Memorization tips

Hello; New to the Rocket program, but I have been been studying Mandarin off and on for over a year. I have about 250 - 300 hours in. I still am having issues with memorizing words and sentences. Also, listening to chinese TV, they are still talking at 100 miles an hour to me. Any tips for memorizing? Thanks, Matt

Dear Matt, I am glad you are a keen student of Chinese. As a language learner myself, (Chinese being my mother tongue, English my second language), I can only think of hard work and determination as tips. Listening to Chinese TV might be too big a challenge for u at this stage. Try Chinese International News first. ( as I also tried to listen to Voice of America Special English Programme when I first started to learn English), first of all, u learn all the names of countries, capitals, main cities, a few other words such as President Obama, etc, as you know the daily news you yourself, there are must be a few words u can guess out... gradually your vocabularies will build...if this is a tip, then let us call it a TIP. News is news, forever new, never boring, so hopefully your interests will never fade. Happy learning!

Thanks Lin Ping I think that relying too much on Pinyin can hurt listening comprehension development and memorization. For example, Zhao3 sounds like Jiao3. Therefore, it is important to listen to CDs while not reading pinyin text, or watch Chinese TV. ..Matt

So very true your keen observation. I agree with you totally.

Try to start learning characters if you haven't tried a few. The radicals that compose characters give hints to their meaning and/or pronunciation. Watch: 各 格 咯 阁 搁 茖 In this case the 各 radical is a pronunciation guide for all the other characters. These are all some tone of pinyin 'ge'

WOW! KEEP ON THE GOOD WORK!

咯咯咯咯嗒，各各大！ Which animal makes such sounds after what activity?LOL. Answer will be posted next time I am on this site。Or whoever finds out answer first. Cheers!

I remember studying English growing up and our teacher made us memorize blocks of conversations. Sentences that are quite common. I think that is essential. Trying to construct sentences in the heat of the conversation is very slow.

升龙你好！ I agree entirely. When I learned English we did exactly the same and at the time I thought that much of it was useless but having the sentences already prepared in my head for a variety of situations meant that I didn't have to think too much when it came to conversing. That is why I think this course is so good because it provides you with those sentences. 加油！ - Lin Ping

哇。。。咯咯咯嗒，各各大的那个帖子，我在email里面根本就没有收到什么提醒信的呢，还是怪我电邮服务器吧。为时稍晚，可我来猜猜是指奔驰中马的声音。猜中了？

Do you think there is a way to focus on just verbal Chinese and work on speaking it without trying to memorize the characters? Also, do many native Chinese speakers use and recognize Pinyin? I am completely new, and I must say, the characters can be very intimidating.

In short, yes -- you could learn to speak and listen to Chinese with only Pinyin, but I think you will be putting yourself at a disadvantage. If you read my previous post in this thread, I write how the characters can actually be helpful to learning new vocabulary and associating meanings, especially if you if learn the radicals, of which there are only 214 and are the 'building blocks' of all the other characters (and oftentimes characters themselves). As for getting around in China with pinyin or having any real prolonged communication with Chinese people, I wouldn't count on it -- I've seen perfectly written pinyin addresses of well-known places in China rejected by taxi drivers. Furthermore, reading Pinyin articles/conversations/etc is extremely more dificult and taxing than reading characters. I' recommend a browser pop-up dictionary such as Perapera-Kun which could translate characters that your Chinese friends type to you, and you can use your pinyin Chinese input to type characters back to them. Like this you can ease into characters and still make real life connections with the language. In summary: study well the 214 kangxi radicals!

I'm looking for a website that teaches step by step, how to write Chinese characters & numbers. Preferably a site that is free, and with animations like this site I used for cursive writing: http://donnayoung.org/penmanship/cursive-animations.htm

In my answer to another thread, I mentioned ArchChinese. I should also add that Rocket Chinese provides a lot of writing lessons, many explaining stroke order and what the characters themselves are composed of, i.e. radicals. You can also go to Quizlet and search for flash card sets that have Hanzi on them. I have started creating my own sets and they are publicly viewable.

Hello ReyeskidzUSA, It is great to hear that your kids are enjoying Rocket Chinese. Here is another website I found for you. The one Robert C7 suggested is a great website. But I myself preferably like this one. http://www.skritter.com/demo Gabriela

大家好 I was so glad when Lin Ping metioned de VOA programs. It has helped a lot when I was learning english. Now I'm looking for something similar in chinese. Does anybody have a clue what I'm talking about?xi 谢谢您

Hi Lin, I found a website, which contains many Chinese videos and audio files including Chinese and English subtitles. They are short and ideal for learning. It is possible to select different study categories: Newbie, Elementary, Intermediate, Upper Intermediate, Advanced and Native. I think this is a funny way to learn and could also be a useful training for understanding Chinese television or radio. The site is: http://www.fluentu.com Greetings Andreas