My Struggle: What is The Best Learning Strategy for Characters?

[cowabunga]

Thought I'd put this puzzling question that I posed to Olle (HackingChinese) under this article. - Olle is busy so I'm unsure if he will see or answer it anytime soon.

My question was in reference to this comment:
"If the component requires a convoluted explanation (verbal or graphic), my memory won’t keep it. Since visualisation is also a challenge for me, I tend to be extremist (!) and need an etymologically rational explanation."

1. Olle:
   "But there’s no contradiction between visual and etymological? I mean, many of the actual etymologically correct explanations are visual as well. I’m curious what you mean here, though, how do you create mnemonics if they aren’t visual? Or do you mean that you still associate concepts in a meaningful way, but verbally rather than actually visualising them taking place?"

ME: "Hey Olle. I tried to make this brief given the question at hand. @Fearchar's comment seemed to relate to my struggle regarding best approaches to learning characters.

My struggle is likely partly b/c I don't fully understand how best to create a mnemonic (I've read your great articles).

My Current Strategy: if I fail to remember a word in Anki, I check SmartHanzi's component breakdowns (drawn from an Etymological Dictionary that breaks characters into one phono-semantic and one semantic component). I guess this is 'Level 5 depth'. DongChinese is my backup (it's breakdowns differ; matching your teaching: characters have one semantic and one phonetic component).

My (untested) impression is that creating a "convoluted" story with many details (that don't *logically* follow each other), might be difficult for me; I'm certainly overwhelmed by the prospect of having hundreds(+) of these stories, and the prospect of initially setting them up poorly vis-a-vis each other.

Whereas, if this dictionary's authors are correct: that 94% of characters have one phono-semantic and one semantic component, then I can use logic (something we intuitively understand) to deduce character meanings, without creating anything additional (story or otherwise).

Yet, I assume a story often is more memorable, and that the meaning of characters is not (indeed often isn't) straight-forwardly deduced by a learner who knows component meanings, (this is evident in the dictionary's entries).

So perhaps the upfront work is more intimidating to me (inventing vivid stories, and doing so correctly vis-a-vis each other), but long-term retention is better. Whereas, I guess what I (and maybe Fearchar) are currently doing is relying on our existing understanding of logic/rationality to piece together the semantic and phono-semantic (actual/etymological) meanings of components.

E.g.,

1. '上' often means 'on/above', and

2. '坡' is made from '土' 'earth' (Semantic) + '皮' 'align' (Phonosem.); together depicting: "aligned hillsides, slopes or embankments".

So, granted I memorize the components (which is possible I think right(?); i.e., there aren't too many),

my mind doesn't need an additional unrelated story to link these two components/to realize the meaning of: ‘上坡’ (uphill; upslope; to move upwards, etc.). i.e., logic does that linking for me.

However, this linkage/realization is probably very difficult, because it's not always crystal clear how the two components connect to create the word meaning (a comparatively small number of components cannot cover the hundreds of thousands of words/meanings), and (I think?) each component can mean multiple things.

And to your question, I guess the only way a visual story differs from this process is that there is less that is being created/invented (b/c 1. component meanings are memorized/known, 2. logic is intuitive to humans).

As you can see, I'm still unsure what strategy is better, but probably it's your story/mnemonic method.

Appreciate any insight and advice you have, this has been bothering me a while."

 

[cowabunga]

@Shun curious what you think!

 

[Shun]

Hi cowabunga,

I think both of the strategies you've already tried have useful elements in them. You will surely appreciate them later.

I think the main issue for you right now may not be what mnemonic strategy you choose, but the act of memorizing itself that needs some more practicing. Once you've got that down, the rest should flow more easily.

Memorizing is an interesting process: It works best if you can attach the new material to what you already know/have already stored in your brain. Thus the best mnemonic is clearly you, and it depends on your ability to form connections and associate similar objects.

Try this: Read about character components and their meanings passively. Then remember a single character (i.e. you're able to write it when asked) using whatever means. Then remember another character. (same thing) Then go back to the first. Then add a third and repeat the others. See how many you can add like this. You should feel it when something is entering your medium-term memory. It happens more slowly and takes more mental strength and concentration. It doesn't matter what you're memorizing, the main thing is starting off the process. Using an ideal mnemonic strategy will feel much the same.

Want to try it and report back a few days later how it went? I'll be here!

Have fun,

Shun

 

[cowabunga]

thanks very much Shun!

I am probably slightly overthinking it all, but I did want to make sure I’m doing the best strategy possible, because this is after all a multi-year-to-lifetime challenge we all undertake, and I want to be as efficient and responsible with my time as possible.

I’ve spent very little of my time practicing writing to learn how to write. Of course learning to write characters will help recognition/reading +, however I feel maybe it’s best delayed until I’m much more confident. This is maybe why I can only write maybe 10 characters max from memory. But I can recognize/read hundreds, albeit limited to a textbook.

Given the limited stuff I remember from Ollie’s site, I’m admittedly super hesitant to apportion more time to writing. But you seem to have found it useful for you right?

 

[Shun]

You're welcome!

I am probably slightly overthinking it all, but I did want to make sure I’m doing the best strategy possible, because this is after all a multi-year-to-lifetime challenge we all undertake, and I want to be as efficient and responsible with my time as possible.

No worries, you can always (or even, have to) change your strategy completely until you find an approach that allows you to build skills quickly.

I’ve spent very little of my time practicing writing to learn how to write. Of course learning to write characters will help recognition/reading +, however I feel maybe it’s best delayed until I’m much more confident. This is maybe why I can only write maybe 10 characters max from memory. But I can recognize/read hundreds, albeit limited to a textbook.

So writing doesn't work well. That's already a very useful thing to realize. I'd suggest you start writing things in pinyin, including the tone marks, and then much later slowly add more and more Hanzi to the sentences you've written.

Given the limited stuff I remember from Ollie’s site, I’m admittedly super hesitant to apportion more time to writing. But you seem to have found it useful for you right?

Yes, it came easily for me. You can just start with what you feel comes most easily for you. What's hardest for you may be easiest for me and the other way around. Just never say to yourself, consciously or subconsciously: "I will never learn that particular skill.", because that conditions you not to try it under any circumstances, which would be unnecessarily self-limiting—you never know how easy it might suddenly get. Our minds are like darkness, and we have to try and light as many candles in them as possible, we just each start with a different set of candles that are already lit.

Best, Shun

 

[lookslikerain]

I've never used the story method but I'll share what I did as the title of the thread is the "Best Learning Strategy for Characters"

The main way I really expanded my character knowledge was bouts of rote memorization with Pleco flashcards. I set up a few flashcard tests and would use them religiously for a few months. I had one test that was the normal spaced repetition system and another that drilled the characters I got wrong that day. The drills were really helpful for me. I'd do the SRS for 20 minutes a day I think and the drills a few times throughout the day, and I would keep up this habit for several months on end without skipping a day (or doing double the next day if I did). At one point I think I even had separate drills for characters I'd gotten wrong once and characters I'd gotten wrong multiple days in a row. I don't think I ever worried too much about remembering the precise meaning of characters, though at one point I might have had different SRS tests for pronunciation and meaning. I was also often ignoring tones in order to remember more characters faster, which worked, but now I have to make up for it by relearning the "full" pronunciation (tone included) of characters I already know otherwise.

I never invested much time into logically figuring out why characters were a certain way, though of course you naturally notice connections the more characters you learn (and because of that the process speeds up considerably the more you learn). However, I have noticed that logic is helpful for me for learning to write hard characters. For example, 愁 chou "worry" is 秋 qiu and 心 xin, and realizing that helped me remember to write it because 心 sets the meaning category and qiu is close to chou. However I only do this at a very basic level. E.g. for the 坡 example you gave, I would just check the "Chars" tab in Pleco and see that 皮 is pi (skin) and just figure its a sound component with no meaning relation. Obviously for some characters this kind of analysis is les helpful: 静 jing (quiet) is made of 青 qing and 争 zheng (fight, strive). The qing / jing connection is obvious but the relation with zheng is not, so I would use the qing sound clue to help me remember half of the character and use rote memorization for the other half. There probably is a reason for why zheng is in the character, and maybe looking it up would be helpful, but I've never bothered to (maybe you could just remember that 静 is the opposite of 争 meaning-wise).

One thought on efficiency: my approach probably took about 45 minutes a day, and you could maybe find optimizations that would let you do the same amount of work in 30 or maybe even 20 minutes, but finding those optimizations takes time that can be used for studying, and the optimizations themselves probably won't be helpful for as long as you think they will because your process of studying will change as your Chinese progresses. More importantly, are you going to spend those 15 or 20 minutes you saved doing anything more productive? For me, no, but it depends on the person. In my opinion, you can hack Chinese to some degree, but the reason it's a really hard language is because at the end of the day it just requires a lot of rote memorization.

With regard to writing, in my experience writing is very helpful for learning to read but never more efficient than just drilling or reading more. I would never study writing in order to learn to read. Reading texts (besides the textbook) in addition to flashcards was a piece I neglected for too long, though I did have texting with Chinese friends to help reinforce what I was learning once I got enough language down to do that. I recommend finding some good graded readers like Mandarin Companion and start reading with the characters you know.

 

[Shun]

I agree with @lookslikerain on learning to write Chinese characters without any external mnemonics. Try to establish your own personal relationship with the characters, and at some point you will suddenly get your own ideas of how to store a character in your memory. That's always better than mnemonics from a book, because it came from you and will stick in your memory for much longer.

The beauty of Chinese calligraphy definitely helps the reader's imagination. Think about what you see in each part. The KaiTi font available in Pleco comes pretty close, too.

On reading and writing, maybe a lot of reading and a little bit of writing will work fine. You would have to do just enough writing to become aware of the characters' components, that should be sufficient.

 

[Ledu]

Initially I didn't read the OP's post clearly. I just saw "memorize a story for each character" and thought that wouldn't be a good idea. I then proceeded into some crazy nonsenscial rant.

After reading the post again I felt maybe the OP's idea could be beneficial. Currently I am studying at HSK4 and have about 100 that I don't know yet. I took a look at the HanziHero site and signed up for a free membership. I agree with others here that it would take a considerable amount of study time to memorize a short paragraph about a character/word. That site or method won't work for me but maybe for others. It just looks quite time consuming.

I now will try what @itlookslike rain mentioned. It also involves zero costly subscription services. My thought process is similar. When I see a character I can catch some components and meanings after learning these concepts. I learn them through reading a book called Ledu but I suppose there are specific dictionaries that teach them too. I mostly just use my Chinese hardcover dictionary to prop up my tablet. I am tempted to purchase the Outlier dictionary if it can point out components for me clearly.

Finally there is a relationship to handwriting in order to memorize words. I don't know if one should write words 1x, 10x etc? I don't often do handwriting but perhaps the OP could experiment with handwriting if it helps.

Useful if setting up flashcards to use SRS and also drill words you get wrong after:

How to learn in batches with SRS?

When starting to learn a new vocabulary list, I like to learn in batches. Study the first 20, re-test on the ones that I got wrong, then study the next 20, etc. With the Random card selection system I can do this by setting "Max number of cards" to 20. But this setting is not available when...

plecoforums.com

 

[lookslikerain]

I definitely second @Shun on needing some writing to get familiar with the character components. If your goal is reading, you don't need to practice writing enough to be able to write all the characters you know from memory, but you should do enough to be able to reproduce the characters you see because you're able to write all the different components. Writing can also give you a break from drilling reading flashcards.

With regard to character components, in my experience the components tab in Pleco usually gives you what you need. I don't own Outlier, but they have a demo on their website that you can check out: https://www.outlier-linguistics.com/pages/chinese-demo (I don't think a demo is available from within the Pleco app but I could be wrong). And like Shun said, as you study you'll end up forming some of your own associations with the character forms that aren't tied to any etymology but do help with memorization.

 

[cowabunga]

Thank you guys! If others have insight, do chime in! (or knows of threads that touch on this).

at the end of the day it just requires a lot of rote memorization.

ahh, okay. So, knowing 0 about learning science, I always thought rote memorization was just a bad way to learn, and that there are always better ways than to learn any given task. But it sounds like I'm wrong here regarding Chinese, or Chinese characters?

it would take a considerable amount of study time to memorize a short paragraph about a character/word. That site or method won't work for me but maybe for others.

From the limited amount of browsing I've done, I've been very impressed (albeit overwhelmed with info-overload) by Olle's expertise at HackingChinese. My confusion about story-based mnemonics could probably be remedied if I looked into it more, but really I think I (perhaps ignorantly) was scared by the effort/time needed for what appeared like a not insignificant renovation of my learning approach so-to-speak, and so decided I'll put it off until/if I see the need, and/or realize I'm doing things inefficiently without vivid visual mnemonics ('story' might make them sound longer than they need to be). From what I understood, Olle seemed to think visual mnemonics were crucial, and he always makes reasoned arguments for his conclusions (e.g., the linked article trying to find which depth of understanding is best for learning characters).

He responded to me in the article, if it's helpful.

for the 坡 example you gave, I would just check the "Chars" tab in Pleco and see that 皮 is pi (skin) and just figure its a sound component with no meaning relation.

Part of my comment to Olle was to understand what the deal is with the SmartHanzi CHAR breakdown (1 phono-semantic, 1 semantic component) vs. Olle's (and most breakdowns' I've seen) 1 semantic, 1 phonetic. I.E., are these two mutually-exclusive interpretations? Either way, what are the implications for developing effective mnemonics?

I have noticed that logic is helpful for me for learning to write hard characters.

This makes a lot of sense. Once I memorize components more (don't know, but they're few enough trad. comp's that it's reasonable to do so, correct?) I figure this will help my poor character recall for writing.

Great points all around guys!

 

[Shun]

Thank you guys! If others have insight, do chime in! (or knows of threads that touch on this).

You're welcome!

ahh, okay. So, knowing 0 about learning science, I always thought rote memorization was just a bad way to learn, and that there are always better ways than to learn any given task. But it sounds like I'm wrong here regarding Chinese, or Chinese characters?

I think it differs from pure rote memorization in that you aren't learning a text by heart without understanding its genesis, but instead you are recognizing actual patterns, creating associations between characters and also incorporating their histories. To me, this doesn't sound like pure rote learning anymore.

Part of my comment to Olle was to understand what the deal is with the SmartHanzi CHAR breakdown (1 phono-semantic, 1 semantic component) vs. Olle's (and most breakdowns' I've seen) 1 semantic, 1 phonetic. I.E., are these two mutually-exclusive interpretations? Either way, what are the implications for developing effective mnemonics?

All of them seem to be grounded in fact, so I would pick the one that speaks to you the most.

Great points all around guys!

Thanks, have fun,

Shun

 

[Ledu]

@cowabunga
He does have a MA in Teaching Chinese from a University in Taiwan and is also a developer for Skritter. And a teacher of Chinese so he qualifies as an expert in my book. Personally I find his site off putting. I end up clicking on 8 articles and it wastes my time which could better be used learning the language. From a website creator's view that might be great but for a language learner like myself it is not helpful. His content takes me away from studying Chinese. I also try to limit my forum use too because it is a comfort zone.

As far as rote memorization. Well my education taught me that rote memorization is bad and standardized exams are a waste. But, when it comes to learning Chinese I am doing all sorts of techniques that I wouldn't normally do. I can see it as broadening my views on learning. It is interesting to learn how you learn and then you ask yourself just why you study a certain way? For example massive input yet here I am doing textbook after textbook and not really soaking up the language in a natural interest-based way. I do so because ingraining characters into memory is not so easy for me. So textbooks and graded readers are my path for now. There are small feelings of success finishing a chapter or recognizing characters while doing flashcards too.

I am only HSK4 but it is nice when people further along can give some tips. Tips that don't have sales agendas attached but are just honest suggestions on what worked for them. Feed the poor . I think that "time" can also help us.

 

[Shun]

I am only HSK4 but it is nice when people further along can give some tips. Tips that don't have sales agendas attached but are just honest suggestions on what worked for them. Feed the poor . I think that "time" can also help us.

I agree, time and just attentive trying. No overthinking. Best, Shun

 

[lookslikerain]

My main "hack" for learning Chinese has been to do so slowly. So yeah, time.