First features of written words to remember

[Pall]

I've learnt here that there are those, who want to master reading and/or writing, and those, who want to master speaking, and very few those, who want to do both at the same time. Even the forum is split in these two branches. But I suspect, that ability to read can enhance ability to speak and vice versa. Let's take the Chinese written words as some complicated objects with a number of features, e.g. size, shape, color, softness or hardness, etc., and one has to learn to distingush them. How can he do that? Most probable, he should start with some feature that is most easy to learn for the beginning. For example, there are 20 colors, 5 sizes, 40 general shapes of the objects, 50 additional small details in different combination and so on. It's not difficult to guess, that it's the size to be the first, the color comes next. I think, the same story with characters and Chinese words. 

 

There is a technique to look for radicals and number of strokes. But  knowing only radicals of the needed words or number of strokes is only a method to go further, we cannot use this knowledge in communication or reading. At the same time the transcription is the most informative sign of a word and the easist to learn. There are only about 400 syllables without tones, and if you say something or write in transcription even without tones, it's most likely that a native will understand you. Isn't it wonderful? If you add tones, it'll be only 1200 combinations, and a native will understand you for sure this time. So, why not to start learning words from their transcription then? The next step will be adding other features to remember.

 

It's interesting, that to the syllables of words in pinyin, taken even without tone, correspond only  few radicals in their characters. For example, in a dictionary of about 20,000 words volume, orhanised according to pinyin, each first syllable of words show  only 3-8 combinations with radicals in the characters (the same story with the second syllable when it's used as the first one). So, learning the combination of the pinuin and the radical for the  character means that we are very close to knowing the character.   To learn the characters in it's full appearance we can while typing them, since it's not difficult to find the correct character in the pop-up menu while typing by looking for the radical. Although, remembering the combination of the pinyin and the radical requires special technique.
 

[Pall]

The post was deleted, as I found a more effective way to learn characters. I do not want to guide others along the wrong path.

 

 

 

[Pall]

The post was deleted, as I found a more effective way to learn characters. I do not want to guide others along the wrong path.

 

[Pall]

The post was deleted, as I found a more effective way to learn characters. I do not want to guide others along the wrong path.

[Pall]

Also it's possible to make a hyperlink between the character and a video with strokes succession. Of course, the 白 character is a simple one, the function will be usuful for memorizing more complex characters. It's important not only for those, who want to master writing characters - knowing stroke sequence helps greatly to remember characters even for recognition only.

  But the video play program should be open in advance that there will not be any lost of video in the beginning of the movie. Ready movies are available at different sites, but using them would be violation of the rights. The schematic video as in the sample is good enough, too, the only problem may be with strokes that are drawn in opposit direction compared to normal. For example, the forth stroke in the 我  character，which is almost vertical, but drawn in the upward direction. Such cases can be shown with another color, say, red. 

[Pall]

It wasn't too difficult to make the process of drawing gradual.

 

 

[Pall]

The post was deleted, as I found a more effective way to learn characters. I do not want to guide others along the wrong path.

[Pall]

To be sincere, for the syllable YUAN I counted 15 radicals in the above mentioned dictionary, the biggest number so far.