Learning Chinese
Learning Chinese is hard. These 4 words sum up almost everybody's thoughts on Chinese. However I believe there are ways to simplify the learning curve and that it is ultimately worthwhile to learn it. This website is an attempt to demonstrate this. I hope to simplify Chinese contents into bite-sized chunks of info and show the patterns & structures within the Chinese language system. I want to showcase the usefulness & relevance of Chinese in our daily lives. And I want to make fun of its quirky & witty aspects.
For a start, why is it so difficult to learn Chinese? It doesn’t matter if you are doing it online or at learning centres in Singapore or overseas. There are challenges inherent in the language system which you’ll need to overcome.
Firstly, the characters. To the uninitiated or uninterested, Chinese characters seem like drawings. You might be able to infer some meaning or you might not. The characters have evolved over time from their earlier pictogram forms to today’s versions. To write them involves mastering the Chinese strokes and getting the stroke order correct. In any case, it often leads to either guesswork or memory work.
Secondly, there are the tones. 4 of them. Mispronounce a word and you might end up saying something entirely different. Wǒ wèn nǐ (我问你 or "I ask you") and wǒ wěn nǐ (我吻你 or "I kiss you") are just 1 tone apart but they trigger vastly different reactions from your audience. Pinyin allows us to code the characters into alphabet-based spellings. Unfortunately, some folks find it harder than expected to grasp e.g. the -in vs -ing sound or the -en vs -eng sound.
The US Foreign Service Institute (FSI) rates the difficulty of languages by the length of time required to attain proficiency. Based on this ranking, Chinese takes 2,200 class hours, roughly 4 times the effort to learn French or Spanish.
Environmental and social factors play a contributing role too. In Singapore schools, English is the language of instruction for almost all subjects. At home, it is the language most commonly used. At work, well, we manage nicely without much Chinese (unless it is your subject matter or the working language at your workplace). Socially, a weak command of Chinese is somewhat accepted as the norm. (In fact, using grammatically correct phrases may, ironically, make you seem unnatural or unfashionable)
Image from SGAG
To get people to learn, most teaching approaches tend to focus on:
1. Hardcore drilling of the basics
Chinese characters are built up using basic strokes. Similarly, nouns / compound words are formed by combining basic words. So it makes sense to lay a strong foundation. There are around 20,000 Chinese characters in everyday usage and it has been estimated that to gain a basic grasp, you’ll need to know around 2,000 of them i.e. 10%. Unfortunately, intense or repetitive cramming turns people off. Even for someone with genuine interest in Chinese, rote learning alone is going to drive him or her to eventually become disengaged. On the topic of interest, this leads us to the 2nd point..
2. Internal and external motivation
Teaching methods harness internal sources of motivation such as an intrinsic interest in Chinese literature / culture / history. One cultivates a sense of identity and belonging through an appreciation of the language. For example, knowing how some 成语 originated from certain historical events or people enables one to become more aware of history. He or she may even be inspired to travel to that location, which in turn generates more learning opportunities and exposure (see 3rd point on immersion). Then, there are external incentives. Chinese is the most widely spoken language in the world with around 1 billion Mandarin speakers. From an economic viewpoint, learning Chinese offers wonderful career or investment prospects such as the immense opportunities for partnership with Chinese companies e.g. on projects under the One Belt, One Road initiative.
Internal motivation awakened by external incentive.
3. Total immersion
Learning is accelerated when you live and breathe the subject. Talk or text to friends in Chinese or watch only Chinese-dubbed TV. If you have first-hand experience of living or working abroad whereby you have to learn a foreign language, you'll know how this feels like. Survival instincts kick in for you to pick up simple terms quickly such as asking for directions, ordering food in a restaurant, introducing yourself etc.
The KT Perspective
Learning Chinese is hard, I repeat. And precisely because of this, I believe we can find ways to simplify the learning. Instead of repetitive drills or cramming, we can make sense of the system. And yes, Chinese characters do have an underlying structure. At the word level, if you understand the “radicals” e.g. 扌(called "提手旁") or 氵("三点水"), it becomes relatively easier to know what the individual word is saying. At the noun level, most nouns are compound words. So if you identify the components, you can understand (or at least guesstimate) the noun. For example, 火山 (volcano) = 火 (fire) + 山 (mountain). Having said these, Chinese has its peculiarities, the oddballs that don't seem to conform to the system. So part of the learning includes identifying and highlighting the outliers.
English has its peculiarities too! If we can form guidelines or shortcuts for learning Chinese (just like the above I-before-E rule),
we will simplify our learning curve. Images from Grammarly.
Here, the contents are organised by themes. I'll put together bite-sized materials based on their similarities, patterns, uniqueness etc so that it's easier for you to understand and remember the info. These can serve as summaries & mental shortcuts. Remember the earlier point - to achieve a workable proficiency, you don't have to know every single character (just like how you don't have to know every single English word). We're aiming for an understanding of the structure & the core 10% of commonly used characters.
In terms of motivation and environmental / social factors, I believe one good way to increase motivation is to see how useful and fun Chinese can be. To experience this for yourself, join in the quizzes, jokes or riddles that I will be sharing on this website. Throughout our daily lives, be it the news reports we hear or the ads / TV shows we watch, elements of Chinese can come alive when we make more sense of it and start appreciating its relevance.