.pinyin is NOT designed for foreigners. in fact, we also learn pinyin when we were kids before we actually learned the characters. so there is nothing wrong with starting with pinyin, as long as you are not solely relying on just pinyin, it will be fine.
Agreed, I found that writing the characters helps imbed them in your mind a lot faster than just recognizing them by sight especially when you use the proper stroke order.
I agree... learning characters really helps you to find the visual connections between words / themes. I might not understand what someone says, but if I recognise the radicals and some basic characters, I'll be more likely to identify patterns & get some idea of what is being communicated.
Thanks for your comment Dusty. For me Chinese is all about the characters. And like you say, it's basically the opposite of European languages - where you can know the pronunciation but not have a clue about the meaning. With Chinese you can often understand the gist from the pictogram and also hazard a guess at the pronunciation, thanks to the phonetic part of the character. That's one of the reasons I find Chinese such a cool language 😉
hI FRED Hope you are well. I've just been rewatching videos, I've forgotten how good they are! Hopihg for more updated videos on learnnig material soon.
I just found your channel and subbed because of this video! The first book you mentioned is EXACTLY what I have been looking for. Learning the characters is a big part of what draws me to learn Chinese, so I totally agree with you! Look forward to watching more of your videos. Love the other book suggestions too!!!!
When you first learn characters the process is pretty quick but the more you learn the slower the learning becomes becuase you have to go back and constantly review. The more you learn the more you have to review.
I get what you mean, but you can keep learning 30 characters a day all the way through your Chinese learning career. That part doesn't take any longer. If anything it gets quicker because you learn so many radicals and subcomponents of characters as you go along that you can recycle. What you DO have to do though is set aside more time for "maintenance" - going over old or little-used characters and brushing up on them. I used to imagine it like painting a very long bridge: by the time you get to one end, the other end needs rust-proofing and repairs!
Thank you for the tips. You are so passionate and sincere in sharing how you learned Chinese to such a high level. I really appreciate that. And you are so positive!! Really inspires us!! I didnt know you could use mnemonics for memorizing chinese vocab. I didnt quite get the names of the bilingual books series. If possible, could you please add a link to one of those? Welcome back. Hope to see more videos. Btw, couldnt open your blog. It took me to a domain name webpage. JFYI. Respect and thanks.
Very good, informative video. Many years ago I actually started to learn pronunciation and speaking first, and after I had a good foundation I started to learn characters. I think if I had started to learn characters from the beginning, it might have been overwhelming and too much of a burden. But that's just me. I think only if you are extremely motivated to learn Chinese, you can start with characters right away
Yes, I took an HSK4 exam about a year ago, and it's all in Chinese characters, with no pinyin whatsoever. Also, I took the handwritten test instead of on computer (HSK: 汉语水平考试)
Hack 1: Learn the characters. Yes, if you're planning to go that deep and maybe live in China/Taiwan. But if you're not, you are going to slow down your learning considerably. Even if you learn 10 characters a day x 300 days a year, it would take you 2-3 years to be modestly literate. And that's in addition to trying to learn to speak and understand. 3-4 hours of learning a day x 300 days for three years, to be literate and conversant..
SEFR7337 it depends what your learning goals are. When I say "learn Chinese" I mean learn the language comprehensively, not "learn conversational Chinese as quickly as possible". So you are right, in that if you just want to be able to speak, characters may slow you down. But that's not what I'm talking about. That's only learning one aspect of the language
P.S. Your calculations are way off. You do not need 9000 characters to be "literate and conversant". 3000 characters will give you a good grounding for reading and speaking. Provided your focusing in the right areas, i.e. most commonly used/ useful characters
The Phoenicians realized that trading partners could more readily pick up their language through sound symbols than through a pictographic system. Symbol to sound is a much easier way to get things rolling. That aside, Kaufman is keen on intensive listening first because that’s what babies do and that’s how he’s acquired his languages. How many Chinese babies, I wonder, learn Chinese by way of number memory technique. I am HSK5 or 6 now. I have PTSD from Skritter and Pleco. Flash cards are not fun but listening to the audiobook of Harry Potter is.
Horses for courses. I have a friend who taught himself excellent Chinese and Korean, by reading the Harry Potter from Day 1! Different minds have different ways of learning. Find what works for you and go with that
@@ChineseIsEasy Different people prefer different kinds of comprehensible input, but more CI is better, and less is worse. There's no "different" there.
1. Learn 2. Practice 3. Learn more 4. Practice more 5. Learn and practice at the same time There were some good guidance in this vid but these can't be called HACKS. The only real Hack is to get a Chinese girlfriend😊...unlike romance languagues there is no logical system to crack in Mandarin. We westerners like to understand the logic first, we like shortcuts, Chineses just learn! So we might just need to do the same to learn their language.
What are all the books you've suggested finding in China? I've got friends going that can bring some back for me but I didn't catch all the ones you mentioned except the one that's also on Amazon.com
I recommended the Mrs Zhang Teaches Chinese Characters series and the bilingual versions of the Oxford Short Introductions (if your Chinese is more advanced)
Forgive me for posting again. But how can I learn characters as I learn speaking and understanding? Let's say I'm learning 15 words for vegetables today. I can learn potato, cucumber, carrot, etc. in about 20 min. But if I have to learn the characters, that's going to add maybe 3 of 4x to my lesson. . I can learn fānqié fairly quickly. But how am I going to learn the 20 strokes in tomato? Unless I'm determined to live in China or Taiwan, or do business in Mandarin, am I really going to spend an hour or two learning the characters as well as to pronounce and remember the words for vegetables? And then review them again and again for weeks before I master them?
You don't need to apologise, I'm grateful for your input. The problem here is we're talking about two different things: I'm talking about learning Chinese comprehensively (including all aspects, such as reading, writing, listening and speaking), whereas, you're talking about trying to learn spoken Chinese as quickly as possible.
i am learning all by my own and i am really progressing in pinyin fortunately alittle help i am having is from my chinese friend online but she doesnot speak english so its quite a very less help i'd say. so my point is if learning character seems like a totally nightmare to me especially while learning all by myself. what do i do?
it seems fundamentally wrong to learn writing before speaking. I therefore assume you are saying that we should learn both characters and speaking and not leave the hanzi for later. It seems obvious that one cannot understand the written symbols before one understands the sentence structure. Writing is always secondary, not in the sense that it's less important, but in the Chomskyian sense that we all naturally speak but no child feels a natural desire to write Historically and mentally writingt comes second. You are right that characters are the most fun and actually the easier part.
Hi, nice video, great tips....do you have any links to where I might find those Oxford University Press bilingual books, or the penguin ones, having some trouble tracking them down online. In Shanghai at the moment and drilling the Chinese daily!
I found that all 4 streams (reading, writing, listening and speaking) all fed in to each other. For example, I phrase I read into the newspaper one day, I would use I would use in conversation the next day. But yes, if you just want to speak, you could also just go out and speak and listen as much as you can.
Yeah... flashcards don't work for me. I absolutely hate studying and after about 30sec I am super bored and annoyed and stop. I basically learned English by reading books and watching TV for hours on end for few years. If I didn't know a word or didn't understand anything i just ignored it. Just a shitton of stupid input w/o me actively doing anything. Definitely not the most effective way to learn the language, but in the end it worked out and I am conpletely fluent now. With Chinese I did reading sentences pretty early as well (once I knew about idk 60 words) with a list of a few thousand hsk 1 sentences. If I didn't know any words/ a sentence didn't make sense I ignored it. (I used dushu (app) which gives you definitions for all words you haven't marked as known yet in a sentence). By the end reading that I could read most of HSK 1. And from there slowly getting better, looking up words nonstop if I see them on signs or anything. And watching a bit of TV shows in Chinese(and just use it as input, I don't understand shit) Now I am reading the littlefox chinese (for language learners) version of 西游记 journey to the west. It's helpful, my chinese is definitely getting better. What really works for me is: if I don't know a word or a sentence. DON'T look it up, just ignore it xD But yeah. Not gonna do flashcards... everytime I try I hate it xD
Chinese Is Easy wow, so inspiring! How much time that you need to reach intermediate level? And, what thing that keep you motivated to learn this language? Because i found it so hard to learn Chinese by myself, i can't be really consistent.
I disagree ....learning characters is a waste of time...I have been studying for over a year and I found more helpful videos on TH-cam....I learn phrases ,greetings and sentences....also I borrowed the Pimsleur CDs from the library and it teaches you by repetition....I wouldn't learn much by drawing characters....LOL .
📞 Book A Free 30-Minute Chinese Lesson Here: 9myac.youcanbook.me
.pinyin is NOT designed for foreigners. in fact, we also learn pinyin when we were kids before we actually learned the characters. so there is nothing wrong with starting with pinyin, as long as you are not solely relying on just pinyin, it will be fine.
Thanks for your comment. Yes, the point I was making was about ONLY learning pinyin
Agreed, I found that writing the characters helps imbed them in your mind a lot faster than just recognizing them by sight especially when you use the proper stroke order.
Yes, I think it's because it's more 'experiential learning'.
I agree... learning characters really helps you to find the visual connections between words / themes. I might not understand what someone says, but if I recognise the radicals and some basic characters, I'll be more likely to identify patterns & get some idea of what is being communicated.
Thanks for your comment Dusty. For me Chinese is all about the characters. And like you say, it's basically the opposite of European languages - where you can know the pronunciation but not have a clue about the meaning. With Chinese you can often understand the gist from the pictogram and also hazard a guess at the pronunciation, thanks to the phonetic part of the character. That's one of the reasons I find Chinese such a cool language 😉
Characters are really the fun part of Chinese yet very fundamental, I totally agree with you.
Amen to that brother
As salam brother Mustafa.I am from Malaysia.I am starting to learn Mandarin.
Agree with you, study characters since beginning.
hI FRED Hope you are well. I've just been rewatching videos, I've forgotten how good they are! Hopihg for more updated videos on learnnig material soon.
I just found your channel and subbed because of this video! The first book you mentioned is EXACTLY what I have been looking for. Learning the characters is a big part of what draws me to learn Chinese, so I totally agree with you! Look forward to watching more of your videos. Love the other book suggestions too!!!!
That's great. I'm so glad the video was helpful!
You really worked very hard. RESPECT. I need to look into these memory techniques.
Thank you! 🙂
I also started in the books with lesson about buying commemorative stamps!!!!
When you first learn characters the process is pretty quick but the more you learn the slower the learning becomes becuase you have to go back and constantly review. The more you learn the more you have to review.
I get what you mean, but you can keep learning 30 characters a day all the way through your Chinese learning career. That part doesn't take any longer. If anything it gets quicker because you learn so many radicals and subcomponents of characters as you go along that you can recycle. What you DO have to do though is set aside more time for "maintenance" - going over old or little-used characters and brushing up on them. I used to imagine it like painting a very long bridge: by the time you get to one end, the other end needs rust-proofing and repairs!
enjoy both you and Kaufmans videos!
Thanks Dave
You are great teacher
Thank you very much. I really appreciate that
Thank you for the tips. You are so passionate and sincere in sharing how you learned Chinese to such a high level. I really appreciate that. And you are so positive!! Really inspires us!!
I didnt know you could use mnemonics for memorizing chinese vocab. I didnt quite get the names of the bilingual books series. If possible, could you please add a link to one of those?
Welcome back. Hope to see more videos. Btw, couldnt open your blog. It took me to a domain name webpage. JFYI.
Respect and thanks.
Thank you for your comments. I'll add the links to the books
Learning the characters long after the words is like learning every word twice.
I agree!
Very good, informative video. Many years ago I actually started to learn pronunciation and speaking first, and after I had a good foundation I started to learn characters. I think if I had started to learn characters from the beginning, it might have been overwhelming and too much of a burden. But that's just me. I think only if you are extremely motivated to learn Chinese, you can start with characters right away
你能看懂这些汉字吗？
Can you read these Chinese characters？
Yes, I took an HSK4 exam about a year ago, and it's all in Chinese characters, with no pinyin whatsoever. Also, I took the handwritten test instead of on computer (HSK: 汉语水平考试)
Oh！great！I am Chinese,Maybe we can teach each other's languages！
我第一开始正学习汉字， 因为我想读写多比说话和诉听。也因为太难学习都四一起。但是当我可以看一张报纸和写电邮至朋友以好中文，我会看一看我的正说话和听诉。
@@我痛恨的平凡 Errr...yes. That's a pretty basic sentence. I was a professional translator 😂
Hack 1: Learn the characters. Yes, if you're planning to go that deep and maybe live in China/Taiwan. But if you're not, you are going to slow down your learning considerably. Even if you learn 10 characters a day x 300 days a year, it would take you 2-3 years to be modestly literate. And that's in addition to trying to learn to speak and understand. 3-4 hours of learning a day x 300 days for three years, to be literate and conversant..
SEFR7337 it depends what your learning goals are. When I say "learn Chinese" I mean learn the language comprehensively, not "learn conversational Chinese as quickly as possible". So you are right, in that if you just want to be able to speak, characters may slow you down. But that's not what I'm talking about. That's only learning one aspect of the language
P.S. Your calculations are way off. You do not need 9000 characters to be "literate and conversant". 3000 characters will give you a good grounding for reading and speaking. Provided your focusing in the right areas, i.e. most commonly used/ useful characters
Characters or symbols or alphabet must be mastered very early in learning any exotic language.
Thanks alot for the tip on flash cards I will start that today
The Phoenicians realized that trading partners could more readily pick up their language through sound symbols than through a pictographic system. Symbol to sound is a much easier way to get things rolling. That aside, Kaufman is keen on intensive listening first because that’s what babies do and that’s how he’s acquired his languages. How many Chinese babies, I wonder, learn Chinese by way of number memory technique. I am HSK5 or 6 now. I have PTSD from Skritter and Pleco. Flash cards are not fun but listening to the audiobook of Harry Potter is.
Horses for courses. I have a friend who taught himself excellent Chinese and Korean, by reading the Harry Potter from Day 1! Different minds have different ways of learning. Find what works for you and go with that
@@ChineseIsEasy Different people prefer different kinds of comprehensible input, but more CI is better, and less is worse. There's no "different" there.
wow, a lot of interest and passion!
Good advice. I wanted to learn only spoken Chinese using just Pinyin, but eventually I discovered that I HAD to learn Chinese characters.
1. Learn
2. Practice
3. Learn more
4. Practice more
5. Learn and practice at the same time
There were some good guidance in this vid but these can't be called HACKS. The only real Hack is to get a Chinese girlfriend😊...unlike romance languagues there is no logical system to crack in Mandarin. We westerners like to understand the logic first, we like shortcuts, Chineses just learn! So we might just need to do the same to learn their language.
Je Pense Donc Je Suis lucky for me I like Chinese girls (I don't have yellow fever tho I swear) hope they like Cubans
What are all the books you've suggested finding in China? I've got friends going that can bring some back for me but I didn't catch all the ones you mentioned except the one that's also on Amazon.com
I recommended the Mrs Zhang Teaches Chinese Characters series and the bilingual versions of the Oxford Short Introductions (if your Chinese is more advanced)
Forgive me for posting again. But how can I learn characters as I learn speaking and understanding? Let's say I'm learning 15 words for vegetables today. I can learn potato, cucumber, carrot, etc. in about 20 min. But if I have to learn the characters, that's going to add maybe 3 of 4x to my lesson. . I can learn fānqié fairly quickly. But how am I going to learn the 20 strokes in tomato? Unless I'm determined to live in China or Taiwan, or do business in Mandarin, am I really going to spend an hour or two learning the characters as well as to pronounce and remember the words for vegetables? And then review them again and again for weeks before I master them?
You don't need to apologise, I'm grateful for your input. The problem here is we're talking about two different things: I'm talking about learning Chinese comprehensively (including all aspects, such as reading, writing, listening and speaking), whereas, you're talking about trying to learn spoken Chinese as quickly as possible.
Great tips thanks!
thank you for sharing! could you explain more about the technique related to tony buzan ? I cannot catch up with you on that.
awesome, thanks mate !!
very useful hacks, thank you bro!
Cheers!
Great video. Glad I found it. Appears hard to find that Tony Buzan book. Sounds good though
They have it on Audible.
u r absolute right . . .
i am learning all by my own and i am really progressing in pinyin fortunately alittle help i am having is from my chinese friend online but she doesnot speak english so its quite a very less help i'd say. so my point is if learning character seems like a totally nightmare to me especially while learning all by myself. what do i do?
I am using LLN Language learning with Netlifx Plugin on Chrome... It really hepls...
Kudos for getting 贾平凹 right:) love your channel please make more videos!
Thanks. I’m back from Japan and making fresh content again now
This is very helpful
super helpful! Thanks!!
Thank you Broccoli!
are they available on amazon? good to know about streaming.
Thank you!
it seems fundamentally wrong to learn writing before speaking. I therefore assume you are saying that we should learn both characters and speaking and not leave the hanzi for later. It seems obvious that one cannot understand the written symbols before one understands the sentence structure. Writing is always secondary, not in the sense that it's less important, but in the Chomskyian sense that we all naturally speak but no child feels a natural desire to write Historically and mentally writingt comes second. You are right that characters are the most fun and actually the easier part.
Yes Egon, that's what I meant
好学习！
Hi, nice video, great tips....do you have any links to where I might find those Oxford University Press bilingual books, or the penguin ones, having some trouble tracking them down online. In Shanghai at the moment and drilling the Chinese daily!
The Blue Ship, I'll try to find them for you. I got mine from the New Century Bookstore (新世纪书店). Good work on the study. You gotta hit it every day 😉
Thanks for the motivation. Which one of Barry Buzans book do you like most/are most essential to learn Chinese?
The study skills series and Master Your Memory
nice one
By "Barry" you mean Tony, right?
I do. Barry is his brother! 😬
can I learn just by listening? just to understand spoken word and to talk?
I found that all 4 streams (reading, writing, listening and speaking) all fed in to each other.
For example, I phrase I read into the newspaper one day, I would use I would use in conversation the next day.
But yes, if you just want to speak, you could also just go out and speak and listen as much as you can.
Please do more video
on their way mate
I'm thinking you had something bad in mind for 3 and realised you couldn't say it at 5:27
Haha ;)
SlapNDash 3 might look like a butt?
Your right man.
Pinyin isnt good way to learn, we have to learn characters ( 中文字)
Arash Zabihi, thanks for your comment bro. 中文字 is good, but calling them 汉字 will make you sound more local 地道😉
Yeah... flashcards don't work for me. I absolutely hate studying and after about 30sec I am super bored and annoyed and stop. I basically learned English by reading books and watching TV for hours on end for few years. If I didn't know a word or didn't understand anything i just ignored it. Just a shitton of stupid input w/o me actively doing anything. Definitely not the most effective way to learn the language, but in the end it worked out and I am conpletely fluent now.
With Chinese I did reading sentences pretty early as well (once I knew about idk 60 words) with a list of a few thousand hsk 1 sentences. If I didn't know any words/ a sentence didn't make sense I ignored it. (I used dushu (app) which gives you definitions for all words you haven't marked as known yet in a sentence). By the end reading that I could read most of HSK 1. And from there slowly getting better, looking up words nonstop if I see them on signs or anything. And watching a bit of TV shows in Chinese(and just use it as input, I don't understand shit) Now I am reading the littlefox chinese (for language learners) version of 西游记 journey to the west. It's helpful, my chinese is definitely getting better. What really works for me is: if I don't know a word or a sentence. DON'T look it up, just ignore it xD
But yeah. Not gonna do flashcards... everytime I try I hate it xD
Hey if you dont get offended can i say one thing?
Go ahead. I'm not easily offended
A three can be.... you can use your imagination.
Everyone:
🍑
Saying you can read Nietzsche in Chinese would have to be the biggest flaunt ever.
Who's Bary Buzan?
Tony Buzan. Google him ;)
So handsome!
Why Chinese? Because of the Chinese characters.
Maybe rewatch the video? The reasons are there 🙂
我可以当你的语伴，With my poor English
Does HACKS mean ideas?
It means shortcuts or cheats for saving time or learning faster.
Maybe faster than otherwise possible. Still requires a ton of work.
Just like anything else worthwhile in life mate :)
yea, if it was easy everyone would be doing it
skepta!
So you're learning chinese by yourself?
Yes Clarissa, I'm mainly self-taught
Chinese Is Easy wow, so inspiring! How much time that you need to reach intermediate level?
And, what thing that keep you motivated to learn this language? Because i found it so hard to learn Chinese by myself, i can't be really consistent.
I have the same books to learn English....
do you have a link torrent or something for " Master Your Memory by Tony Buzan"
otto man ....I have a print one.but there Is a kindle version .abd hou Can try that one
otto man there Is a mobi version of that book too.but Is was in translate Chinese..I do not have a original version
ok thank's bro , hv a good one
Your videos are great！I am learning English with them！lol :)
I disagree ....learning characters is a waste of time...I have been studying for over a year and I found more helpful videos on TH-cam....I learn phrases ,greetings and sentences....also I borrowed the Pimsleur CDs from the library and it teaches you by repetition....I wouldn't learn much by drawing characters....LOL
.
It's pronunciation and NOT pronounciation. Maybe you need to learn to speak English correctly first, before giving advice on Chinese. Lol!
Thanks Bipolar Bear. I said "pronunciation"! It's your 英語口語聽力 that is the problem ;)
Wow! Two years! That took a while to sink in. And that’s ‘two years’, not ‘too years’. Lol!