgentius]

Oh yeah, and one other thing. It's true that once you get to the point of having memorized hundreds of characters, a flashcard program with an automatic spacing algorithm is an excellent investment. I've tried supermemo and pleco dict and I think they're both great. I believe it's because I use these that I still remember most of the characters we covered last semester.

[leosmith]

I gather this is similar to Heisig's method.

Almost exactly. Did you come up with this by yourself? Impressive. The main difference: Heisig doesn't have instructions for how to do a just few at a time; he tries to get the user to learn all the characters at once, as fast as possible, so he uses english keywords. For your needs, your method seems better.

Also, I've mentioned this in other posts, but Heisig is supposed to have his much awaited "Remembering the Hanzi" first published next month.

[fulgentius]

Well, I did read Heisig's "Remembering the Kana", but since they are syllabaries it is a much more straightforward system of mnemonics which he outlines there. I am very curious about his system for hanzi, and I will be the first in line to buy that book when it comes out.

[leosmith]

I am very curious about his system for hanzi

Did you check out the first part of his "Remembering the Kanji" (I posted a link earlier in this thread)? His hanzi book will be very similar.

I started making a hanzi list to study this way a few months ago, but quit when I found out about his impending book release. The hours of research and grunt work involved make it well worth it to me to just spend the $25 to $30 for the book. I'll still need to make a supermemo collection though; maybe we can get a group of people together to work on that after the book comes out.

[kumori]

Does anyone know when Heisig's Hanzi book will be published? I desperately want to get started!

[leosmith]

Does anyone know when Heisig's Hanzi book will be published?

He sent me an email several months ago, saying it would be available in November. I see your email is blocked, so I'll send him another, and post the reply.