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May 2002, Week 5

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From:
LLTI-Editor <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Language Learning and Technology International Information Forum <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Wed, 29 May 2002 17:57:56 EDT
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--- Forwarded Message from Daniel Tom <[log in to unmask]> ---

>Date: Fri, 24 May 2002 16:12:01 -1000 (HST)
>From: Daniel Tom <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: #6700 Chinese characters
>In-reply-to: <[log in to unmask]>
>To: Language Learning and Technology International Information Forum    <[log in to unmask]>

------------------
Sarah,

Speaking from experience as both a student and instructor of Mandarin, I
think we can agree that learning Chinese characters is not an easy task
nor a particularly palatable one.  I don't think any of my suggestions
are new or particularly creative, but here are some that come to mind.

1.  I suggest looking into the software program called Wenlin.  Their
website is http://www.wenlin.com/.  Wenlin has a computer-based flash card
program and students can choose the characters to be included in the flash
cards.  The program also will write a character stroke by stroke in the
correct stroke order.  Finally the program also has a feature whereby you
can place the cursor on a character in a text and it will give you the
pronunciation in pinyin romanization and the meaning of the character at
the bottom of the screen.  I believe this software is also what Gabe
Webster is looking for for Mandarin in his earlier LLTI inquiry #6697
"CALL Software idea------exists?"

2.  An understanding of the structure of Chinese characters can also be
helpful in remembering them.  As you know a majority of the characters are
made up of two components either left and right components or top and
bottom.  If the students can remember for example that the character hao3
"good" is made up of woman on the left and child on the right or jia1
"home" is made up of roof on the top and pig on the bottom, then perhaps
they can use these as memory joggers.   They can also make use of the
radical and phonetic system where one part of the character represents the
meaning and the other the sound.  Some of the more popular radicals are
easily remembered such as water, sun, mouth, hand, woman, earth, fire and
if the students can see these often recurring elements in the characters
it will make it easier to remember.

I can remember many times just taking out a blank sheet of paper and
writing the characters over and over and over.  I also used hand made
flash cards.  That may not sound like fun or creative either for that
matter, but it did work.  In the long run motivation goes a long way.


Daniel Tom
Language Telecommunications, Resource & Learning Center
University of Hawaii
E-mail:  [log in to unmask]
FAX:     808-956-5134
Voice:   808-956-5118

On Fri, 24 May 2002, LLTI-Editor wrote:

> --- Forwarded Message from "Sarah Brill" <[log in to unmask]> ---
>
> >From: "Sarah Brill" <[log in to unmask]>
> >To: [log in to unmask]
> >Subject: Chinese characters
> >Date: Fri, 24 May 2002 11:16:08 +0930
>
>
> I am currently teaching Chinese1. Some of my students have great trouble
> remembering characters. Does anyone have any creative suggestions that might
> help?
>
>
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