How To memorize Chinese words
ravitorino
June 29, 2008, 12:15 AM posted in General DiscussionI was wondering if anyone has a tip on how to memorize the words written in Hanzy. I find it very difficult and any tip would be wonderful.
Thanks
klgardensong
July 06, 2008, 04:47 PMHere's the link to a great, easy idea for 4-sided flash cards.
http://chinesepod.com/community/conversations/post/2179
zhanglihua
June 29, 2008, 10:07 AMI think after half a year you should start learning how to write Hanzi. If you wait longer, you will have learned how to recognize too many of them.
If you are serious about CHinese, you might consider learning it the "native way": First write, then read. You will have to write the characters multiple times in oder to retain them. Write writing, say aloud the names of the radicals you're completing, and once you have finished, pronounce the character.
Otherwise, I recommend you don't even care about recognizing them. But don't resort to relying on Pinyin either, that will hamper your progress later on. Just try to read the sentences , e.g. on CPod, and use the mouse over. You will see, after a few weeks you will have learned at least 50-100 characters.
You can also use computer programs or flashcards and create a little mnemonic or story for each character. In order to do this efficiently, you have to learn to radicals. This is easy because there are not that many of them and they often resemble the thing or concept they represent. Learning them will also make using a dictionary easier.
To sum things up, don't worry too much. I know the sheer number of characters can seem staggering, but soon you will come to realize that only a few are common and useful for a learners purpose.
If you have any questions, write me a message.
pinkjeans
June 29, 2008, 11:14 AMHi, ravitorino! I'm hardly in a position to advise given that my knowledge probably doesn't even reach one third of the 3000 or so commonly used characters, but thought you might appreciate some encouragement from someone not as proficient as, say, auntie68. Everyone learns at a different pace but the important thing is not to beat yourself up too much over needing to know a certain character, after all, there's always the dictionary, or some onlne resource. My two cents worth - first, learn the type of strokes and stroke order convention. Then frequent exposure to characters will help imbed it in your head (you could trying staring at a page, reading children's books, or looking at notes pasted around the house...you will be able to recognise frequently used characters, starting with fewer stroke ones, then progressing to more complicated ones. You will soon be able to find ways of making sense of a character, from their different components. You may be able to recognise a character, but not remember how to write it, but then again sometimes you may. If you write a character many many times, or use it frequently in written work, it will be stuck in your head. You may forget it even after this process, but if you revisit that character, you will remember it again, and soon you won't forget it.
mayor_bombolini
June 29, 2008, 11:52 AMravitorino,
Seems like you are getting a lot of different advice.
zhanglihua says 
If you are serious about CHinese, you might consider learning it the "native way": First write, then read.
I do not necessarily disagree with this approach. Please consider that Chinese natives are immersed in the language (listen day-to-day, watch tv, have picture books, see characters everywhere) for around 3 years and have been practicing speaking for 2 years before they start writting.
By the time they are 3 years old native learners have a context for associating the characters.
I think the overall message is relax.
RJ
June 29, 2008, 12:40 PMWell, I find writing them is the best way to learn, even if you only want to learn well enough to recognize. Something about writing them simplifies them in your mind. Once I can at least recognize them, I can type, because I can always find the guy I want, provided I know the pinyin. But if you can write them from memory, you can read them without hesitation. Take it as it comes. The path will open before you. Like Bill says, relax.
Magnus_Bodin
June 29, 2008, 03:09 PMI find it useful to use several different methods for hanzi memorization. To nail down the associations from "explanation/meaning" -> character, I use index cards that I carry around in my pocket. An english word on one side, and hanzi+pinyin on the other. With this I only train to come up with the right character and write myself.
For making a fast association from hanzi -> meaning/pinyin I use a free java computer program called jMemorize. It runs fine on both mac, windows and free operating systems like linux. The "lessons" are stored in a simple xml-format that can be shared across platforms and between users.
This has helped me a lot for my reading.
You can find it here: http://www.jmemorize.org/
kait
June 29, 2008, 04:21 PMI'm pretty much a newbie at learning characters, but my method to date has been to try to learn one new character a day (using the guide to strokes in the demo version of the wen lin software for drawing it the first couple times)... then, with the newbie and elementary podcasts, i'll go through and make myself a "transcript" of the dialogue, filling in all the characters i know and leaving blanks for the ones i don't. i doubt this method will be as effective once i start getting to less high-frequency characters, but for now it seems to be working fairly well, and it's fun to see the progress as i get fewer and fewer blanks in new lessons!
i want to learn more about the radicals and roots. does anyone know a good online resource for getting started with those?
mayor_bombolini
June 29, 2008, 04:42 PMhi kait,
On the demo version you are using go to "List". Choose Option "A. Radicals by stroke count".
There are free dictionaries on the web as well that have this info.
I find zhongwen.com is interesting for seeing how the roots interelate.
tvan
June 29, 2008, 05:19 PMravitorino, as you can see, everyone has their own methods. Personally, I didn't begin seriously learning characters until around 20 years after beginning to learn to speak. (Looking back, in an ideal world, I should have started about 21 years earlier.) Anyway, my method was to select 10 characters a week and write each character 10 times per day M-F. Saturday and Sunday were for goofing off or review. You learn more this way but, of course, it's more work. Depends upon your goals.
kait, to add to what billm said above, because zhongwen.com focuses on etymology, it includes lots of traditional character data. I appreciate it, but others on the site find it confusing.
auntie68
June 29, 2008, 01:33 AMHi ravitorino, I love the picture in your avatar! I definitely agree with billm that there's no need to worry about Chinese characters when you're just starting to learn Chinese.
Having said that....
... I think that maybe too much is made about how difficult it is to learn Chinese characters. Learning how to write them is difficult, but mere "character recognition" is not so difficult.
It really depends on the individual, so above all just listen to your own instincts. If something is working for you, then stick to it no matter what people advise you. But at the same time, don't be afraid to try new things (just in case they might work for you).
And don't forget that your abilities can -- and do -- change with time and study. Something which didn't work 3 months into studying Chinese may feel "just right" for you only three months later, at the 6-month mark.
If you are an average person, the amount of time you might have to spend on learning to recognize some Chinese characters may be -- like nothing! -- against the benefits to you in terms of retaining what you are studying, or in terms of comprehension.
Some very active CPOD users, such as light487 (now "lost" to us because he is in a better place, ie the Guided Plan, with a real teacher of his own!) seemed to gain a lot from learning to recognize Chinese characters when he was still a Newbie (a super-Newbie, it must be said). Others don't gain enough to make it worth their while.
This long-winded Auntie's advice is: Don't worry about writing characters. Just experiment with learning how to recognize them. The more the better, as then you have a good chance of developing a natural and instinctive "feel" for the basic elements. And if you find that learning to recognize characters works for you, just go for it!
Magnus_Bodin
June 29, 2008, 07:24 PMWenlin + chinesepod is a superb combination.
For simple lists of common compounds (words) per character, I can also recommend this site:
http://hmarty.free.fr/hanzi/
jiarenlun
June 30, 2008, 12:06 AMI enjoy writing hanzi as a way to remember them. A good way to start is to learn stroke order, as billm initially suggested - the basics of stroke order can be learned from a teacher or knowledgable friend in a short time. Once learned, even though characters seem complex, you realize that there are only a limited number of radicals/roots, and they all have some type of meaning that can be remembered - then you have the tools for writing all hanzi (that's an oversimplification, but generally true I think).
This is a good website for stroke order, which you can also access (very effectively) through www.zhongwen.com:
http://lost-theory.org/ocrat/chargif/
I find writing characters relaxing. Once, I was writing hanzi on an airplane flight to relax, and a stewardess started a conversation with me about it. I thought that maybe I discovered "the hanzi ploy"...
But if you want to learn to write as a way to help you learn characters, I recommend a teacher or knowledgeable friend to help start you with stroke order, direction, the way they hook, and other cool fun stuff, and then you'll be enjoying writing them soon.
mayor_bombolini
June 30, 2008, 12:49 AMbluejay is spot on (as a 美国人 can I use UKism?)...I used to use Ocrat for stroke order before it disappeared (it was sheer genious), then some web genious resurected it.
xiaoanolga
July 05, 2008, 09:10 AMMay I add one of my teachers comments on the topic of learning chinese....
" le jour où vous n'écrivez plus, tout fout le camp!"
(if you don't write, everything will, well, disappears)
I wish, how I wish, that I had taken his advice!
Xiaoan
auntie68
July 05, 2008, 10:16 AMYikes! Of all the (frankly) bad advice I've given on CPOD, my advice to ravitorino, the OP, must surely be the worst I've ever given. So sorry!
wolson
July 06, 2008, 04:06 PMThere are a couple of tools on line that I have found indispensible in aiding learning:
which is a computer flash card system. You do need to download the dictionaries. I have found this much better than card board flash card sets that I have purchased. You can create you own stored word lists and you can also use this as a form of a dictionary if you know the pinyin.
Another tool that I have found essential is at
http://www.kiang.org/jordan/software/hanzilookup/hanzidict.html
In this product which you use in your web browser, you write the character with your mouse. You need to use correct stroke order so I have found it very useful in practicing as well as a method for looking up characters that I do not know.
klgardensong
July 06, 2008, 04:42 PMravitorino,
Thanks so much for starting this thread - we're getting some great resources here.
I think it's really important to start learning characters as you learn to speak, and my method has always been writing, writing, writing. It also helps to learn associated words, and the method used Tuttle book bazza mentioned is helpful because it builds systematically on characters already introduced.
I learned the hard way what xiaoanolga's teacher preached. I was pretty solid on about 3,500 characters, and then didn't use them for 17 years, so now I'm working one by one to get them back!
Has anyone out there tried used Heisig's approach (even though I understand it's designed for Japanese). How about Rick Harbaugh's “Chinese Characters: A Genealogy and Dictionary?
Also, there's a great video posted elsewhere on this site for making your own 3-D flashcards. I'll look for it and post here soon.
K.
kait
June 29, 2008, 06:15 PMwow, thanks billm, i totally hadn't explored what all was available on the program. and i will check out zhongwen.com.
mayor_bombolini
June 29, 2008, 01:01 AMravitorino,
My recommendation is not to worry about characters until you get to the Elementary level. It was recommended to me to learn to speak first. After you can speak a little bit using pinyin the characters will become logical.
While studying at the Newbie level you will start to recognize some very high frequency characters and pictographic characters, for example, numbers, and others such 人，口，大，小，水，火，月，日。
Characters can be broken down and analyzed into their sub characters.
You will want to learn the high frequency radicals, as these will help you remember the meaning. You will want to learn the high frequency root characters, as these will help you with pronunciation.
Writting some of the characters out helps. You will want to use the correct stroke order. There are free resources on the web for learning to write characters.