Recent articles about how to learn Mandarin Page 46
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The Cthulhu bubble and studying Chinese
What does learning Chinese have to do with the Cthulhu Mythos? Quite a lot, actually. This article is about your bubble of safety and what happens when monsters (weird, difficult cases) appear and what you should do to avoid insanity. In short, don’t poke the monster in the eye; when encountering strange cases, either ignore them or memorise them, don’t waste time understanding everything you hear or see.
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Improving your Chinese by translating from another language
I think translation is one of the best ways of improving writing ability. Translation forces you into linguistic environments you wouldn’t have ended up in if you wrote the article yourself. This article is about how translation can be used to improve your written Chinese.
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Hacking Chinese 2012/2013: What was and what will be
2012 was a very good year for Hacking Chinese. The website has expanded enormously and so has the number of readers. This article details some of the most important developments, some of the best articles and also some random facts. Lastly, it discusses the future. What will happen in 2013?
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Don’t use mnemonics for every Chinese character you learn
Mnemonics are clever memory techniques you can use to learn and remember more, but this doesn’t mean that you should always use them. If you do, you will end up spending more time on mnemonics than you do engaging with the Chinese language.
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How to create mnemonics for general or abstract character components
Anyone who has tried mnemonics for learning Chinese characters knows that some components are easier to link together than others. This article discusses in detail how to deal with abstract or general character components and how to handle components with the same or overlapping meaning, an essential skill if you’re serious about character learning.
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Sensible character learning: Progress, reminders and reflections
The sensible character challenge has now been running for two weeks and it’s time to see how things have been going so far. This post is a progress report that contains some reflections on the challenge itself, as well as some practical advice on how to solve common problems. It also invites participants to share their experience and progress so far.
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Remembering is a skill you can learn
Contrary to what many people believe, a good memory can be trained. Memory champions are just ordinary people who have practised a lot. There are many clever techniques and tricks you can use to remember things (such as Chinese characters or words) very efficiently. This article is meant to be an introduction for those of you who are new to the fascinating world of memory training.
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Towards a more sensible way of learning to write Chinese
This character learning challenge strives to teach students to learn Chinese characters in a way that makes sense in the long term. While the challenge is over, the principles are still applicable!
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You can’t learn Chinese characters by rote
My conclusion after years of learning characters is that rote learning is useless. Spaced repetition software is good, but it’s still not enough. If adult foreigners are going to learn to write Chinese by hand, we really need another method. We need mnemonics, we need active processing, we need to quit rote learning and stop using SRS mechanically.
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Measuring your language learning is a double-edged sword
Spaced repetition software offers a great way of measuring progress, every step forward is recorded and clearly visible. However, this is also a trap, because even though SRS is useful, it’s just a tool, not a comprehensive strategy. Measurable progress is a great help, but only if you use it correctly.
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