Learn to read Chinese ... with ease! | ShaoLan

For foreigners, learning to speak Chinese is a hard task. But learning to read the beautiful, often complex characters of the Chinese written language may be less difficult. ShaoLan walks through a simple lesson in recognizing the ideas behind the characters and their meaning -- building from a few simple forms to more complex concepts. Call it Chineasy.
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[@janetgu5696]

The duolingo owl wants to know this woman’s location

[@turwalswor]

underrated af

[@nofood1]

🤣🤣🤣

[@izaakdude]

Lmfao

[@stevethea5250]

@@turwalswor WHAT AHPPEN TO HER VOICE 2:12

[@stevethea5250]

@@nofood1 I THINK SHE MADE HER OWN APP CALLED CHINEASY

[@leehaber]

As someone who has spent over a year learning Mandarin, I wish most characters were this straightforward.

[@toyslea571]

Actually , most characters is easy to learn. like that.

[@samueltong8061]

Most characters are built on this principals by combining radicals. It's not just memorization or random strokes put together. Each character has some meaning in it's structure.

[@GiangNguyen-tp3pb]

I wish KZbin have a haha reaction

[@itsourtubenow9729]

@@toyslea571 have you seen the character for "noodles"?!?!?!

[@toyslea571]

@@itsourtubenow9729 noodles = 面条 。Sometimes it can be shorted of "面"。

[@vietnammg]

“A talking tree is pretty idiotic” American soldiers: *sweat nervously

[@michaelshumshum]

when the ptsd kicks in

[@0neAmongBillions]

I'm Groot

[@__higHJack__]

this is seriously underrated

[@pooponjoobs]

Im suprised this comment doesnt have more likes

[@f00kinglasrsights89]

LMAO Nahhh, that's what they said in Vietnam

[@happydanny6668]

expectations:木 reality:鬱

[@stanleyho8009]

Simplified Chinese vs traditional Chinese be like that

[@nooneimportant4438]

LMAO

[@ackeejag]

Gloom is easy BECAUSE it's so complex. Never even bothered remembering the story.

[@user-tl6lo9fl7w]

Without glasses that literally just looks like a blob😂

[@finmonster5827]

is that the US flag at the bottom?😄

[@user-yj3eq6ee2i]

As a China born Chinese, we started learning handwriting just like this, it's a basic method. And these 8 characters are the easiest characters as well as sth like roots or etyma. Actually, there're more than 8 easy characters which used as roots, they're totally helpful. Most of complex Chinese characters are based on them. Just like English roots. For example, “aqua-” means something about water, and then, aquatic, aquaculture, aqualung, Aquarius, etc. apper. At the same time, Chinese character "氵" , a root comes from "water" and extends "liquid". Then magically, 河 means river, 海 means sea, 油 means oil, 流 means flow, 波 means small wave, 浪 means big wave, 混 means mix, etc. I just show a small part of all characters based on "氵". Guess what, for these characters showed above, not only the part of "氵" is root, the other part on the right also have strong regularity. What's more, there're enough root characters to help you remember Chinese words. Not too much, so that it's not very difficult to remember. And not too less, make sure they are able to cover most of Chinese characters. Chinese is literally regular. The day you discover the regularity, you know Chinese well. I don't know if i describe clearly, cause i really don't good at English. Anyway, hope that what i said would help you. If you happen to understand what I mean, and you happen to be interested, please revise what i said according to the language habits of the native speakers. I'll appreciate. SVP.

[@modernpotato4222]

Doesn’t really help in pronunciation though although it does help in deciphering the words meaning

[@donnymo3481]

@@modernpotato4222 In Chinese, the symbols on the right can show the pronunciation mostly. Like hen pronounced "hin" (In different tones of course) can mean 很，which means "really"; 恨, which means hate; or 痕，which means "a mark". The symbols on the left hint the meaning while the symbols on the right hints the pronounciation

[@modernpotato4222]

@@donnymo3481 yes 有边读边没边读中间 but unlike the alphabet you can;t always rely on the cosnitutions of the word to figure out the pronunciation. You have to know what the word is as a whole to pronounce it correctly, it gives you a clue as to how the word is pronounced but its only a clue after all...

[@wuxiang6639]

Why dont you make your own channel it will help a lot

[@kaggyzet]

I think you explained it well! I’m a Chinese person myself and that is similar to what I tell my non-Chinese friends :)

[@gabenini9242]

“A talking tree is pretty idiotic” Groot: “ I’m Groot!!! 😡”

[@reginaphalange3537]

Gabrielle Jiang oops

[@kanyeste]

*I am Groot

[@dehezhan8313]

I come here to learn Chinese.

[@treborironwolfe978]

I find the character for "tree" to somehow be especially beautiful.

[@jaketapper1953]

Groot doesn't talk.

[@Jlin0012]

As a Chinese person, I can tell you the easiness stops there....

[@sakshipatial4069]

We all knew it . Already coz we have seen Chinese in some of your Chinese products . It's like you enter in different dimension . How u doing well.

[@myemperor]

Thank you... I speak 5 languages, including the impossible Arabic (a native)... Even Arabic and Spanish have cognates... I can figure out 70% of Portuguese... even some German... a tiny Russian.... With Chinese, it took me 20 hours just to learn a couple of phrases phonetically: Ni hao, wo hai ni, ni xue shwe pootonhuamaa? As for reading Chinese... count me out... In this life, I will never learn Chinese...

[@_yuri]

@@myemperor lol am studying chinese as major in uni wish me luck

[@myemperor]

@@_yuri best of luck... you will need it.. but if the Low IQ robotic slug Zuckerberg can speak it, you can...

[@sushih3302]

@@_yuri good luck!!

[@pierrekovacik8523]

What I love about Chinese characters is that they were created without any outside influence. They look very original and they distinguish from other writing systems.

[@fishmut]

No kidding "

[@strawberryicecream2008]

მართალი ხარ!

[@ChelseaBubbly]

I like her style. Full of confidence in her:)

[@fundemort]

she has nice legs

[@jassth7985]

I've been studying teaching yourself to speak Chinese and found a fantastic website at Magic mandarin blueprint (google it if you're interested)

[@shadism1714]

Fundemort Grey Prime Defender of Truth and Justice is it okay to compliment someone like this ?

[@ImmyXOXOXO]

Shady & It is a little inappropriate to say to a stranger. Usually, it is a flirtatious compliment!

[@claudia-7137]

Shady & ya its the internet and she really does have nice legs

[@bubblegum6701]

She: "Chinese is very easy" Me, an intellectual: "Japanese volcano exit mouth"

[@frzqxn]

“日本火山出口” is it that am i wrong

[@niuniujunwashere]

@@frzqxn seems legit XD

[@oopsilliilli2374]

@まっつん When you guys introduce chinese characters, something like hiragana was created to simplify them. Actrually chinese have been using 白话文 (simplifying the meaning) to connect to the international track and using the simplified character to help eliminate illiterate.

[@kenho6420]

tkh rjlin Because 奻 and 焱 are not commonly used nowadays just like some old English words.

[@landongilbert2311]

まっつん fr

[@Britta_Nong]

As a Chinese I feel like getting to know the characters is the biggest struggle of learning this language, but as soon as you learn about 2000 of them you're all set, no need to memorize new vocabulary anymore, everything will be self explanatory to you. And unlike western languages, our grammar is the easiest I know, there's no conjugation, no tenses, no feminine or masculine words, talk anyway you want we'll understand you no matter what, this is what I love most about our language🤣

[@SilvaArmour3000]

really? that sounds very convenient. this is coming from someone currently learning their 4th language at the moment

[@Britta_Nong]

@@SilvaArmour3000 Yes! We make new words with common characters anyway. Whenever we encounter any new words we can pretty much know the meaning and we never ever struggle with pronunciations.

[@SilvaArmour3000]

@@Britta_Nong does this only apply to Mandarin? Or does it also apply to Cantonese or any other dialects?

[@Britta_Nong]

@@SilvaArmour3000 It applies to any language that uses Chinese characters, this is why we can understand some part of written Japanese even though it's a completely different language

[@rehya8810]

@@SilvaArmour3000 Hiya! Which languages do you know and how do you stay motivated when learning them?

[@AD-tg6vu]

I am a Japanese, and my family name is 出口(exit). I didn't know that it is derived from "to exile the enemies beyond mountains"(ﾟ∀ﾟ)

[@rosebomb9251]

😂

[@Jjcc-pm2ht]

Hey just wondering, what does 田中 (Tanaka) mean in Japanese? In mandarin it means middle of a field.

[@qwqqis]

@@Jjcc-pm2ht middle of the rice field.

[@riftis2210]

Maybe someone in your family was exiled a long time ago. They seemed to do alright considering.

[@Noba46688]

That reads as “deguchi”, right?

[@luciusy.m.5997]

As a Chinese, this talk is an eye-opener reminding me of something I've never noticed before about my language.

[@soooshi8739]

Saying someone is Chinese doesn't mean the person has to be born and raised in china. Chinese can be classified as an ethnicity as well, not just a nationality. I am an example of this. I am not of Chinese nationality, but i'm of Chinese ethnicity, and i grew up speaking Mandarin along with English. I too did not notice this when learning Mandarin, and was certainly not taught it.

[@sherlynchew1533]

i am not born and raised in china, but i am chinese and mandarin is my mother tongue

[@splooya1033]

Mendeleev Jeff Same

[@splooya1033]

Nij Jin but then there’s an example like me that I moved to America after the second semester of second grade in China

[@grayceseeto]

I KNOW RIGHT!!

[@jp4431]

Wow this was actually really easy. I was able to remember all of these. Oh I forgot, I already know Chinese.

[@user-te1dk1oc9l]

不，你不知道。

[@frzqxn]

常乐 no u

[@stevethea5250]

@@Skedge Sorry for the image although I’m sure you mummies are used to it by now XD FTM. One month old, breast and formula fed but mostly formula as I don’t make enough for full regular feeds. Does this look normal to you? Everything is constantly sterilised but it sure is smelly. Thank-you.

[@aveaillium8754]

Hey! This was quite easy to remember.

[@jp4431]

@@user-te1dk1oc9l 那你就錯了兄弟

[@timothyqiu32]

Well, 出 is not about mountains, it's actually two 屮s stacked together. 屮 means "sprout", and 出 is originally the motion of sprout growing up, "out" of the earth. The horizontal version 艸 means "grass", it later became 艹, which is a very common radical used to form characters about herbs.

[@darkerhippo5852]

interesting . I didnt know this.

[@stay_coolXD]

Very good. But i learned it that way. Well

[@putikeswarasudarsono]

Now I know. Thanks

[@user-gz3ig3dl3s]

Let's go to improve your language skills. Duolingo: The boy eats an apple.

[@chrono-glitchwaterlily8776]

@@amiramegali9688 I'm going to try that app. Thanks

[@Bloooooooooopp]

hahah

[@user-yt8it5zi5y]

@@amiramegali9688 这样跟您讲，中文学习不能类比你们西方语言，但最好的办法之一仍然是多记多读，多练，多听。 多邻国学习其他语言还不错，中文就算了。

[@CheeseDiaryChina]

As a native Chinese speaker, I type Chinese in my phone to check how to write some characters correctly when I can’t remember it. Edit: Thank you for all the likes and taking interest in learning Chinese. I tried to answer all your questions, however I don't get notifications on all replies and it's a bit difficult to give a full answer to some of the questions. I upload videos on my channel about learning Chinese and its culture. So do go check out to see if there's any videos that would answer your questions :) Or write comments there and maybe your questions will be answered in my next video ;)

[@Scroolewse]

For all practical reasons writing is pretty pointless imo, learn how to speak/read/listen and you'll be fine.

[@wangtang32000]

as a general dummy, I'd like to how how you do this lol

[@CheeseDiaryChina]

Thomas Curran writing still has it’s own necessity for sure, but start Learning Chinese with speaking and listening would be easier

[@CheeseDiaryChina]

Foxeh By typing the phonetic alphabets- pin yin

[@cleoraasaran9957]

Westerners do this too when they can't spell words. There is auto correct for a lot of English words.

[@CycloneFox]

While woman (女) is a little abstract, man (男) is actually pretty easy to remember: You have a rice field (田

[@0ddowl]

The character for strength also resembles the warrior yoga pose.

[@OmkarRajam]

Woman(女) may be abstract but it can be remembered as combination of Ku+No+Ichi (In Japanese hiragana ku く, katakana no ノ, and the kanji ichi 一) where kunoichi means female ninja in Japanese. Edit: mentioned katakana and kanji for 'no' and 'ichi' respectively

[@GG-nn3lo]

뭐?

[@CHO-fq6fn]

@@GG-nn3lo thats korean.

[@GG-nn3lo]

@@CHO-fq6fn I know, I'm not an idiot. I know the difference between Chinese and Korean.

[@huienchen9474]

Welcome to the comment section where everyone is either Chinese or has learnt Chinese

[@dr.angerous]

LOL thats accurate

[@maxobakso123]

oop

[@alocanushini563]

Not correct for me

[@stevenbury3980]

没错

[@bubbletea6065]

ayyyyyyy MEEEEEEEEE

[@NetiNeti25920]

I have probably watched over 1000 TED talks in the past 10 years. But this one will remain one of my favorites. Five years after this, I moved to Vancouver where I learnt Chinese, and was able to practice it with natives (biggest community outside China). Another 5 years later, I am in China teaching English to students. Thank you, Shao Lan, you changed my life!

[@Novasky2007]

No come back and teach me the other 192 i was just starting to get it D:

[@chinestory2095]

If you are still curious about Chinese language, want to make sense of these Chinese characters so that they not only become meaningful to you, but also stay long in your memory. Watch this TEDx talk "Learn Chinese in the 21st Century"

[@littledoot1913]

Nova Sky same

[@rocketqueen9887]

Lol same

[@charlieg2262]

theres an app!

[@MTalac]

@Dev Guy if you learn two, you get it in 100 Days ;)

[@hamstersdailylife4938]

I’m a Japanese, and one of my favorite kanji is 幸(happiness) I’m pretty sure most of you know this but if you take away a horizontal line from it, it becomes 辛(pain, distress) Also, inside of the kanji for happiness, you can find the symbol ¥ (yen) which refers to Japanese money💴 Take just a mere line away from happiness: it becomes pain. Something is holding happiness together from underneath: it reads money.

[@lujialiang2764]

In chinese culture, 辛 means spicy and hardworking.

[@hamstersdailylife4938]

Lu Jialiang That is quite interesting! Here 辛い also refers to spicy, but not hardworking! I wonder why these differences occur when Japanese kanji is really only an adopted version of the Chinese charactersxD

[@lujialiang2764]

@@hamstersdailylife4938 Yeah I know right, I can read Kanji but the meaning of it can be so different. Whoever brings Kanji to japan didn't do a good job :D. I also learnt some Japanese before and willing to learn more. はじめまして!

[@blkan6415]

@@hamstersdailylife4938 nope when 辛 combines with 勤 does it mean "hardworking" generally there is no diffenrence between 中国语の辛 and 日本语の辛 anyway,日本人は中国語の文語文を勉強しました instead of our daily language. there are many differences between our 白话 and 文言文

[@jienz1990]

ゆめぽんた actually, 辛also means "pain" in Chinese in words like "辛酸”， “辛苦”. Most of the Chinese characters (kanji) have the same or similar meaning in Japanese and Chinese, except for a few like "大丈夫”，which may be due to the evolution of the two languages in the long history and lack of communication.

[@nugraharendra3004]

I feel so blissful that I've found my great Mandarin teacher in Surabaya, Indonesia who teached us the most basic hanzi like she did in this video. And in 6 months to go of learning ( 3 days a week) Im already in HSK 2 stage and we're trying to do HSK 3 reading exercise...

[@tantejunko]

Gee, I actually want to get a Mandarin teacher too but I have no money, and I'm pretty sure this crappy Kurikulum 2013 (or Kurtilas) wont let me have a free day without homework so I can't really focus on studying Mandarin. Sad life.

[@vincentzhou8706]

The method is cool until you start to see characters such as 魑魅魍魉

[@iamgorgeous]

Are those characters different? What's the difference can you tell me?

[@bananasinpyjamas7738]

Harder, more complex, you may be able to read it but can you remember them to write? I am a bilingual Japanese speaker though still learning and thay are annoying. Sorry if I sound very passive aggressive.

[@vincentzhou8706]

@@iamgorgeous take a look at the right part of each individual character. 离 末 罔 两

[@vincentzhou8706]

@@bananasinpyjamas7738 Frankly speaking, I won’t be able to write those words without looking them up cuz they are rarely used.

[@bananasinpyjamas7738]

@Vincent Zhou Fair point, but i must disagree about the rarely used part. If you ever go to japan, a majority of the writing will be complex kanji’s.

[@MintyCanRead]

Oh no, I shouldn't have watched this. Now I'm taking this as a personal challenge. Goodbye free time :(

[@alexandershek9377]

进展如何了？

[@jwyz26]

Minty I know how you feel! But at the same time, it's a great opportunity to learn more about the culture and communicate with more people. Don't forget Chinese (Mandarin Chinese) is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world.

[@Deemonita]

I don't know, but i see a woman and a mouth!

[@yuezzzhang5820]

-A woman 女 and a mouth 口. -You put them together -You got 如 -Thinking something dirty -Look it up in a dictionary thinking it would be something you thought it'd be -Turns out it means "be like sth" -Give up learning Chinese

[@keegster7167]

+Chäri Deng Think of it this way: it is like a woman to talk a lot. (based on the stereotype that women talk a lot). There seems to always be some easy way to remember these things.

[@jag831]

"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt" - The tree

[@1murkeybadmayn]

absolutely brilliant.

[@tcc5750]

Oh wow a white Mexican. How strange.

[@jag831]

@@tcc5750 yeah, nice comment

[@nagihangot6133]

Now write that in Chinese with correct grammar.

[@jag831]

@@nagihangot6133 there is already a character for that

[@wby4571]

Here is one of my favourite ancient Chinese poems written in Traditional Chinese (not simplified Chinese) I learned at the age of 9 at school. Really love it because it sounds good when read aloud in Cantonese and it rhymes. It's been more than a decade since I learned it but I still know it by heart because of its catchy phrases. Disney's Mulan took reference from this story. You can probably spot characters like 木門女大出火...it definitely takes time to learn traditional Chinese characters but it worths the effort because in the end you can appreciate how amazing this language is. 唧唧復唧唧，木蘭當戶織。不聞機杼聲，惟聞女嘆息 問女何所思，問女何所憶。女亦無所思，女亦無所憶。 昨夜見軍帖，可汗大點兵，軍書十二卷，卷卷有爺名。 阿爺無大兒，木蘭無長兄，願爲市鞍馬，從此替爺徵。 東市買駿馬，西市買鞍韉，南市買轡頭，北市買長鞭。 旦辭爺孃去，暮宿黃河邊，不聞爺孃喚女聲，但聞黃河流水鳴濺濺。 旦辭黃河去，暮至黑山頭，不聞爺孃喚女聲，但聞燕山胡騎鳴啾啾。 萬里赴戎機，關山度若飛。朔氣傳金柝，寒光照鐵衣。將軍百戰死，壯士十年歸。 歸來見天子，天子坐明堂。策勳十二轉，賞賜百千強。可汗問所欲，木蘭不用尚書郎，願馳千里足，送兒還故鄉。 爺孃聞女來，出郭相扶將； 阿姊聞妹來，當戶理紅妝； 小弟聞姊來，磨刀霍霍向豬羊。 開我東閣門，坐我西閣牀，脫我戰時袍，著我舊時裳。 當窗理雲鬢，對鏡貼花黃。出門看火伴，火伴皆驚忙： 同行十二年，不知木蘭是女郎。 雄兔腳撲朔，雌兔眼迷離；雙兔傍地走，安能辨我是雄雌？ *Flies away Edit: if you are wondering, it's called 木蘭辭 (or木蘭詩)

[@inkye3015]

The pronunciation is the real challenging part my friends XD

[@julietdong8246]

depends on the situation and your background. I'm a chinese-born American, so every day my parents speak Chinese around the house. i used to only speak Chinese when i was really young before i started school, but after i went to school and learned English i never really spoke Chinese anymore. anywaaayyss, the pronunciation isn't that hard for me because i hear Chinese all the time, but the reading and writing is super challenging because it's not an everyday thing lol why did i type this it doesn't even matter 😂

[@PutraRhm]

Fact, one mistake and I literally called my own mom a horse lol

[@timothykarlsson3126]

Agreed

[@bobjacobson858]

@@julietdong8246 It was interesting to obtain your perspective.

[@faivrejean-michel8744]

「媽、麻、馬、罵、嗎」

[@ArtbyAtlas]

Wow, that was cool. Reading Chinese is more like viewing pictures than actually reading words/letters. :)

[@rainbow9552]

Chinese is hieroglyph

[@Duck-lb6ff]

Because Chinese characters started as pictures, then simplified until we have the characters you see today. The traditional characters 繁體字 is from 宋朝, and the simplified Chinese 簡體字 you see are later developed.

[@BhijanNeupane]

There are several components to teaching yourself to speak Mandarin easily . A plan I found that successfully combines these is the Magic mandarin blueprint (google it if you're interested) without a doubt the most incredible remedy that I have ever heard of. Check out the awesome info .

[@moofymoo]

novel written with emojis. just wait for it.

[@zbzb-ic1sr]

I already know most of what she was saying having studied Japanese and memorized close to 2000 Kanji, but I have to say, the backstories of a lot of those Hanzi were very interesting and memorable. Definitely learned a lot.

[@Abhil295]

2:25 Me: I'm sure this is a window. "The sun" Me: Oh ._.

[@user-ty8kd5fn7x]

☀ ⦿ 日

[@Abhil295]

@@user-ty8kd5fn7x 🤔

[@justinkwok7271]

窗 this is window btw

[@blr3098]

and this word "田" means field lol

[@deathgamer8086]

@Alexandra Sy except the windows change shape

[@bungaraya6082]

the two women arguing is the best to memorize!

[@niubi3923]

That character is rarely ever used in modern chinese and I've only ever seen it once in a poem. It doesn't even show up in my phone's dictionary lol

[@rodrigobenigno2108]

@YIP Sarah Hei Man葉禧雯 奻 is pronounced nuán

[@chgue]

That character does not exist in the Chinese today. A horrible misleading example

[@jeremychang5543]

@@chgue the whole presentation is pretty cringey.

[@RedDesertRoz]

Brilliant! My children have started learning Chinese at their new school this year (we're Aussie) and I'm so happy to finally have the chance to learn, alongside them! Have only just this week ventured into even trying to take a look at the characters beyond numbers, and this is really helpful. My kids are already decoding characters based on a handful they know! It's like solving a puzzle, I love it.

[@hkm239]

"Chinese is pretty easy" Me, who lived in Hong Kong since I was born: So I got 56% on my Chinese test. Probably the best I have done since primary.

[@hkm239]

@@tcterrence Welp ;-;

[@shayminnasakura]

Hmmmm Someone speaks Cantonese got tested on Madarin

[@Jay71k]

R H K M Well if you live in Hong Kong and you speak Cantonese I can imagine a test in mandarin would be difficult

[@serafinawilson7386]

@@shayminnasakura International schools in Hong Kong teach all the subjects while speaking English and we have separate lessons for Mandarin since most people at international schools are not local Hong Kongers. I think the OP goes to an international school. I live in Hong Kong but I don't speak any Cantonese, just English and Mandarin.

[@nomperfect]

Thanks for the inspiration bro lol

[@VidkunQL]

3:38 +"...A talking tree is pretty idiotic."_ In my country, a talking tree would be considered a genius among trees.

[@user-qx9kr6vb4m]

Hi May I know where are you from. Good to know different culture. :)

[@user-vi4cx8mg1f]

actually, the word with meaning of idiotic in chinese is from its outfile , because it looks like a stupid guy.

[@newname3718]

It's not really a talking tree. 木meant wood.. as in like logs chopped off from growing part of a tree. So if it is used to describe a person's intellect or personality, way of reacting to the surrounding, it's more on "slow, unlively, dense" or should we use lag as well since it's the electronic era, it totally come across as dense or dumb. We don't use 呆 to describe idiot, it has a cuter goofy vibe sometimes. The actual word for idiot would be 白痴 notice it has the "sickness" radical (I can't type it out, here the word for disease: 病疫, I'm sure you can spot the radical). So yea, stupidity/idiocracy is a form of sickness (it's mocking but it fits some idiots we know in our lives :P) But undeniably anxiety people don't care much about other's feeling so 呆could be because it literally saying that person's physically is a eating log. Can't do any work except eating (that person could be intellectually handicapped due to health issues but those days were harsh, no one get free meals, patients like this are seen as leeches at least non-family members would judge them as "useless parasite")

[@skylerthompson9845]

yeah but a talking tree would still be idiotic in comparison to a human, imagine the conversation.

[@david-xw4ug]

don't tell this to the trees in china, they will feel bad

[@yamdamn3734]

I never felt learning Chinese could be this much fun, you explains with such precise , before that I really didn't know how deal with those Chinese characters which were just felt only lines with no emotions to me, you showed my dumbness in whole new light, not only this, you also teached me , how 'teaching' itself is supposed to be, my family is full of teachers but really no one is like you, I admire you.

[@donnymo3481]

In Chinese, the symbols on the right can show the pronunciation mostly. Like hen pronounced "hin" (In different tones of course) can mean 很，which means "really"; 恨, which means hate; or 痕，which means "a mark". The symbols on the left hint the meaning while the symbols on the right hints the pronounciation

[@Checkmate1138]

But how does that help with pronunciation? For example: 眼 yan3 which means "eye". This is composed of 目mu4 and 艮gen3. How do you get the pronunciation "yan3" from that??

[@mustafabaris9681]

Actually , you need to memorize about 2885 Chinese characters to be able to read any modern Chinese newspapers and magazines and books.. That means , if you can memorize 2885 characters , then you can read 98 % of everything in the modern Chinese books ... While it may seem like a mission impossible , but imagine if you took the time to memorize 3 characters a day , in 30 months you could read Chinese ..! 当然是刚开始的时候会觉得很难但是如果你非常得决心，记住2885 汉字真的不难！

[@Yakend]

hm, i could get learn chinese writting in only 4 months, 6 months if i am lazy haha and they say to become good at anything u need 20k hours i could do it in 4616 hours, fight me china (jk learning this for japan but still FIGHT ME)

[@hbrhodes1s]

She said basic comprehension, genius.

[@nopass6247]

And you need about 10,000 compound words from these characters too. So at that speed it's more like 100+ months.

[@familykeepersca]

簡單化，有笑果就有效果，對這些一字不通的"白"丁，夠啦!

[@tiacuppe6681]

30 months?! That's well over two years!

[@twosockssss]

This kind of mnemotechnics works for the first few characters, but not for learning the next thousands Fortunately your brain soon becomes used to remember a character, without having to invent stories every time

[@NoxStream]

It's a helpful method even with unfamiliar characters. A lot of Chinese characters have a "zuo sho pang", or left hand side and other similar "sub" characters. She demonstrated 8, but there are so many others. These characters are often the simple characters (water, fire, tree, etc.) that convey meaning to the word. She's right about the radicals, and they do play a pretty major part in the language. May not help you obtain mastery, but it's a damn good start lol.

[@wes1932]

Nope.... chinese grade school kids use this technique to remember at least over 1000 characters

[@volundrsigdag3456]

It kinda helps me remembering Japanese kanji.I just break complex kanji into simple characters what I'm already know.Even if it doesn't make any sense, it still easier to remember.

[@BertaRS]

Yeah, it works for a few but not for a lot of them.

[@newname3718]

Her way is a good start, once we are done with the easy ones she described in her talk our brain get used to Chinese characters. It's like learning English, the only difference is English is phonetic. But I have to admit I'm a spoiled brat. I got too comfortable using Chinese grammar I get frustrated when learnig the sentence structure of Japanese. And I'm no longer at the peak of my language learning capabilities it's just gahhhhhhhh why so much unnecessary words in between.

[@aleksanderamid5842]

Picking up girls in china will be like : Girl : 魑魅魍魉 Me : Fire japanese mountain sun

[@Cloud-kf2dp]

People keep using this example fsr even though they’re so simple learning the components..

[@infographistehistorichaiti5929]

I'm so impressed. I've been studying Japanese by myself since 2 years. With a method like this, I would learn a lot of kanji. I've recently started studying Chinese Madarin but shy away from the idea of ever learning the writing system. I certainly would improve much better learning Chinese characters from her.

[@renee8746]

why are my professors not as cool as her??

[@Makkaru112]

>>'' I know right??

[@pinakabudlayngapangalannga2827]

Lol same

[@Bloggeador]

Maybe because they don't have pupils so cool like hers! XD

[@RokuRG]

Because you wouldn't learn anything. It may be fun, but you're not gonna learn few thousands characters with this method.

[@anonymussquad7547]

Don´t think so, so would do it, but it would take you around 1 year or more

[@JohnDoe-em2xd]

I can't believe how eager people believe that she is teaching something new and groundbreaking. Most people in language courses start learning Chinese like this. However, only for the first 100 characters or so. When you start to really go for an advanced level in Chinese, you will have to throw her method out of the window. Less than 10% of Chinese characters are pictograms such as the ones she shows in her talk. If you really want to decipher all characters like that, you will need 300 years until you can start reading a Chinese book. You want to know the best method for learning to read Chinese? Get the DeFrancis series. He teaches you a couple new characters each chapter and then it's read, read and read. Yes, rote memorization, not as fluffy as her method, but you know what - it works! You can finish the series in one year with good effort and you will know more than 3,000 characters that make up more than 100,000 words. Her method is good for your first steps in Chinese, but after that, forget about it. Reading reading and reading is the way to perfect the knowledge of Chinese characters.

[@oridniv]

Hi, would you consider yourself fluent? I know with languages it's still a work in progress. I'm just curious on where to begin. Thanks, I'll look DeFrancis up

[@Stefunny19]

@Marcel C, "Most people in language courses start learning Chinese like this." Unfortunately this could not be more true. In fact, as a native Mandarin speaker, I feel like it's just a ruse to get people interested in learning Chinese... for some reason, a lot of Chinese people seem to really think it is or will be the most important language in the worlds... I pity kids who are forced to learn it under this mentality... there is little to no use in learning Hanzi if you can already speak it, as English is used more or less internationally, and for good reason. What do you think is easier to mass use, a combination of 26 phonetic alphabets or more than 80,000 different non phonetic characters? People need to know the truth, If you keep using this technique, you'll get so confused as you try to find the picture in the word, it's just a mnemonic and eventually you'll run out of them for words like 紫，脚，我，找... pretty much 99% of the words. Chinese Parents, please do not try to trick your kids into learning Hanzi this way, they'll only be disappointed it's not true and waste their time looking for something not there.

[@sanjeen2503]

@@Stefunny19 ha-ha, after a point of time, every han zi looks like tv antennae.

[@urokusaki6143]

Yes, this video is pure bullshit

[@jasonwillows5239]

I grew up in Hong Kong, and funny enough, this is exactly how my manderin teacher taught me these characters. Learned it for 9 years and I still can't speak a word of it.

[@pasleighlaylay6502]

Omg. How??? Nine years is a long time.

[@jasonwillows5239]

@@pasleighlaylay6502 Yeah, tell me about it. I had lessons twice a week as part of the curriculum from year 1 to year 9, and I legitimately can't remember a word of it. I just never ended up using it. Most people in HK speak English, and those that don't usually aren't too great with mandarin either, since Cantonese is much more suited to the locals.

[@drbreadmin6967]

@@pasleighlaylay6502 I've been learning for 13 years can't speak a word of it either I mean I can but locals would ask me to just write it down because that's how bad it is xD

[@soatnod9573]

@@jasonwillows5239 I think you mean "most people around me speak English in HK" or "most people in HK can speak English" since the absolute majority of people in HK speaks Cantonese, just to clear out some confusion for other people.

[@SuppositionalBox]

@@drbreadmin6967 Sounds like what I'd have to do if I learned Mandarin xD

[@stoneesquire4048]

Vow,she’s given so brilliant explanations on Chinese character configuration!

[@blancoarnau]

wow! what a creative way of learning a language!

[@dot5483]

All she's done is superimpose actual drawings over stylised drawings and pretend she's discovered something new. In fact, this is how Chinese characters have always been seen and how some of the basic characters have always been taught. Moreover you can't use this method to learn all Chinese characters. Some are phonetic and for others the relation btw the components and its meaning is too obscure.

[@TheOtakuPrince]

I want to learn Chinese. Afterall, its useful when making money in China.

[@TheOtakuPrince]

Mandarin of course.

[@dot5483]

YiFan Tey Let's hope she's not selling it to them at inflated prices.

[@CassieSiChen]

It's not creative at all...feel like she's just a business woman....

[@chenweiqi880705]

nothing fancy, she's just explaining the logic behind hierolyph. That's how chinese characters were created and supposed to be learnt. She did a good job.

[@adafu1505]

yup

[@jordanjacobson6046]

They aren't hieroglyphs tho? Chinese characters go along a spectrum(kinda?) from pure pictographs(like the 8 she mentioned), logographic characters(other radicals that arent pictographic, think the nike or starbucks logos), ideographic characters(like logographs, but for immaterial and more abstract concepts, to compounds of all three of those groups in any order and number.) While her method is nice, it doesnt work for the majority of characters. Heiroglyphs are more of a hybrid. Some are pictographs and logographs, but they are often read like an abjad(like an alphabet, an example nowadays is Arabic script) at the same time.

[@Nathan-28]

Jordan Jacobson well said

[@RubixNinja]

@@jordanjacobson6046 they are Heiroglyphs... I don't know a single language writing system on earth that doesn't have some logographs... and those were often once pictograph until they lost meaning over time. Otherwise there is zero advantage to the writing system.

[@jordanjacobson6046]

@@RubixNinja Most of the worlds writing systems dont use logographs unless you count punctuation. The majority of the world uses an alphabet or an abjad, neither of which contain logographs, pictographs, or heiroglyphs

[@pigamer4416]

5:56 fastest conclusion ever

[@Sausagey2]

I've been speaking Chinese my whole life but I didn't even realise this exists.

[@k4ze7]

I studied Chinese in college and have been working in China for 5 years. She makes it seem like if you learn a handful of characters you'll be able to understand at least some Chinese. In reality, these pictogram characters will not comprise an entire setence. I wonder why she did not use these 8 to make a sentence? Because you can't really. Those characters would be spread out sparsely throughout the language. Another problem is that some of the examples she uses of "combinations" might only looking at written literature where things are probably used in some fancy way. I was confused by some of the examples she used because I never hear people use the words as she described the translations. 从 (she says it means follow) - I most often see these in words like 从哪里 (from where) 从不 (never) 从事 (to be engaged in) . Usually 跟着 or 随着 is used for the word follow, as we use it in English. If I say, 你跟着我走 it means follow me (when walking down a street for instance). 炎 (she says it means hot)- I most often see this word meaning inflammation for medical reasons. 炎症 is a general word for inflammation. Hot is typically 热 for weather (今天很热 - It's really hot today) and 烫 (这碗汤很烫 - This bowl of soup is really hot) is typically used to describe something that's hot to the touch. Two women together is an argument. Hilarious, but usually 吵架 is used. Although her examples of 火山 (volcano) 日本人 (Japanese person) and 出口 (exit) is entirely accurate. What she is saying is true, but it's a vast oversimplification and there are a lot of caveats. There are plenty of Chinese characters that are built from previous, more simpler ones that you know. Once you know enough characters, sometimes you can guess the meaning of an unfamiliar one through context and the other simpler characters contained within it. Sometimes I like to think of Chinese like a "lego" language, both in terms of individual characters and grammar. It all builds off smaller parts into something complex. If you want to learn Chinese (including reading/writing), you'll require a pretty big amount of rote memorization. There's a reason why rote memorization is favored in Chinese eduation. But again, the legos will eventually come together into another language you can use!

Thank you for explaining well. I appreciate it. I want to learn Chinese, but after improving my English to the best level and learning Arabic(I'm currently studying it. So that's why).

[@owlsailing6496]

主要是中国的历史和文化你没学过 所以觉得她说的很难理解。打个比方 炎症为什么用炎？因为在中医里inflammations 是有身体发热引起发炎

[@wanyinleung912]

Your Chinese is really good

[@thomaspeng3212]

You are very in-depth on Chinese, which is amazing, but 从 does have the meaning "to follow/pursue". For example, people would say 从众行为 (Conformity Behavior) where 从 means to follow; 众 means "the crowd" and 行为 "behavior". Also, we do use 从事 as a verb to describe your occupation, yes, but if you look at the respective meaning of these two Chinese characters, 从 means to followor pursue and 事 here means your career (as in 事业), so together 从事 means you are pursuing a career as (a certain job), which totally makes sense.

[@thomaspeng3212]

Also fully agree with you on the sentence composition part. I think the speaker is using hieroglyphic characters to raise the audience's interest in learning Chinese language, which can be more attractive. 😃

[@onlyyou9199]

As a native Chinese speaker, actually only very few of the characters can be explained like this.

[@aftereffects00]

This method just for Beginner...

[@williamwoolf8072]

exactly lol

[@SomeRandomlyDude]

I started learning mandarin 5 months ago and I found the hanzi is difficult to grasp compared with easy character in Korean(Hangul). I stumble found the chineasy method to learn the hanzi and it has helped me a lot.xie xie nin Chineasy!You made the wonder looks easy!

[@blutopfer2700]

This was how I was tricked into thinking that learning Japanese Kanji would be easy. How wrong I was.

[@abhilasha9608]

I see a fellow human stumbling on their path to learn Kanji,like me

[@LOLA-yj9rr]

Lol welcome to the club

[@chrisding1976]

This isn’t helpful at all to learn, actually these characters are the 8 most easy to write in the entire language. They are also all nouns, so good luck making sentences with them. If you actually wanna learn chinese, you have a long road ahead, I’ve been learning for about 7 years now and I’m still learning.

[@chrisding1976]

Maybe to get u interested though

[@swaraligore7682]

same

[@mangoyes2000]

ShaoLan, As a Chinese-American mother, I have tried for years to encourage my children to learn the chinese language but they have little interest. I showed your TED talk to my 10-year old and she immediately snapped a photo of your slide of the eight characters then grabbed a piece of paper after the video and wrote/drew themInut with joy!! :D I think you are on to something with your method of teaching. It is similar to the way I learned medical terminology and it has stuck with me for 20+ years even though I am not working in the medical profession. Also, bravo to you for dreaming big. I too have a background in finance and dream of a career change in the humanities. I was hoping to connect with you on Linkedin but was not able to find you. Is there a way for me to get in touch with you? Warm regards, Lisa

[@ALLanguageCafe]

You can try through Facebook (her Chineasy page). I was able to get in contact with her back then when she held a contest ^^

[@chinesepodcast]

Lisa Sezto-Ip children need listen to chinese everyday la~~

[@redicent]

Hi! My mom is Chinese, and I moved to America when I was 7. I never liked learning Chinese, what are the benefits of learning how to read and write if I am not even in China? I am 11, by the way.

[@mrnlouzada]

Rem Hi Rem, I am not Chinese, I am Brazilian but I think I can answer your question. When you learn a new language your brain changes, you start thinking differently and you understand people differently, this is a great gift! Also, you might not be in China now but who knows the future? You might want to visit there, or take vaccations there how awesome it would be to be able to comunicate with ease! See, I will use myself as an example, my native language is Portuguese but I had to learn English as a kid, if I hadn't learned I would have never understood your comment, I would never have met my husband (he only speaks english) and I would never have moved to the USA... knowing languages is a great gift that your mom can give you for free!!

[@theloniousm4337]

Rem - sometime during your lifetime Mandarin will likely replace English as the global lingua franca (the dominant language in the world). You aren't in China now but someday in the future you may want to be.

[@prismarine2277]

“As impenetrable as the Great Wall of China” Mongols: 👀

[@boysteacher3818]

mongols weren't able to break in the wall of china

[@danielfazlan4769]

@@boysteacher3818 Their ingenious solution was going around it instead

[@ChannelUmptyThree]

Maybe as impenetrable as the Great Wall of South Park

[@abhinavchauhan7864]

@@danielfazlan4769 you killed the joke genius

[@edsoft9132]

Actually, The Turks

[@donalain69]

15 years Go I knew 500 characters and was able to have a conversation in Chinese..... but today I forgot all of them because I never used them.

[@marcob4630]

it's the most complicate language on earth, but they still insist not to be modern and rational

[@donalain69]

@@marcob4630 i didnty say i regret the time i spent learning it. I did not forget it because its not modern or irrational, i just didnt get the chance to use it because i wasnt in china. i still think its an amazing language.

[@marcob4630]

@@donalain69 : OK! If we not pratice languages they get forgotten, above all Chinese! Maybe it's an "amazing" language as you say , but for me it's only bewildering. Interesting because it's antique or even "outdated". If China had had an ancient democracy their language would have changed in one way or another, shifting to the a far simpler phonetic one. The emperors wanted no changes in tradition at all however not the people. If the Egypt would be ruled by Pharaohs until nowadays, their hieroglyphic language would be still actual!

[@donalain69]

@@marcob4630 ehm.. our phonetic language had its origin in the roman empire and was used in non-democratic feudal systems for most of its existence. while the greek adopted their alphabet from the Phoenicianis, who had nothing to do with democracy. I dont see any connection between democracy and the use of phonetic language. But what im really sure about is that democracy has failed in the US, so it clearly wouldnt be a good system for a nation with 5 times more people.

[@marcob4630]

@@donalain69 : USA have failed in democracy? Only your opinion! In China there were many proposal in the past to change the ancient system coming from down to up, however the rulers (Emperors) wanted to maintain the ancient system also to mark the difference between East and West. China has always been an isolated country ("The Empire of the Middle) fearing all contacts with other civilisations. That's the reason why China was far behind in technology until the invasion of the British. If you find that China has a better democracy than USA (LOL!) so you are free to walk out

[@RoyalYoutube_PRO]

that was excellent delivery, never seen a speech so concise

[@Ffffjjjje]

love her method, very useful and effective more than what I learned in uni

[@HuyenLe-nv6pm]

I'm learning japanese but through this video i know the way to learn kanji! Tks for ur sharing :)

[@rick4809]

+Huyền Lê Chinese Characters shaped cultural features of local and regional languages. I like writing Chinese and Japanse. #VesakIntroductionClassicalChinese

[@ramirosotto]

+Huyền Lê I did the same!! I think this was the perfect way to introduce myself to the beautiful chinese characters.

[@HuyenLe-nv6pm]

+Rick me too! i really love these language systems. If you don't mind, could we can make friend to exchange the method.

[@HuyenLe-nv6pm]

+Ramiro Sotto Of course and her method guide us to approach these languages easily :))

[@cr07forever93]

ikr

[@spe.wu12]

That's why I started learning Chinese, I found it fascinating.

[@tristinatran5551]

This was really inspiring to someone who has a little bit of hesitancy begin learning Chinese, but I think I can do it!

[@by.berrymoon]

This comment may not please lots of people who watched this video and thought "it is so cool/she is so cool/now I can learn Chinese with ease" but for someone who watched this video two years ago and thought the same thing and found out that her technique is far from truth I want to share what I learned. Her technique is cool because what she does is that handpicking characters that are either pictograms or compound ideograms. Which means characters who are once drawings/have a form similar to the meaning of the character (pictograms) or characters which were formed by two ideograms (compound ideograms) are the ONLY ones she uses to illustrate how easy Chinese is. In short, As Chinese characters were formed through six techniques, she uses only two techniques that is easy to see/understand/get motivated from. The thing is it is really hard to learn Chinese only using these characters as they (pictograms) only made %4 of the Chinese characters. Imagine how many of them make up the vocabulary it is necessary to learn at first, it might be even lower in number. As far as I know most characters are made up from phono-semantic compounds that renders this technique (in both short and long run) useless for the learner. I'm not Chinese but have been doing my research what kind of language it is so I can learn it more efficiently. I also realize how misleading this video is for someone who wants to learn a language like Chinese. So I wanted to share what I know and maybe help someone save some time.

[@nomadhabit]

yet you don't have a better technique to present to the learner do you?

[@DylanBlanko]

Remembering the Hanzi anyone?

[@mohammedfathi3592]

This is a loser's set of mind. I hope no one sees your comment and give up like you.

[@knguyennguyen5559]

You can try to memorise through her ways but in the end the only true way to memorise Hanzi is to write it repeatedly until you remember it and rewrite it.

[@knguyennguyen5559]

Her method might work for the first 100 words or so but then you start getting to words as complicated as 龜, 微, 龍 her method would not work

[@uttkarshraut1087]

I'm in love with Chinese but it's difficult

[@lukas2712]

Not at all, grammar is really easy

[@renicawili7555]

Me, just needed to talk with yan cheng xu

[@thuyhangtranthi6374]

When u've finished Chinese u will learn Japanese very easy

[@dralethedragon2521]

Im so lucky to be born a chinese but still learn english in school

[@dralethedragon2521]

In malaysia you learn 3 languages. Chinese english and malay

[@toothsometofu]

I lived in Hong Kong for a year and intuitive learned all and more of these characters. When people say it’s terribly hard to learn to read and write, I laugh bc it’s actually quite explanatory. Reading is much easier than writing bc You don’t have to recall from memory. She did a wonderful job breaking down the basics! Once you understand the rules of the order to write the strokes you’re well on your way! If you ever saw me on the bus or subway I’d be tracing with my finger in my palm the signs and words I’d see. Someday I’ll be fluent in Cantonese. 👍🏼

[@williamwoolf8072]

you're telling me you intuitively memorized 2000 characters? lol gonna need proof

[@toothsometofu]

@@williamwoolf8072 if you read my comment, I stated that I intuitively learned all of these characters and more (taught in this video).

[@kyi3234]

I like your teaching and very clear . I like to learning Chinese. And thank you so much . I am learning more and more . Before this time , i didn't understand and can not recognize by heard. Now , Chinese language Kanji is being fascinating to me more and more.

[@liliansmeets8166]

I'm studying Chinese since August in the Netherlands , such a beautiful language !!

[@ThePlataf]

An excellent vid. I was fortunate when learning Mandarin that my teacher showed me how to "see" the characters. It made the writing a joy to learn.

[@NasAfter]

wooow she's amazing, the presentation was so enjoyable and actually effective

[@Gerald69420]

Followed the advice and yup, took me 10 minutes to learn chinese. Super helpful!

[@XxMIKExFAILZxX]

I want her class for Chinese. She makes it seem so easy...

[@junfeipei866]

As a native Chinese whos working in New York sometimes teaching my friends Chinese, I have to say, this is not helpful. Maybe good to let ppl to be interested in the first time, but not a comprehensive way to learn Chinese at all. Be careful my western friends, if you really want to dig into it.

[@hello_iamjenny5931]

junfei pei so trueeeee!!! 8個字想不出來可以做什麼😅

[@balhazer]

could you be so kind and tell me, what type (mandarín, cantonesse, hokkado? dunno the Word) is the one to learn? please.

[@asdf8650]

@@balhazer Mandarin is the one ppl speak in mainland China and Taiwan, Cantonese is spoken in Hong Kong

[@snailwyj]

@@balhazer Writing system: Simplified Chinese (Mainland China, Singapore, Malaysia) vs Traditional Chinese (Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau). Speaking system: Mandarin with different accents (Mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia) vs Many Dialects (Cantonese, Hakka, Hokkien, etc). There is much information you can search via google if you really wanna know, do research bro, don't be lazy.

[@balhazer]

@@snailwyj I already did it, and it seems not even mainlanders & islanders come to an agreement 'bout writing and language. Altough, Mandarín seems to be the common sense for speaking.

[@btstwitterupdates3790]

I could literally listen to this all day, this is the most fascinating thing ever

[@unpolishedpearl3769]

Thank you! I love and appreciate your books!

[@bretta8116]

More of her doing this, learning Chinese. she is pretty and Easy to understand.

[@NJWAANAA]

Exactly....she is perfect in teaching :)

[@wetfoodinthesink6173]

+Paul Savage you can buy her book! It's available on amazon I mean of course you have to pay for it but I personally think that it's actually good to pay a bit bacause you can help her and her team with that and I mean if somebody creates something so awesome they really earned it! :)

[@futureisyours3016]

This was amazing. I salute you for your honest, humorous and especially your humble approach. 🙏

[@nanagasimova9546]

2 women together- they have an argument😂😂 Thank you for such a fun and interesting video! 😍I really liked it! Who knows maybe after I graduate from university i will start learning Chinese!

[@momothebug]

I’m studying Japanese currently and would love to learn Chinese in the future. All of the basic 8 characters mentioned (fire, sun, moon, mouth etc.), while pronounced differently, mean the same things and a lot of the characters mentioned beyond that are very similar if not the same. This is how I’ve been learning Japanese and it’s very reassuring that Chinese language can be learned in the same way.

[@reeceselby2979]

That was actually amazing! I could have watched that for hours.

[@megarust4118]

two women together... argument...

[@Hi-om5ku]

Yes, there is.

[@ccoowt]

Actually this character is very rarely used

[@user-cv2gv7rl6j]

Artur Eff 嬲=男+女+男 2 boy +1 girl=angry

[@beareggers]

And three women together? 姦

[@user-cv2gv7rl6j]

姦 mean rape , we use 強姦 to mean rape

[@oka542]

formation of chinese traditional words are amazing and have deep meaning inside.

[@friedtofu5896]

I remember the time when I was studying Chinese. Whenever I met a character I’ve never learned before, by using the method the video mentioned, I was able to imagine what the character roughly means without looking for it on the dictionary. It is one of the advantages for Chinese as a hieroglyph

[@DonaldKronos]

It's about time. I've been waiting as long as I can remember for someone to make something like that. Where can I find the rest of it?

[@AmyRoseMainCharacter]

This reminds me of the 90-Minute Korean challenge lesson that uses symbology like this in learning Hangeul characters (which can be helpful no matter if you're a beginner or an intermediate, etc. - you could eventually be able to read it normally without the symbology). By the way, it was beautiful how she was talking about breaking down the (metaphorical) wall, so that other people could learn Chinese (with ease 😅), too. ☺

[@mustaqzicar6823]

Amazing! Thanks for the lesson.

[@aufashofiiskarimah1603]

wow i'm today years old when i found this eventhough i've been learning chinese for a year now... how fascinating!

[@user-bn8pk4pp3i]

今まで何気なく過ごしてきたけど、この動画で漢字の面白さに気づけて良かった

[@chengyanslc]

This demonstration is good to get a newbie hooked but to get to really high-level(as any human endeavor) a lot of hard work is still required.

[@Mr2tails]

More like two decades of hard work is needed just to engage in a logical political debate.

[@familykeepersca]

簡單化，有笑果就有效果，對這些一字不通的"白"丁，夠啦!

[@sarathw5740]

You are one of the most wonderful teachers!

[@mbryred]

I need all the help I can get and this talk was very helpful!

[@DiLiNiTi]

I love this presentation. ShaoLan seems to be a very lovely and sharing person. I think this is a great introduction... but to say a few things for people wishing to become advanced in the characters,.. I do agree that learning the Chinese characters in terms of similarity makes things much easier than, for example, learning in order of common usage. However I've found over the course of learning 2000+ of these characters that these pictographic combinations can only take you so far. Soon you will get characters like say 言 and justice 義 put together to make deliberation 議 (at least this is in Japanese, pardon me if the traditional characters are different). In this situation not only is it difficult to make a logical association between the two components and the compound character, but also the meanings are rather abstract and/or ambiguous, which can make the process even trickier. For those interested in learning the characters, I think it's important to find a method that can be applied to the learning of any character. I find that using imagination (a very strong mental quality in many westerners) can allow you to make stories out of the elements within a character, that enable memorisation of a compound even if made from abstract or entirely unrelated components. The weirder the story, and the more vividly it can be imagined and played with in the mind, the better it sticks. This can stimulate the deeper layers of imaginative memory, and also can be much more fun than repetition. When things are fun, they work better for sure

[@vlandroid95]

I want a more lessons from you!)

[@aspiringice1871]

Ваше Величество you can get more lessons from her for free. Look up “chineasy”

[@gadukoley8300]

Thanks so much , i like this presentation , I'm a Chinese learner . i will always follow you to perform this complex language.

[@Zenkyuu8921]

This video is basically explaining how stories help a lot in SRS systems

[@brutevilgax777]

This method of giving each character its own unique story really works. I've been doing this with Japanese Kanji since 1 year ago, and I have already memorized most of the 2,200 most commonly used kanji.

[@zarah4998]

After ths video im surely in love with Chinese language #Good job TED Team 😊

[@lghammer778]

Fantastic, I am learning Mandarin. This was a neat way of approaching that path to education for me, cheers 😃

[@bellemx9357]

I study Chinese and I needed that video a lot to remember them well 你谢谢

[@claytonf.3953]

3:38 I am lorax and I speak for the trees. The trees speek something to me in -Chinese- Vietnamese.

[@isimsiz1531]

Aga bee!😂

[@HuyLy94]

This method is how I was taught simple kanji in my Japanese elective class in high school (in Australia). For example for days of the week we were taught: Sun-day, Moon-day, Fire-day, Water-day, Wood-day, Gold-day, Dirt-day. Also doesn't wood/tree also mean knowledge so the character for idiot could be considered "talking above/without knowledge"

[@christophermanson2937]

Thank you so much. That was a cool tactic to learn so many characters.

[@Nathandrake1997]

I used this app and well, the Unique selling point is those Character mnemonics. It is really great