Elizabeth Tai | 戴秀铃 🇲🇾
#Mandarin #Language learning progress: 30/100 characters learned & memorised so far. HSK 2 vocab nearly 80% done. I may complete HSK 4 vocab in Q1 after all.
May be upping my goal for learning characters to 1000 by end of 2024. My brain seems to like the Tofu Learning app's flashcard system. Things actually stick!
Erik Westra
@liztai James Heisig has produced books for both traditional and simplified Hanzi. For example: https://www.amazon.com/Remembering-Simplified-Hanzi-Meaning-Characters/dp/0824833236/ref=sr_1_3?crid=ZPI2DFTTAXVF&keywords=heisig&qid=1704344515&sprefix=heisig%2Caps%2C278&sr=8-3 and https://www.amazon.com/Remembering-Traditional-Hanzi-Meaning-Characters-ebook/dp/B09WTSP8XK/ref=sr_1_6?crid=ZPI2DFTTAXVF&keywords=heisig&qid=1704344515&sprefix=heisig%2Caps%2C278&sr=8-6. The decks you download usually say "traditional" or "simplified" as both are available.
Elizabeth Tai | 戴秀铃 🇲🇾
@Erik Thanks for your rec! I think I may have downloaded the James Heisig deck because I see the same characters in the same order in his deck ;). Tofu Learn has all kinds of decks, some for HSK, some for apps, and some by authors like James Heisig. But he uses Traditional Hanzi, not simplified Chinese?
Erik Westra
@liztai 1000 characters should be doable, depending on how good the flashcard system is in Tofu. I've been working through James Heisig's book "Remembering the Traditional Hanzi", and am up to 740 characters after 3 months. That's a lot more time-consuming than what you're doing, as the book requires you to work out mnemonics to help remember each character, but I'm steadily doing 10 characters a day. With your experience, you'll definitely get to 1000 characters by the end of the year.
Elizabeth Tai | 戴秀铃 🇲🇾
@Erik Yeah, though my elders would be less impressed lol. I basically learned Mandarin as a kid, but got really rusty due to lack of use (I'm the only one in my family that understands and speaks it.) I did try the whole take a beginner's class thing but got bored because I was more intermediate, and wanted to be faster. I had to find a way to learn that is tailored to my background as my learning needs would be different.
Erik Westra
@liztai wow, so you can hear and understand (some) Mandarin, but not read the characters? That's completely different from a beginner trying to learn Chinese from scratch...I'm impressed. So what you're doing is taking the radicals and stroke order of the written character and associating it with a character you already know from the spoken language. I'm glad you found a deck that works for that...do share your progress as you go along, as I'd love to hear how you get on.
Elizabeth Tai | 戴秀铃 🇲🇾
@Erik Anyway this deck seems to suit me - so, it teaches me the radicals of the characters first, how to pronounce them and with mnemonics for each, then how they're grouped together to form a new character. It's pretty cool. But I think it's only suited for heritage speakers like me, who already have a vocab of perhaps 300-500 words.
Elizabeth Tai | 戴秀铃 🇲🇾
@Erik The current flashcard I'm using has mnemonics, but none of the English stuff, so it's just easier for me ;P And pronunciation is a big thing in this deck, so each flashcard is accompanied by pronunciation at the same time. So, I learn writing, reading and listening, speaking at the same time with this flashcard.
Elizabeth Tai | 戴秀铃 🇲🇾
@Erik I guess opposite may be the wrong word, but more like different approach than the one I'm using now. If I understand the method correctly, each character is assigned an English word? And then mnemonics is used to remember the character.
Thing is, I don't want to associate an english word with a character as I already know Mandarin, and that would only add an extra layer of complexity for me. Basically, I need a method that can already associate the vocab in my head with the characters.
Erik Westra
@liztai how do you mean it’s the opposite of your approach? The Heisig book does cover the 1,000 most common characters, plus 500 more that are related and easier to learn at the same time. There’s a second volume that covers the next most common 1,500 words.
Elizabeth Tai | 戴秀铃 🇲🇾
@Erik Just read up more about it, I think the system he uses is the opposite of mine, as I'm going for 1000 most common characters, as I'm trying to learn as fast as I can. However, I'll see if his would help as well. No harm.
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