What difference does the difference make?

[michaelcrm]

The first thing we learn when we contact a new language is its difference from our mother language. People always make their ways to “forget” or “get used to” those difference. Did you ever think about they could be used to help our learning? If yes, how?

Let me start the thread, and please let it followed by your wisdom.

Just like Thai and Korea language, Chinese doesn't get along well with beginners from west countries. People in Anglo-language world are used to make words with various combinations of quite few letters on the alphabet, whose counterpart in Chinese are mass however. I believe that's one of the important keys. To make your Chinese learning as a systematic and time-efficient process, you need to make your own Chinese-characters categories according different sorting method. I’d suggest the shape sorting method for the very beginners. 形and 状 are same category; 显and示are the same; ha, we got another two 丸and耳. To push it further, would the components of形 appear again? And what Chinese characters are carrying those components? Could those components be used in different position? Make notes, keep yourself familiar with those components and expend your component bank. Then you can move on.

What do you say?

[confucius]

Confucius says:..... nice avatar you have there!

[michaelcrm]

cool pic of yours too.

that kinda sport is really not easy for confucius more than 1,000 years old