Why Am I Writing This?
I have long been studying Mandarin Chinese ever since I was a little boy. But being raised in the language ecosystem that I was in, I still don't truly consider myself as "native" a speaker compared to those in China. I do have the bad habit of inserting English phrases or words into my sentences when I couldn't express myself in Chinese without pausing to give it a moment's thought. However, my exposure to Chinese can still be considered good as I majored in Chinese language in college and I've been giving training to plenty of people for quite a few years.
During these years, I've come to know that to master Chinese, you really would need to be equipped with three things. You need enthusiasm, the proper techniques and good learning tools. I have my individual way of thinking when it comes to Chinese language learning. It often irritates me whenever I observe how schools within my homeland are educating the students in the wrong manner, either by continuously lowering standards, or reducing the learning of important aspects of the language such as writing.
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.
However, they don't realize that due to the language's linguistic features, there exist a very close relationship between Chinese sounds, Chinese characters and their relevant meanings. When we chose to ignore learning the form and the meaning so that we can tackle the speaking part more efficiently, we actually are increasing the difficulty for ourselves. Let me explain, Chinese sound variants are very limited, and so the language turns to its symbols to encode the various different meanings, or semantics in the language. The result is that one sound, including its tone, can actually mean many, many things. For example: ji1 (first tone of the pronunciation "ji" in Chinese pinyin) can mean "small table", "hit", "chicken", "accumulate" to name a few. How do we know what someone is referring to when we hear the sound? We do this by learning the Chinese characters when we learn the corresponding pronunciation. When put into context, we would be able to call to our minds just what "ji" refers to. Do note that if we mispronounced the first tone into a 2nd tone, we would actually be meaning another set of very different things.
So I haven't stopped reminding my students to build a solid foundation through memorizing Chinese basics. I do not think that one can just learn creatively and magically be able to use the acquired knowledge with ease. There are bound to be rules in grammar, pronunciation and even character writing when people learn Chinese.
The greatest obstacle anyone can encounter in the course of learning Chinese characters is that they have no clue what different words mean when familiar characters come together. Although all these characters are the highest appearing characters and the student has already learned about it, they still do not know what different combinations of these characters mean.
Well actually for me, I would advice that you don't need to memorize every single word that you come across, because that would be impossible. (I forgot to mention that in Chinese, words and characters are two separate concepts, because usually a word would consist of two or more characters, also not necessarily so.) However, what you do need to do is to memorize those characters that have the highest frequencies of occurrence and understand their individual root meanings. This will immensely speed up your absorption of new words as these new words are formed by the characters you already know, and you would be able to fairly accurately guess their meanings when combined.
There will definitely be words that we cannot guess from the characters that form the word, but the number of those words are not large. There are actually many fundamental meanings to every Chinese character, and the more we understand, the easier it will become. It is actually doable, so long as you persevere in your learning and practice of the language.
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.
How to Keep the Fire Burning
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 plays a vital role in ensuring that learning continues to be fun, so that we don't give up. Steve Kaufman, a polyglot who have learned ten languages revealed the secret to language learning as engaging in motivating and interest-triggering 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 ways to keep ourselves motivated is by tracking our own progress and uncovering what other aspect of the language and culture makes us tick. If it's movies, TV shows and music videos, then we can always use them as learning resources and pushing factors to find out more about Chinese.
Learning Tools
You need the right tools to get the right job done, and done well. The same can be said for Chinese language learning.
Equip yourself with dictionaries, audio tracks and books about Chinese language and culture. You will also need to get exercises and tests in Chinese for more practice, get a partner to learn together and buy a comprehensive Chinese learning textbook to make sure all necessary topics are covered. At the end of the day, make sure you know a little about the Chinese culture as well, or you will still find yourself in awkward situations!
I have long been studying Mandarin Chinese ever since I was a little boy. But being raised in the language ecosystem that I was in, I still don't truly consider myself as "native" a speaker compared to those in China. I do have the bad habit of inserting English phrases or words into my sentences when I couldn't express myself in Chinese without pausing to give it a moment's thought. However, my exposure to Chinese can still be considered good as I majored in Chinese language in college and I've been giving training to plenty of people for quite a few years.
During these years, I've come to know that to master Chinese, you really would need to be equipped with three things. You need enthusiasm, the proper techniques and good learning tools. I have my individual way of thinking when it comes to Chinese language learning. It often irritates me whenever I observe how schools within my homeland are educating the students in the wrong manner, either by continuously lowering standards, or reducing the learning of important aspects of the language such as writing.
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.
However, they don't realize that due to the language's linguistic features, there exist a very close relationship between Chinese sounds, Chinese characters and their relevant meanings. When we chose to ignore learning the form and the meaning so that we can tackle the speaking part more efficiently, we actually are increasing the difficulty for ourselves. Let me explain, Chinese sound variants are very limited, and so the language turns to its symbols to encode the various different meanings, or semantics in the language. The result is that one sound, including its tone, can actually mean many, many things. For example: ji1 (first tone of the pronunciation "ji" in Chinese pinyin) can mean "small table", "hit", "chicken", "accumulate" to name a few. How do we know what someone is referring to when we hear the sound? We do this by learning the Chinese characters when we learn the corresponding pronunciation. When put into context, we would be able to call to our minds just what "ji" refers to. Do note that if we mispronounced the first tone into a 2nd tone, we would actually be meaning another set of very different things.
So I haven't stopped reminding my students to build a solid foundation through memorizing Chinese basics. I do not think that one can just learn creatively and magically be able to use the acquired knowledge with ease. There are bound to be rules in grammar, pronunciation and even character writing when people learn Chinese.
The greatest obstacle anyone can encounter in the course of learning Chinese characters is that they have no clue what different words mean when familiar characters come together. Although all these characters are the highest appearing characters and the student has already learned about it, they still do not know what different combinations of these characters mean.
Well actually for me, I would advice that you don't need to memorize every single word that you come across, because that would be impossible. (I forgot to mention that in Chinese, words and characters are two separate concepts, because usually a word would consist of two or more characters, also not necessarily so.) However, what you do need to do is to memorize those characters that have the highest frequencies of occurrence and understand their individual root meanings. This will immensely speed up your absorption of new words as these new words are formed by the characters you already know, and you would be able to fairly accurately guess their meanings when combined.
There will definitely be words that we cannot guess from the characters that form the word, but the number of those words are not large. There are actually many fundamental meanings to every Chinese character, and the more we understand, the easier it will become. It is actually doable, so long as you persevere in your learning and practice of the language.
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.
How to Keep the Fire Burning
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 plays a vital role in ensuring that learning continues to be fun, so that we don't give up. Steve Kaufman, a polyglot who have learned ten languages revealed the secret to language learning as engaging in motivating and interest-triggering 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 ways to keep ourselves motivated is by tracking our own progress and uncovering what other aspect of the language and culture makes us tick. If it's movies, TV shows and music videos, then we can always use them as learning resources and pushing factors to find out more about Chinese.
Learning Tools
You need the right tools to get the right job done, and done well. The same can be said for Chinese language learning.
Equip yourself with dictionaries, audio tracks and books about Chinese language and culture. You will also need to get exercises and tests in Chinese for more practice, get a partner to learn together and buy a comprehensive Chinese learning textbook to make sure all necessary topics are covered. At the end of the day, make sure you know a little about the Chinese culture as well, or you will still find yourself in awkward situations!
About the Author:
If you find this article useful, read more about the beginner's guide we have about Chinese language learning on our blog. We discuss about grammar, pronunciation and characters learning for beginners. You can also take a look at the free report on Chinese language learning we offer.
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