Mnemonics in Chinese?

[tallynole]

I saw this in another forum I hang out in but it didn't get any answers over there. I must confess it has peaked my interest and I was wondering if maybe someone here would know

Does Chinese language have any mnemonics such as these English ones?

My Very Efficient Memory Just Stores Up Nine Planets - For the names of the planets.

Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain - The colors of the rainbow.

[geek_frappa]

a pasture is a Moooo Chang because you can find cows there.

[lilongyue]

I've never had a Chinese instructor teach me something like this to help me remember anything. It always seem to be based on the character, i.e. because character X has this radical and this other component, which sounds similar to character Y, you can remember that it means Z.

[geek_frappa]

same here. my teachers were excellent, but they never taught me these methods.

i have a very small brain, so i drew pictures of my exams to help me remember characters, phrases and idioms. rote memory serves me no purpose.

[SChinFChin]

Does Chinese language have any mnemonics such as these English ones?

My Very Efficient Memory Just Stores Up Nine Planets - For the names of the planets.

Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain - The colors of the rainbow.

In the old days, Chinese read and recite poetry. The "San zi jing", which I studied as a small boy. memorized, and recite comes to mind.

So instead of mnemonics for the rainbow, or the nine planets, it's a recitable poem on Chinese culture and history, and others.

I have recently read up on it again. Why?? I've taken up reading the Chinese papers again and found I forgot to read or write many words after 30 years, It got to the point that I see a word, and say "gosh, I know that word is in that poem", and then I looked it up. It's often faster to do it this way than find in in a Chinese dictionary.

[geek_frappa]

In the old days, Chinese read and recite poetry. The "San zi jing", which I studied as a small boy. memorized, and recite comes to mind.

is there a list of poems? i would like to try this out. sounds neat.

[lilongyue]

As far as I know, most of those poems are written in classical Chinese, probably not the best for a foreigner wanting to learn modern, spoken Chinese.

[geek_frappa]

As far as I know, most of those poems are written in classical Chinese, probably not the best for a foreigner wanting to learn modern, spoken Chinese.

不同意 ... 唐詩三百首呢

[SChinFChin]

is there a list of poems? i would like to try this out. sounds neat

.

I see from the posts above, that you're comfortable with Classical Chinese. I also find moden innovations very helpful in learning. You just cursor over the words, and a link to the dictionary is established at some websites: See:

- San zi jing

http://www.yellowbridge.com/onlinelit/sanzijing.php

- Qian zi wen

http://www.yellowbridge.com/onlinelit/qianziwen.php

and for translation

http://www.angelfire.com/ns/pingyaozhuan/tce.html

For poetry, try looking up poems by Li Bai. They are short and fun to read. Go down to the list of his selected works, after clicking at this site:

http://www.legacy1.net/lee_ba.html

I don't know what level of Chinese you are at, what I find nice in the following passage "San zi jing" to be representative:

三才者 天地人 三光者 日月星 (the 3 forces and the 3 lights i.e sun, moon and stars)

三綱者 君臣義 父子親 夫婦順 (the 3 principles)

曰春夏 曰秋冬 此四時 運不窮 (the 4 seasons)

曰南北 曰西東 此四方 應乎中 (the 4 directions)

曰火水 木金土 此五行 本乎數 (the 5 elements)

曰仁義 禮智信 此五常 不容紊 (the 5 virtues)

稻粱菽 麥黍稷 此六穀 人所食 (the 6 grains)

馬牛羊 雞犬豕 此六畜 人所飼 (the 6 domesticated animals)

曰喜怒 曰哀懼 愛惡欲 七情具 (the 7 emotions)

匏土革 木石金 與絲竹 乃八音 (the 8 materials -to make music)

高曾祖 父而身 身而子 子而孫 (the 9 agnates

自子孫 至玄曾 乃九族 人之倫 terms for great grandfather to greatgrandson)

Do you think this is a good nmemonic tool?? What students do is they memorize the passage, and then write it out from memory. If you obatin a Chinese version of the San zi jing with baihua explantions, they go into many other things grouped in 3's 4's etc, far above and beyond what's outlined here.

While this is written in the Classical style, I find it an easy read and not hard to understand. After all, it was used as a elementary school primer since the Soong dynasty, for almost a thousand years.

As to the Qian zi wen, written around 500AD, also used as a primer, that is a bit harder, but because every word is unique, you;ll get to know know 1,000 characters by the time you're done. As the story goes, it was written so that the yound prince can have an easy way to learn and remember 1,000 words. I find a little over half the words in modern use, or over 2/3's if you're a more literate reader. While it's a more difficult read, I find that first 26 or so lines actually rhyme!! Cursor over the last word of each line for the pronunciations, and see. Quite a bit of the "Qian zi wen" also made it into Chinese proverbs, idoms, used everyday.

Hope this helps.

Frank

[geek_frappa]

Helps!

This awesome. I find this a very cool way to re-organize the characters into set spaces. Now, I know why my Classical Chinese professor was adamant about memorizing these poems.. Hindsight.

Thank you so much!

[mythia]

Yeah of course we have them in Chinese!

For the opening post, the Chinese equivalent would be 水金地火木土天海冥王 and 赤橙黄绿蓝靛紫. We learned that when we were little and they are so 琅琅上口 （a pleasure to read out), even years after they still stick!