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My road to Mandarin characters

 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log Post Reply
Mirkwood
Diglot
Newbie
Japan
Joined 4478 days ago

9 posts - 9 votes
Speaks: Spanish*, English
Studies: Japanese, Mandarin

 
 Message 1 of 5
04 July 2012 at 11:35pm | IP Logged 
I will proceed to explain how I plan to study the simplified Hanzi as presented in James Heisig's
Reviewing the Simplified Hanzi 1 and 2 in the next 6~8 months, please let me know your
suggestions and recommendations and for the more experienced learners if you think is
worth all the trouble.

Note: I have completed Reviewing the Kanji before (twice actually) for my Japanese studies so I am
confortable with the use of memory symbols to link and recall characters and keywords.

1. Link each of tone with a distintive context or character.
2. Link each phoneme (initials and finals) with a distinctive mnemonic. (phoneme -> mnemonic).
3. Link ~3000 characters + ~100 primitives (as described by Heisig in the books) with keywords. (i.e., sit -> 坐).
4. Link ~3000 keywords with stories composed with the mnemonics from 1 and 2. (i.e., sit -> story
->zuò, where 'story' is based on the mnemonics associated with 'z', 'uo' and the falling tone).

I think ~1 week for 1 and 2 is doable and between 2~6 months for 3 and another 2~6 months for 4.

Edited by Mirkwood on 04 July 2012 at 11:37pm

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Fasulye
Heptaglot
Winner TAC 2012
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Germany
fasulyespolyglotblog
Joined 5789 days ago

5460 posts - 6006 votes 
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Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto
Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish
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 Message 2 of 5
05 July 2012 at 6:17am | IP Logged 
Mirkwood, I would suggest you to write a log about this endeavour, so I will transfer this thread to the Log Subforum.

Fasulye
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eggcluck
Senior Member
China
Joined 4643 days ago

168 posts - 278 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Mandarin, Japanese

 
 Message 3 of 5
05 July 2012 at 6:44am | IP Logged 
Well you have done it before so I dare say you have an inkling of what you are doing, however I would like to point out you are going contary to the heisieg method.

He suggests going with the keywords first and then brining in the relavent language prounciation and meanings. Personally I have found keyword then pronunciation then meaning to be quite effective. As the keyword has proven to be a good memory hook to hang the other items off especially when it comes to writing. Though I have found repeated exposure to the hanzi means I do not need to study pronunciation so much as it essentially drills it into me.
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LangWanderer
Diglot
Pro Member
Australia
digintoenglish.com
Joined 4480 days ago

74 posts - 97 votes 
Speaks: English*, Japanese
Studies: Korean, French, Mandarin
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 Message 4 of 5
05 July 2012 at 9:28am | IP Logged 
I'm not sure what method you used for repetition when you went through RTK, but when I used the book myself I found spaced repetition software (I used Anki) to be invaluable.

For my cards I would first write the character on the back, and the keyword and the story on the front. I then changed the font colour of the story to white, so I only saw it after highlighting the text when I was really stuck. I would then write out the character after reading the story, and choose whether to pass or fail the card depending on how well I knew the character (since I already knew about half of the daily-use kanji when I started, some characters I knew but just couldn't recall after seeing the keyword).

In any case, it's a huge undertaking, so I wish you the best of luck!
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Mirkwood
Diglot
Newbie
Japan
Joined 4478 days ago

9 posts - 9 votes
Speaks: Spanish*, English
Studies: Japanese, Mandarin

 
 Message 5 of 5
05 July 2012 at 1:00pm | IP Logged 
eggcluck wrote:
Personally I have found keyword then pronunciation then meaning to be quite
effective.
Yes, that's the plan. After I have learned the characters so that I can recall the keyword
by looking at the character then I will link the keyword with the pronunciation in the way I described. I
can't wait to start.

By the way, what are the rules / recommendations about writing a language learning log?.


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