Another Chinese Memorization Topic

[Hikaroshi]

Hello,

So I'm taking first year Chinese and it's really intense...

Some nights I have to learn 50 characters for the next day and it's

really hard for me to take my time and study because of the load.

I generally spend two hours a night studying my characters and grammatical

structures through rote memorization (writing the characters over and over

and listening to the textbook dialogues) and I end up retaining few.

What can I do to improve on this? I think part of the issue is breaking up

the characters and understanding the meaning of each part... I still don't

know all of my radical meanings and for some radicals I do know, I cannot

see the association... For example, if a native speaker didn't tell me about

换 and how to remember it, I would still have trouble remembering how to write

the character...

Please help.

[Chinadoog]

You have to memorize 50 characters a day? That's f'ing ridiculous.

One piece of advice - writing characters over and over is not a good way to memorize them. Flashcards are definitely more useful for memorizing words and recognizing/reading characters, but I'm not sure how you could possibly maintain learning how to read or write 50 characters and words a day.

Look up a good flashcard program like ANKI if you already haven't, and get some reading materials to use in addition to your textbook.

Maybe you can try explaining to your teacher that 50 words/characters a day is too much, haha

[jbradfor]

You have to memorize 50 characters a day? That's f'ing ridiculous.

I'll have to disagree on this one. Studying 2 hours most days per class seems pretty reasonable to me for a college level course, and learning 50 characters "Some nights" is actually pretty light, IMHO, depending on how often "Some nights" is.

But Chinadoog is right, memorizing characters via writing is very old-school, flashcard programs are much better. [Trust me on this, I've done both.] The problem is, I'm guessing that you also need to learn to write them as well for your class. So for you, writing out by hand is not quite a waste of time. But I still recommend a flashcard program for learning to recognize them, and once you can recognize them, learn to write them.

The bigger problem I see is that you are trying to learn 50 characters "for the next day". Memorizing characters all in one evening is very difficult, if not impossible -- that's not how the mind works, it learns via repetition. I know it's very hard to do with a normal courseload, but it will really really help you if you start to learn the words a minimum of 1 week ahead of when you need them, 2-3 weeks is even better. Use a flashcard program that supports SRS, if you are using a common text book odds are very good that the word lists already exist for you, start studying 2-3 weeks ahead, and I think you'll be amazed at how much easier it is to learn.

[simonlaing]

There are lots of posts on this topic but as for memorizing characters, it helps to invest in learning most if not all the the radicals of the character first. Then you're not looking at 8 strokes you are looking a character made up of 2 to 4 radicals.

Some people make up stories. Other look up their real former meaning.

I.e. 好 hao good is made up of the radicals 女 for woman and 子 for child or son. So chinese people view goodness or happiness as coming from having a wife and child. (my made up story any way) this is better than learning 7 strokes.

The website chinesetools.com was good for this as are several textbooks.

Flashcards are good, you can use websites and programs like Anki and quizlet.com if you want to use the computer to do the flashcards or play games with them. The concept is similar.

Also review and practicing the words in meaningful sentences and phrases also helps.

Chinese is difficult but it is definitely doable.

I had friend who had a good saying about learning Chinese.

Studying Chinese is a 5 year lesson in patience. At the end of 5 years you are still not completely fluent but you have learned patience.

Good luck.

Simon

[renzhe]

I agree with what's been said.

Personally, I find that learning characters is very easy. Learning 50 characters in a day is also easy.

The problem is that you will forget them very soon, and you will need to review regularly in order to keep them fresh. Once you get past a few hundred characters, it becomes a big mess, and you forget what you know, and lose sight of what you've learned, and how much you've forgotten. That's why learning characters takes time and perseverance. Learning the first 1000 characters is not a big deal, it's when you forget 70% of them a month later that people get very frustrated and quit.

This is something a good SRS program (like Anki) can help you with. Also, reading anything that is within your grasp (look at the Grand Comic Project) will help. Anything that gives you exposure in different contexts will help the characters "stick".

[sleepy eyes]

Heisig.

But it doesn't really work if you pick and choose the characters. You'd have to follow the order.