Long term experience memorizing characters with Heisig, Matthews, Mandarin Blueprint, Outlier etc.

[DanielG]

Hi! I'd like to hear some of your experiences learning to read and write characters, particularly if you have used any of the the Heisig, Matthews or Mandarin Blueprint or Outlier methods, but also if you haven't.  I have started using a combination of Heisig and Mandarin Blueprint and have so far learned about 400 characters. I'm not new to Chinese, and I'm familiar with a lot more characters than these 400, but this is the first time I've focused on learning to write.

 

Before I continue, I would like to give a shout out to the folks at Mandarin Blueprint who have put out a free video series ( https://www.mandarinblueprint.com/blog/chinese-mnemonics/ ) explaining in greatdetail how their method works.   Although their concept for learning both how to write and pronounce characters isn't original (it's built on the so-called Marylin method as well as on Heisig), I am really grateful that they made the effort not just to develop their own system, but also to share how it works in enough detail that someone like myself with a Heisig book can apply their method to also learn the pronunciation at the same time.  I've been curious about memory palaces for a long time, and their video series was enough to get me started actually using one. 

 

By the way, I am not affiliated with Mandarin Blueprint in any way and I haven't bought any of their courses or material.  I've only seen what they put out for free and isome of it, such as this series, I've liked a lot. 

 

In any case, despite having only learned 400 characters so far, I've already noticed that my reading ability has improved.  In general, I find myself paying better attention to the character components and noticing how the words are written, not just those that I've memorized. Of those that I have memorized, I am happy to report that the tones are probably the easiest element to recall.

 

What I am wondering now is how other people who have perhaps used one of these methods from start to finish have fared long term.  Do you still actively review?  Was it worth the time and effort you put into it?  What are the advantages and disadvantages of the method you used?  How has your interaction with written Chinese changed? I am also curious if you are able to write, and think that these methods are complete baloney.  How did you learn?

 

I personally decided to try Heisig after coming to the conclusion that while I like the factual approach of Outilier, and I have bought their dictionary, it hasn't really helped me actually learn to read or write.  I find the information in it interesting, but often not very useful.  The fact that something is an empty component and used to be something else doesn't help me remember it.  Nonetheless, the fact that Heisig is not particularly concerned with why the components are there and what they actually mean has been what has prevented me from using it in the past.  What I do now when I learn a word is to look up the pronunciation and etymology in Outlier before using the combined MB/Heisig method to memorize it. I usually don't remember much from Outlier unless it is peculiar - for example that the舌 in话 isn't really a tongue - but at least I've thought about what the components actually mean before trying to come up with a story where that meaning is not so important. 

 

So the advantage of this method is that I actually remember how to write and pronounce most of the characters that I've studied, and as I said above, this already has noticable effects. I am very curious to hear from others about long term prospects.  The disadvantages are that it takes a lot of time to think up a story that includes all of the necessary elements, and that you learn to associate a character with one particular meaning and pronunciation, which it doesn't always have.  Reviewing can also be tedious, and again, I am curious how other people have dealt with this long term. 

[Babylon]

我给你们一个比较雷的建议 实际上 现在大部分中国人根本就不写汉字 文字输入都是语音识别自动打的 拼音和五笔输入法辅助(纠正错误) 你们花大量时间去记汉字 挺费时费力的 所以我的建议是 如果你不需要参加什么考试的话 那些字型记个大概就可以了 不用记那么清楚 把标准普通话发音和措辞表达方式搞好就好 打字的时候用各种工具

 

I'd like to give you a rather stunning suggestion. In fact, most Chinese people nowadays do not write Chinese characters at all. The input of text is based on the speech recognition to do an automatic typing, and by a pinyin or five-stroke input method to assist(correction). You guys spend a lot of time on memorizing Chinese characters, which is quite time-consuming and laborious. Therefore, my suggestion is that if you don't need to take any exams, just memorize those glyphs vaguely and roughly. But you have to be sophisticated over the standard Mandarin pronunciation, and the approach of phrasing and expression, then you can use various tools to input texts easily.

 

 

 

[DanielG]

While it may be true that most Chinese people don't write Chinese characters, the fact is, they can write the characters.  Typically, they've learned them the hard way, by writing them again and again when they were kids.  This means that they know the characters inside and out.  They can tell similar characters apart, know how they are pronounced and have no trouble reading.  When they type on their phones, they know which is the character they want.  Of course a foreigner like me can also use pinyin to type, but if you aren't sure which one you mean, you might have to choose between dozens of possible characters all with the same pinyin.  "Vaguely and roughly" for a foreigner means that most of the time we don't know if we are right or wrong. That's why at some point, most learners do try to learn the characters one way or another.

[abcdefg]

I remember so many conversations with locals in which one or both of us reverted to writing on one open palm with the index finger of the other hand to clarify or disambiguate a character. I started routinely doing it when, for example, explaining how my Chinese name was written. Got to think it even gained me some low-effort street cred, distinguished me from the tourists. Are those days now gone? Just part of ancient history? Maybe. Nobody now has two free hands. One is always holding a 手机。

[Ledu]

I don't recommend signing up to any subscription with more than a one time payment. Also if the product is in the form of a website, I don't do those. I want all my materials offline and ready to use instantly. I do vocabulary drills with Pleco (non-Srs), graded reading and have some textbooks. I also have some vocabulary videos with sentences from Mandarin Corner. With repetition and time it will come, eventually. 

[TheBigZaboon]

I remember a rather wise-assed right hander, who when he made a mistake writing on the palm of his left hand, would quickly pull a small handkerchief out of his back pocket, wipe the offending image off, and rewrite the correct one. This often led to surprised looks from the person he was talking to, or squeals of delight from children.

 

I'm not revealing the name, or avatar, of this wise-ass...

 

TBZ

[abcdefg]

On 7/31/2023 at 9:39 PM, TheBigZaboon said:

I'm not revealing the name, or avatar, of this wise-ass...

 

I promise, it wasn't me. 

[DanielG]

On 8/1/2023 at 3:37 AM, Ledu said:

I don't recommend signing up to any subscription with more than a one time payment. Also if the product is in the form of a website, I don't do those. I want all my materials offline and ready to use instantly.

Same here. The method is taught in a series of free videos, and once you have seen them and downloaded the free material (a modified pinyin chart) you're good to go. I also use Pleco (with SRS) to review the characters I've memorized.

 

With Heisig's method, one practices by looking at the keyword (the Heisig-assigned meaning) and then writing the character on paper (or on the palm of your hand for those lacking in utensils). This seemed counter-intuitive to me who wanted to do it the other way around, but I've found that making the effort to recall the story and write the character to be quite powerful. The Mandarin Blueprint method as I understand it and use it just adds 2 elements to the story you have to recall: a person whose name gives you the pinyin initial and a place that gives you the pinyin final and the tone. The ony thing I paid for was the Heisig book.

[Ledu]

@DanielGI heard a podcast where the interviewee used the Heisig method. He is now a teacher of Chinese in his home country the UK. He majored in Chinese, studied abroad a semester in China. He acredits playing basketball with Chinese people to helping him with his tones and speaking. He also past HSK 6 and is a Chinese teacher himself. So someone used it to successfully learn Chinese. I just don't remember the exact episode. It is probably in one related to vocabulary.These are the graded readers I am using.

 

Another successful Chinese language learner also majored in Chinese, got a Masters and just past HSK7-9. She mentioned Skritter helped her learn to write characters while she was studying her undergrad. She also is a Chinese teacher and is pursuing a PHD.

 

I have used Skritter but don't like having a large amount of words daily (due to SRS) that seem to punish me. When you are a new learner, the idea is if you pay more, you will learn faster. I know in the beginning I would have paid almost anything. With Pleco (on random）sometimes I do it for 1 hour, sometimes 2, usually throughout the day.  I still feel I am making progress. 

[DanielG]

On 8/1/2023 at 7:26 AM, Ledu said:

With Pleco (on random）sometimes I do it for 1 hour, sometimes 2, usually throughout the day.  I still feel I am making progress. 

I've done this off and on too for years, and I've also made progress, but: I still mix up similar characters (and by "similar" I mean that they have something in common), and I can hardly reproduce any of them correctly.  When I read, I often don't recognize characters that I really should know. I attribute this to not having a system to learn the components of individual characters besides hoping to remember how they look and what I read about them in Outlier.

[Ledu]

I got this series of textbook at it teaches me the HSK vocabulary and more. It teaches by the component level, the history and has exercises and riddles. Through it I also do reading. I bought the whole series and feel it has helped me a lot. I like it more than the standard HSK text. I am okay with some ambiguity. When I am working with an HSK text and doing practice exams, I notice I do better on each test if I am doing flashcards. I do better on the reading portion and listening if I am actively reading and listening. If there are words that have similar meanings I just look online the difference. This textbook just came out. I only bought 1-5 so far. I have only completed HSK 1-3 textbooks so far. Of Le Du, I have completed 1-3. Here is the link if it helps someone. As far as the standard course books, I don't think I will buy any more past HSK 4. 

 

https://blcup.com/enPInfo/index/10871#001

[DanielG]

TLDR? The jist is: Have you used a memorization system to memorize characters? Was it worth the effort? How effective was it long term?