I would also like to add this: _don't get too hooked up on not being able to recognise every single character, without fail._ That'll take quite some time. You'll probably forget them again and again, but don't let that keep you from learning more characters. They’ll probably help you. This works because of something similar to what ABChinese said: the more you characters you learn, the easier it is to remember new ones. If you are already used to the components*, characters like『露』become a lot less intimidating. Learning new characters will help you remember the old ones you might have had difficulties with. Patterns will become more and more recognisable. Also, characters can have many meanings - not always related ones. Most of the time, it is easier to learn the meanings of single characters as parts of entire words first. In my opinion, there is no need to over-analyze them in the beginning. *(by "being used to the components" I do NOT mean having studied them in depth, but simply being used to the sight of them.)
So true. I overanalysed the meaning at the beginning. Right now, I just want to recall the meaning I encouraged in context. So for example, I remember 着 first as durative stative aspect marker, then I learn 着急 and learn it also means 'to feel', 'to be affected by'.
As a spanish native speaker I'm very eager to learn chinese mostly because of the beauty of its characters not caring at all if they are difficult or easy to learn.
Llevo 2 meses estudiando Chino en línea, 2 horas por semana y somos 3 estudiantes. Siento que estoy aprendiendo más en estos 2 meses de Chino que de los 6 años que llevo estudiando japonés por mi cuenta, ya puedo leer varios carácteres sin necesidad de tener el pinyin e incluso practicando caligrafía con una "tela mágica" y su pincel. El hecho de saber Inglés, Alemán y Español, creí que sería más fácil aprender Chino, conociendo que los tonos lo complicaría, y si, de cierta manera es complicado, pero más que los tonos es los sonidos de las consonantes, lo que toma más tiempo. Una vez solucionado eso o sobre la marcha se va corrigiendo. De verdad recomiendo mucho que inicies con las clases de Chino. :)
I’m conscientious in creating funny way of teaching Chinese. I hope it can help those who want to learn Chinese. Chinese characters still retain their pictographic origins. Knowing what the characters look like originally can help understand the meanings and remember them. I’ve spent about 100,000 hours studying English humor and Western culture, and many years studying Chinese culture and jokes. My native language is Chinese.
Interesting, but yeah pinyin is a crutch that should be discarded as quickly as possible once a certain level of proficiency is reached. I only started learning it because I had no other way of inputting chinese characters in the computer. I know some folks that have studied Chinese for 10 years and can only read a paragraph of Chinese only if the pinyin is above each character. For other languages such as Korean, there's virtually no point in learning the romanization of characters as it has its alphabet system. I do feel sorry for folks that give up on Chinese though, its certainly got one of the steepest learning curves.
"Because I had no other way of inputting chinese characters in the computer." Why Pinyin is not "a crutch". It's an integral part of the Chinese language. You NEED Pinyin to input characters.
Pinyin is not a crutch. It's an alternative way to write the language. If a person doesn't want to study the characters, they don't have to. Sure it means that they won't be read and write original texts but they can still speak and listen. And that's already an achievement on its own.
@@thisismycoolnickname Pinyin is not alternative. Pinyin is the way that the correct pronunciation is indicated in dictionaries approved as correct by the authorities of the People's Republic of China. These are loosely based on Beijing dialect. It is also what you're going to find as the input method for characters, which is the way people almost always write standard Chinese. There are a few occasional snags. For instance many input systems can't handle what the island with the big Macao casinos are called.
Chinese characters, though difficult, make reading easier. After learning Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese, you will find it frustrating to read Korean and Vietnamese due to tons of homophones, but Japanese text is easy to read because of the meaning the character Kanji display explicitly
totally agreed! ima a native Chinese speaker, I found leanrning Japanese is so much easier than Korean~ even thou their grammers are so similar, the Korean words is jus hard for me to remember😅
i feel like there should be a way of using an alphabet while still making written words visually distinct. english does this with irregular spelling which isn't ideal, pinyin's irregularities and silent sounds are already annoying. for starters, pinyin would use spaces, unlike chinese characters, so the difference between two syllables separated by a space is already differentiated from two syllables merged into a single word. i imagine that a solution could be adding diacritics to consonants that have no pronunciation quality to them, their function would simply be there to differentiate homophones from each other, the most commons words could omit the diacritics. similarly, silent letters could be added to the ends of words; the most common word would be spelled normally without silent letters, and the silent letters could be added alphabetically, or maybe esthetically. alphabetically, you'd have the [word] and attach the silent letters like a suffix: [word]a, [word]b, etcetera. if certain letters are too confusing, like vowels or especially nasal consonants, then those could be skipped. there'd still definitely be enough letters without additions since the letters could be stacked: [word]b, [word]c... [word]z, [word]bb, [word]bc, etcetera.
I’ve just started learning Chinese and I’m dyslexic. I’m glad to see videos like this as I’m putting so much pressure on myself to learn characters and behind my peers in class. The language is fascinating and enjoyable.
I’ve spent about 100,000 hours studying English humor and Western culture, and many years studying Chinese culture. My native language is Chinese. I teach Chinese in humorous way and with cute pictures. Hope somebody recommend my videos to those who want to learn Chinese.
I am taking the first method, I am learning how to pronounce and read the characters (which for me it has become like a combined exercise that I do simultaneously) and it’s now, when I already have a level (HSK 2~3), that I am starting to try to learn how to write the characters. I really struggle with writing characters, I can barely fully remember all strokes for; 我, 是 and my Chinese name. I don’t quite give too much importance to writing since I don’t see myself using it in any situation at all in my future. Just by being able to know the pronunciation and how to recognise the characters when reading I think it’s enough for me, because when I write in the computer or my phone, I use pinyin.
Ugh, ok let me be honest pinyin should only be used to learn pronunciation. Even duolingo in lesson 1 uses the characters. They go hand in hand. No as far as writing characters one can wait. Even children in china don't learn writing as soon as they enter school. Once you reach hsk 1 or 2. You will need to learn to write if you wish to further down the hsk route. Pinyin is a crutch. You will have to learn the characters. The learning method he describes works best for auditory learners. I am an extremely visual learner. So for me I can read at an hsk 2/3 level however my speaking ability is hsk 1/2. I have just recently started writing. If you are a tactile learner then by all means write as you learn. Don't rush. Take your time. Also just keep going. You can do it.
Hmm, good point! Depends on your learning style... The main point I'm making is that characters can come after speaking(with Pinyin) and writing should definitely be last.
Yes, but pinyn is also important for writing on different platforms like smartphones, computers, laptops and other media. Therefore, we cannot underestimate the importance of understanding and using pinyn characters, I guess.
@@franciscoandre2007 To be pedantic, there are other methods of inputting Chinese characters that do not require pinyin - e.g. shape based methods such as Wubi or Cangjie, voice recognition, or handwriting recognition. Pinyin input is probably the easiest for learners though!
零 is one of the hardest basics to learn 🤣 What you said is true. I gave up on learning characters I am not so familiar with. Instead, I get familiarized with the most commonly used characters. I can’t write yet, but at least I can recognize which character to use when typing on my phone👌🏻
I tried twice to learn (mandarin) Chinese. In Singapore in my teens, and in Canada in my thirties. I failed both times. The only explanation I have for both failures was that I focused too early on the writing, i.e. doing the complicated thing before doing the simpler one.
I agree 💯 with this! I have been learning Mandarin on my own and with a few friends from China and this is how I have been learning. I feel like learning 2 word a day and listening to Chinese podcasts at work and while I'm driving helps me alot. Then when I have time to practice the characters either online for from pen or brush then that helps too. I feel after almost 2 years I have some good basics but I feel I still have about 7 more years to go then I would feel confident visiting China. Best language to learn for us older people, it is good for brain memory and it is interesting.
I went to a Chinese school here in the Philippines and for me, it's easier to write it first because it helps me recall the pronunciation of the word and the meaning.
I've only started the past few weeks due to my new obsession of Chinese drama and so far, the only thing I'm struggling with are the characters. I have a poor memory so no doubt I'll never master this beautiful language when it comes to those but that doesn't deter me away from trying to learn at least. :P
@@ApollonianShy18 Empresses in the Palace(alt name Legend of Zhen Huan) and Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace are the best historical harem ones in my opinion, Ruyi's Royal Love even more so but it's sad. Not bad but sad.
You are so genuine and make me so much more relaxed to continue my chinese learning. Writing has been so difficult for me, but reading and pronunciation has come a bit easier with repetition and sentence structure practice. It's a relief to know that it's ok to not tackle writing from the get-go. I subscribed and look forward to learning more from you! 谢谢
I just found your channel yesterday and I'm so happy I did! So far, it's been such a huge help for all different aspects of learning! Thank you so much for dedicating your time to help people like me, who are really interested in learning Chinese but don't exactly know how to walk that path alone!
Speaking, reading 📖 and writing ✍️ are not as difficult 😣 as LISTENING/ hearing and understanding quickly! I can’t (yet) hear 👂 then comprehend 🤔 long sentences, without at least pausing after each phrase to break it down little by little. Thank you so much ☺️ for all the work you do for us! I love your patient attitude. I’m enjoying learning Chinese. It interlaces music, 🎶 🎶 art and story concepts in such an interesting and meaningful way! 我们开始吧! Wǒmen kāishǐ ba! Lit: We - start - how about? Trans: Let’s start! Here we go!
I feel like there's one pillar you're not pointing out which is the most important in my opinion, that is Listening. Having to listen a lot, makes it easier to speak and sometimes write, because you create the foundation for all those difficult phonemes Chinese has, so I feel like the main focus should be on listening, then reading and then either writing or speaking.
This guy is an absolute genius. I've only seen two videos but he's been explaining things like a polyglot would, except the concepts are coming from a beginner prospective, meaning he not only consciously recognizes the obstacles of language learning, but is also empathetic and a great teacher/speaker. This information is beyond useful and not just limited to Mandarin. You got yourself a new sub. Keep up the great content!
I actually learnt characters well before learning any Chinese, only learning the meaning. The first ones I learnt were 木 (tree) and 火 (fire), after which I picked up some more from anime (ones that are the same in both systems) and also random sources like one TEDx talk on teaching Chinese characters, earning me 日 (sun), 月 (moon), 人 (person),本 (source), 林 (woods), 森 (forest), 山 (mountain), 川 (river), and 水 (water), among others (including a few numbers). This actually made it super easy to learn and recognize characters when I started learning because I already had the idea of the script being separate from the get-go and Chinese became a simple language like any other for me. Actually still don't know how to say some of those in Chinese, made it kinda hard to write them 😂
I’m not sure how it’s in Chinese, but in Japanese 日 is more like “day” and 本 is “book “ maybe in Chinese has a different meaning. It’s a bit hard in the beginning but the more characters you learn it gets easier to recognise and learn new ones. Don’t give up.
@@Anderson_101 In Chinese, 日 can also mean "day", and I did learn to interpret "sun" in this dual way, like one day _is_ one sun. So I would read 毎日 as "every sun", character by character and still understand the whole thing as "everyday", just a bit more fantasy sounding 😁. It's similar in Chinese where the word 天 (sky/heavens) is used more for "day" over 日, but I can read 每天 as "every heaven" and still understand the sentiment of "everyday". For 本, I understand it as "source", but I do know the "book" definition in Japanese. These two characters I actually learned from the word 日本 (Japan) as "source of the (rising) sun" 🇯🇵 but I did find it fun to learn 本 could mean "book" as well because it makes a lot of sense 😁. In Chinese, the character 书 (書) is used for book, but 本 is the measure word (super easy to remember 😁), so “三本书” = "three books".
@@stephenwaldron2748 thanks for the reply, I'm studying Japanese and I find very interesting the similarities and differences between the two languages.
Started learning hanzi after 6-7 months of learning the language. When I finished the entire Duolingo course I just felt like "the time has come" :) So in a couple of months I've practiced writing over 300 characters, and everyday I feel more and more comfortable doing it. Here's what my learning experiece looked like: 1-3 Months: learning new words, understanding the grammar, using pinyin only 4-6 Months: started naturally noticing and learning the tones, getting deeper into grammar, pronunciation, vocabulary, pinyin predominantly 7-9 Months: started naturally noticing and learning the characters, connecting them to my basis, practicing writing and all the other stuff I've already learned Since I already have the experience of learning a foreign language, English in particular, I kinda did this intuitively, I mean skipping stuff that I don't feel comfortable with. My everyday routine now is like this - 15 minutes for phrases, 15 minutes for new characters, 15 minutes for the writing, plus some random online content. I dunno what to expect next, but my guess is I will start recognizing radicals naturally :)
Thank you! This was very informative and it's nice to know that taking it slowly while learning a language, or most things, is okay! (Which I had no doubts on that but hearing that is another thing!)
Some might prefer to write first because they enjoy it. I spend a lot of time writing characters because the tactile hand movement helps me remember faster. There is another factor: deciding between learning traditional and/or simplified. I studied simplified for years because I worked in mainland for 12 years. Now I am in Taiwan and about 25% of the simplified characters I know are not used here. Some of these characters are similar looking but most are completely different. I now have to learn a new character set. So I have to re-learn that 25%. So a good strategy for me is to learn both at the same time. Also, I started learning standard Mandarin (Putonghua) before coming to Mainland China. When I got to my city I was told that the natives did not speak putonghua but instead used a local dialect. This dialect was nothing like putongha and the locals did not understand anything I said. This appliced mainly to the older generation. The people under 40 ish could swith to putonghua because it was required in school. Another advantage of learning characters is that in China you will see them constantly and be reminded of the words you are learning, -just as ABC said; 'you start recognizing patterns'
I just subscribed yesterday.. And I just learned two words from Doulingo which are nihao and zaijian. (I can pronounce them also learned how to write them in chinese, and then I felt proud of myself. 😂) I felt encouraged to learn more Chinese because of what you've said on this video. Thanks I'll follow your tips.
你好 I hope you have a lot of fun learning Chinese! I highly recommend adding a Chinese keyboard on to your phone and/or computer and learn how to use it. Basically you type the pinyin or even just the first letter of it. So for nihao I just typed nh and the characters popped up. It is a great way to be able to continue to practice. I just open the note app on my phone and type sentences, or the vocab that I am working on that day. Also, another really cool app for learning Chinese is Lingodeer it is very similar to Duolingo in the way it teaches, but I think it does a better job explaining the language. Good luck I hope you continue to have lots of fun learning this really cool language. 再见
two things I noticed abt my still-ongoing learning path: I am a visual learner and do enjoy learning to read/write new characters, and interestingly, reading a pinyin convo while listening to it does stay in my memory for a long long time.
Listening is the most important form of practice, and should take up the bulk of any learner's study time. Personally I started with characters immediately, and listen with closed captions in characters alone, but I was coming from having some Japanese literacy, and I enjoy working with characters for their own sake: it is very enjoyable to practice my 楷書 and 行書 with brush pens and brushes, and I feel accomplished when I get the proportions just right. It's nice starting with characters when you're coming from Japanese, even if Japanese often uses chinese words that are old, and obscure in modern dialects. For example 他人[たにん] means something like "a stranger" or "strangers" in Japanese, whereas in Mandarin 他人[ㄊㄚ ㄖㄣˊ] basically means "others", whereas 他[ほか] on its own is usually means "another" or "other" in the adjective sense, it only rarely means this in Mandarin as 他[ㄊㄚ/ ㄊㄨㄛ] it only means this in formal contexts. 探索[たんさく] means something pretty similar to 探索[ㄊㄢˋ ㄙㄨㄛˇ], 設定[せってい] is basically identical to 設定[ㄕㄜˋ ㄉㄧㄥˋ] (在台灣國語). Also 入 is a very common character in Japanese, and also I end up using it in Chinese because I work on 輸入法[日]/入力方法[中], and such, so read the character a lot. P.S. Chinese is waaaaaaaaaaaay easier to learn than Japanese, and a lot easier to remember. Despite studying very little, and not studying for the last six months, I can easily remember how to type 「不會打字簡體字，所以正體字用啦」and have somebody understand, even if it is a bit funny sounding; but it took a lot longer to get there with Japanese.
Coming from a background of studying Japanese kanji first, I find it difficult to form tone associations with characters that I'm already used to in Japanese. Also, you mentioned characters like the "enter" word rù that is more obscure in Chinese. It's a really common character in Japanese kanji, so the difference in which characters are rarer and which ones are more common can be pretty dramatic sometimes. It has taken me years to get past some of this confusion, but I feel like I'm finally starting to overcome it a bit.
I actually did this subconsciously but I learned to say it then to write it then to read it because after learning to write it it was easier for me to recognize it.
Thanks for a very practical and encouraging video. I'm a beginner on Mandarin and finding progress slow but the language fascinates and intrigues me. I already speak 5 languages in addition to my native English but Mandarin presents challenges of a whole new order.
I used to work with a man who spoke seven languages fluently. People like you who can speak so many languages are truly blessed. And encouraging to the rest of us. Thank you.
Fun fact for second language learners: real life Chinese users use pinyin ALL. THE. TIME. Why? Because they use phones and keyboards to enter information. They key in the pinyin without the tones then select the appropriate simplified character/word. Frankly, it's a lot more important to learn to READ Chinese characters unless you are going to be attending school in China.
Thank you so much for introducing Zhuyin to me, when I thought it was so difficult and obscure before, now I have an understanding and a renewed motivation. I feel confident that I can actually learn it now, and in doing so Mandarin is also becoming easier!
Interesting..I actually find that writing the characters hugely helps me to memorise them, so it never occurred to me to decouple the reading and writing steps. But we all have different brains, I suppose :D
As a native German speaker, I have really been interested in Asian cultures and languages such as Japanese for example, right now I really have the drive to learn Mandarin Chinese, and it really is fun learning it. My goal for this is mostly learning how to read/recognize most of the characters I learned and I want to speak it fluently. I do not really wish to learn how to handwrite it, as I do not use handwriting much at all, anymore. Which is why I will stick to pinyin typing on my laptop, since I just need to type the roman letters, and then choose the right character that gets recommended to me for each sound or whole sentences. This video has given me a clear idea of what to learn first. Of course, pinyin to learn the pronunciation of sounds and words, though I am also slowly but surely learning the characters at the same time. Thank you so much for this video, really means a lot for us Mandarin Chinese learners!
@@dianamckinney8237 I basically get a chinese pinyin language for my keyboard on either pc or phone and if you type the syllables characters get recommended. Of course if you can read them you'd know which one you want.
@@dianamckinney8237 Remember that our alohabet are not english exclusive. The japanese don't call it "romaji" for no reason. Our letters literally come from a time where Romans still existed.
Thank you so much for standing up for those of us who have decided to take up learning Chinese. I just discovered your channel while looking for recommended writing utensils for Chinese Characters. 🤣 And I have subscribed! In any case, I am having the hardest time with pin yin. I'm currently not reading/relying on pin yin only because I can't follow it. The markings for the tones does help a great deal but take for example the 'c', 's', 'q', and 'x', at times, they all seem to be making the same sound and I don't even know where to begin with the vowels and the positioning of the tonal markings so most of my memorization of the characters have been auditory rather than visual. Any tips you can give on these basics would greatly be appreciated if reading pin yin will help with learning Chinese. Of course, I'm asking this before I even had the chance to go through your playlist so please excuse me if you already have one/them up. 谢谢你
About reading and writing characters -- but it's fun to see the similarity and difference between words through the ideographs with the phonetic component and meaning component of a character, it actually helps me remember how to say the character too.. which maybe is the opposite direction of guessing how to say a character that is remembering words because of their written form(s) :) However the tips in the video make sense of course, everyone may be different in learning forms. What I like to do is to always identify sub characters within characters so everything is built associatively on previous concepts. As well as going back until Seal Script from the Traditional forms, I did not easily forget the character for Red for example and the character for Writing is very ancient. Etymology is interesting.
Personally i write down stories with the vocab i want to learn i then practice reading it out loud - i use du chinese for the stories it has a level selector so you can find whats right for you! I write it down instead of using the app because when you first start writing you feel like a robot and it will help improve your writing and allow to to get accustomed to the characters hope this helped!
Another thing that will help with learning characters is reducing stress. I tried to start learning Chinese characters during a time when I was extremely stressed out from work and couldn't remember even simple characters for longer than a day or two. I knew that I could do it since I had studied Japanese kanji with ease a couple of years before I tried to learn Chinese. Now that I have reduced my stress levels, I find it extremely easy to pick up a few characters at a time and retain them long term.
Thank you for your sharing of your feedback! In due respect to you, people are not the same in how long they can learn different language In my case I prefer words and pronunciation, then the character of that word, then the meaning at the same As I am writing the word in character, I pronouncin it, writing it and the meaning of the word ten times daily I learn by "conditioning" my my tongue, my fingers in writing, and my mind in understanding the word *Perfection takes practice* Pronouncing and writing it can be very challenging, so conditioning my tongue and my hand helps me a lot! I speak Chinese with my friends ie: "Wo Ming bai" "I understand" "bu" no "Dui bu qi" I am sorry "zaijian" goodbye "hao" good or okay etc... I practice the common expression conditioning my mind and my tongue I love your patience in your video demontration very inspiring It helps me a lot😊 Thank you so much🤗 I am your follower😊
I am learning Japanese so I am facing the same challenge with 漢字 (kanji) and I really like your opinion on this. I have another way to approche the goal to learn chinese characters: Lern how to recognize and write it first with the Book Remembering Simplified Hanzi from James W. Heisig. In the 2nd stage if you learn vocabulary you can easily write the words and are able to remember it better. But dont get too hooked to remember every Hanzi to 100% AND this method dont work for everyone.
Hi, fellow Japanese learner here. My method was to learn Hiragana first, then memorize the characters from the Jojõ kanji from the Japanese government by writing them until I learn them in sets of 10. I write kanji in my notebook an hour a day, and I spend another hour studying grammar. Hope this adds up to learning strategies. Take care.
I totally agree with your explanation. I'm a self-learning person from the west. I'm already fluently in six languages and master the basics of the other three. These are the languages I use, I don’t want to collect languages I wouldn't use. I wanted to learn “just a little” 😁😂🤣 Chinese so I could understand the shorter text after reading it in English before. I knew nothing about Chinese except that it is also possible to write in Pinyin and not just with characters. So I was sure pinyin would be enough for me. 😁😂🤣 Homophones, polyphones and other "delicious" (measure word, compound word ...) made me crazy. So I started learning to read characters to understand better and avoid confusion. True, this opens up a whole new level in language comprehension. And where am I today after almost a year? Shyly, I already started writing the first characters. So this is a story of how to learn “just a little”. 😉
I prioritize speaking but I also learn characters at a more relaxed pace. It doesn’t slow me down with speaking at all. Everybody learns in their own way. For me, I use pinyin until I learn the character. And then the characters serve as a mnemonic for my vocabulary in a way that I could never accomplish with pinyin.
I am still a beginner and previously I tried mixing pronunciation, meaning, and writing all in one deck. The problem was that the writing cards added significant time to my studies and made it almost impossible to get through my daily deck. I finally separated writing into a totally different deck and it makes the whole process quicker. The only problem is I often don't give time to working on my writing deck. While memorizing how to write certain hanzi can take a lot of time, I think it is important to practice, especially in the beginning. Giving more time to memorizing hanzi helped my brain better pickup patterns in how Chinese characters work and also made characters less arbitrary to my brain.
Add: Don’t get hooked up on not regonise the characters in chinese like the Tones r hard probably the one going down going up ans down and flat is the easy tones ig of you can study the Meaning and hanzi first before the Tones like - or maybe / up maybe down \ or slanted
Yes! Thank you! Finally! I can tell you are an experienced language learner because I can't agree more on the principles of abstraction you've listed: common -> rare, foundation -> specific, easy -> hard (2:29)
I actually would like getting used to the characters at the same time as I learn new words... ofc I'll be trying to, at least I'll know that it indeed is and I could recognise it if my memory is that good and fast for next time I see that word, but it definitely wouldn't mess in my mind and I'll always remind myself to take it easy... no need to hurry or you can for sure to a mess
Difficult to recall character from stroke. It is easy to write part. Using drawing method ㄣ, or フ，L J to FORM 与与马写鸟与吗妈 勺 鸟乌鸦,呜. ㄣ denote bird leg, or horse, pen .counter check with handphone keyboard If forget use voice input For foreigners using draw method , using two L 7, to draw 口，then try to draw three 囗，唱喝吃哭叫吻 曰目白 由早 四回西 胃旧申...，then filled up to form 吕,串，石，check handphone software, using voice inputs?n. together
I recommend studying the characters from the start on, I did start with only pinying but you regret it after a while because it is not helpful, you really need characters and they are not as hard as it seems, the more you know the easier it becomes because you start to learn more and more building blocks.
I enjoy reading this relief in comments below :D Thank you! Your videos are very helpful and/or interesting. I like that when you speak Chinese, you speak with naturall speed (unlike many others), because tones do sound otherwise in natural speech... I only wish you talk Chinese more often :D but anyway, while you don't, I still can practice English listening, all win for me lol
Mi idioma es el español y aunque te entiendo en Inglés, no estoy segura de si podría aprender chino a través de un tercer idioma...pero es muy interesante cómo lo planteas . thank you so much!
Ime, for the most part, characters get easier the more you learn, but you still need to invest at least a dictionary search to confirm the pronunciation of a character. For example the character "偶" which is pronounced "ou3". Another character which is listed in the 常用字集 or 一级字表 is “隅". You might think that 偶 and 隅 both have a pronunciation of "ou3" but that's not the case. "隅" is actually pronounced "yu2". This gets even more muddling when you are exposed to more less used words, such as those found in the 二级 and 三级 字表 where for example, you get very easily get muddled up with the pronunciations of 烃经茎陉刭颈径泾 (ting1,jing1,jing1,xing2,jing3,jing3,jing4 and jing1 respectively) or even something like 沤怄欧呕讴鸥瓯殴区驱躯岖" where often you'll be forgetting and thinking "wait is that character an "ou" sound or a "qu" sound?". Overall, I'd say learning new characters through reading, listening and watching is better and you'll actually learn characters that are used frequently than just finding a list of characters and just going through them one at a time, which is not only inefficient, but i guarantee half of the words you learnt from just finding a random list aren't ever even going to be used except in maybe one or two super niche circumstances. Good luck to everyone learning!
Thanks for the video ! Do you think it is still important to learn how to write chinese characters ? With all the technology we have today, don't you think learning pinyin is enough ?
Great question! You should never only rely on Pinyin. The first reason is that you'll never learn a character well when you only have to recognize it as opposed to produce it from memory. Secondly, learning to write the characters will give you a better understanding of the language. You'll find that Chinese characters aren't just random strokes and there's a lot of patterns and meanings in them!
After barley passing HSK 3, I knew that if I had any chance of passing the next level I had to learn characters. I am catching up on my characters now after about 4 years of having great listening and speaking skills.
I am Chinese in Fujian, but until Primary School, I can't speak Chinese, can't write Chinese Characters. Because Chinese have a lot of dialect. It's so interesting...
A tip: The easy Things to learn is writing Hanzi and meaning Another tip: to understand the meaning of diffrent tones Another tips: the Reading Vacbulary in Chinese especially the tones r hard to learn so learn more characters i chinese first before the Tones
The way to learn to characters in my opinion is to see them as parts rather than wholes. That's it. Therefore, I don't write characters, I "spell" them. For example, I think of 鐵 as 金, 呈, and 十戈. No different from car as c-a-r. The Chinese similarly use mnemonic devices to learn various characters, but it's typically not done across the board. The way I got better aquatinted with the structure of the characters was by reading Chinese text in large font on my cell phone so that I could see all the parts clearly. Thus, every time I came across a tough character, I pause to memorize the components instead of just being content with recognizing the general shape. Also note that nearly every character has at least one variant, some even dozens. Sometimes it's easier for for me to remember a variant form, which still counts as knowing the character. An example is 法 which can also be written as 㳒 or even as 灋 if you're feeling lucky. There's also 為 and 爲 (I prefer 爲 and I only write traditional characters but the way). And this is just the tip of the iceberg. In Chinese calligraphy there are at least four other scripts all with different characters that you'll have to get acquainted with. Anyway, it was only after I discovered the parts vs whole thing did I really stop forgetting characters. Native speakers forget how to write even common characters all the time as people normally type with pinyin or bopomofo on their phones. I'm old school, so I insist on writing every character by hand. Thought about learning the Cangjie input system (which is based more or less on character structure) but doesn't seem to be worth the time investment for me. Anyway, good luck! 但願學字如意！
There is one point that you do not cover. Why you learn. The important part for me is that I would like to be able to read Chinese text used in everyday life. To be able to speak and write would be nice, but reading is really the focus for what I want to learn. Your guide to learning is still valid, and are basically how I have done it so fare. I find the videos I have seen so fare on your channel very helpful and easy to follow.
I am not sure your advice is right. Most polyglots advise to read, read , read and the language will follow. Surly to be able to read you need to learn characters first. Also most advise that writing characters is a waste of time, no one writes anything anymore.
I think Chinese has the biggest spread from ease of speaking to difficulty of writing of any language. Japanese is also a challenge to write, but it is also way harder than Chinese to learn to speak. My mother, for example, living in Taiwan, choose to learn to speak Chinese fairly competently, while pretty much entirely ignoring reading/writing. Sure, she picked up some simple things on signs, such as 中心 (centre), but she spent all of her explicit effort on speaking and understanding -- and it worked. She can get around in competent Chinese, no literacy required.
I'd argue strongly that the Aural aspect of learning Chinese is probably the most important for new learners. Learning the sounds and rhythms of the language make reading and speaking easier to accomplish. Writing should be the last thing you attempt, but even among native speakers how quickly people begin to write can vary. Linguistically speaking, the typical order is listen, speak, read, write. Expression precedes production.
@@toddjohnson271 Practice is the only thing that works.Think about it another way: babies listen to people around them talk for at least a year, more like three, before they can understand and reply to most of what they hear.
I agree. People learn to speak their native language before they learn to read. Makes sense to do that as an adult, especially so you don't feel overwhelmed.
I agree. People learn to speak their native language before they learn to read. Makes sense to do that as an adult, especially so you don't feel overwhelmed.
I would also like to add this: _don't get too hooked up on not being able to recognise every single character, without fail._ That'll take quite some time. You'll probably forget them again and again, but don't let that keep you from learning more characters. They’ll probably help you.
This works because of something similar to what ABChinese said: the more you characters you learn, the easier it is to remember new ones. If you are already used to the components*, characters like『露』become a lot less intimidating. Learning new characters will help you remember the old ones you might have had difficulties with. Patterns will become more and more recognisable.
Also, characters can have many meanings - not always related ones. Most of the time, it is easier to learn the meanings of single characters as parts of entire words first. In my opinion, there is no need to over-analyze them in the beginning.
*(by "being used to the components" I do NOT mean having studied them in depth, but simply being used to the sight of them.)
loved this tip!
Thanks so much for this tip
So true. Analyzing how characters are "built" really makes it easier to inderstand
So true. I overanalysed the meaning at the beginning. Right now, I just want to recall the meaning I encouraged in context. So for example, I remember 着 first as durative stative aspect marker, then I learn 着急 and learn it also means 'to feel', 'to be affected by'.
I prefer studying them as words too
As a spanish native speaker I'm very eager to learn chinese mostly because of the beauty of its characters not caring at all if they are difficult or easy to learn.
Llevo 2 meses estudiando Chino en línea, 2 horas por semana y somos 3 estudiantes. Siento que estoy aprendiendo más en estos 2 meses de Chino que de los 6 años que llevo estudiando japonés por mi cuenta, ya puedo leer varios carácteres sin necesidad de tener el pinyin e incluso practicando caligrafía con una "tela mágica" y su pincel.
El hecho de saber Inglés, Alemán y Español, creí que sería más fácil aprender Chino, conociendo que los tonos lo complicaría, y si, de cierta manera es complicado, pero más que los tonos es los sonidos de las consonantes, lo que toma más tiempo. Una vez solucionado eso o sobre la marcha se va corrigiendo.
De verdad recomiendo mucho que inicies con las clases de Chino. :)
@@JorgeGarza2988, en dónde estudias? D:
@@JorgeGarza2988 como aprendiste aleman
Mandarin Blueprint is the way to do it
Aprendiendo Mandarín aquí también. Empecé hace unos pocos días. Hablo inglés fluido. Mandarín será mi tercer idioma
thank you, this puts my mind into calm place, no stress and enjoying learning Chinese
Tuabin có bộ khuếch đại tín dụng
Where are you learning Chinese? I don’t know where to start.
I’m conscientious in creating funny way of teaching Chinese. I hope it can help those who want to learn Chinese.
Chinese characters still retain their pictographic origins. Knowing what the characters look like originally can help understand the meanings and remember them.
I’ve spent about 100,000 hours studying English humor and Western culture, and many years studying Chinese culture and jokes. My native language is Chinese.
0:17 once you are fluent and have a good understanding of the language you can start learning characters
Interesting, but yeah pinyin is a crutch that should be discarded as quickly as possible once a certain level of proficiency is reached. I only started learning it because I had no other way of inputting chinese characters in the computer. I know some folks that have studied Chinese for 10 years and can only read a paragraph of Chinese only if the pinyin is above each character.
For other languages such as Korean, there's virtually no point in learning the romanization of characters as it has its alphabet system.
I do feel sorry for folks that give up on Chinese though, its certainly got one of the steepest learning curves.
"Because I had no other way of inputting chinese characters in the computer."
Why Pinyin is not "a crutch". It's an integral part of the Chinese language. You NEED Pinyin to input characters.
Pinyin is not a crutch. It's an alternative way to write the language. If a person doesn't want to study the characters, they don't have to. Sure it means that they won't be read and write original texts but they can still speak and listen. And that's already an achievement on its own.
@@thisismycoolnickname Pinyin is not alternative. Pinyin is the way that the correct pronunciation is indicated in dictionaries approved as correct by the authorities of the People's Republic of China. These are loosely based on Beijing dialect.
It is also what you're going to find as the input method for characters, which is the way people almost always write standard Chinese.
There are a few occasional snags. For instance many input systems can't handle what the island with the big Macao casinos are called.
Chinese characters, though difficult, make reading easier. After learning Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese, you will find it frustrating to read Korean and Vietnamese due to tons of homophones, but Japanese text is easy to read because of the meaning the character Kanji display explicitly
totally agreed! ima a native Chinese speaker, I found leanrning Japanese is so much easier than Korean~ even thou their grammers are so similar, the Korean words is jus hard for me to remember😅
i feel like there should be a way of using an alphabet while still making written words visually distinct. english does this with irregular spelling which isn't ideal, pinyin's irregularities and silent sounds are already annoying. for starters, pinyin would use spaces, unlike chinese characters, so the difference between two syllables separated by a space is already differentiated from two syllables merged into a single word. i imagine that a solution could be adding diacritics to consonants that have no pronunciation quality to them, their function would simply be there to differentiate homophones from each other, the most commons words could omit the diacritics. similarly, silent letters could be added to the ends of words; the most common word would be spelled normally without silent letters, and the silent letters could be added alphabetically, or maybe esthetically. alphabetically, you'd have the [word] and attach the silent letters like a suffix: [word]a, [word]b, etcetera. if certain letters are too confusing, like vowels or especially nasal consonants, then those could be skipped. there'd still definitely be enough letters without additions since the letters could be stacked: [word]b, [word]c... [word]z, [word]bb, [word]bc, etcetera.
Yes, first 3 months I just listened to spotify 😁 now I'm learning characters
I’ve just started learning Chinese and I’m dyslexic. I’m glad to see videos like this as I’m putting so much pressure on myself to learn characters and behind my peers in class. The language is fascinating and enjoyable.
I’ve spent about 100,000 hours studying English humor and Western culture, and many years studying Chinese culture. My native language is Chinese. I teach Chinese in humorous way and with cute pictures.
Hope somebody recommend my videos to those who want to learn Chinese.
I am taking the first method, I am learning how to pronounce and read the characters (which for me it has become like a combined exercise that I do simultaneously) and it’s now, when I already have a level (HSK 2~3), that I am starting to try to learn how to write the characters. I really struggle with writing characters, I can barely fully remember all strokes for; 我, 是 and my Chinese name. I don’t quite give too much importance to writing since I don’t see myself using it in any situation at all in my future. Just by being able to know the pronunciation and how to recognise the characters when reading I think it’s enough for me, because when I write in the computer or my phone, I use pinyin.
When I think a character is difficult, I make sure to learn the radicals first. I like www.archchinese.com
Ugh, ok let me be honest pinyin should only be used to learn pronunciation. Even duolingo in lesson 1 uses the characters. They go hand in hand. No as far as writing characters one can wait. Even children in china don't learn writing as soon as they enter school. Once you reach hsk 1 or 2. You will need to learn to write if you wish to further down the hsk route. Pinyin is a crutch. You will have to learn the characters. The learning method he describes works best for auditory learners. I am an extremely visual learner. So for me I can read at an hsk 2/3 level however my speaking ability is hsk 1/2. I have just recently started writing. If you are a tactile learner then by all means write as you learn.
Don't rush. Take your time.
Also just keep going. You can do it.
Hmm, good point! Depends on your learning style... The main point I'm making is that characters can come after speaking(with Pinyin) and writing should definitely be last.
Yes, but pinyn is also important for writing on different platforms like smartphones, computers, laptops and other media. Therefore, we cannot underestimate the importance of understanding and using pinyn characters, I guess.
@@franciscoandre2007 To be pedantic, there are other methods of inputting Chinese characters that do not require pinyin - e.g. shape based methods such as Wubi or Cangjie, voice recognition, or handwriting recognition. Pinyin input is probably the easiest for learners though!
yes, one pinyin syllable can represent many characters so it is unstable for general use. Its role is for learning.
@@andrew-l9j Yes! in Taiwan they use BoPo
零 is one of the hardest basics to learn 🤣 What you said is true. I gave up on learning characters I am not so familiar with. Instead, I get familiarized with the most commonly used characters. I can’t write yet, but at least I can recognize which character to use when typing on my phone👌🏻
Thats such a easy character to write
You can write 〇 instead, which is also correct. In some cases like telephone numbers, writing 〇 is better than 零.
I tried twice to learn (mandarin) Chinese. In Singapore in my teens, and in Canada in my thirties. I failed both times. The only explanation I have for both failures was that I focused too early on the writing, i.e. doing the complicated thing before doing the simpler one.
I agree 💯 with this! I have been learning Mandarin on my own and with a few friends from China and this is how I have been learning. I feel like learning 2 word a day and listening to Chinese podcasts at work and while I'm driving helps me alot. Then when I have time to practice the characters either online for from pen or brush then that helps too. I feel after almost 2 years I have some good basics but I feel I still have about 7 more years to go then I would feel confident visiting China. Best language to learn for us older people, it is good for brain memory and it is interesting.
I went to a Chinese school here in the Philippines and for me, it's easier to write it first because it helps me recall the pronunciation of the word and the meaning.
I am with you Keen. Do you plan to take the HSK exam?
I've only started the past few weeks due to my new obsession of Chinese drama and so far, the only thing I'm struggling with are the characters. I have a poor memory so no doubt I'll never master this beautiful language when it comes to those but that doesn't deter me away from trying to learn at least. :P
it's not so hard how you think about it, I assure you) when you look at the Chinese text, you are horrified, but in fact it is not so scary
Take it easy, you aren't gonna go to China in 2 weeks for you to be scared.
Can you recommend some interesting Chinese series?
@@ApollonianShy18 general's lady, my little Happiness, Put your head on my shoulder, flaming heart
@@ApollonianShy18 Empresses in the Palace(alt name Legend of Zhen Huan) and Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace are the best historical harem ones in my opinion, Ruyi's Royal Love even more so but it's sad. Not bad but sad.
You are so genuine and make me so much more relaxed to continue my chinese learning. Writing has been so difficult for me, but reading and pronunciation has come a bit easier with repetition and sentence structure practice. It's a relief to know that it's ok to not tackle writing from the get-go. I subscribed and look forward to learning more from you! 谢谢
Heyyy, glad to have you here!
Young man... you are a good teacher!
This guy I need to follow! I'm currently learning Chinese I struggle a lot as I only started few months ago
Jayden Wong does airline reviews in English then the same review in Mandarin - worth checking out
I just found your channel yesterday and I'm so happy I did! So far, it's been such a huge help for all different aspects of learning! Thank you so much for dedicating your time to help people like me, who are really interested in learning Chinese but don't exactly know how to walk that path alone!
Wow I loved how u broke this down it made everything so much more organized and less stressful when u feel like you have hit a block in ur leanring
Speaking, reading 📖 and writing ✍️ are not as difficult 😣 as LISTENING/ hearing
and understanding quickly!
I can’t (yet) hear 👂
then comprehend 🤔
long sentences,
without at least
pausing after each phrase
to break it down little by little.
Thank you so much ☺️
for all the work you do for us!
I love your patient attitude.
I’m enjoying learning Chinese.
It interlaces music, 🎶 🎶
art and story concepts
in such an interesting
and meaningful way!
我们开始吧!
Wǒmen kāishǐ ba!
Lit: We - start - how about?
Trans: Let’s start! Here we go!
You’re an excellent teacher!
I feel like there's one pillar you're not pointing out which is the most important in my opinion, that is Listening.
Having to listen a lot, makes it easier to speak and sometimes write, because you create the foundation for all those difficult phonemes Chinese has, so I feel like the main focus should be on listening, then reading and then either writing or speaking.
Thank you for your videos ! I just discovered your channel and honestly you're helping a lot.
Welcome! Happy to hear that🥰
You really explain the methods very well. Thank you for sharing. 😊
I'm learning the characters as i go but i don't stress if i don't remember them I'll just write it down and add it to my revision list
This guy is an absolute genius. I've only seen two videos but he's been explaining things like a polyglot would, except the concepts are coming from a beginner prospective, meaning he not only consciously recognizes the obstacles of language learning, but is also empathetic and a great teacher/speaker. This information is beyond useful and not just limited to Mandarin. You got yourself a new sub. Keep up the great content!
This is easily one of the best(!) videos on how to learn Chinese characters I’ve ever seen! Amazing! Thank you! 👏👏👏
Best quote!! "Shame on you if you are discouraging anyone from a new language..."
I actually learnt characters well before learning any Chinese, only learning the meaning. The first ones I learnt were 木 (tree) and 火 (fire), after which I picked up some more from anime (ones that are the same in both systems) and also random sources like one TEDx talk on teaching Chinese characters, earning me 日 (sun), 月 (moon), 人 (person),本 (source), 林 (woods), 森 (forest), 山 (mountain), 川 (river), and 水 (water), among others (including a few numbers).
This actually made it super easy to learn and recognize characters when I started learning because I already had the idea of the script being separate from the get-go and Chinese became a simple language like any other for me. Actually still don't know how to say some of those in Chinese, made it kinda hard to write them 😂
I’m not sure how it’s in Chinese, but in Japanese 日 is more like “day” and 本 is “book “ maybe in Chinese has a different meaning. It’s a bit hard in the beginning but the more characters you learn it gets easier to recognise and learn new ones. Don’t give up.
@@Anderson_101 In Chinese, 日 can also mean "day", and I did learn to interpret "sun" in this dual way, like one day _is_ one sun. So I would read 毎日 as "every sun", character by character and still understand the whole thing as "everyday", just a bit more fantasy sounding 😁. It's similar in Chinese where the word 天 (sky/heavens) is used more for "day" over 日, but I can read 每天 as "every heaven" and still understand the sentiment of "everyday".
For 本, I understand it as "source", but I do know the "book" definition in Japanese. These two characters I actually learned from the word 日本 (Japan) as "source of the (rising) sun" 🇯🇵 but I did find it fun to learn 本 could mean "book" as well because it makes a lot of sense 😁. In Chinese, the character 书 (書) is used for book, but 本 is the measure word (super easy to remember 😁), so “三本书” = "three books".
@@stephenwaldron2748 thanks for the reply, I'm studying Japanese and I find very interesting the similarities and differences between the two languages.
@@Anderson_101 本 also means origin. 日本 in chinese and Japanese translates to Sun's origin.
Started learning hanzi after 6-7 months of learning the language. When I finished the entire Duolingo course I just felt like "the time has come" :)
So in a couple of months I've practiced writing over 300 characters, and everyday I feel more and more comfortable doing it.
Here's what my learning experiece looked like:
1-3 Months: learning new words, understanding the grammar, using pinyin only
4-6 Months: started naturally noticing and learning the tones, getting deeper into grammar, pronunciation, vocabulary, pinyin predominantly
7-9 Months: started naturally noticing and learning the characters, connecting them to my basis, practicing writing and all the other stuff I've already learned
Since I already have the experience of learning a foreign language, English in particular, I kinda did this intuitively, I mean skipping stuff that I don't feel comfortable with.
My everyday routine now is like this - 15 minutes for phrases, 15 minutes for new characters, 15 minutes for the writing, plus some random online content.
I dunno what to expect next, but my guess is I will start recognizing radicals naturally :)
Don't forget that native speakers focus on speaking for years before learning characters
Thank you so much @ABChinese keep it up! 💯
Thank you! This was very informative and it's nice to know that taking it slowly while learning a language, or most things, is okay! (Which I had no doubts on that but hearing that is another thing!)
Some might prefer to write first because they enjoy it. I spend a lot of time writing characters because the tactile hand movement helps me remember faster. There is another factor: deciding between learning traditional and/or simplified. I studied simplified for years because I worked in mainland for 12 years. Now I am in Taiwan and about 25% of the simplified characters I know are not used here. Some of these characters are similar looking but most are completely different. I now have to learn a new character set. So I have to re-learn that 25%. So a good strategy for me is to learn both at the same time. Also, I started learning standard Mandarin (Putonghua) before coming to Mainland China. When I got to my city I was told that the natives did not speak putonghua but instead used a local dialect. This dialect was nothing like putongha and the locals did not understand anything I said. This appliced mainly to the older generation. The people under 40 ish could swith to putonghua because it was required in school. Another advantage of learning characters is that in China you will see them constantly and be reminded of the words you are learning, -just as ABC said; 'you start recognizing patterns'
I just subscribed yesterday.. And I just learned two words from Doulingo which are nihao and zaijian. (I can pronounce them also learned how to write them in chinese, and then I felt proud of myself. 😂)
I felt encouraged to learn more Chinese because of what you've said on this video. Thanks I'll follow your tips.
你好 I hope you have a lot of fun learning Chinese! I highly recommend adding a Chinese keyboard on to your phone and/or computer and learn how to use it. Basically you type the pinyin or even just the first letter of it. So for nihao I just typed nh and the characters popped up. It is a great way to be able to continue to practice. I just open the note app on my phone and type sentences, or the vocab that I am working on that day.
Also, another really cool app for learning Chinese is Lingodeer it is very similar to Duolingo in the way it teaches, but I think it does a better job explaining the language.
Good luck I hope you continue to have lots of fun learning this really cool language. 再见
I love your positivity, even though I'm learning Japanese, you definitely motivated me to give Chinese a try !
two things I noticed abt my still-ongoing learning path: I am a visual learner and do enjoy learning to read/write new characters, and interestingly, reading a pinyin convo while listening to it does stay in my memory for a long long time.
Listening is the most important form of practice, and should take up the bulk of any learner's study time. Personally I started with characters immediately, and listen with closed captions in characters alone, but I was coming from having some Japanese literacy, and I enjoy working with characters for their own sake: it is very enjoyable to practice my 楷書 and 行書 with brush pens and brushes, and I feel accomplished when I get the proportions just right.
It's nice starting with characters when you're coming from Japanese, even if Japanese often uses chinese words that are old, and obscure in modern dialects. For example 他人[たにん] means something like "a stranger" or "strangers" in Japanese, whereas in Mandarin 他人[ㄊㄚ ㄖㄣˊ] basically means "others", whereas 他[ほか] on its own is usually means "another" or "other" in the adjective sense, it only rarely means this in Mandarin as 他[ㄊㄚ/ ㄊㄨㄛ] it only means this in formal contexts. 探索[たんさく] means something pretty similar to 探索[ㄊㄢˋ ㄙㄨㄛˇ], 設定[せってい] is basically identical to 設定[ㄕㄜˋ ㄉㄧㄥˋ] (在台灣國語).
Also 入 is a very common character in Japanese, and also I end up using it in Chinese because I work on 輸入法[日]/入力方法[中], and such, so read the character a lot.
P.S. Chinese is waaaaaaaaaaaay easier to learn than Japanese, and a lot easier to remember. Despite studying very little, and not studying for the last six months, I can easily remember how to type 「不會打字簡體字，所以正體字用啦」and have somebody understand, even if it is a bit funny sounding; but it took a lot longer to get there with Japanese.
Coming from a background of studying Japanese kanji first, I find it difficult to form tone associations with characters that I'm already used to in Japanese. Also, you mentioned characters like the "enter" word rù that is more obscure in Chinese. It's a really common character in Japanese kanji, so the difference in which characters are rarer and which ones are more common can be pretty dramatic sometimes. It has taken me years to get past some of this confusion, but I feel like I'm finally starting to overcome it a bit.
I actually did this subconsciously but I learned to say it then to write it then to read it because after learning to write it it was easier for me to recognize it.
What word banks should I start with ??
I'm really thanks to much for recommend us how to learn Chinese
Агар одам забоне омӯзад, ман хоҳам гуфт, ки бояд навиштанро аввалан омӯзад. Вале чунки забони Чинӣ аз дигар забонҳо хеле дигараст, ман ба он одам хоҳам гуфт, ки бояд видёятро бинад.
Душанбе ба хайр!
A clear logical explanation. Thanks.
Thanks for a very practical and encouraging video. I'm a beginner on Mandarin and finding progress slow but the language fascinates and intrigues me. I already speak 5 languages in addition to my native English but Mandarin presents challenges of a whole new order.
I used to work with a man who spoke seven languages fluently. People like you who can speak so many languages are truly blessed. And encouraging to the rest of us. Thank you.
I am enjoying learning Chinese. I approach learning the characters as a game. But it is a bloody difficult game. Great explanation.
Your explanation is on point and very clear. A very good job! Thank you for making this video.
Fun fact for second language learners: real life Chinese users use pinyin ALL. THE. TIME.
Why? Because they use phones and keyboards to enter information. They key in the pinyin without the tones then select the appropriate simplified character/word.
Frankly, it's a lot more important to learn to READ Chinese characters unless you are going to be attending school in China.
thank you so much, I was so frustrated about not be able to write today, and just found this video made my day much better.
Thank you so much for introducing Zhuyin to me, when I thought it was so difficult and obscure before, now I have an understanding and a renewed motivation. I feel confident that I can actually learn it now, and in doing so Mandarin is also becoming easier!
I'm going to use this method, thank you very much!
Interesting..I actually find that writing the characters hugely helps me to memorise them, so it never occurred to me to decouple the reading and writing steps. But we all have different brains, I suppose :D
As a native German speaker, I have really been interested in Asian cultures and languages such as Japanese for example, right now I really have the drive to learn Mandarin Chinese, and it really is fun learning it. My goal for this is mostly learning how to read/recognize most of the characters I learned and I want to speak it fluently. I do not really wish to learn how to handwrite it, as I do not use handwriting much at all, anymore. Which is why I will stick to pinyin typing on my laptop, since I just need to type the roman letters, and then choose the right character that gets recommended to me for each sound or whole sentences. This video has given me a clear idea of what to learn first. Of course, pinyin to learn the pronunciation of sounds and words, though I am also slowly but surely learning the characters at the same time. Thank you so much for this video, really means a lot for us Mandarin Chinese learners!
Curious. What program are you using to type an English letter and have Chinese characters pop up for selection?
@@dianamckinney8237 I basically get a chinese pinyin language for my keyboard on either pc or phone and if you type the syllables characters get recommended. Of course if you can read them you'd know which one you want.
@@dianamckinney8237 Remember that our alohabet are not english exclusive. The japanese don't call it "romaji" for no reason. Our letters literally come from a time where Romans still existed.
This speak read write phases has definitely given me a good idea to structure my self study/ Amazing Talker tutorial sessions. Thanks
Thank you so much for standing up for those of us who have decided to take up learning Chinese. I just discovered your channel while looking for recommended writing utensils for Chinese Characters. 🤣 And I have subscribed!
In any case, I am having the hardest time with pin yin. I'm currently not reading/relying on pin yin only because I can't follow it. The markings for the tones does help a great deal but take for example the 'c', 's', 'q', and 'x', at times, they all seem to be making the same sound and I don't even know where to begin with the vowels and the positioning of the tonal markings so most of my memorization of the characters have been auditory rather than visual. Any tips you can give on these basics would greatly be appreciated if reading pin yin will help with learning Chinese. Of course, I'm asking this before I even had the chance to go through your playlist so please excuse me if you already have one/them up.
谢谢你
About reading and writing characters -- but it's fun to see the similarity and difference between words through the ideographs with the phonetic component and meaning component of a character, it actually helps me remember how to say the character too.. which maybe is the opposite direction of guessing how to say a character that is remembering words because of their written form(s) :)
However the tips in the video make sense of course, everyone may be different in learning forms.
What I like to do is to always identify sub characters within characters so everything is built associatively on previous concepts. As well as going back until Seal Script from the Traditional forms, I did not easily forget the character for Red for example and the character for Writing is very ancient. Etymology is interesting.
Personally i write down stories with the vocab i want to learn i then practice reading it out loud - i use du chinese for the stories it has a level selector so you can find whats right for you! I write it down instead of using the app because when you first start writing you feel like a robot and it will help improve your writing and allow to to get accustomed to the characters hope this helped!
Another thing that will help with learning characters is reducing stress. I tried to start learning Chinese characters during a time when I was extremely stressed out from work and couldn't remember even simple characters for longer than a day or two. I knew that I could do it since I had studied Japanese kanji with ease a couple of years before I tried to learn Chinese. Now that I have reduced my stress levels, I find it extremely easy to pick up a few characters at a time and retain them long term.
Very useful information. This will ease my frustration of learning all at the same time. Something I have found impossible to do. Thanks
Awesome! Glad to hear it 🙃
Thank you for your sharing of your feedback! In due respect to you, people are not the same in how long they can learn different language
In my case I prefer words and pronunciation, then the character of that word, then the meaning at the same
As I am writing the word in character, I pronouncin it, writing it and the meaning of the word ten times daily
I learn by "conditioning" my my tongue, my fingers in writing, and my mind in understanding the word
*Perfection takes practice*
Pronouncing and writing it can be very challenging, so conditioning my tongue and my hand helps me a lot! I speak Chinese with my friends ie: "Wo Ming bai" "I understand" "bu" no "Dui bu qi" I am sorry "zaijian" goodbye "hao" good or okay etc...
I practice the common expression conditioning my mind and my tongue
I love your patience in your video demontration very inspiring It helps me a lot😊 Thank you so much🤗
I am your follower😊
I appreciate the logic in the steps you suggest that l follow. Thank you very much. God bless you. God bless China and the Chinese.
I am learning Japanese so I am facing the same challenge with 漢字 (kanji) and I really like your opinion on this.
I have another way to approche the goal to learn chinese characters: Lern how to recognize and write it first with the Book Remembering Simplified Hanzi from James W. Heisig. In the 2nd stage if you learn vocabulary you can easily write the words and are able to remember it better.
But dont get too hooked to remember every Hanzi to 100% AND this method dont work for everyone.
Hi, fellow Japanese learner here.
My method was to learn Hiragana first, then memorize the characters from the Jojõ kanji from the Japanese government by writing them until I learn them in sets of 10.
I write kanji in my notebook an hour a day, and I spend another hour studying grammar.
Hope this adds up to learning strategies. Take care.
I totally agree with your explanation. I'm a self-learning person from the west. I'm already fluently in six languages and master the basics of the other three. These are the languages I use, I don’t want to collect languages I wouldn't use.
I wanted to learn “just a little” 😁😂🤣 Chinese so I could understand the shorter text after reading it in English before.
I knew nothing about Chinese except that it is also possible to write in Pinyin and not just with characters. So I was sure pinyin would be enough for me. 😁😂🤣
Homophones, polyphones and other "delicious" (measure word, compound word ...) made me crazy. So I started learning to read characters to understand better and avoid confusion. True, this opens up a whole new level in language comprehension. And where am I today after almost a year? Shyly, I already started writing the first characters. So this is a story of how to learn “just a little”. 😉
I prioritize speaking but I also learn characters at a more relaxed pace. It doesn’t slow me down with speaking at all. Everybody learns in their own way. For me, I use pinyin until I learn the character. And then the characters serve as a mnemonic for my vocabulary in a way that I could never accomplish with pinyin.
I am still a beginner and previously I tried mixing pronunciation, meaning, and writing all in one deck. The problem was that the writing cards added significant time to my studies and made it almost impossible to get through my daily deck. I finally separated writing into a totally different deck and it makes the whole process quicker. The only problem is I often don't give time to working on my writing deck. While memorizing how to write certain hanzi can take a lot of time, I think it is important to practice, especially in the beginning. Giving more time to memorizing hanzi helped my brain better pickup patterns in how Chinese characters work and also made characters less arbitrary to my brain.
Add: Don’t get hooked up on not regonise the characters in chinese like the Tones r hard probably the one going down going up ans down and flat is the easy tones ig of you can study the Meaning and hanzi first before the Tones like - or maybe / up maybe down \ or slanted
This video is so helpful. Thank you!!
Yes! Thank you! Finally! I can tell you are an experienced language learner because I can't agree more on the principles of abstraction you've listed: common -> rare, foundation -> specific, easy -> hard (2:29)
Dude, but that's just common sense. haha
Love your videos. Thank you a lot.
I actually would like getting used to the characters at the same time as I learn new words... ofc I'll be trying to, at least I'll know that it indeed is and I could recognise it if my memory is that good and fast for next time I see that word, but it definitely wouldn't mess in my mind and I'll always remind myself to take it easy... no need to hurry or you can for sure to a mess
Difficult to recall character from stroke. It is easy to write part.
Using drawing method ㄣ, or フ，L J to FORM 与与马写鸟与吗妈 勺 鸟乌鸦,呜. ㄣ denote bird leg, or horse, pen .counter check with handphone keyboard
If forget use voice input
For foreigners using draw method , using two L 7, to draw 口，then try to draw three 囗，唱喝吃哭叫吻 曰目白 由早 四回西 胃旧申...，then filled up to form 吕,串，石，check handphone software, using voice inputs?n. together
You are a very good teacher.
Young man you are very intelligent
I recommend studying the characters from the start on, I did start with only pinying but you regret it after a while because it is not helpful, you really need characters and they are not as hard as it seems, the more you know the easier it becomes because you start to learn more and more building blocks.
Very useful advice. Thank you! I enjoy watching your video a lot 🥰
Very informative. Thank you!
I enjoy reading this relief in comments below :D Thank you! Your videos are very helpful and/or interesting. I like that when you speak Chinese, you speak with naturall speed (unlike many others), because tones do sound otherwise in natural speech... I only wish you talk Chinese more often :D but anyway, while you don't, I still can practice English listening, all win for me lol
Mi idioma es el español y aunque te entiendo en Inglés, no estoy segura de si podría aprender chino a través de un tercer idioma...pero es muy interesante cómo lo planteas . thank you so much!
Ime, for the most part, characters get easier the more you learn, but you still need to invest at least a dictionary search to confirm the pronunciation of a character. For example the character "偶" which is pronounced "ou3". Another character which is listed in the 常用字集 or 一级字表 is “隅". You might think that 偶 and 隅 both have a pronunciation of "ou3" but that's not the case. "隅" is actually pronounced "yu2". This gets even more muddling when you are exposed to more less used words, such as those found in the 二级 and 三级 字表 where for example, you get very easily get muddled up with the pronunciations of 烃经茎陉刭颈径泾 (ting1,jing1,jing1,xing2,jing3,jing3,jing4 and jing1 respectively) or even something like 沤怄欧呕讴鸥瓯殴区驱躯岖" where often you'll be forgetting and thinking "wait is that character an "ou" sound or a "qu" sound?". Overall, I'd say learning new characters through reading, listening and watching is better and you'll actually learn characters that are used frequently than just finding a list of characters and just going through them one at a time, which is not only inefficient, but i guarantee half of the words you learnt from just finding a random list aren't ever even going to be used except in maybe one or two super niche circumstances. Good luck to everyone learning!
1:16 You literally got my attention. Let hear till the end !
Thanks, you gave me such a good mindset to continue at studying !
Thanks for the video ! Do you think it is still important to learn how to write chinese characters ? With all the technology we have today, don't you think learning pinyin is enough ?
Great question! You should never only rely on Pinyin. The first reason is that you'll never learn a character well when you only have to recognize it as opposed to produce it from memory. Secondly, learning to write the characters will give you a better understanding of the language. You'll find that Chinese characters aren't just random strokes and there's a lot of patterns and meanings in them!
After barley passing HSK 3, I knew that if I had any chance of passing the next level I had to learn characters. I am catching up on my characters now after about 4 years of having great listening and speaking skills.
😂😂😂😂 你不会度汉子吗? Neither can I bro neither can I 😔
By the way I am in the same boat as you around hsk 3 level, what did you get on the test, and what recommendations do you give me for it?
谢谢你，我是华文老师，您的tips很有用。😁
I am Chinese in Fujian, but until Primary School, I can't speak Chinese, can't write Chinese Characters. Because Chinese have a lot of dialect. It's so interesting...
Please create more handwriting character videos. :)
A tip: The easy Things to learn is writing Hanzi and meaning
Another tip: to understand the meaning of diffrent tones
Another tips: the Reading Vacbulary in Chinese especially the tones r hard to learn so learn more characters i chinese first before the Tones
The way to learn to characters in my opinion is to see them as parts rather than wholes. That's it.
Therefore, I don't write characters, I "spell" them. For example, I think of 鐵 as 金, 呈, and 十戈. No different from car as c-a-r. The Chinese similarly use mnemonic devices to learn various characters, but it's typically not done across the board.
The way I got better aquatinted with the structure of the characters was by reading Chinese text in large font on my cell phone so that I could see all the parts clearly. Thus, every time I came across a tough character, I pause to memorize the components instead of just being content with recognizing the general shape.
Also note that nearly every character has at least one variant, some even dozens. Sometimes it's easier for for me to remember a variant form, which still counts as knowing the character. An example is 法 which can also be written as 㳒 or even as 灋 if you're feeling lucky. There's also 為 and 爲 (I prefer 爲 and I only write traditional characters but the way). And this is just the tip of the iceberg. In Chinese calligraphy there are at least four other scripts all with different characters that you'll have to get acquainted with.
Anyway, it was only after I discovered the parts vs whole thing did I really stop forgetting characters. Native speakers forget how to write even common characters all the time as people normally type with pinyin or bopomofo on their phones. I'm old school, so I insist on writing every character by hand. Thought about learning the Cangjie input system (which is based more or less on character structure) but doesn't seem to be worth the time investment for me. Anyway, good luck! 但願學字如意！
Thank you
Wow your videos are amazing I just loved them but I have a problem with recognizing the characters
The intro “ shame on you it’s ridiculous” thanks for standing up for us 😎
There is one point that you do not cover. Why you learn.
The important part for me is that I would like to be able to read Chinese text used in everyday life. To be able to speak and write would be nice, but reading is really the focus for what I want to learn. Your guide to learning is still valid, and are basically how I have done it so fare. I find the videos I have seen so fare on your channel very helpful and easy to follow.
I am not sure your advice is right. Most polyglots advise to read, read , read and the language will follow. Surly to be able to read you need to learn characters first. Also most advise that writing characters is a waste of time, no one writes anything anymore.
Now I realize how hard that foreigners learning Chinese. Wish anyone who is learning Chinese the best!!
I think Chinese has the biggest spread from ease of speaking to difficulty of writing of any language. Japanese is also a challenge to write, but it is also way harder than Chinese to learn to speak. My mother, for example, living in Taiwan, choose to learn to speak Chinese fairly competently, while pretty much entirely ignoring reading/writing. Sure, she picked up some simple things on signs, such as 中心 (centre), but she spent all of her explicit effort on speaking and understanding -- and it worked. She can get around in competent Chinese, no literacy required.
I'd argue strongly that the Aural aspect of learning Chinese is probably the most important for new learners. Learning the sounds and rhythms of the language make reading and speaking easier to accomplish. Writing should be the last thing you attempt, but even among native speakers how quickly people begin to write can vary. Linguistically speaking, the typical order is listen, speak, read, write. Expression precedes production.
I have trouble listening.......so fast and tough to make out the vocabulary.
@@toddjohnson271 Practice is the only thing that works.Think about it another way: babies listen to people around them talk for at least a year, more like three, before they can understand and reply to most of what they hear.
@@cmaven4762 yup.....
I agree. People learn to speak their native language before they learn to read. Makes sense to do that as an adult, especially so you don't feel overwhelmed.
I agree. People learn to speak their native language before they learn to read. Makes sense to do that as an adult, especially so you don't feel overwhelmed.
I'm so happy my goal is only to understand chinese, so I can watch my favourite shows even if IQiyi screws up the english subtitles xD
Same 😂
Thanks sir. It was really useful. May Allah bless you