{"id":32164,"date":"2017-04-16T11:10:58","date_gmt":"2017-04-16T16:10:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=32164"},"modified":"2017-04-17T06:54:44","modified_gmt":"2017-04-17T11:54:44","slug":"how-not-to-learn-chinese","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=32164","title":{"rendered":"How not to learn Chinese"},"content":{"rendered":"

In \"Sinological suffering<\/a>\" (3\/31\/17), \"Aphantasia \u2014 absence of the mind's eye<\/a>\" (3\/24\/17), and other recent posts, we examined the difficulty, for some the near impossibility, of mastering how to write hundreds and thousands of Chinese characters.\u00a0 Yet, if one wishes to become literate in Chinese, one simply must do it.\u00a0 Until the 21st century, there was basically only one way:\u00a0 rote copying of the characters to engrave them in the neuromuscular pathways of the learner.
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\nThe following photographs are from the WeChat<\/a> account of a Chinese teacher in Shenzhen and were forwarded to me by Alex Wang, who knows her and has made them available for this post.\u00a0 They show the practice writing of a Russian expat student in China.\u00a0 The characters which he has written hundreds of times each are:<\/p>\n

m\u00f9 \u6728 (\"wood\"), m\u00e9n \u95e8 (\"door\"), w\u01d4 \u4e94 (\"five\"), r\u00f9 \u5165 (\"enter\"), l\u00ec \u529b (\"strength; force; power\" — note the abortive start on the first character), t\u0101 \u5979 (\"she\"), t\u0101 \u4ed6 (\"he\"), m\u01ce \u9a6c (\"horse\"), and ma \u5417 (question particle)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\n\"\"<\/a>
\n\"\"<\/a>
\n\"\"<\/a>
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Bear in mind that this brute repetition goes on day after day after day.\u00a0 What you see here is not enough to master just these nine characters.\u00a0 You have to keep practicing them over and over and over; if you don't do so, you'll lose command of them.<\/p>\n

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The teacher praises her expat charge, a Russian, thus:\u00a0 \u201cSuch a diligent student!\u201d<\/p>\n

Alex says that he sees parents and teachers in Shenzhen praising their children in the same manner.<\/p>\n

It immediately struck Alex that Paul Newman could be praised in the same way in the movie \"Cool Hand Luke\" digging a ditch and then filling it in with the dirt he just dug up.\u00a0 Over and over again.<\/p>\n

Boss Paul:<\/strong>
\nThat ditch is Boss Kean's ditch. And I told him that dirt in it's your dirt. What's your dirt doin' in his ditch?<\/u><\/u><\/p>\n

Luke:<\/strong>
\nI don't know, Boss.<\/u><\/u><\/p>\n

Boss Paul:<\/strong>
\nYou better get in there and get it out, boy.<\/u><\/u><\/p>\n

Comment by Alex:<\/p>\n

HOW DILIGENT HE WAS!<\/p>\n

They say a picture is worth a thousand words and the teacher's Weixin moments were worth literally tens of thousands of words! \u00a0It made me even more convinced I chose the right path for my sons.\u00a0 They can read Chinese, they can type and select the characters they want.\u00a0 Just say no to Ting Xie!\u00a0 I think I might on a whim have some stylized t-shirts made for the sweltering summer here!<\/p>\n

That (above) is how NOT to learn Chinese.<\/p>\n

This is also how not to learn Chinese:<\/p>\n