How Should A Beginner Memorize The Characters ?

[tabari]

Hi,

I have started taking Chinese lessons as my third foreign language a few weeks ago during the weekend (in my country). I should tell you that learning Chinese is not a high priority task in my life and I do not have plans to live in China or to use my Chinese knowledge for living. It will just be my third foreign language that I'm targeting to learn at basic level. But as usual, I like to be good at what I do. This is not a temporary interest.

Our teacher (native) told me that they used to teach characters only after first 3 months, but recently they prefer teaching them from the very first weeks. So, we are asked to learn every word both in pinyin and in characters (hanzi I suppose).

Of course there are many sources on the net where I can study the strokes of the characters, but I feel I should follow some particular methods to memorize them. That's why I'm starting this thread to have your advices.

Even if I will have oppurtunity to communicate with Chinese and Taiwanese people frequently (mostly through internet), this will never be like living in China. So, I also need your advices about what I should do in order not to forget the characters in the long term. Should I write repeatedly every character I learned in certain intervals ?

Please enlighten me with your experiences.

Thanks in advance for your valuable answers.

[Glenn]

Well, this is going to be a little skewed, but after trying to learn them in the "most frequently used order" with all the readings and meanings and not getting very far, I got a copy of James Heisig's Remembering the Kanji I: how to not forget the writing and meaning of Japanese characters (abbr. RTK1). It did wonders for my character recognition, and I can write pretty much any character I want to (that I've learned) by hand (and with surprising accuracy). Now, I was studying Japanese (which is where the "skewed" part comes in), so there were different issues with learning to read them than there are in Chinese, but having writings and meanings under my belt made learning the words easier, and knocked out the "I have to learn which characters are in this word, the characters themselves, and the reading" problem. For the most part I already knew the characters, and getting meanings from words I was seeing for the first time was usually amazingly easy.

He has a Remembering the Hanzi book now, so you could go for that. But, if it's in the same style as the RTK book, there'll be no readings, and you'll be going for 3000 characters before you get to the readings. It's my opinion, however, that if you do a study of the characters on their own, and also do a study of the language (grammar, pronunciation, vocabulary) on its own (without the characters), the two will fall into place on their own after a while, and when you're ready to integrate them it'll be fairly easy (although you could work on that while you're learning the characters too).

Also, using an SRS everyday to drill the characters is a preferred method of studying these days. I didn't have the advantage of it when I was learning them though; it was years after I'd acquired the 2042 in RTK that I'd even heard of the concept. Anki is a popular one, as it has pre-loaded decks, but there are others. And regardless of whether you use one, you should be looking at Chinese text to keep them fresh in your mind and give yourself motivation, especially when you hit a string that you know and can get some meaning out of. That should also help with the integration, especially if you have audio to go with the text (go to tudou.com and start clicking on videos :-) ).

Opinions on the Heisig method vary, with some people saying it's just a huge waste of time (I even saw someone describe it as "criminal," because it doesn't include readings), to others saying the only strength is the order that the characters are learned, to others saying it's the best thing that ever happened to them (and other, more nuanced opinions in between). I tend towards the latter, because it worked great for me. There's also Skritter.com, which seems to be popular. I'm sure others will have other recommendations, but that's my take on it.

[Mouseneb]

Skritter!

[renzhe]

Learning characters is a controversial topic and people swear by many (completely different and incompatible) methods.

In any case, using a Spaced Repetition Software like Anki or Mnemosyne is very useful.

You can choose to enter the characters you've learned into the program and do your revision daily. They will space them out for you so you do the minimum of work, while still not forgetting them.

As for which program to use (Anki, Mnemosyne, Supermemo, ZDT, Skritter, etc.), there are many threads on here, you should search for them. As for whether you should only learn characters as part of words, or also separately (with individual meanings), there are also different approaches. The same goes for the more extreme approaches of going through the basic 2,000 or 3,000 characters as a matter of principle and cramming them in the old-school way, which is a very controversial topic, also discussed on here in great detail. A search will give you plenty of arguments that go both ways.

What is certain is that you will need to revise regularly -- 15 minutes a day is much much better than 2 hours once a week. Reading a lot is also very important, as soon as you reach a reasonable level. The more exposure you have, the better you'll remember the words and characters.

Personally, I'm a fan of learning the most useful characters (and also words) the boring way, with lots of drilling, and supplementing this with lots of reading, TV series, movies, comics, etc. This combination worked for me, but you will have to find what works best for your study habits and schedule. Some trial and error and lots of perseverance will eventually see you through!

[Don_Horhe]

What I did when I started out 3 years ago was write them, write them again, and then write them some more. That way every character you learn becomes second nature and your hand sort of automatically writes them. I wasn't aware of the wonders of SRS back then, though, and now I realize how much time I could have saved, although for both production and recognition, you'll need to go both ways with whatever SRS software you choose.

[Baggerking]

Different learning styles suite different study patterns. For something as far removed from English as Chinese, you have to play your learning style to it's maximum potential. For example, my entire life I have been my best with visual things. Drawing and photography were always easier for me hobby wise. Speaking has always been a weakness, even in English. I study Chinese from the characters, writing them and associating the pinyin with the characters. So the way I study characters something remarkably like this:

Memorizing Characters with Flashcards

Basically an analog SRS system, except I often do it backwards, looking at the pinyin and English meaning and then writing the character from memory. I often play a drinking game in the evening with this, which is starting to give me a nice beer belly. I also write grammar and phrases in my classes in a notebook, but new words go directly onto flash cards. At first progress was pretty slow, but now I'm up to 70-100 new characters a week（with various permanent retention rates). I have a nice collection now of flashcards, which is both satisfying and depressing because it gives me a visual gauge of progress and review material for later on.

However, my room-mate is a vocal person. He remembers characters by associating them with pinyin. He's never studied writing (He also has no long-term goals with Chinese, just likes the language and speaking it) but has had good progress with reading. He mostly practices by writing text messages with a dictionary for backup.

My point being is find which study pattern you get the most enjoyment out of and is most suitable for you. Also start with what interests you. I know ever since I started studying Chinese I have found it very effective to assign my own stories to the characters. An early example is 买 and 卖， which mean buy and sell respectively. The first (mai3) is a guy (头 tou2 means a person's head) with a hat who wants two hats, and the second (mai4) is the same guy, who after buying the first hat, realizes he looks stupid with two hats and now wants to sell one. Of course, it doesn't work with all the characters but I can get pretty creative sometimes.

Good luck and have fun, Chinese is a pretty interesting language.

[Hofmann]

A beginner should start by learning about Chinese characters. Here is a good place to start. After that, you would probably be safe from learning characters in what most people think is a bad way: stroke by stroke. The method you use depends a lot on your learning style, abilities, and objectives.

[tabari]

Thanks for all answers. I think I get the idea and I will do more search according to your suggestions.

On the other hand, here come some other questions. I have (very) limited time for studying Chinese and I want to get most out of it. I'm not sure about what I should concentrate on more for the beginning.

- Should I try to learn more words in pinyin without learning them in hanzi ? Even if I learn them together, should I really spend most of my time for repeating the characters ?

- Should I listen and practice pronounciation rather than studying characters in the first months ?

- Should I spend less time for learning characters in the first months as it could be easier after a while as I will become more familiar with the language ?

etc.

[Shi Tong]

A beginner should start by learning about Chinese characters.

I was wondering WHY nobody had said this yet!

A basic learning of how Chinese characters work is so essential to learning the actual characters that you simply cannot leave it out.

Let me give you a quick idea:

丁 is a very basic character. It's pronounced dīng​. Without adding anything else to it (something called a radical) it will mean vertually nothing.

However, take a look at this:

订 dìng​, 叮 dīng​, 仃 dīng​, 玎 dīng

The first word (订) is using a radical to the left hand side of the 丁 to modify it's meaning (and it's pronunciation of tone). Because this radical has to do with language, the word means (basically) "to order". (there are more meanings, but it's maybe a bit prolongued to explain them all)

The second word (叮)is using a radical to the left hand side of the 丁 to modify it's meaning. Because this radical has to do with mouth (口), the word means (basically) "bite/ sting" (insect bite).(there are more meanings, but it's maybe a bit prolongued to explain them all)

The third word (仃)is using a radical to the left hand side of the 丁 to modify it's meaning. Because this radical has to do with a person (人), the word means (basically) "lonely".

The list does go on, and even spills over to "double barraled words" which have 2 characters per word:

丁冬 dīng​dōng, ​叮当 dīng​dāng​, 钉子 dīng​zi​

Ding dong is onomatopoeic for "bells", as is dingdang, and 钉子 (dīng​ zi​) means "nail".. the radical on the left hand side of the 钉 in this case means "gold" or "metal".

Hope this explains why A ) it's important to learn what Chiense characters ARE, and B ) How some of the learning will work.

[xianu]

as a long time student and teacher of Chinese, i have looked for different ways to learn vocabulary and characters, and have asked a lot of students and classmates about their learning methods. My opinion has still not changed from 15 years ago that writing a character over and over again (and not just as an act, but as a conscious activity), is still the best way to learn to both read and write a character for the long term. Flashcards never worked for me, mostly because it is only for recognition, unless you stop and write each character as you quiz yourself with the cards, in which case, you might as well just make a list in a notebook, or just carry around your textbooks. after many many years I still am a proponent of writing the characters, and simultaneously pronouncing them out loud and thinking of the meaning of the character, or the character combo/word. One of the things this does is cement the pronunciation and tone of the character into both a visual and muscle memory (TPR), along with the meaning, so that you learn the word/character as a distinct unit (meaning the written form is not separated from the pronunciation/oral/aural memory of the same word). At the same time, writing the character over and over again, while paying STRICT attention to the correct stroke order cements the character into your muscle memory. This adds another dimension to the "knowing" of the character, so that when in doubt you don't need to know consciously what elements are in the character, but can just scribble the character without looking and know what is missing just from what direction your hand went). I know that computers make it a lot easier to not need to write the character, but somehow I feel (and I have no evidence) that also knowing how to write the character makes recognition easier and more a solid part of the long term memory. learning how to use the word entails looking at examples and then using them in sentences or in context over and over again correctly (which is why teachers are so important! B) ). research says that it takes 70 repetitions of a single word (in context of course) before it is embedded into your long term memory, so the only whay to really learn a new vocabulary item or sentence pattern is to use it and hear it or read it correctly over and over again, while paying conscious attention to the meaning (which is not necessarily the translation. in fact if you can move meaning from translation into something without words, your understanding is even more concrete).

[anonymoose]

I should tell you that learning Chinese is not a high priority task in my life and I do not have plans to live in China or to use my Chinese knowledge for living.

I'm not sure about what I should concentrate on more for the beginning.

Well, since you aren't going to be using Chinese for anything practical, why not just do what you are interested in?

If your primary aim is to become conversational, then you'd probably be better off not spending too much time on the characters at this stage.

On the other hand, if you want to be literate, then in my opinion, the sooner you get to grips with the characters, the better.

For me personally, I was motivated to learn Chinese initially because I was interested in the characters. I have always spent a disproportionate amount of time on practicing how to write by hand, and consequently my reading and writing is better than my speaking and listening. That's not to say I've neglected speaking and listening, but naturally most of my efforts go where my primary interest lies.

If you want to keep this up for the long term, you need to make sure you can maintain interest in it.

[renzhe]

- Should I try to learn more words in pinyin without learning them in hanzi ?

No.

People who live in a Chinese-speaking country sometimes manage to become conversational without learning characters. I've never met somebody who managed this abroad. However you slice it, the VAST majority of your input will be through the written language, unless you move to China or Taiwan or Singapore or similar.

It's not that I disagree with anonymoose in principle, but you will find it increasingly difficult to get listening practice and conversation practice without being familiar with characters, especially outside of China. Vocabulary acquisition without characters is also extremely difficult.

- Should I listen and practice pronounciation rather than studying characters in the first months ?

You should make pronunciation your utmost priority for the first few months. A few months here and there won't hinder your character study much,but getting terrible pronunciation early will follow you for years.

The most important thing when starting (IMHO) is getting the concept of initials, finals and tones down, and having a trained native speaker correct you until you can distinguish between them and pronounce them well.

- Should I spend less time for learning characters in the first months as it could be easier after a while as I will become more familiar with the language ?

It won't harm you, but characters are interesting, and learning ABOUT characters (like Hoffman said) will probably even fuel your interest and make it more fun.

I recommend this book as a good, interesting and factually correct introduction into the language. Can be had (used) for $15, and is worth it.

Generally, if you're really interested in the language and would like to eventually speak it and be able to use it for many things, there's no way around characters, and you need to plan character study (best with an SRS program) into your curriculum. The earlier you start, the less time you will lose. Certainly try what works best for you.

But the first priority should be getting the pronunciation basics down.

[Shi Tong]

- Should I try to learn more words in pinyin without learning them in hanzi ? Even if I learn them together, should I really spend most of my time for repeating the characters ?

I really agree with renzhe on all his points here.

You must really try to learn at least some Hanzi, IMO, even from the very beginning. The reason I believe this in particular is because you will cement into your mind the difference between English (or whatever your native tongue is) and Chinese- you will realise things like- Chinese characters are only one syllable long, Chinese characters when combined into two characters (like hanzi) are two seperate words with two seperated meanings as well as one word which means "Chinese words", which will all enrich your learning experience.. it will even help you to understand how to speak and listen too.

- Should I listen and practice pronounciation rather than studying characters in the first months ?

The most important thing is to learn the "Chinese alphabet", whatever system of alphabet you have chosen and make sure you can pronounce and hear all of the sounds and break down/ combine these sounds fluently before you move on to anything else strenuous (breaking down initial and final and tone in front of a native speaker and getting a thumbs up(I'm assuming you're using pinyin!)).

- Should I spend less time for learning characters in the first months as it could be easier after a while as I will become more familiar with the language ?

I think it could even make it more difficult to learn to speak fluently, as I said above, if you go about avoiding them. For example, you could look at a pinyin word (like pinyin.. for an appropriate example), and not even think to break it down into two words, (pin1 and yin1), and then place a meaning with these. I think it's essential that you do.

I'm not saying you need to learn to write every character you learn for the first x amount of time, but you should learn about the words and learn some easy ones.

Chinese character history is also really interesting.. you can see how some Chinese characters went from drawings of things to actual words (this has a good explaination of the Chinese character basics, and you can scroll down to the part where it says "There are six kinds of characters. Listed below." for a great introduction)

Hope this helps.

[Glenn]

After that, you would probably be safe from learning characters in what most people think is a bad way: stroke by stroke.

I don't think it's a bad way for basic characters and character components that will make up more complex characters. In fact, it's the only way to do it, really. However, I think it's worth saying that learning characters stroke-by-stroke after a certain point is a waste of time. When I saw 繡 and 鬱 for the first time I didn't learn them stroke-by-stroke. For 繡 I learned it as 糸+肅, both of which I already knew, and with 鬱 it was a 缶 in a 林 with a 冖 over 鬯 with 彡, all of which I already knew (well, except for 鬯 -- I had just learned that one because I was reading about the character). Why would you go through 18 strokes for the first one and 29 for the second one when you can work with 2 parts for the first one and 5 parts for the second one? With most high-stroke characters being just two parts, why make them 15 or 17 or 21 strokes? For example, 語, an incredibly common character that's 14 strokes, is only 2 parts if you know 言 and 吾, which is less taxing on the memory. 顧 is a less common example, being 21 strokes, but again 2 parts. You just need to know 雇 and 頁. Shi Tong's post two below yours also makes this point, even if it was only implied.

But then again, I don't know who you meant by "most people" or what they're saying is bad about it.

My opinion has still not changed from 15 years ago that writing a character over and over again (and not just as an act, but as a conscious activity), is still the best way to learn to both read and write a character for the long term.

I actually have at least a handful that I didn't have to write all that much that I know and can reproduce. I'm always amazed at the ones I had forgotten all about, but when it comes time to write them I can do it. 硝 just came to mind. Come to think of it, I don't even know a word it's in. Heh, oh well.

Of course, writing them well takes practice. There are some that are all unbalanced when I write them because I haven't written them all that much. Others take a little time (疑, for instance). But that's a separate issue from remembering the components and being able to put them together.

[Shi Tong]

Glenn, I totally agree with you- knowing the aggregate parts of a character make it so much easier to remember.

I already speak relatively fluently, so I'm always look for components to put together, and learning them in groups, IMO is really helpful- like 空 (empty) and 控 (control).

Knowing that the radical on the side of the second word means "hand", instantly means that you know that it's changed it's meaning from empty to something to do with your hands, and it also tells you how to pronounce it (to within one tone). Knowing that you can control things with your hands (控制) is essential to the learning IMO.

Sure, learning stroke by stroke is very useful, but knowing the essence of the word is also paramount.