The Reasons I wrote 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.
Since the time when I finished college, I have come to believe that to succeed in learn Chinese, one would need passion, as well as proper coaching and the right learning tools. I have my own unique philosophy and pedagogy about how to go about learning the Chinese language. I always get very annoyed when I read on the newspaper on how the schools in my country is going about teaching Chinese to young children, because they are doing it in the wrong way and missing some key aspects in imparting the language and learning skills.
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 Three Aspects of Language-Pronunciation, Semantics and Language Symbols
The many learners of Chinese most often would lament that Chinese language is far from easy to achieve proficiency. They normally concentrate in learning how to communicate in 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.
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.
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.
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 are bound to be words that can't be guessed from the basic meanings of each character that forms the word. However before you jump to a conclusion saying that most combinations can't be guessed, I need to tell you the ugly truth that many Chinese characters have multiple basic meanings. Some basic meanings can even be more than one. You might start to wonder just how large the amount of basic meanings you need to commit to memory.
How do you prevent yourself from instantly forgetting everything that you've learned? You simple have to practise. Make sure you have the chance to see the Chinese character, listen to its pronunciation, see it in use and use it yourself, and connect the usage with actual experiences. The more senses and experiences that can be hooked to a particular piece of information, the better we'll remember it. It's even better if you can associate with feelings that you felt regarding the particular situation when you used the word. An example is that you would never forget a word if there was ever an occasion when you used the word wrongly and resulted in a very embarrassing situation.
How to Maintain Perseverance
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 crucial to maintain our passion in learning and it also adds fun to learning. Steve Kaufman, who have till date mastered ten languages, would tell you that the only way to keep yourself interested in language learning, is to continue to find reading materials that are interesting to you.
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.
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.
Since the time when I finished college, I have come to believe that to succeed in learn Chinese, one would need passion, as well as proper coaching and the right learning tools. I have my own unique philosophy and pedagogy about how to go about learning the Chinese language. I always get very annoyed when I read on the newspaper on how the schools in my country is going about teaching Chinese to young children, because they are doing it in the wrong way and missing some key aspects in imparting the language and learning skills.
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 Three Aspects of Language-Pronunciation, Semantics and Language Symbols
The many learners of Chinese most often would lament that Chinese language is far from easy to achieve proficiency. They normally concentrate in learning how to communicate in 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.
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.
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.
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 are bound to be words that can't be guessed from the basic meanings of each character that forms the word. However before you jump to a conclusion saying that most combinations can't be guessed, I need to tell you the ugly truth that many Chinese characters have multiple basic meanings. Some basic meanings can even be more than one. You might start to wonder just how large the amount of basic meanings you need to commit to memory.
How do you prevent yourself from instantly forgetting everything that you've learned? You simple have to practise. Make sure you have the chance to see the Chinese character, listen to its pronunciation, see it in use and use it yourself, and connect the usage with actual experiences. The more senses and experiences that can be hooked to a particular piece of information, the better we'll remember it. It's even better if you can associate with feelings that you felt regarding the particular situation when you used the word. An example is that you would never forget a word if there was ever an occasion when you used the word wrongly and resulted in a very embarrassing situation.
How to Maintain Perseverance
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 crucial to maintain our passion in learning and it also adds fun to learning. Steve Kaufman, who have till date mastered ten languages, would tell you that the only way to keep yourself interested in language learning, is to continue to find reading materials that are interesting to you.
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.
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:
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