Overwhelmed by compound words

[heqi_liegou]

I finished studying HSK5 vocabulary (2500 words) around one month ago and decided to go on by making word lists based on newspaper articles (from xinhua).

 

The number of new compound words - most of which seem to be synonyms with some previously learned words - feels unbelievable.

 

I have already left many words from my list, since their meaning is self-evident, but I am not really sure what might be a good learning strategy. Should I left yet more of them away and trust that I learn them somehow magically.

 

Chinese really starts to feel difficult at this point: how people can really remember those words in spoken language, when they are just different combinations of those few ever reappearing syllables and there are so many synonyms to remember. It feels like almost every possible combination of characters, which might make sense, forms a compound word of some sort.

 

Here's new compound words that I have written down so far: http://pastebin.com/CC9RCnrs

(most of translations are in my mother tongue, but you can see those Chinese words in any case)

 

Considerations about the issue are welcome.

[imron]

The way to stop yourself from being overwhelmed is to set yourself a daily quota, e.g a minimum of 5 new words and a maximum of 10 (with one word possibly containing multiple new characters).

Don't set the quota too high. Set it to something you can easily manage day-in, day-out.

Then read the news as per usual, but when you reach your quota, stop learning new words. You can keep reading if you like, but don't learn beyond your quota.

Don't worry about the words you miss. If the word is important/useful, then it will appear again soon enough and you can add it then.

[Guest realmayo]

Chinese really starts to feel difficult at this point: how people can really remember those words in spoken language, when they are just different combinations of those few ever reappearing syllables and there are so many synonyms to remember. It feels like almost every possible combination of characters, which might make sense, forms a compound word of some sort.

 

I know what you mean: logically, it seems impossible. But in reality you will lean these words if you keep studying and keep getting exposure to the language, maybe a bit slower than with some other languages, but still very very possible. I don't think there's any clever or logical solution except more study and more exposure to the language.

[shuoshuo]

In my opinion, a great strategy would be to learn the words and expressions that you personally use all the time. Repetition is key. I have also tried learning through newspapers and I find it quite difficult because I never use those words often enough to retain them. I'm glad that you are very humble and realistic, I am also post-HSK5 and I find Mandarin still very challenging, while I have met some people who have just completed HSK3 who claim to be fluent in the language.

[Demonic_Duck]

Bear in mind that many of what you're considering "compound words" would simply be considered "words" in languages where that word/character distinction is a little less fuzzy than in Chinese. Yes, learning massive amounts of new vocabulary is tough, but the fact it's made of characters that are often familiar (instead of roots from Latin, Greek etc. as in English) if anything makes it easier, not harder.

 

I'm not claiming that learning thousands of logographic characters is easier than learning an alphabetic script (that would be idiotic), just that once you've learnt the characters, it makes learning a new word a lot easier than if the word roots were completely unfamiliar.

 

As for advice on how to lighten the load, I agree with imron.

[anonymoose]

Chinese really starts to feel difficult at this point: how people can really remember those words in spoken language, when they are just different combinations of those few ever reappearing syllables and there are so many synonyms to remember. It feels like almost every possible combination of characters, which might make sense, forms a compound word of some sort.

 

I think the richness of Chinese vocabulary is probably one of the things that makes Chinese a difficult language to learn. Chinese is, undeniably, a difficult language for a European to learn, but when analyzing the different aspects of language, it seems difficult to understand why - yes, there are no tenses, so it should be easier. There are no verb conjugations, so it should be easier. There are no noun genders, so it should be easier. But what about the range of possible vocabulary? Chinese has a huge range of established vocabulary, often with just subtle differences between words, and then on top of that, the possibility of coining all kinds of new words and phrases out of combinations of individual syllables. Just compare the size of a comprehensive Chinese dictionary to that of a comprehensive Finnish dictionary and you get an idea of the difference.

So I think you have a valid observation, and that is one reason, possibly the biggest reason in my opinion, why Chinese is a difficult language to become advanced in. Well sorry, there is no easy solution. It just takes a hell of a lot of time and hard work to conquer.

[michaelS]

Is your target to be able to read newspaper articles? I.e. is that what's motivating you to keep improving? If not, I would say don't bother with Xinhua, the new words may be too many and may also not be reaching out and grabbing you (in terms of a little lightbulb blinking on and something in your brain says "great, I wanted to be able to express that").

 

I read books and magazines (slowly) in Chinese, and subtitles all the time obviously. These can equally be mined for vocabulary. Personally I think wading through Xinhua articles would be too difficult for me and demotivating. That's just me, of course, but hopefully you see the point I'm trying to make.

[heqi_liegou]

Thanks for your answers.

 

I'd like to return to this topic by asking what might be a good technique to learn compound words in Chinese? (when characters are already known)

 

Can I trust that I learn words if I just keep on reading text and check new & forgotten words when they appear.

 

Or should I make word lists? I'm afraid, those word lists might eventually become veeeery long...

 

What other techniques there are?