Fun way (your own simple mnemonics) to remember Chinese characters

[hskey]

I think this is applicable to beginner, elementary and intermediate level:

Currently, I am trying to cram as many Chinese characters into my head as I can in a very short time. On my search for a more fun way to remember them, I came across this idea:

http://www.moe.gov.sg/edumall/rd/eduquester/6.htm

describing the meaning of a character by using pictures.

I read some comments about stories in characters on this forum and I know that there are books describing the etymology of characters in detail. But what I have in mind is much less sophisticated while helping me to better memorize without having to learn the history:

I would be interested in getting some fun stories for Chinese characters that

- let one (or two) primary meaning(s) - and maybe even the tone and pronunciation - of the character as well as

- the parts and the order of the parts

stick in your mind, using some or all of the bits and strokes in a character and without caring for the phonetic nature of a character part. In short, more fun than science. Myself, I could not find a way to incorporate the pronunciation into this system yet.

All characters used in everyday modern Chinese (e.g. in newspapers, proper names) as well as the radicals themselves are of interest for me. I am only looking for single characters, not for words consisting of more characters than one since - at least for me - longer words seem to be more easily to remember once you know the meaning of the individual characters.

As a basis, I used, of course, the radicals, as listed e.g. on

http://www.yellowbridge.com/language/radicals.html.

But many words consist of other words (e.g. as 问题 (wèn4tí2, problem) uses 是 (shì4, to be)) and some stroke combinations have no name or meaning (such as the upper and the lower part of the fù4 in 复习 (fù4 xí2, review)). This leaves a lot of room for creativity and imagination, which cannot be found on zhongwen.com and which I am looking for now.

Examples:

1) Description/story: 玉 (yù4, jade) is written as a 王 (wáng2, king) wearing royal jewellery.

-> the picture resembles something dangling from a king

-> the little stroke (jewellery) has to be put on the right-hand side as the description indicates: King (mentioned first) wears jewellery

-> fourth tone - as pictured nicely by the extra stroke

2) Description/story: You are usually 恬 (tián2, tranquil) in your 心 (xin1, heart) if you only would hold your 舌， (shé2, tongue).

-> again: order of the parts is indicated in the description: Heart (mentioned first), then tongue

-> second tone - as there are two parts of the description

I just want to reinforce that I am only looking for mnemonics here. Any more out there?

[zhwj]

The links in this comment might help.

[yolander]

Thanks.

[leosmith]

Here is a pdf similar to the story method you mention. It’s for kanji, but hanzi can be done in the same way. This pdf does not include pronunciation or tone. Some people like to make the story occur in a location, which just happens to be the pronunciation.

This site suggests a method of doing that. As for adding tones, I haven’t heard of it being done, but I’m sure it's possible.

One idea for adding tones would be to have five separate towns, each corresponding to a tone. So to bring it all together, for each character you can have a story involving all the radicals and one of the most common meanings. It would take place in a sub-location, something that sounds like pronunciation. The sub-location would be in a town named to match the tone.

However if you believe the pdf, it's better not to include pronunciation and tones at this point; it makes the stories harder to create/memorize. I prefer to create a story involving all the radicals and one of the most common meanings, then learn the pronunciations through normal vocabulary study; they seem to stick better that way too.

[hskey]

Thanks a lot. The pdf's are really helpful. And I agree that it is easier to memorize the characters without the pronunciation and tones first. But I am seriously wondering why this method is not more common. Is everybody else just memorizing by repetition??

[Pravit]

Memorizing pronunciation and tone is important for me when I learn characters - so many Chinese characters have phonetic components that it really makes it easier to learn them once you know a lot. Plus, you get the added benefit of, you know, learning Chinese words ;)

I think this sort of learning style is useful in the beginning stages, but as you learn more, it will probably be a bit tiring to make up a story for every single character, and learn how to relate characters by phonetic or meaning components instead. It also never hurts to buy one of those books where they tell you the story of how each character came about.

[leosmith]

But I am seriously wondering why this method is not more common.

It's actually become pretty common with Japanese learners. There's been a real explosion in popularity in the past few years, with books selling out and sites like this popping up. Thousands of users are sharing stories.

I think this sort of learning style is useful in the beginning stages, but as you learn more, it will probably be a bit tiring to make up a story for every single character, and learn how to relate characters by phonetic or meaning components instead.

This is the sort of thing you'd hear on most Japanese learning forums a few years ago. Now, you'd be hard pressed to find a Japanese site that's anti-Heisig. I recommend checking out the site I posted, and asking the members about the method. I have learned over 2000 characters this way, as have many others. After finishing the book, I 've used the same method to learn an additional 200 characters on my own. I'll always use this method; it's so much easier than the others I've tried.

[ZLearner]

Thanks for your tip I found it helpful watching an animation of how the words originated too...!

Presently though I'm thinking of ways to learn to save time and zero boredom and over-repetition.

Then I remembered the Glenn Doman way of teaching babies to read. http://www.gentlerevolution.com/index2.html

It seems impossible that babies can read before they can write.

But its worked. Since my 2nd cousin was born his mother taught him to read (ie 3 seconds per day flashcards). My 2nd cousin who is now 18 is a qualified genius.

And my 3 year old niece can recognise english and chinese characters - though not yet able to write the words she reads.

I began to think about using the same method to teach myself how to read the characters first and not worry so much about writing them.

I felt so less stressed suddenly.

By printing 40 characters on (one character per A4 page) I study each character like a cartoon and make up a story.

Similar to your technique to help me remind me of the chinese word.

I hang the 40 pages on the wall.

I'm finding that looking at each word 3 seconds a day for 2 weeks has help me suddenly engrained the chinese word in my memory.

Without having to practice writing it 100 boring times.

I love this way of learning!

I wonder if it would work for anyone else?

[leosmith]

By printing 40 characters on (one character per A4 page) I study each character like a cartoon and make up a story. Similar to your technique to help me remind me of the chinese word. I hang the 40 pages on the wall. I'm finding that looking at each word 3 seconds a day for 2 weeks has help me suddenly engrained the chinese word in my memory.

Cool. Let us know if you're still going strong after 500. That seems to be where a lot of methods breakdown. Good Luck!

[hlk123]

Hi

I wonder whether there comes a day when to be literate in Chinese (f.e. reading a newspaper) is not a "privilege" anymore. Well ... Mandarin!

BTW How about "Remembering the Hanzi" ...?! Have you hear about it .. lately?

[leosmith]

How about "Remembering the Hanzi" ...?! Have you hear about it .. lately?

Nothing lately.

[ZLearner]

yes i was wondering if i'd make it to 100.

but i think its possible.

because the characters represent ideas.

which is different to english where the single letters stand for sounds.

i'm a visual learner and accidentally coming across

*** flash animations *** of the origin of the characters

made life so much easier.

it started my interest in learning Mandarin

***** flash animations the origin of the chinese characters:

http://www.wbschool.org/chinesecharacters.htm

http://sonicnovel.com/kanjitradsimp.html

[trien27]

I remember a book I once saw saying that the Chinese people knew what was in the bible? Or some of the things in the bible were evident in the Chinese language? I went to that site, but some of the things were inaccurate? Like they used the word "tian/tien" meaning field or rice paddy to mean garden? That's ridiculous. Read more books on CJK. and in another instance, where the character for border is used to mean "open garden" ridiculous. The character meaning together = hands + land/earth + eight? (legs or bottom of object to make it stand.) = all eight things on the ark after the flood? water + hands + land/earth + eight? = flood? Incorrect. And the character that simply means "altar" or table for offering food is used by them to mean "God"? The borrowed ancient Chinese character that means "thousand" is used by them to mean "breath"? alive (character means "thousand", not alive)+ dust(character means earth, not dust)+ man(the character is mouth, not man) = talk? very funny. Man + fruit, isn't even a character in the Chinese language, hilarious. By the way the character means ghost(s), not devil/Satan!

They changed the meanings of the Chinese characters and called it God's language? BS. If Chinese was God's language, how come the first books of the bible were written not in Chinese but rather Hebrew & Greek, the Koran/Quran was written in Arabic? Allah approximates to God in English translation from Arabic.

ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE!!!

[ZLearner]

Thanks for your email Trien27.

All good points you pointed out.

I wouldn't want the wool pulled over my eyes any time either.

I noticed that in How not to Forget the Kanji James Heizig used memonics based on some historical beginnings of the chinese and others he invented himself. He was trying a fun way to remember the kanji, which I thought was cool.

However the flash animations I saw were based on the old Chinese dictionaries

(not simplified modern Chinese dictionaries).

1- mouth is often used to represent man.

2- dust means dust and also can mean earth.

You said:

> Man + fruit, isn't even a character in the Chinese language, hilarious.

man + fruit = naked.

It is in the Chinese Dictionary.

This is an old Chinese word that is not used today. Have a look in a Chinese Character

dictionary (Taiwan) "Guo Yu Ri Bao ci dian".

There are many Chinese characters but only a few of them are very old. We

need to be careful to ensure that when we interpret characters we interpret

the very old characters, not the more recent ones.

A good book is "Genesis and the Mystery Confucius Couldn't Solve"

You can find it on Ebay.

Thanks all for listening.

[robertolll]

Zlearner;

---

it started my interest in learning Mandarin

***** flash animations the origin of the chinese characters:

http://www.wbschool.org/chinesecharacters.htm

---

Thanks a lot! for this great link! i also was interested in learning Mandarin here in Monterrey where the first Confucius Institute in Latin America has been formed.

Now i'm definitely going to start soon!

Thanks again and good luck

®

[trien27]

Chinese were pictographs in its initial stages?

Kanji is used in Japanese, meaning Chinese characters. But the method in Remembering Kanji is somehow incorrect: Using a picture of a "nose" for the bottom part of Chinese character meaning "to say"[yun, in Chinese; borrowed word from older form of "cloud"]? I don't know about anyone else, but I sure won't talk or say anything with my nose? This so called method is really a reminder of how Chinese was created logically using Traditional or more ancient characters.

robert otolll,

The site you mentioned is a Christian's or Christian community's twisted way of misinterpreting and misleading people into believing that what they say about the Chinese language is true. A long time ago, I actually saw a book which actually uses the same "explanations of characters" as does the video, when the video worked. The video doesn't work now. One example is using Noah and the Chinese character for "ship; boat": 8 mouths[family members on a boat]. If you know the Christian bible's story about Noah's Ark and the Flood, you know what I'm talking about.

I'm not Christian.

The Hebrew bible is a book of moral stories, but the Christian bible, added a lot of unnecesary and false truths.

[leosmith]

I'm not Christian.

The Hebrew bible is a book of moral stories, but the Christian bible, added a lot of unnecesary and false truths.

I'm not a Christian either, but this is not the place for religious discussion. Please take it elsewhere.