The Reasons I wrote This
I've long been learning Mandarin ever since I was a kid. But to be raised in the language environment I have been in, I wouldn't consider myself to be a native speaker of the Chinese language. Even today, I find it challenging to converse very fluently with the Chinese from China. I've found that I still frequently include some English expressions that I simply cannot explain in Chinese without stopping the conversation. However, my exposure to Chinese continues to be good as I majored in Chinese in university and I've been giving lessons to numerous people for a fair few years.
Over these years, I've come to realize that to master Chinese, you really need three things. You need motivation, the right techniques and good learning resources. I have my specific theory when it comes to Chinese language learning. It always frustrates me when I see how schools in my homeland are educating the students the wrong way, either by continuously lowering the bar, or giving up important areas of focus that are vital in language acquisition.
So here I am, hoping to write an article that would help others learn some correct concepts about Chinese that would help them in their learning!
The Relationship Between Chinese Sounds, Characters and their Meanings
Those who ever learned Chinese, or even some through hearsay, would assure everyone that Chinese is the most difficult language to learn. As though they had learned plenty of other languages to do a comparison. Most of these learners focus on spoken Chinese.
But, what did not hit them is that every language has its distinct features. In Chinese, there exist a close bond between the pronunciations as well as the written character and meaning. When we ignore the latter two aspects and just wanted to learn how to speak Chinese, we are essentially making the learning curve steeper for ourselves. Chinese, being a language with very limited combinations in the way we pronounce a character, can only depend on the different written characters to differentiate the different morphemes in the language. If we only memorize Chinese sounds, we are going to end up not knowing which individual morpheme the many similar sounds refer to.
I have always been an advocate of memorizing the basics when it comes to Chinese learning, as oppose "creative learning". It's not that I don't believe that creative learning doesn't work, because I believe it does. I only know that you can't apply creative learning to Chinese language learning and don't expect the students to memorize and still get proficient in Chinese. I mean, memory even affects the score of IQ tests, not to say learning a foreign system where there is grammar rules, pronunciations, meanings and contextual usage all jumbled together.
Beginners learning the Chinese language often could not understand why the characters that they have mastered could turn out to mean very different things when stringed together with other just as familiar characters, especially when these characters happen to show up so frequently.
I cannot stop stressing that individual Chinese characters can combine to form compound words, and we would need to have a solid foundation in those meanings of those characters of the most frequent occurrence so that we can guess the derived meaning of the words when characters join together to form new words. These are the basic concepts in Chinese language that would save us tremendous time in the future.
Of course there would be words that you won't be able to guess, but most of them would have some form of derived relationship from the root words that you have learned. There is one fact I have to clarify though. Most characters in Chinese have multiple root meanings, and it's important to keep expanding your understanding of these meanings. It's not impossible, when you compare it with trying to remember every word you come across. Isn't that equating to memorizing the dictionary already?
How do one reinforce all those knowledge that has been learned? Just expose your knowledge to as many senses as you possibly can. Create associations between your Chinese vocabulary and your surroundings. Make sure you can visually see what you learn. Listen to it, use it, and better still experience it in different contexts. Our minds recalls better when information is interlinked and carries more weight.
Ways to Continue the Fight in the Long Run
Some people will give up. People always do. These people will always find reasons to justify themselves and try to haul others down with them.
Motivation is very important in language acquisition. It doesn't just prevent us from giving up, it actually makes the process much more efficient and fun. Steve Kaufman, someone who had found language learning difficult, became a polyglot who speaks ten languages because he found the secret of language learning: fun interesting content.
He believes that we must find that piece of article that is interesting to us, that would encourage us to find ways of finishing the article, that story, or any piece of writing for that matter. That is the motivation that will help us learn. The rest is just up to the brain. If you're curious and interested enough, you will definitely find the resources to acquire the knowledge. People actually learned Japanese just so that they can understand Japanese anime (a form of cartoon). Most who didn't would also prefer to watch the cartoon in Japanese without being dubbed in English. Another great example is the Korea show "Running Man" and the song "Gangnam Style", most teenagers are learning Korean just so that they can feel more "engaged" to their Korean idols.
Other motivators definitely play a part too. We can design milestones for ourselves to achieve and then reward ourselves for it. We can also keep progress reports and find the particular TV show or music video on the language that we're learning to motivate us.
Learning Resources
We all need to find the right tools for the right job. Learning Chinese is no different.
Get yourself the essential learning tools such as dictionaries or learning softwares. You would probably also need audio tapes for practices in pronunciation and listening. Also get yourself a book on Chinese characters. All in all, do read up the Chinese culture as well, and ensure that all topics that frequently come in handy are learned. Once done, take action and start learning!
I've long been learning Mandarin ever since I was a kid. But to be raised in the language environment I have been in, I wouldn't consider myself to be a native speaker of the Chinese language. Even today, I find it challenging to converse very fluently with the Chinese from China. I've found that I still frequently include some English expressions that I simply cannot explain in Chinese without stopping the conversation. However, my exposure to Chinese continues to be good as I majored in Chinese in university and I've been giving lessons to numerous people for a fair few years.
Over these years, I've come to realize that to master Chinese, you really need three things. You need motivation, the right techniques and good learning resources. I have my specific theory when it comes to Chinese language learning. It always frustrates me when I see how schools in my homeland are educating the students the wrong way, either by continuously lowering the bar, or giving up important areas of focus that are vital in language acquisition.
So here I am, hoping to write an article that would help others learn some correct concepts about Chinese that would help them in their learning!
The Relationship Between Chinese Sounds, Characters and their Meanings
Those who ever learned Chinese, or even some through hearsay, would assure everyone that Chinese is the most difficult language to learn. As though they had learned plenty of other languages to do a comparison. Most of these learners focus on spoken Chinese.
But, what did not hit them is that every language has its distinct features. In Chinese, there exist a close bond between the pronunciations as well as the written character and meaning. When we ignore the latter two aspects and just wanted to learn how to speak Chinese, we are essentially making the learning curve steeper for ourselves. Chinese, being a language with very limited combinations in the way we pronounce a character, can only depend on the different written characters to differentiate the different morphemes in the language. If we only memorize Chinese sounds, we are going to end up not knowing which individual morpheme the many similar sounds refer to.
I have always been an advocate of memorizing the basics when it comes to Chinese learning, as oppose "creative learning". It's not that I don't believe that creative learning doesn't work, because I believe it does. I only know that you can't apply creative learning to Chinese language learning and don't expect the students to memorize and still get proficient in Chinese. I mean, memory even affects the score of IQ tests, not to say learning a foreign system where there is grammar rules, pronunciations, meanings and contextual usage all jumbled together.
Beginners learning the Chinese language often could not understand why the characters that they have mastered could turn out to mean very different things when stringed together with other just as familiar characters, especially when these characters happen to show up so frequently.
I cannot stop stressing that individual Chinese characters can combine to form compound words, and we would need to have a solid foundation in those meanings of those characters of the most frequent occurrence so that we can guess the derived meaning of the words when characters join together to form new words. These are the basic concepts in Chinese language that would save us tremendous time in the future.
Of course there would be words that you won't be able to guess, but most of them would have some form of derived relationship from the root words that you have learned. There is one fact I have to clarify though. Most characters in Chinese have multiple root meanings, and it's important to keep expanding your understanding of these meanings. It's not impossible, when you compare it with trying to remember every word you come across. Isn't that equating to memorizing the dictionary already?
How do one reinforce all those knowledge that has been learned? Just expose your knowledge to as many senses as you possibly can. Create associations between your Chinese vocabulary and your surroundings. Make sure you can visually see what you learn. Listen to it, use it, and better still experience it in different contexts. Our minds recalls better when information is interlinked and carries more weight.
Ways to Continue the Fight in the Long Run
Some people will give up. People always do. These people will always find reasons to justify themselves and try to haul others down with them.
Motivation is very important in language acquisition. It doesn't just prevent us from giving up, it actually makes the process much more efficient and fun. Steve Kaufman, someone who had found language learning difficult, became a polyglot who speaks ten languages because he found the secret of language learning: fun interesting content.
He believes that we must find that piece of article that is interesting to us, that would encourage us to find ways of finishing the article, that story, or any piece of writing for that matter. That is the motivation that will help us learn. The rest is just up to the brain. If you're curious and interested enough, you will definitely find the resources to acquire the knowledge. People actually learned Japanese just so that they can understand Japanese anime (a form of cartoon). Most who didn't would also prefer to watch the cartoon in Japanese without being dubbed in English. Another great example is the Korea show "Running Man" and the song "Gangnam Style", most teenagers are learning Korean just so that they can feel more "engaged" to their Korean idols.
Other motivators definitely play a part too. We can design milestones for ourselves to achieve and then reward ourselves for it. We can also keep progress reports and find the particular TV show or music video on the language that we're learning to motivate us.
Learning Resources
We all need to find the right tools for the right job. Learning Chinese is no different.
Get yourself the essential learning tools such as dictionaries or learning softwares. You would probably also need audio tapes for practices in pronunciation and listening. Also get yourself a book on Chinese characters. All in all, do read up the Chinese culture as well, and ensure that all topics that frequently come in handy are learned. Once done, take action and start learning!
About the Author:
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