Outlier Online Course (discount for forum members): How Characters Work + How to Learn Them

[OneEye]

Hi all!

 

I'm thrilled to announce that we're launching our first ever online course! It begins 7 January 2019, and we've created a special discount just for Chinese-forum members: just enter chineseforums20 into the discount code box when you check out and you'll get 20% off!
 

Many of you know about our character dictionary for Pleco, which was released in February last year. We've gotten some amazing feedback from our users:

 

"I bought this. It has helped me recognise and even pronounce characters I have never seen before thanks to my recognition of patterns from the explanations." --Soroush Torkian (Canada)
"After a lot (really a lot) of failed tests with different books, apps and methods, the only way that the hanzi sticks in my mind is ODCC's brief, concise and REAL explanation!" --Alessandro Agostinetti (Italy)

 

We've also gotten endorsement from some of the world's leading experts on Chinese language education:
 
"Every so often a really good resource comes along. It's The Outlier Dictionary of Chinese Characters." --Prof. Victor Mair, University of Pennsylvania
"I feel like I have a virtual 1-on-1 Chinese teacher, giving me a better sense of how the writing system functions." --Dr. David Moser, Yenching Academy at Peking University

 

But quite a few customers have indicated that while they love the dictionary, they'd like some sort of course on how Chinese characters work and how to learn them more effectively. 

 

Well, Ash (our CTO and Lead Researcher) has been teaching a course on Chinese characters at ICLP in Taipei—one of the world's most prestigious Chinese language schools—for the past several years. So we're thrilled to announce that we're taking the material from that course, refining it some, and turning it into an online course!

 

Each week for 3 months (13 units total), there will be a video lesson, sometimes 2 or 3, covering an aspect of the Chinese writing system or how to learn the characters more effectively. There will also be PDF materials to go along with each lesson, covering the topic in more depth, or from another angle. These PDFs will also cover around 25 characters chosen to reinforce the week's topic, along with example vocabulary for each character. (note: the course is entirely self-contained and does not require you to have any of our other products)

 

By the end of the course, you'll have a strong understanding of the logic of the writing system, as well as practical strategies for learning the characters more efficiently. Here's the curriculum:

Unit I: Intro and Foundations

0: Intro to the course/what to expect

1: Rules of Memory

2. Three Attributes of Writing/Three Functions

3. Deep Structure, Surface Structure, and Stroke Order

 

Unit II: Functional component types

4. Form Components

5. Meaning Components

6. Sound Components

7. Sound series (characters containing the same sound component) and sound variation within a series

8. Empty Components

9. All about character meanings

 

Unit III: Learning new characters and recalling learned characters

10. The "IME Method"

11. Spaced Repetition

12. The Pipelining Strategy

13. The Minimalist Strategy

 

This course is appropriate for all levels! For a beginner, it's a ton of material, so while we will be putting out new material every week, you can go slower if you'd like—the content will be there when you're ready for it. An advanced learner will of course know the 300 characters already, but the characters themselves aren't the point of the course—they're simply used to illustrate each topic. The real point of the course is to teach you how Chinese characters work on both the individual level and as a system, and to give you the knowledge and practical strategies to become an effective independent learner of characters.

 

It comes in two "flavors:" Basic ($99) and Office Hours ($199). The Office Hours option includes a weekly 60-minute Q&A session with an Outlier team member.

 

The first iteration of this course will begin on 7 January 2019. Here's the link to sign up, and be sure to use the discount code chineseforums20 to get 20% off.

 

I'm happy to answer any questions you may have!

 

(note to admins: I did run this by roddy before posting)

[agewisdom]

6 hours ago, OneEye said:

Unit I: Intro and Foundations

0: Intro to the course/what to expect

 

Whilst this sounds interesting, I think it would make sense from a marketing perspective to release the video and materials from this section here once it's ready. This way, any potential customers would have a better idea of what to expect and whether it would be worthwhile subscribing for the course. Preferably, you need to summarize what exactly is the VALUE proposition you're bringing in this course. As examples:

 

1. How long is each lecture going to be?

2. Can a sample PDF lesson for one or two character be shared here, so as to have an idea what it would be like?

 

3. Will you do a series on characters that look visually similar but are actually very different in terms of their etymology? This would be invaluable as you'd be in the best position to explain the differences between the characters and also help your students to remember and differentiate them.

曰日田囙目臼白口

 

4. Are you going to go through each of the 300 characters in detail and discuss how a single character would be used to form other characters and how they are related?

 

For instance, I believe the character '才' is a component of the following chinese characters below. So, would this course be explaining how this character is used to form the other characters and how it either forms the semantic or phonetic component? Preferably with some discussion of the history of the all of these characters and its' evolution.

 

財

材

在

載

裁

戴

 

This sort of information may not be readily available elsewhere. However, because of your unique work on the Outlier Dictionary,  you should have a lot of of invaluable insights to share on such a course. Now, that would be a unique selling point for you.

 

Whilst I may not be able to afford the course, I do believe this course would be invaluable for a lot of people, so good luck OneEye!

 

[OneEye]

On 12/15/2018 at 10:27 PM, agewisdom said:

Whilst this sounds interesting, I think it would make sense from a marketing perspective to release the video and materials from this section here once it's ready.

 

I've filmed and am working on editing the intro video, so I'll post it soon.  

 

On 12/15/2018 at 10:27 PM, agewisdom said:

1. How long is each lecture going to be?

 

Usually 5-10 minutes. There will be one video most weeks, but some weeks will have 2-3 videos.

 

On 12/15/2018 at 10:27 PM, agewisdom said:

2. Can a sample PDF lesson for one or two character be shared here, so as to have an idea what it would be like?

 

 

Not yet, but once they're finished I can do so.

 

On 12/15/2018 at 10:27 PM, agewisdom said:

3. Will you do a series on characters that look visually similar but are actually very different in terms of their etymology? This would be invaluable as you'd be in the best position to explain the differences between the characters and also help your students to remember and differentiate them.

 

We could do something like that later, but it won't be in this course. The thing is, if you learn why each character looks the way it does (which is what we're teaching, both in this course and with our dictionary), these "similar-looking" characters don't look all that similar anymore. Although I'll give you 日 and 曰, especially in handwriting.

 

On 12/15/2018 at 10:27 PM, agewisdom said:

4. Are you going to go through each of the 300 characters in detail and discuss how a single character would be used to form other characters and how they are related?

 

 

We'll explain each character's form and analyze each of its functional components. We'll first teach semantic components, then common sound components, then sound series (groups of characters containing the same sound component). So we'll teach basic building blocks first, then more complex characters built from those building blocks. We'll also discuss sound variation across a sound series, so that, for example, you'll understand how it is that 各 can be the sound component in characters like 路 and 絡.

 

We don't say that 才 is the sound component in 裁 et al, for a few reasons. 1) ? is the sound component in 裁. 2) 才 doesn't show up in ? either. We call the 土 in ? an empty component.

 

The reason for this is that we're explaining the modern character form, not the ancient form. A learner doesn't, strictly speaking, need to know that it used to be 才. They may find it interesting or memorable, but it isn't essential to know. For this reason, we save stuff like that for the Expert Edition of the dictionary (and perhaps a future "Expert Edition" of the course, in which we'll dive more into the history of the characters).

[agewisdom]

19 minutes ago, OneEye said:

I've filmed and am working on editing the intro video, so I'll post it soon.   

 

Glad you'll be sharing the intro video here and as well as the sample PDF. Hopefully this can convince some of your potential customers to sign up.

 

19 minutes ago, OneEye said:

We could do something like that later, but it won't be in this course. The thing is, if you learn why each character looks the way it does (which is what we're teaching, both in this course and with our dictionary), these "similar-looking" characters don't look all that similar anymore. Although I'll give you 日 and 曰, especially in handwriting.

 

Yes, I understand. This would be merely compiling some of the similar looking characters and reviewing the difference. Which probably doesn't need a lecture, but could perhaps be just an add-on via a PDF etc.

 

19 minutes ago, OneEye said:

We'll explain each character's form and analyze each of its functional components. We'll first teach semantic components, then common sound components, then sound series (groups of characters containing the same sound component). So we'll teach basic building blocks first, then more complex characters built from those building blocks. We'll also discuss sound variation across a sound series, so that, for example, you'll understand how it is that 各 can be the sound component in characters like 路 and 絡.

 

Sounds good, but pretty hard to visualize. I vaguely (new learner here) understand what you're saying and this should be invaluable. Hopefully you will include the above in your introduction video to make things clearer so that new learners can see how it helps them to learn Chinese better. So your course is valuable in the sense that it helps student on:

 

"LEARNING to LEARN!"

 

The plus side I can see is that the mnemonic used to remember the meaning of certain characters learned in this course will reasonably accurate as opposed to guesses or something that is plainly wrong but useful in remembering certain characters!

 

Eagerly looking forward to the preview course.

 

Cheers!

[HerrPetersen]

Almost on topic: Maybe a year or two there were talks with I believe sinosplice/John Pasden to make a workbook for the Outlier dictionary. Has this been scratched?

[OneEye]

No, we're still planning to do that.

 

Some of the material from the course will end up in the workbook. Doing it this way will allow us to get feedback on it before publishing it.

[OneEye]

Here's a demo lesson from the course.

[agewisdom]

3 hours ago, OneEye said:

Here's a demo lesson from the course.

 

Good, I learnt something new today. For the video, perhaps it would be better to expand the pipelining strategy with some actual examples of chinese characters and how exactly this strategy is applicable. Maybe the video was truncated, so the relevant examples were left out.

 

I'm guessing this strategy could also be applied to learn characters in groups that share the same semantic or phonetic component, thus highlighting the inter-relationships between these characters.

[amytheorangutan]

Hi @OneEye,

 

I probably should have asked this question first before I signed up for the course in March but how useful would it be for people like me who has learned around 850 characters using Skritter but stumbles to move forward a bit (so far I just accept the stumble as part of the learning process) and want to progress faster and more effectively? I just watched the demo video on Lesson 12 and slightly worried that the previous lessons might be something that keen learners who has read and watched lots of characters related materials already knew?

 

Also wonder if anyone above elementary level Chinese in this forum has tried the course and can share reviews and what they got out of the course ?

 

Basically I'm just wondering if getting the dictionary add-on on Pleco would be better than the course for intermediate/advance learners. 

[OneEye]

The course is designed for use by students at all levels. We teach 300 characters during the course, but that isn't the point. The point is that we're teaching you how the writing system works, and we dive deep into the 4 different component types, how they relate to the sound and meanings of the character, etc. The characters you learn in each lesson are meant to reinforce the concepts you're learning, but they're not the point of the lesson.

 

Actually, I'd think intermediate and advanced learners may be able to get more out of the course, because they'll already know most or all of the characters we teach, so they'll be able to focus more on the concepts, which again, is the point.

 

Here are two posts from our Facebook discussion group:

 

Quote

Just wanted to say, the course is amazing, thanks for the great content! I was already a HSK3 level reader, but could barely write a single character. Using your course over the last few weeks has not only helped me to learn to write, but has boosted my reading comprehension. Just an example, I guessed the meaning and sound of 症 today, having never seen the character before. Thanks guys, keep it up!

 

For reference, HSK 3 tests 617 characters, while HSK 4 tests 1064, so this person probably is at a similar level as far as character recognition.

 

Quote

I'm also enjoying the course. I have found several cases where I entered the wrong character while typing, and when I looked at it I analyzed the components to figure out why it was the wrong character and what the right one should be. I'm getting my fangs straight. :-)

 

These are exactly the type of results we had in mind when we made this course, so we're glad to hear feedback like this (and we've heard similar things from several other people).

 

All that said, I know I'm biased.  Just keep in mind that we do offer a full refund if you complete the course and aren't satisfied.

[amytheorangutan]

Thanks so much @OneEye I’m now looking forward to the course and hoping that it will help me progress. 

[mungouk]

@OneEye — since registration CLOSES on 3rd March and the course begins the next day, does this mean that you have to commit to studying for 90 days from 4th March?

 

Or, like some MOOCs, will you have access to the material after the 90 days?

 

 

 

[OneEye]

You'll have access to the material after the course is over, so you can go at your own pace. We're just doing it this way right now because we're iterating on the course to improve it, and running it in batches makes it a bit easier for us to manage. Of course, anyone taking the course now will also get access to all future versions/improvements.

 

We will eventually start running it on an ongoing basis.

 

You've probably seen this already, but for anyone else reading the thread, we're running a CNY sale on the course. Just enter 'CNY20' into the discount code box when you check out, and you'll get 20% off (the 'chineseforums20' code still works too, of course, but they don't work in combination).

[thezipline]

I just enroll, but forgot to enter the Discount code? any suggestion to remedy this situation?

My-Ly

[OneEye]

I'll refund you 20% of your purchase, no worries! I've emailed you about it.

[Zeppa]

Can someone tell me the characters and/or pinyin for the component 立? It sounds like li zi pang and Ash uses it in the first video to the third lesson. It isn't explained in the PDF either. Thanks!

[OneEye]

立字旁 lì zìpáng. It basically means "立 on the side."

 

By the way, it's better to post this sort of thing in the Discussions section of the course, rather than here on Chinese-forums.

[Zeppa]

Thanks for the prompt response. I realized it meant 'on the side', but I couldn't find it in Pleco. It would have helped me if it had been explained in the PDF.

[agewisdom]

Has anyone that has actually gone through the course would be willing to post a review here?