Tips on Improving your Chinese skills!

Chinese is one of the world's most iconic languages. In it is embedded a culture, a beauty and a existential history. Its symbolism and calligraphy has made it not just a matter of everyday speech, but an iconography in its own right and a representation of Asian culture. As a result, learning Chinese becomes a fun, rewarding and exciting challenge. Of course, it is not without its challenges either. Mandarin is in contrast to many non-Asian languages, unique and requires a great deal of effort to learn. Some students of it may complain that it is difficult, simply because of the entire new system which needs to be learned in doing so. 

However, here at Hongzhou learning we want to encourage rather than put people off learning Chinese. We want to share the message that although it may seem time consuming and challenging at first, once you get into the rhythm of learning Mandarin and adopt useful strategies, this language is no longer is difficult or imposing as it looks. As a result, in today's blog we are posting a series of helpful tips and tricks to help you accelerate your knowledge of Chinese, transforming your journey into an enjoyable, rewarding and exciting experience!

1. Memory and repetition is everything

All languages of course require robust memorisation to learn successfully, but Chinese, even more so. This is a language that requires you to remember and utilize thousands of different characters without pause for thought. From a young age, Chinese children are taught robust memorisation to become literate quickly. The application of such discipline tends to make them gifted in other technical and memory based areas. 

However, as a foreigner learning Chinese, don't be scared! Memorisation is not difficult, it is simply repetitive. And that should be your goal if you want to be competent in Chinese, repeat, repeat, repeat Listen to the recordings of lessons on the CD editions of your Chinese textbooks again and again by uploading them onto your phones. Write down the characters you are learning again and again repetitively, hiding the previous ones and then drawing them out from memory more and more. Work tirelessly to engrain character by character into your head, phrase by phrase and sentence by sentence. Before you know it, it will be easy to write, recognize and repeat them at will!

2. Use a handy app for new characters

One of the most common problems what frustrate new learners of Chinese is that unlike an alphabetic language, where new words can be read and incorporated quickly, numerous characters are going to be encountered which the student does not know how to read or pronounce, slowing the learning process down. However, thanks to the wonders of technology, this problem has been overcome! Several handy smartphone apps have been created which allow a Chinese language student to utilize camera recognition technology to read the character, or to simply draw it out and select it from a list. Two of these apps are known as 1) Pleco and 2) Hanyou. They also come with comprehensive dictionaries too and ability to input Pinyin too. Both will really speed up the process and give you space to learn in every element of life outside of the classroom or beyond the textbook!

3. Take an interest in the symbolism of characters themselves

Chinese language is pictorial and symbol in nature. This means that each character comes with an integral meaning and symbolism behind it. Indeed, the characters themselves have developed through time as depictions of given things. Although they have been simplified over time for convenience, we should use our imagination to recognize what they represent. For example, "人" (person) is clearly a pair of legs "山” (mountain) is clearly pointing upwards like a mountain, “火” (fire) clearly shows flames and so on. If we are to master Chinese, we likewise must master these symbolisms embedded in the characters. In turn, this will give us more clues in approaching previously unrecognized characters and their radicals placed next to them, or what given words mean when placed in context. 

4. Practice, Practice and Practice in real world situations

When in China, our advice is for you to practice, practice and practice Chinese. Don't confine your learning merely to the confines of a textbook or a classroom, get out there and use it. To make this effective, memorize simple phrases and start using them in real life situations. For example, reject touts with “我不要” (wobuyao) or ask a shopkeeper “多少钱？” (duoshaoqian= how much?). As you start building up more and more simple phrases and using them when you can, you will realize spoken Chinese is not intimidating or difficult, but fun. As you do it, you will naturally grow into more and more conversation with people! Get out and practice!

Conclusion: Make Chinese your passion and go for it!

Finally, as we have said above, do not be scared about Chinese! It may be different, but different does not have to mean difficult. This is a language which holds and promises so much. It is not just a means of communication, but the embodiment of an entire culture and way of a life. In learning, there is so much to discover! The more passionate you are about it, the easier it becomes! Use these handy tips and get to work!