how to learn chinese characters | so you wanna learn a language?

[@jasonschuchardt7624]

According to the outlier dictionary, 方 is a phonetic component in 旁. It's pretty common for the initial consonant to change to a related one. For example all the 践，钱，线 characters share a phonetic component and they're pronounced jian4, qian2 and xian4. Pinyin j, q and x are related consonants. P, b and f are related consonants as well. (The relationship here is shared place of articulation.)

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

oh I've never heard of the outlier dictionary! that would definitely make sense. the general phonetic pronunciation is the same, just a slight articulation change! so interesting!

[@womblero]

Simplified characters are often based on historical calligraphic forms. For example, 漢語 hàn yǔ becomes 汉语 but this simplified form can be found in classic works of calligraphy, particularly in the 'running' 行书 or 'grass' 草书 styles, which are akin to cursive forms. The simplified characters in use today are often adaptations of these historical forms. 个 from 個 is another example.

[@karlriina6950]

continents are surrounded by oceans, islands are surrounded by waters. Note: Chinese characters make perfect sense but you must study not only the meaning of the components and the characters image and sound but also its etymology. Chinese characters are organized by and convey an internal logic which is compelling.

[@jesusmiquelsendra3980]

Great video! How long have you been studying chinese for? And btw, do you already have a video on your studying routine? That would be helpful. Keep on the good work. Greetings from Spain!!!

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

I have an older video about my study methods! i'm planning on making an updated video in a few months :)

[@karlriina6950]

zheng shi de shi: one of the earliest issues of governance was watercourses and flood prevention. See also: Yu the great.

[@karlriina6950]

7:54 "and suddenly the teachers tone turned ICY . . "

[@karlriina6950]

dian dian ti dot dot uptick

[@greensea2255]

Wahhh your trips are so useful! Learning Chinese doesn't look so confusing now 😄 thank you sm I'm going to follow your advice 💛 but I still have a question do you...write characters many times on your workbook to memorize or something?

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

Aww thank you for this!! And I’m actually making a video about that next week!! So tune in for that video :)

[@andyli7598]

good to see many ppl are learning Chinese

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

it's such a beautiful yet challenging language!

[@light8436]

Its the last widely used logographic script. Its truly beautiful and fascinating.

[@mafen7600]

How do you put character and word (in most cases 2 characters) learning together? The HSK series seems to ignore the character part and there are a lot of characters which only make sense within a word.

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

I usually focus on the word instead of the individual characters that comprise a 2 or 3 syllable word. The reason for that is that there are many characters that mean nothing on their own (called an un-bound form), so it confuses me more if I learn characters isolated from words.

[@karlriina6950]

mei you de mei is the image of a drowning man and another passing him a pole to save him, really. Unfortunately you can guess the results we CANNOT see him he is NOT THERE (because he drowned under the water) lots of characters have lurking horror stories. This is but one!

[@jasonschuchardt7624]

According to Outlier this is not the correct etymology. The correct etymology is apparently a hand reaching into water, and the original meaning of the character is "to retrieve something out of water." Not that there's anything wrong with making up mnemonic stories if it helps you remember, but it's not helpful to suggest that they're the actual etymology if they aren't.

[@chadbailey7038]

Language is not math. 😉

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

😱

[@karlriina6950]

fa lu de fa. Guess what happens if you break the LAW and cross that River? Putin is learning that lesson right now in fact!

[@saxmaniac6321]

No politics…no religion 🙄 It’s a valid rule which enables teacher to not end up with tons of opinionated clutter in the comments. Let’s concentrate on learning, hey? 🤔🎷

[@annap1871]

:)

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

c:

[@TheOpaqueWalrus]

I'm not sure about the other ones, but the water radical in 没 makes sense when it is pronounced mo4, as in 淹没 (yan1mo4), which means submerge or drown. Great video! I'm also learning Mandarin and it's always fun to see what other learners are doing/thinking

[@神埜なぎそめ]

In fact,“没” has many meanings,according to the words or pronunciation,will change its meaning.When it pronounces “méi”，basically meaning negative.But if it pronounces “mò”,should consider the word。“出没”，“没收”，“埋没”，etc。

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

wow, never knew that!! so cool :)

[@karlriina6950]

at HSK5 you can and should start learning traditional characters (too). Everyone can read both character sets. They just don't tell you since it would be boasting and might discourage you. Often the traditiona character is more memorable and conveys its logic. Most simplifications either delete elements to make writing easier or are based on the cursive form of the traditional character. Less frequently alternative characters (yi ti zi). You will find learning traditional will help you to understand and remember simplified. You should also look at jia gu wen. Seal script hasn't helped me much but understanding that kai shu combined pictograms with ideograms and made all characters a bit asymmetric as memory aids helped me. It's just pictures. Lots of pictures. TREES. SO MANY TREES!

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

Completely agree with this!! I’ve actually had that frustration before trying to find the components in simplified characters only to see that it makes sense in the traditional form but was just taken out of simplified! I’ll definitely be incorporating that into my studies in the future!

[@karlriina6950]

@@bianca.phdinprogress yep, learning both character sets at once (but After learning the 214 kangxi radicals without regard to simplification) makes the hanzi MORE memorable not less. Idk why no one emphasizes learning the kangxi radicals. China has an alphabet all right, a syllabary in fact, hanzi are taught soooo badly in English. So yeah, you want to start learning Chinese In Chinese as soon as possible! The materials are simply better, even the basic terminology in English is not unitary or even necessarily accurate translations of the equivalent Chinese terms.

[@mafen7600]

Even not learning the traditional, comparing simplified with traditional helps understanding the characters. E.g. 言 is simplified to 讠as a component, but not as the character (indicates sth with language). Or 𠃓 is the simplified component 昜 but not a character of its own, pronounced in most cases yáng (as 昜) and in almost all cases with an -ang ending. You can also see when they changed the rule with 阳 (陽) from phonetic to meaning.

[@worrellrobinson4332]

Thank you Bianca, for your tip, tricks and advice in how to go about learning Chinese. I am just starting out on my journey in acquiring another new language and came across your video; Keep up the amazing work kind regards Worrell from London...

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

thank you for watching!! appreciate it!

[@worrellrobinson4332]

I think you're one of the best educators out there, stay blessed & fantastic kind regards Worrell Robinson....

[@italico2792]

I can easily recognise characters but if I have to remember how to write them from scratch, I have serious difficulty

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

I’ll be putting a video out next week talking about writing characters!! Check out that video for some tips and tricks that I personally use :)