Is there any benefit to studying the pinyin of individual characters independent of meaning?

[roddy]

"When we speak and hear Chinese we see sounds and pinyin in our heads. Chinese see characters and sounds."

My bold. I honestly think you're making this up. Show me the evidence. If that's true there MUST be a study showing it. It's also counter-intuitive. How do illiterate people talk? Obviously without 'seeing' Chinese characters. Then why do the brains of literate people bother doing all that extra work. Where's the benefit? By extension we should 'see' English words in our heads when listening. I am unaware of this happening in my head, but would be interested to read about how it happens at an unconcious level. I genuinely accept it's possible, but I don't think it happens. Again, there'll be a study. 

 

More generally - you know (we assume) how good you are and you know how you got there. You don't know if you'd have got there any quicker or easier using a different method. You've put lots of hours in, you've worked hard, you've done well. Doesn't mean what you did is the only thing to do. 

 

"That's how kids learn, they just hear the sound and imitate it."

Yep, and it's not what you did. Tell me how you managed to read and watch all that info on how to make the phonemes of Chinese WITHOUT figuring out what the phonemes ARE - y'know, the info a basic training in Pinyin would give you...

 

Or, from 2009 (how well do any of us actually remember what we did half a decade ago?)

" I'm surprised you can speak without knowing pinyin actually. "

[Lu]

XiaoXi, I find your post rather confusing and contradictory.

 

You state that 'Chinese see characters and sounds' and also that we should learn like children. But Chinese children learn to speak well before they learn any characters. Also, most people don't see sounds, they just hear them. When I speak Chinese I don't see sounds, pinyin or characters. It would take someone more learned than I am to explain what goes on in a person's head when they hear language, but for me it's more like I hear sound and meaning than that I hear any kind of writing.

 

I'm not sure what your example with reading lists of pinyin words vs reading lists of characters is supposed to say. I've used my Chinese knowledge for a lot of things but I never felt the need to have someone read a list of words for me, be it pinyin or characters. Yes, Chinese people are more comfortable reading characters than reading pinyin. Most beginners are more comfortable reading pinyin as they have not yet learned characters. For many learners, this flips at some point and they suddenly find that reading pinyin is more of a headache than reading characters. But what is your point in this?

 

So basically you agree that if you had enough listening input it would certainly work the way I said.

I don't agree with that, and that is also not what I said at all.

 

How do you suppose kids get around this problem [learning the wrong sound and never have it corrected] without pinyin?

I think both Shelly and Roddy already gave good answers to that. Children learn their first language, adults already have the preconceptions in their head of their own first language when they learn a second one. Children also are more adaptable and learn new languages faster than adults.

 

If you listen to five people (male and female) saying the same word and still feel you need to see some pinyin then you need to give up learning Chinese.

That's really judgemental and rather rude. And also nonsense.

[renzhe]

How do you suppose kids get around this problem without pinyin?

By investing about 1000x the time that even the most motivated adult has available.

[roddy]

And also, Critical Period Hypothesis. And some of the links I provided earlier. And probably other reasons too...

[imron]

Although I generally agree that pinyin is useful for people to learn, I just want to chip in and say that I also 'see' English words when I hear them or speak them so I don't think this is that strange a phenomenon.

 

I've also tried doing this with Chinese characters but it's a lot of effort and far to slow for me currently for practical use.  What I end up with is usually a mix of characters and pinyin.  At some point I want to make more effort in to making sure I visualise characters at the speed I hear/speak them, but that will require investing a bunch of time I don't really have at the moment..

[roddy]

That's interesting and I did find a study that suggests orthographic info can be activated in listening

http://www2.psy.unsw.edu.au/Users/mtaft/TaftCastlesDavisLazendicANDNguyen.pdf

But consciously? Or for Chinese (again, illiterates?). I find it hard to believe it's common, or even desirable.

What's the experience like? The obvious assumption is like reading, but do you visualize lines of text, words, what? Are your eyes darting all over the place? Can you listen and read at the same time?

[imron]

My eyes don't dart all over the place because it's not my eyes doing the visualisation - it's not like words are flashing up in my field of vision for example.

 

If I had to describe it, it's more like when I hear a word, I know the letters - but it's instant and doesn't require any effort, with unknown words being filled in with approximate English letter (or pinyin) pronunciations.

 

In some ways, it's also a bit like those speed reader programs that show you a chunk of words at a time, with those words just existing briefly in a tucked away corner of my mind.  It's definitely not lines of text, usually just the single word, or small clumps of words if spoken quickly together.  For longer words, it may only just be part of the word at a time.

 

Casual listening and reading at the same time isn't a problem, but focusing on one tends to dim out the other somewhat, and if I want to concentrate on something I'd choose to do one or the other (that is either listen, or read).  If I'm focusing on listening, my eyes might still be reading but after a minute I'll realise I haven't been paying attention and didn't really process anything that I'd read.  Likewise if I'd been reading rather than listening.

 

This also means for example, that I generally don't listen to music when working because I find it distracting - either my thinking will get in the way of my listening, or my listening will get in the way of my thinking.

[realmayo]

Perhaps it's a form of synethesia? Bit jealous, probably helps learning languages!

[realmayo]

As for pinyin, in an ideal world you'd spend six months or so just listening to Chinese sounds, distinguishing between minimal pairs, then learning how to reproduce them perfectly; all that could happen before ever seeing a character or learning pinyin. But I don't think it's very practical.

[roddy]

Synesthesia was my first thought too, but it's not a recognised type, I checked. 

 

For me it feels like a direct sound > meaning thing. I don't 'sound out' what I hear in my head - although it's kind of already there as I've just heard it. If I heard a tricky or confusing sentence I wouldn't imagine it written down on a page, I'd repeat it back to myself either silently, under my breath, or out loud, depending on how hard it is and how many other people are on the bus. I'm kind of dubious about self-reporting on this stuff though - really you want a team of psycholinguistics professors, some well designed tests, and a bunch of electrodes. If I'm thinking, I 'talk' rather than 'write'. 

 

There is now considerable evidence that orthographic information is activated during the processing of verbal utterances, whether this automatically occurs during speech recognition (e.g., Slowiaczek et al., 2003; Chéreau et al., 2007; Taft et al., 2008; Peereman et al., 2009) or is controlled strategically (e.g., Cutler et al.,2009). link

 

Maybe it's like subvocalisation, but... subvisualisation? I still find it bizarre and can't imagine doing that conciously without my comprehension coming to a crashing halt. I accept my brain does it's own thing below my level of awareness though...

[imron]

Subvisualisation I think is maybe an accurate term.

I don't do it consciously, it just happens. If I try to do it consciously e.g. for Chinese characters, then yes, comprehension comes to a crashing halt because there will always be characters that don't visualise fast enough and cause everything to stall.

I believe that's a solvable problem though, given enough of the right kind of practice.

[XiaoXi]

"When we speak and hear Chinese we see sounds and pinyin in our heads. Chinese see characters and sounds."

My bold. I honestly think you're making this up. Show me the evidence. If that's true there MUST be a study showing it. It's also counter-intuitive. How do illiterate people talk? Obviously without 'seeing' Chinese characters. Then why do the brains of literate people bother doing all that extra work. Where's the benefit? By extension we should 'see' English words in our heads when listening. I am unaware of this happening in my head, but would be interested to read about how it happens at an unconcious level. I genuinely accept it's possible, but I don't think it happens. Again, there'll be a study. 

 

A lot of odd comments you've made there. You seem to have overlooked the fact I said 'see AND HEAR' and also 'characters AND SOUNDS' and taken what I said way to literally. Obviously the fact illiterate people can talk just goes to highlight what I've been saying, that you don't need pinyin to aid your spoken language ability.

 

Yep, and it's not what you did. Tell me how you managed to read and watch all that info on how to make the phonemes of Chinese WITHOUT figuring out what the phonemes ARE - y'know, the info a basic training in Pinyin would give you...

 

The most famous language course Pimsleur teaches exactly that - to learn to speak Chinese without pinyin.

 

Yep, and it's not what you did. Tell me how you managed to read and watch all that info on how to make the phonemes of Chinese WITHOUT figuring out what the phonemes ARE - y'know, the info a basic training in Pinyin would give you...

Not sure what you're saying there with that post. I don't seem to mention pinyin. I seem to want to find DVDs to watch?

 

 

Quote

How do you suppose kids get around this problem without pinyin?

By investing about 1000x the time that even the most motivated adult has available. 

Well 8 hours a day over 1-3 years or less time per day more years. Don't forget that kids NEED much more time. I say it takes until 5 years old for them but if you think about it for the first few years their brains are really underdeveloped and even by 5 are nowhere near what an adult brain is. The biggest problem with adults compared with kids is they make too many excuses and allow themselves to fail. Kids have no choice since if they don't learn a language they'll be confused forevermore.

 

I didn't think I would need to actually write out in full 'see characters and HEAR sounds' since I thought it was obvious. But as a consequence I've received lots of very odd comments.

 

Imron has made some interesting comments though. Where you see a character or (HEAR) a sound of a word in your head depends on whether you're listening, trying to form a sentence in your head. As a learner of Chinese, also depending on your level, you'll find somethings you say are unconscious, others you need to compose the sentence in your head. When listening you come across a word you don't know and think about what it means, how do you picture it in your head when you think about it? A sound? Pinyin? A Chinese Character?

[Demonic_Duck]

A lot of odd comments you've made there. You seem to have overlooked the fact I said 'see AND HEAR' and also 'characters AND SOUNDS' and taken what I said way to literally. Obviously the fact illiterate people can talk just goes to highlight what I've been saying, that you don't need pinyin to aid your spoken language ability.

@roddy was clearly responding to your claim that Chinese people "see characters" (unless you're saying that they "hear characters", which would be an even stranger claim to make). You didn't offer any rebuttal.

 

The most famous language course Pimsleur teaches exactly that - to learn to speak Chinese without pinyin.

Is Pimsleur the most famous language course? I'm pretty sure Rosetta Stone is more famous, what with all their aggressive marketing.

 

Also, that's probably why most people who use Pimsleur seem to want to supplement it with other resources. Not only does it not offer instruction in Pinyin, it also doesn't explain grammar, characters, or even how to form the sounds of the language at all. Do you think none of that stuff is worth learning either?

 

Well 8 hours a day over 1-3 years or less time per day more years. Don't forget that kids NEED much more time. I say it takes until 5 years old for them but if you think about it for the first few years their brains are really underdeveloped and even by 5 are nowhere near what an adult brain is. The biggest problem with adults compared with kids is they make too many excuses and allow themselves to fail. Kids have no choice since if they don't learn a language they'll be confused forevermore.

It seems like your argument is "children are in a vastly different situation and stage of development than adults, therefore adults should use exactly the same method of learning that children use".

[renzhe]

Well 8 hours a day over 1-3 years or less time per day more years.

8 hours per day over one year is clearly NOT how most kids learn to speak. Many children don't even utter a meaningful word in their first year.

5 years of 12 hours per day full instruction is how most kids get to the elementary stage of speaking a language. If an average working adult can spare maybe 4 hours per day and 8 on weekends, he or she would need at least 15 years of this kind of learning to reach a level of a 5-year old, under ideal conditions. In practice, they get less overload and using much of their cognitive capacity on other things, so probably longer.

I also disagree with the idea that kids don't learn phonetic writing. I started to read around 2 and was reading regularly by 4, which was certainly aided by the fact that my language is written phonetically. So if learning to read and write phonetically helped my language learning as a kid, then surely it will help me learn a new language as an adult.

[mouse]

Chinese people use pinyin, especially to educate children. As Liu Yongbing put it:

 

"This linguistic situation is described by different Chinese linguists and scholars (Wang, 2003) as ‘yiyu shuangwen (one language, two scripts)’, ‘shuangguizhi (two track system)’, and ‘liangtiaotui zoulu (walk on two legs)’. It was DeFrancis (1984) who introduced the term ‘digraphia’ to Western studies of Chinese linguistics to capture the linguistic situation. This refers to the coexistence of two different writing systems for the same language. It typically arises temporarily when one writing system is in the process of replacing the other, but it can also become permanent in a situation where neither can assert domination, or where, indeed, both find specific domains of language function and everyday use. It seems that the latter situation exists and will prevail in the foreseeable future in China.

 

The character script of the digraphia is used in all forms of written communication – ranging from official documents, literature and mass media to record-keeping in a family or a village. The Pinyin script is widely used in education as an annotated means of facilitating the learning of Mandarin Chinese. It is used as an effective means not only for teaching Mandarin as a first language/ mother tongue in the mainstream Chinese pedagogy, but also for teaching Mandarin as a second language either in bilingual classrooms for minority children in minority communities or for international students in international schools or universities (Lu & Su, 2004). The Pinyin script is also used in Chinese word processors as an effective input system; in business and trade as a means of constructing an index for agricultural and industrial products; in communication as a base for the creation and reformation of 19 written language forms for ethnic communities; in special education as a sign language and so on (Lu & Su, 2004; People’s Daily, 2003). "

 

As has been said by others, hanyu pinyin or zhuyin are useful study aids, but one shouldn't allow them to become a crutch. The core of XiaoXi's shapeshifting argument is that learners should not use pinyin. Ever. The flaws in that have been made clear to everyone but XiaoXi, but maybe he has a point for the poor forgotten OP. If the OP is already familiar enough with how Mandarin is pronounced, then using an anki deck with characters on one side and audio on the other might be better to drill pronunciation (as well as listening) than pinyin.

[roddy]

Here's where I'm confused: You seem to be saying the best way to approach this is to avoid Pinyin and imitate Pimsleur, and that this is what you did and you think others should do that. 

 

Go back though to the topic I linked and you're grateful for people showing you pronunciation descriptions and diagrams. 

 

Two points here

1) Once you start reading descriptions of how to pronounce something and diagrams of where your tongue should be, you're not imitating like a child does. You're using a whole load of explicit info children don't have. Nobody says to a two-year-old "No darling, tip of your tongue up on the soft palate" or "tongue behind your teeth if you want to shtop lishping". That's information you clearly found valuable and were glad to have, but my current understanding of your position is you'd discourage others from using that. 

2) I think your position is that you don't need to be explicitly told what phonemes Chinese has - you just build up that knowledge by listening to Chinese. But I don't see how you read up on pronunciation descriptions and diagrams without acquiring that knowledge. What were those diagrams labelled with?

 

You can find my responses odd if you want, but given others are finding your posts confusing, contradictory and shapeshifting, I'm not going to worry about that too much.

[XiaoXi]

XiaoXi said

A lot of odd comments you've made there. You seem to have overlooked the fact I said 'see AND HEAR' and also 'characters AND SOUNDS' and taken what I said way to literally. Obviously the fact illiterate people can talk just goes to highlight what I've been saying, that you don't need pinyin to aid your spoken language ability.

@roddy was clearly responding to your claim that Chinese people "see characters" (unless you're saying that they "hear characters", which would be an even stranger claim to make). You didn't offer any rebuttal.

 

 

 

Jesus Christ, what is wrong with you? Can you please concentrate on responding to my actual argument rather than trying to pick out little details in the way I may have written something in shorthand instead of longhand? Could you be any more pedantic.

 

 

XiaoXi said

The most famous language course Pimsleur teaches exactly that - to learn to speak Chinese without pinyin.

Is Pimsleur the most famous language course? I'm pretty sure Rosetta Stone is more famous, what with all their aggressive marketing.

 

 

 

OMG. Ok I guess you CAN be more pedantic.

 

Also, that's probably why most people who use Pimsleur seem to want to supplement it with other resources. Not only does it not offer instruction in Pinyin, it also doesn't explain grammar, characters, or even how to form the sounds of the language at all. Do you think none of that stuff is worth learning either?

 

EXPLAIN grammar? Ok no need to comment on that. Pimsleur teaches you how to form the sounds of the language by breaking each word up into parts and slowing it down. I'm not saying its a perfect course, but I was highlighting that it had these unique characteristics.

 

8 hours per day over one year is clearly NOT how most kids learn to speak. Many children don't even utter a meaningful word in their first year.

 

They don't say anything so clearly they haven't learnt anything? That's a very ignorant view. A typical response to mentioning to a friend that you're learning a language is "alright, go on say something then". Understanding and acquiring the sounds that make up a language is just as important as speaking. Kids brains and bodies are not developed enough to say much of anything in the first year but it does not mean they haven't absorbed anything from the language spoken around them. You really need to read more Krashen.

 

I also disagree with the idea that kids don't learn phonetic writing. I started to read around 2 and was reading regularly by 4, which was certainly aided by the fact that my language is written phonetically. So if learning to read and write phonetically helped my language learning as a kid, then surely it will help me learn a new language as an adult. 

 

I never said reading is not good, since when does reading equate to pinyin? Learning the sounds of Chinese characters through audio IS phonetics. Since each character is just one syllable its the same. Pinyin is merely to make up for a lack of audio.

 

Are you honestly telling me you think its better to read a book with pinyin written above EVERY character than it is to read a book with characters only and any character's sound can be heard by touching it with your finger? Touch it again and you get an alternate speaker.

 

Go back though to the topic I linked and you're grateful for people showing you pronunciation descriptions and diagrams.

 

If you read that topic you'll see what I asked for and what people gave me were very different. I just said thanks out of politeness at the time but it clearly was not what I was looking for at all, hence I never used them.

 

As has been said by others, hanyu pinyin or zhuyin are useful study aids, but one shouldn't allow them to become a crutch. The core of XiaoXi's shapeshifting argument is that learners should not use pinyin. Ever. The flaws in that have been made clear to everyone but XiaoXi, but maybe he has a point for the poor forgotten OP. If the OP is already familiar enough with how Mandarin is pronounced, then using an anki deck with characters on one side and audio on the other might be better to drill pronunciation (as well as listening) than pinyin.

 

Here we go again.....I said you should learn pinyin and of course its always used for writing. My point is you should avoid it wherever possible. It was invented in a time when we have books with no audio. Unless you have someone with you all the time to pronounce the words while you read a book, you have no idea how to pronounce the characters - even if you are a native Chinese speaker. But in the modern age its becoming less and less of a necessity.

[Shelley]

Sorry incorrect post. Deleted.

[renzhe]

They don't say anything so clearly they haven't learnt anything? That's a very ignorant view.

If they can't speak, then they haven't learnt to speak.

But I think that you are overly confrontational and are arguing strawmen.

I strongly believe that adults can learn at least as well as children, but that their approach needs to reflect the fact that they are not children, that their brains are different, that their skillset is different, and that their learning environment is different. Exposure to large amounts of comprehensible input  is a great thing, and anything that helps your comprehension is also a good thing.

 

Going out of your way to NOT understand what is spoken is not a good way to learn, and has nothing to do with Krashen.

 

 

 

Pinyin is merely to make up for a lack of audio.

No. Pinyin is a tool developed to teach children Mandarin pronunciation. And this is what Chinese children use when learning standard Mandarin in schools all over China. These are Chinese kids who do not speak Mandarin natively, so they are in a similar situation to most of us, who do not speak Mandarin natively, but are learning it.

 

 

 

Are you honestly telling me you think its better to read a book with pinyin written above EVERY character than it is to read a book with characters only

I am neither honestly telling you that, nor have any idea what on Earth you are talking about.

 

When I need to know how something is read, I ask my girlfriend. If she's not around, I ask a student. If nobody is around, I pick up my huge dictionary and look up the pronunciation in pinyin. It is a useful tool, and I don't see how my Chinese skills would be improved by not being able to look things up in a dictionary, or read Chinese names in foreign press.

 

For the record, I thought that Pimsleur was quite useful for practicing pronunciation (especially prosody), but Pimsleur will barely get you to a total novice level (in Chinese), it is that basic.

[Shelley]

I think it needs to be pointed out that children don't usually say a word until they are at least 1 year old and some don't utter a meaningful sentence until they are 3 years old.

 

This means they can be listening for up to 3 years.