How many sounds in pinyin (for example, a ai an ang ao = 5)?

[Guest realmayo]

haha. Yep Roddy: the "proper" explanation for that radical is not memorable. So we have to invent our own. This system makes that easier (after half a day's work setting it up)!

But listen: I really do find the legitimate background and histories to the characters interesting and wherever that is memorable I incorporate it (eg the water radical will of course be associated, in my system, with water).

But loads of characters don't give much help on their own, I think.

[imron]

Well, everyone has different ways of learning, so good luck with this system.

[dsrguru]

This sounds like a variation of the ancient mnemonic technique called the Method of Loci. It can be used to memorize almost anything, not just 漢字. Good luck with it.

[atitarev]

My question was ignored but I found the answer:

Here's the Syllable Statistics:

(30328 syllables in the text with 837 unique syllables.)

http://uk.geocities.com/dylanwhs/scilang/statistics01.htm

Also:

Statistics of Initials, Medials, Rimes, Tones, and Medial+Rime:

http://uk.geocities.com/dylanwhs/scilang/statistics02.htm

[roddy]

Must have missed your question in all the excitement

There's a 普通话音节声韵调配合总表 in the back of BLCU Press's 汉语语音教程 (which is very good and has been recommended on here previously). However it spreads over four pages and you'll forgive me for not counting.

[imron]

Well, I saw the question, but didn't know the answer.

It's interesting that there are over 400 combinations of initials and finals, but only 837 syllables. This means that significantly less than half of the sounds use all four tones.

Unfortunately it also means that realmayo now needs to find 83-84 movies with 10 memorable characters.

[gougou]

So: a version of my "story" for 爱 would take place at my desk in my old room in China. Branson is there, looking in love, holding up a cooked chicken foot (which I'm associating with the radical at the top of 爱) while the "person" I'm associating with 友 is cowering embarassed under a bit hat (which I'm associating with the middle part of the 爱 character).

If you want to use mnemonics, wouldn't it be easier to just remember the story for the character? It seems to me your building this mental house just to associate the story to ai. This seems like a waste of time to me - while I have forgotten how to write characters plenty of times, I don't think I ever forgot their pinyin.

Also, why do you use places AND actors? If you have 400 places, wouldn't that be enough?

[xiaocai]

大约有 410 个不分声调的音节，大约 1200 个声调有别的音节。

There are about 410 syllables excluding the tones and roughly 1200 syllables if you include the tones.

cited from here

[atitarev]

Imron/Roddy,

I didn't mean to criticise, just a statement

Curious that the total of only 837 distinct syllables used in standard Mandarin (let's assume, the figure is close enough) is far less from expected "number of toneless syllables" times 5 (or even 4) tones.

I saved the data in Excel, here's 30 most common toned syllables (figure on the left is the number of occurrences in a 30,328 syllables/characters text:

1292 de5

782 shi4

484 ren2

436 guo2

431 yi1

408 zhong1

407 zai4

334 zhi4

328 gong1

318 you3

296 shi2

284 ta1

273 han4

266 bu2

265 zhi1

255 le5

252 ji1

222 zheng4

219 dao4

214 li4

209 yi4

208 min2

196 wei2

189 quan2

184 zhe4

180 nian2

Different methods were used but you can relate this to most common characters too:

1 的 [de] (grammatical particle) [dì] 目的 mùdì goal [dí] 的确 díquè certainly; surely [dī] cab [di]

2 一 [yī] one; 一定 yīdìng certain; 一样 yīyàng same; 一些 yīxiē some [yí] [yì]

3 是 [shì] to be

4 不 [bù] not [bú]

5 了 [le] (particle) [liǎo] 了解 liǎojiě comprehend [liào] (=瞭) [liāo] [liáo]

6 人 [rén] person; 人类 rénlèi humankind; 有人吗 yǒurén ma? anybody here?

7 在 [zài] at; 现在 xiànzài now; 存在 cúnzài exist

8 我 [wǒ] I, me; 我们 wǒmen we

9 有 [yǒu] have; there is; 没有 méiyǒu haven't; 有的 yǒude some [yòu] (=又)

10 中 [zhōng] middle; in; 中国 Zhōngguó China [zhòng] hit (a target)

11 这(F這) [zhè] [zhèi] this

12 大 [dà] big; 大家 dàjiā everybody [dài] 大夫 dàifu doctor

13 国(F國) [guó] (国家 guójiā) country; 中国 Zhōngguó China; 美国 Měiguó USA

14 上 [shàng] over; top; (go) up; last, previous [shǎng] 上声 shǎngshēng [shang]

15 个(F個) [gè] [ge] (measure word); 个人 gèrén personal [gě] 自个 zìgě

16 来(F來) [lái] come; 起来 qǐlai get up; 原来 yuánlái it turns out [lai]

17 他 [tā] he, him; she, her; it; (其他 qítā) other

18 为(F為) [wèi] for, on account of [wéi] be, become

19 到 [dào] to, towards, until

20 地 [dì] earth [de] -ly (adverbial particle)

21 和 [hé] and; with; harmony [huo] 暖和 nuǎnhuo (nice and) warm [hè] [huó] [huò] [hàn] [hú] [hē] [huō]

22 时(F時) [shí] (时间 shíjiān, 时候 shíhou) time; 小时 xiǎoshí hour

23 们(F們) [men] (pluralizing suffix:) 我们 wǒmen we; 人们 rénmen people

24 年 [nián] year; 今(明,去)年 jīn (míng, qù) nián this (next, last) year

25 生 [shēng] give birth; life

26 会(F會) [huì] meet; can, able [kuài] 会计 kuàijì accounting [huǐ] 会儿 huǐr moment

27 出 [chū] go out, emit; 出现 chūxiàn appear, emerge

28 就 [jiù] just, simply, right away

29 子 [zǐ] child [zi] (noun suffix:) 桌子 zhuōzi table

30 要 [yào] want; will [yāo] 要求 yāoqiú demand

[Guest realmayo]

Imron:

"Unfortunately it also means that realmayo now needs to find 83-84 movies with 10 memorable characters."

- nope. Just four more people. One for each tone.

Imron + dsrguru:

"good luck "

Thank you very much!

[Guest realmayo]

Gogou:

If you want to use mnemonics, wouldn't it be easier to just remember the story for the character?

It seems to be that some kind of underlying structure is necessary, a fixed skeleton to the otherwise rather wibbly wobbly abstract stuff.

[m.ellison]

Matthews and Matthews, Learning chinese characters already has system of mnemonics worked out for this. For example, giant = first tone, fairy = second tone etc.

[leosmith]

In case you're interested why: I'm finally getting around to using a system to memorise how to write characters. In a nutshell, you have to assign every pinyin sound its own "person" and "place". For the "people", you have to write down the names of 10 memorable characters from a film or tv series or whatever that you know well, and do that for about 40 films (hence, just over 400 people, grouped by cast list, for the 400-odd sounds).

The "places" are determined by identifying around 15 buildings you know well (eg places you've lived) each with five rooms or so: and in every room you have a little journey (in a set direction, eg clockwise) which moves around five key places in that room.

So, for example, for the letter A which I reckon begins only 5 pinyin sounds, I might assign the top half of the cast of CSI Miami, and the living room of an old flat I lived in in China: hence:

a ... Horatio ... telephone table

ai ... Frank ... desk

an ... Calleigh ... tv

ang ... Delko ... water dispenser

ao ... Wolfe ... nasty hard wooden armchair

So to recall the character for love ai4 爱, I can first bring to mind the setting of my old desk.

Also: each of the four tones is to be associated with four brand new individuals: say I've chosen Richard Branson (I haven't...) for all fourth tones.

And various radicals and key character components also have their own associations, associated with the "people" if the component is itself a character ("you" for 友, the bottom part of 爱).

So: a version of my "story" for 爱 would take place at my desk in my old room in China. Branson is there, looking in love, holding up a cooked chicken foot (which I'm associating with the radical at the top of 爱) while the "person" I'm associating with 友 is cowering embarassed under a bit hat (which I'm associating with the middle part of the 爱 character).

This method taken from a defunct website called haoyao.com.

I was pointed in its direction by a thread on sinosplice.com -- http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archi...in-tone-tricks --

to the archived version of the haoyao.com website: http://web.archive.org/web/200012041...oyao.com/#body .

realmayo,

Interesting, using a memory palace for memorizing Chinese characters. I hear that's how Matteo Ricci did it, but never found an explanation. I considered it for Japanese kanji, but in the end chickened out, thinking seperate stories are easier. So lets say you want to memorize 5,000 characters, containing on the average 3 components, 1 pronunciation, 1 meaning and 1 tone each.

If you memorize seperate stories, you would need 5,000 of them with 6 items each = 30,000 bits of information. I would just like to say that a 6 item story is somewhat difficult to memorize. That's why Heisig, for example, reduces the number as much as possible, leaving out tones and pronunciation. But that's another topic - just trying to point out the relative difficulty. The links in this structure would be pretty isolated. You would have no reason to associate all the "ai" characters, for example, because they have their own stories.

If you use a memory palace, you would need 5,000 locations for the meanings, about 300 components, 400 pronunciations (I didn't break it down by the a's, b's, etc, out of laziness) and 5 tones = 5,705 bits of information. That's the good news. The bad news is the very complicated link structure you'll have to create to make this work. But if you have these locations really well memorized, that will help a lot.

I've seen a guy set up a memory palace for 2042 kanji just to add one piece of information - a pronunciation for each character. It was a long, difficult process, but he loved it. Google "kanjitown"

So, not only are you going to do everything I said, but you're going to learn multi-character words this way too? That would be adding a lot more links. Sweet. Let us know how it goes!

[Guest realmayo]

Hi leosmith,

Sadly it's not a full-on memory palace ... setting up something on that scale (ie 5,000) would I think take a very long time. Instead I'm using a kind of half-way house: there are only 410 places -- one for each pinyin sound. there are also four key people, one for each tone, regardless of what the pinyin sound is (ie the same guy is involved for all first tone sounds).

The advantage of this versus just creating a "story" for each character is that the pinyin "place" provides a location, a background, for the story to take place; and this I hope will bring the story to mind much more easily (ie "oh yes this takes place on the desk in my old flat, now ... wasn't there a chicken foot involved?...")

The disadvantage is that some "places", eg for all characters that have the "shi" sound, will be very crowded! This is mitigated slightly by the tones -- only the shi4 (4th tone) characters will have a story involving, say, Richard Branson...

One unexpected feature of doing all this is that another part of the process -- associating the radicals (and a few other key non-radical components) with objects -- is very similar to what I understand your man Heisig suggests. And from what m.ellison says here too, another book as well. I need to have learned (by brute force) about 200 of these things for everything to work well.

Right now I'm finding it all particularly useful to remember things I've always found annoying to remember. The correct ordering of the components of 喜 xǐ, for example, was something I used to spend ages fretting over. Now I just remember that there's a Samurai standing on someone's mouth (士 on 口) and the rest follows. (If I had to learn that character from scratch, though, I'd need to expand on the rest of the structure too.)

[roddy]

That one annoys me too. But ten beans going into your mouth 十 豆 口 works great. Makes me happy, anyway.

[leosmith]

Sadly it's not a full-on memory palace ... setting up something on that scale (ie 5,000) would I think take a very long time. Instead I'm using a kind of half-way house: there are only 410 places -- one for each pinyin sound. there are also four key people, one for each tone, regardless of what the pinyin sound is (ie the same guy is involved for all first tone sounds).

Oops, I explained it wrong, but you're doing pretty much what I was trying to describe.

Here's what I think you're doing:

a) 1 palace

B) 410 rooms (one for each pinyin sound)

c) "x" items in each room (one for each character - the total number of items is 5000; I shouldn't have call these "places" before:oops:)

d) 1 person (1 for each tone) gets tacked on to all items that have tones

e) 3 (on the average) components (1 for each item, but these are re-used, for a total of about 300. The oficial radicals make up most of these, but there are quite a few others that aren't real radicals)

You have 2 goals (I'll keep this to single character words because I'm lazy).

1) you want to be able to look at a character and know the pronunciation and meaning

2) you want to be able to write (or type) the character, given it's meaning and pronunciation

Using 喜, sample recall for goal

1) 10 beans mouth (十 豆 口)? Hey, I remember Sandra Bullock (3rd tone) feeding those to happy the clown (happy) in the she-male bar (xi).

2) xǐ, happy? Hey, I remember happy the clown in the she-male bar was so happy because Sandra Bullock was feeding 10 beans into his mouth.

The disadvantage is that some "places", eg for all characters that have the "shi" sound, will be very crowded! This is mitigated slightly by the tones -- only the shi4 (4th tone) characters will have a story involving, say, Richard Branson...

True, but there are some things that might help.

First, you could create seperate rooms for shi, shi1, shi2, shi2, shi4 if it helps.

Second, there is no real need to associate all the characters in the room with eachother. And there is no real need to be able to recite all the characters in a given room (quick - what are all the characters pronounced shi?). You don't have to create an order; you don't have to be able to walk around the room and see each-and-every-thing that's happening. So you can still create a bunch of little stories within a room, ala Heisig, and it won't be contrary to your goals.

[Guest realmayo]

Oh I see, yep sorry I misunderstood.

Yes that's broadly it, except, chiefly: it's not "x" items per room, but "x" (actually 5) locations per room: memorable locations in which the relevant "story" takes place. So 5,000 stories in 410 places.

And in fact, the "items" are instead the c.300 components (radicals + others) that you refer to.

As for Sandra Bullock, if the location for "xi" happens to be the table in my kitchen, that's where she'll be feeding beans to the clown...

This "memory palace" thing is actually less gimmicky than I'd assumed. Been reading that for centuries people used these techniques to memorise absolutely masses of information (obviously that would require loads of training, certainly not something I'm planning on doing). And I read online that Roman orators would "plan a journey" along a familiar walk with each point they wanted to make "located" in sequence, hence, according to this website, the reason we say "in the first place."

Now maybe this is a little bit daft, but just to see how it works, I've set up a "journey" with over 250 points along the way, and I'm going to see if I can use it to learn most of the radicals + a few components ... although because it smacks of spending-too-much-time-planning-learning-and-not-actually-learning-anything I'm going to learn them by rote too.

[leosmith]

This "memory palace" thing is actually less gimmicky than I'd assumed. Been reading that for centuries people used these techniques to memorise absolutely masses of information (obviously that would require loads of training, certainly not something I'm planning on doing). And I read online that Roman orators would "plan a journey" along a familiar walk with each point they wanted to make "located" in sequence, hence, according to this website, the reason we say "in the first place."

Now maybe this is a little bit daft, but just to see how it works, I've set up a "journey" with over 250 points along the way, and I'm going to see if I can use it to learn most of the radicals + a few components ... although because it smacks of spending-too-much-time-planning-learning-and-not-actually-learning-anything I'm going to learn them by rote too.

They used memory palaces to remember long speeches, stories, or even books (there's some basketball player who used one to memorize the entire New Testament aparently). The thing all of these have in common is that they all need to be remembered in order. Hanzi don't have this requirement.

So I thought to myself, there must be a more efficient, easier way to memorize Chinese characters. And I settled on seperate stories.

Let's examine that a little closer. I made seperate stories, which saved me from having to link everything together. But on the other hand, linking them together allows you to take advantage of the fact that many have common readings. I can see that having that extra link might make remembering the readings easier. Plus, from what I'ver heard, having a big palace with tons of links all over the place, actually makes memorizing much easier, rather than complicating matters.

Anyway, other than littlefish, I have yet to hear a detailed account of using a memory palace successfully to memorize Chinese characters. And in the end, I wasn't too impressed with his results, although it's hard to tell how well it worked (he seems to exaggerate). So I will probably stick to my seperate stories, unless you come back here to brag about fabulous success!

[noname]

414 ?

1 A

2 AI

3 AN

4 ANG

5 AO

6 BA

7 BAI

8 BAN

9 BANG

10 BAO

11 BEI

12 BEN

13 BENG

14 BI

15 BIAN

16 BIAO

17 BIE

18 BIN

19 BING

20 BO

21 BU

22 CA

23 CAI

24 CAN

25 CANG

26 CAO

27 CE

28 CEN

29 CENG

30 CHA

31 CHAI

32 CHAN

33 CHANG

34 CHAO

35 CHE

36 CHEN

37 CHENG

38 CHI

39 CHONG

40 CHOU

41 CHU

42 CHUA

43 CHUAI

44 CHUAN

45 CHUANG

46 CHUI

47 CHUN

48 CHUO

49 CI

50 CONG

51 COU

52 CU

53 CUAN

54 CUI

55 CUN

56 CUO

57 DA

58 DAI

59 DAN

60 DANG

61 DAO

62 DE

63 DEI

64 DEN

65 DENG

66 DI

67 DIA

68 DIAN

69 DIAO

70 DIE

71 DING

72 DIU

73 DONG

74 DOU

75 DU

76 DUAN

77 DUI

78 DUN

79 DUO

80 E

81 EI

82 EN

83 ENG

84 ER

85 FA

86 FAN

87 FANG

88 FEI

89 FEN

90 FENG

91 FO

92 FOU

93 FU

94 GA

95 GAI

96 GAN

97 GANG

98 GAO

99 GE

100 GEI

101 GEN

102 GENG

103 GONG

104 GOU

105 GU

106 GUA

107 GUAI

108 GUAN

109 GUANG

110 GUI

111 GUN

112 GUO

113 HA

114 HAI

115 HAN

116 HANG

117 HAO

118 HE

119 HEI

120 HEN

121 HENG

122 HM

123 HNG

124 HONG

125 HOU

126 HU

127 HUA

128 HUAI

129 HUAN

130 HUANG

131 HUI

132 HUN

133 HUO

134 JI

135 JIA

136 JIAN

137 JIANG

138 JIAO

139 JIE

140 JIN

141 JING

142 JIONG

143 JIU

144 JU

145 JUAN

146 JUE

147 JUN

148 KA

149 KAI

150 KAN

151 KANG

152 KAO

153 KE

154 KEN

155 KENG

156 KONG

157 KOU

158 KU

159 KUA

160 KUAI

161 KUAN

162 KUANG

163 KUI

164 KUN

165 KUO

166 LA

167 LAI

168 LAN

169 LANG

170 LAO

171 LE

172 LEI

173 LENG

174 LI

175 LIA

176 LIAN

177 LIANG

178 LIAO

179 LIE

180 LIN

181 LING

182 LIU

183 LONG

184 LOU

185 LU

186 LV

187 LUAN

188 LUE

189 LUN

190 LUO

191 M

192 MA

193 MAI

194 MAN

195 MANG

196 MAO

197 ME

198 MEI

199 MEN

200 MENG

201 MI

202 MIAN

203 MIAO

204 MIE

205 MIN

206 MING

207 MIU

208 MO

209 MOU

210 MU

211 N

212 NA

213 NAI

214 NAN

215 NANG

216 NAO

217 NE

218 NEI

219 NEN

220 NENG

221 NG

222 NI

223 NIAN

224 NIANG

225 NIAO

226 NIE

227 NIN

228 NING

229 NIU

230 NONG

231 NOU

232 NU

233 NV

234 NUAN

235 NUE

236 NUN

237 NUO

238 O

239 OU

240 PA

241 PAI

242 PAN

243 PANG

244 PAO

245 PEI

246 PEN

247 PENG

248 PI

249 PIAN

250 PIAO

251 PIE

252 PIN

253 PING

254 PO

255 POU

256 PU

257 QI

258 QIA

259 QIAN

260 QIANG

261 QIAO

262 QIE

263 QIN

264 QING

265 QIONG

266 QIU

267 QU

268 QUAN

269 QUE

270 QUN

271 RAN

272 RANG

273 RAO

274 RE

275 REN

276 RENG

277 RI

278 RONG

279 ROU

280 RU

281 RUA

282 RUAN

283 RUI

284 RUN

285 RUO

286 SA

287 SAI

288 SAN

289 SANG

290 SAO

291 SE

292 SEN

293 SENG

294 SHA

295 SHAI

296 SHAN

297 SHANG

298 SHAO

299 SHE

300 SHEI

301 SHEN

302 SHENG

303 SHI

304 SHOU

305 SHU

306 SHUA

307 SHUAI

308 SHUAN

309 SHUANG

310 SHUI

311 SHUN

312 SHUO

313 SI

314 SONG

315 SOU

316 SU

317 SUAN

318 SUI

319 SUN

320 SUO

321 TA

322 TAI

323 TAN

324 TANG

325 TAO

326 TE

327 TENG

328 TI

329 TIAN

330 TIAO

331 TIE

332 TING

333 TONG

334 TOU

335 TU

336 TUAN

337 TUI

338 TUN

339 TUO

340 WA

341 WAI

342 WAN

343 WANG

344 WEI

345 WEN

346 WENG

347 WO

348 WU

349 XI

350 XIA

351 XIAN

352 XIANG

353 XIAO

354 XIE

355 XIN

356 XING

357 XIONG

358 XIU

359 XU

360 XUAN

361 XUE

362 XUN

363 YA

364 YAN

365 YANG

366 YAO

367 YE

368 YI

369 YIN

370 YING

371 YO

372 YONG

373 YOU

374 YU

375 YUAN

376 YUE

377 YUN

378 ZA

379 ZAI

380 ZAN

381 ZANG

382 ZAO

383 ZE

384 ZEI

385 ZEN

386 ZENG

387 ZHA

388 ZHAI

389 ZHAN

390 ZHANG

391 ZHAO

392 ZHE

393 ZHEI

394 ZHEN

395 ZHENG

396 ZHI

397 ZHONG

398 ZHOU

399 ZHU

400 ZHUA

401 ZHUAI

402 ZHUAN

403 ZHUANG

404 ZHUI

405 ZHUN

406 ZHUO

407 ZI

408 ZONG

409 ZOU

410 ZU

411 ZUAN

412 ZUI

413 ZUN

414 ZUO

[monto]

An example would be 忒,

to type 忒 using pinyin, you should iput "tui" instead of "te" or "tei".