{"id":52261,"date":"2017-03-08T19:40:35","date_gmt":"2017-03-08T11:40:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.chengduliving.com\/?p=52261"},"modified":"2017-03-10T16:08:18","modified_gmt":"2017-03-10T08:08:18","slug":"elite-chinese","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chengduliving.com\/elite-chinese\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Take Shortcuts to Elite Chinese Like I Did"},"content":{"rendered":"

Note: the post below was authored\u00a0by Luke Neale, co-founder of\u00a0Mandarin Blueprint<\/a>, the Chengdu-based Chinese language school and includes an embedded Youtube clip. If you’re in Mainland China, you will want to have a VPN enabled for the video to appear.<\/em><\/p>\n

When I decided to learn Chinese, I started off by doing what most people do when they want to learn something: I got a teacher. Actually, I had a string of them in the beginning. None of them were particularly experienced or competent, but at the time it didn\u2019t really bother me. I was motivated enough to power through the initial grind, expecting it to get better. I was still surprised, however, to find that modern language education hadn\u2019t moved on at all since I was at school: textbooks, blackboard. Teacher talks, student listens.<\/p>\n

The textbooks were filled with words I didn\u2019t know, which were made up of characters I couldn\u2019t read, write or pronounce. In my first textbook, there were even excerpts from Tang dynasty poems, which I of course had no chance of deciphering. Even now almost four years later, I\u2019ve still never really used textbooks with any regularity for no other reason than they bore and frustrate me. I think now more than ever: we didn\u2019t use textbooks to learn our mother language, so why should we do it for any other language?<\/em><\/p>\n

When I look back at my early days learning Chinese, and when I look around at how foreigners are still being taught today, it seems obvious to me that the whole business of learning Chinese is in serious need of reform.<\/p>\n

How to Learn\u00a0Chinese Characters<\/h2>\n

One of the things that troubles me the most is the way characters are taught. The method most teachers use for teaching characters is called learning \u201cby rote\u201d. This is where you write a character over and over again until it is burned into your memory (which incidentally was also an actual form of punishment given to me by teachers when I forgot my books at school). I was essentially forcing incoherent hieroglyphs into my head with out even understanding how they worked, or how and why their components are put together. This kind of learning creates\u00a0a weak foundation, which affects\u00a0other aspects of your\u00a0study later on.<\/p>\n

\"\"Research shows<\/a> that our brains have powerful filters designed to get rid of pieces of information that it deems useless. You know that awkward situation of almost instantly forgetting the name of someone you\u2019ve just been introduced to? That\u2019s your brain\u2019s filter at work<\/em>. However hard you try to force something into your head, if you don\u2019t create a personal connection to it in some way, you will have little chance holding on to it for very long.<\/p>\n

So if learning by rote is so ineffective, then why is it still the go-to method of character learning for most teachers? It\u2019s usually for the simple reason that it\u2019s all they know. This is how Chinese people learn characters in school, so obviously it works or China\u2019s population wouldn\u2019t be able to read and write. However, when you factor in a minimum of 9 years mandatory education under strict supervision from teachers and parents, along with an intense social pressure to succeed thrown in to the mix, it\u2019s not surprising that over a long enough time scale and with enough dedication from the student it can (and does) eventually work.<\/p>\n

However, to learn Chinese as a second language in this way is an exercise in futility.<\/p>\n

Efficient Learning with SRS<\/h2>\n

\"\"After nine months of fumbling my way through the basics, I arrived on a website called Memrise<\/a>\u00a0to learn the 2,500 words in the HSK (or Hanyu Shuiping\u00a0Kaoshi<\/a>\u00a0– China’s standard language proficiency examination) levels one to five. I did this to get some feeling of progress in the language. I was of the opinion that language is made up of words, therefore learning the words would make me fluent. Unfortunately it turned out to be a bit\u00a0more complicated than that.<\/p>\n

Memrise is one of several successful online flashcard sites powered by spaced repetition software or \u201cSRS\u201d. SRS automatically schedules flashcards using algorithms that conform with the \u201cspacing effect\u201d. The spacing effect comes from a huge body of research that shows that it\u2019s better to space out your reviews of a piece of information over longer and longer periods of time, rather than binge-reviewing many times in one session. This basically means that you see new stuff often and old stuff less often, which makes for far more efficient study. On memrise, when you learn a new word, you are also prompted to make a mnemonic device or \u201cmem\u201d and add a picture for each word to make the word more memorable. Despite doing this for all of these words, and reviewing them every day, after another nine months I had a rather depressing realisation: I couldn\u2019t use the vast majority of them.<\/p>\n

My main misstep was that I didn\u2019t take the time to properly learn the individual characters for the words I was learning, which gave me a very shallow understanding. To make matters even worse, I memorized words by relying on a single english definition for each, and rarely looked at it\u2019s usage in a sentence. I was essentially learning a list of words one by one with little to no context, waiting for a \u201ceureka moment\u201d which would never come. Although I was great at identifying these words when they flashed up on my computer screen, I found myself fumbling for words in conversation when I needed to express an idea or feeling.<\/p>\n

A Turning Point: Anki<\/h2>\n

My discovery of another SRS flashcard program called Anki<\/a> marked a major turning point in my study. For me, it is the ultimate SRS because it is completely customisable to the user and, although not exactly beautifully designed, it has incredible functionality. By reading the book Fluent Forever<\/a>\u00a0by Gabriel Wyner, I learned how to make incredibly effective flashcards that were more memorable than any I\u2019d made before. I also made sure to review sentence flashcards every day so I could really get a feel for how the words were used in context. After seeing how quickly I began to improve after applying all of this to my study, I finally began to understand what one of my language gurus, Khatzumoto (founder of All Japanese All the Time<\/a>), meant when he said: \u201cYou don\u2019t know someone because you know their name, and you don\u2019t know a word because you know it\u2019s definition\u201d<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"ChineseAfter this, I spent six months learning the 3,000 most common chinese characters, after which I immediately gained a deeper understanding of the words I\u2019d already \u201clearned\u201d previously, and at the same time was able to learn new words much easier. Why? Well, because the vast majority of Chinese words are a combination of two characters put together in a very logical way, just like the English compound words \u201cplayground\u201d or \u201cflashlight\u201d, essentially giving them their own built-in mnemonic devices. Learning characters also allowed me to process sentences easier, giving me the confidence and inclination to take on more engaging content. I immediately read more books, watched more movies and television, and had more interesting conversations with friends. The reading raised my vocabulary, which in-turn increased my listening ability and gave me more to try and use in conversation. I had soon become noticeably more fluent and literate, which fed my desire to learn even more. I had created positive cycle of progress for myself and things had gone from hopeless to promising in just a few months. I discovered a feeling I had never felt in my 15 years of formal education: I was truly enjoying learning.<\/p>\n

The University Method<\/h2>\n

\"\"Spurred on by my sudden progress and positive mindset, I made another lifestyle change congruent to my progress in Chinese and signed up to a local university. It sounded like a great idea then, but little did I realise that it was going to end up doing a lot more harm than good. There is something to be said for being obligated to spend your entire morning several days a week surrounded by Chinese. I would say that university is great in this respect, as it gets you up and into \u201cChinese mode\u201d for the day. Overall though, I found a few major problems over my year there that I wish someone had made me aware of before I signed up.<\/p>\n

First, to say that the classes were \u201ctextbook heavy\u201d is an understatement. It was the core focus of most classes, even more so than when I had private tutors. At least with them I could chat about what I wanted as I was on my own and calling the shots. The classes were led by teachers who were often graduate students with little experience, ranging in quality from below average to terrible. I did have one professor that was not only good, but just so happened to be the best teacher I\u2019d ever had, and his 3 hours of class a week alone made my first semester worth the money. It\u2019s really too bad that he turned out to be somewhat of an anomaly.<\/p>\n

Passing the HSK 6<\/h2>\n

\"HSK\"Not long after joining University, I took the highest level of the HSK\u00a0exam (level 6) on a whim and (much to my surprise) I passed. A year or so before that, I wasn\u2019t really able to read much or express myself clearly, nor was I very confident that I ever would, but I\u2019d made enough progress in the months leading up to the exam that I made the grade. It\u2019s apparently supposed to take 4 years of full-time study to reach the level required, but factoring in the relatively meager hours I\u2019d put in over my time in China, I\u2019d done it in less than half the time. This exam didn\u2019t mean much to me as a qualification, but it was my only reliable benchmark that proved that what I had been doing had worked. The bulk of my progress didn\u2019t come from my time with textbooks, teachers, or any other \u201ctraditional\u201d teaching methods. It came from leveraging a mix of technology and engaging content to take a more natural approach to learning.<\/p>\n

Most of us have the mantra \u201cno pain, no gain\u201d instilled in us throughout our school years. This tends to communicate the idea that if you are enjoying the study process, then whatever methods you are using aren\u2019t going to work. This concept may apply to many things in life, but I don\u2019t think it applies to learning languages, and especially not a language with such a large time investment as Chinese. A rare minority can just push on through the tough times with little reward, and they\u2019ll eventually get there, but most of us don\u2019t have the time or the inclination to delay gratification for so long, least of all me.<\/p>\n

Creating Mandarin Blueprint<\/h2>\n

I was close to the point of quitting when I discovered study methods that worked, but many aren\u2019t so lucky. I still see so many other students much smarter than myself unnecessarily going through their own similar struggles with Chinese, often leading to them giving up and moving on to something else after months or even years of stop-start study binges. Knowing that I had the knowledge and the skills to help, I decided to take actions that would help the Chinese learning community, leading to the development of what became known as \u201cMandarin Blueprint\u201d.<\/p>\n