I just bought two Chineasy books yesterday and just now, came across the TEDTalk video and this one. I love the approach. The characters are memorable, but to truly appreciate the language, understanding the history is essential.
my parents are chinese and im born in australia i only got taught to speak chinese (and i still cant speak as well as other ppl my age in china) i really need to learn to read and write it now
From a Filipino guy, thank you for your effort Shaolan! You deserve a salute! My great grandpa is a Xiamen man but I have never learned his language. Your way of teaching Chinese language makes me feel I am giving an honor to my grandpa, though I have never met him.
牛逼 -- I have one of her books. The best part of this video is where she points out that Chinese can't be that hard because it's been around for thousands of years and billions of people have learned it. I hope that proves to be true!
Google Translate man... I never realized the word for Awesome in Chinese translates word-for-word as Cow Force. I might just learn Chinese as a hobby now...
The teacher said I don’t even speak Japanese but can teaching and communicate with Japanese , That’s because Japanese have romaji and kanji and you are native Chinese and English speaker, it’s make you much easy to understand Japanese. and Chinese communication basic on writing systems and the Chinese radicals all have meaning and combined together build up the common words.
This is such a great video! Very useful and interesting content that would be beneficial to many students learning Chinese. A lot of our students while being able to speak some Mandarin struggle with reading, so this is a great way of improving that skill and help them remember the characters. Plus learning something from history and traditions makes always learning the language much easier and more entertaining. Good luck with your project! :)
If you are curious about Chinese language, want to make sense of these Chinese characters (not just mnemonic tricks) so that they not only become meaningful to you, tells the history, but also stay long in your memory. Watch this TEDx talk "Learn Chinese in the 21st Century".
Thank you for your videos I am still a beginner and being a grandmother meaning I am older I still need to go very slow. Your Chineasy help is very appreciated. Ty
In ancient Chinese the character 奻 (nuan) means argument. Ancient chinese belived that when two woman are likely to be together, they may create an argument (which is now considered as sexists). But now in Traditional and Simplified Mandarin, we dont use this anymore. She even said in her book "Chineasy" this is not commonly used anymore. However, the japanese used this to ment an argument as some of the Jpaanese character are influenced from the chinese
I am Chinese, and I have to say that's one really creative and fundamental way of teaching Chinese! Just to point out that the Chinese she teaches is traditional Chinese, which isn't used in Mainland China. It's a sad story that PRC abandoned the traditional Chinese..
Actually if you look closely she included the simplified version of 風 in the presentation. I think her approach is very confusing since she freely chooses between traditional and simplified forms. Btw Japan have also simplified their characters, is it just as sad?
we Chinese never use these tricks to learn Chinese.I think if you want to communicate with Chinese people,the better way is to talk with them.if you want to learn the meaning behind these Chinese characters,her method is good.
the difference between Chinese and English is that the rarely there would generate new Chinese characters,we just combine different characters to express a new thing.
I think this is a good method to learn chinese characters, but I think it is also important to learn a new way to speak and pronunciate well. me, as a spanish speaker. would like to learn how to speak chinese. I recommend her that she should put the chinese word and how it sounds, in every character she makes
She still LOOKS like an artist though--and her English accent is really endearing (as all English accents are, :)). Maybe Chineasy can help me. I hope to visit that part of the world someday.
This is amazing! Thank you! I actually regretted for not studying Chinese! My mom sees her friend's daughter study Chinese and she wants me to study too and I actually want to learn but my grand mother said no do not study! You will have a headache and I was scared I don't study! 😞 now I want to study Chinese! But starting to study the beginner as a teenager when your friends already graduated Chinese, does this sound like people would make fun of you?
Good way to foster interest and increase awareness on Chinese and culture; probably not that systematic in terms of leaning a vocabulary needed for conversations
Hello Rachel, this is a very clear presentation about Chineasy and Chinese characters. However, my question: 人口 ; combination of men and mouth ; what does it indicate
I wonder whether it's not that it's "not a good way", but not the only way, nor the only thing one should do when learning. Learning a language is so much more than one method. Learners have got to consult every possible material they can and draw conclusions based on what they see over and over and again. It's slow.
@@Blondesax She'll most probably agree with this. Her methods mostly go around the idea of how Chinese people read their language, the way English people see their own. And a lot of cultural facts. The rest, like a recipe laid out for us, we have to put to use what she wrote on it.
no they are not all pictograms, but while I was learning Chinese language, I was able to make stories out of characters that can be related to that character's meaning and that was fun and quite easy for me, I remember memorizing 50-100 words in one go by using story based mnemonics.
"What I can promise is: your Chinese will be as good as my Japanese. How good is my Japanese? I don't speak a word of Japanese." Take note. If you want to learn Chinese, you will have to study it. A native Chinese speaker, after learning Chinese characters at home and at school everyday day for years, will be able to make sense of written Japanese. However, the methods that she is talking about here won't teach you how to speak Chinese, or even read Chinese. Her book will help you to know which is the woman's toilet.
me encanta la formas de enseñanza se ve mas facil se aprende mejor si lo asociamos con los dibujos es para todos y los adultos mayores como yo me gusta el idioma y para mi es un reto para mis neuronas que. se quieren dormir y yo no los dejo porque les estoy exijiendo aprender chino tengo 68 años ¿me ayudan por favor ? Necesito la traducción al español las lecciones de la hermosa shaolan hsueh
The biggest problem with this is her use of traditional characters. Had she used simplified characters, the ones that have the widest currency in Chinese, it would have been extremely useful.
Chinese "simplified" was created when the communist party in China wanted to control the thoughts of the people by limiting their ability to read ancient writings as writings prior to the party take over (1949). So they created a "simplified" version of this beautiful language so that the modern day Chinese is not able to read his father's writings. Taiwan has preserved the language and traditional Chinese is used there. Learn both and you will be richer for it. Communist party is all about CONTROL of their masses and dishing out propaganda. Know the traditional Chinese and you will be more successful wherever Chinese is spoken.
This couldn't be further from the truth. Simplified characters have been around for millennia. That is why Japan have many of the same simplified characters as China and also why the Kuomintang where the first to try simplify characters in the 1930s@@e.v.6389
I didn't get you. 車 is the traditional form 车. 车 is the simplified version. This Chinese character was originally from the shape of chariots in ancient China.
sorry, I wrote it down wrong. I wanted to know why she used the traditional form instead of the new one, since they use the new characters in China and the 車 just in Taiwan, (as far as I know) I just though it would be a little bit confusing for the people who are learning it, to teach them the ancient form, but then also the simplified version without mentioning it. Do you know what I wanna say? :)
A Creative Mind 。 It isn't necessary that difficult to recognize. Just like how American spell "mom" whereas the British spell "mum". Only a matter of how history has evolved the original word. Yes, in Taiwan we use traditional Chinese where in china they use simplified Chinese. 😉
She says she wants to help people understand the origin and culture behind the characters, but totally misrepresents them with pictures that have nothing to do with the origin or culture behind the characters. I cringed at a lot of the picture choices because the characters could've been broken down in a very logical and meaningful way that would not be difficult to understand, and would shed light on why the character was built the way it was. There's a difference between making a language accessible, and treating the learner like a complete idiot.
For that I'd recomend this website: mdbg.net It's one of the best Mandarin resources online. You can look up characters' pronunciation by typing them in pinyin, for example, "king" is "wang" pronounced with the second tone, so you'd type in the search field "wang2". "Nü" is woman, in the third tone, so you'd type "nü3" and so on. But since she didn't show the pinyin for those characters, you can also look them up by drawing them, just click on the icon with a brush next to the word "Go" and a box will appear where you can draw the character. It doesn't have to look perfect, but try to make it as similar as possible.
But what is the point in teaching people traditional chinese characters, when most of the people learning it want to go to mainland China and not to Taiwan? Really don't get it.
She doesn't speak a word of Japanese and yet she claims she can read any publication including literature ? Not having a clue about the grammar, just by recognizing the 1850 Toyo Kanji ? Try to read Shakespeare or just a newspaper without knowing English grammar and syntax! Duh !
You're thinking of it completely wrong. Japanese and Chinese share characters. So I don't doubt that she might be able to get the gist of a paragraph or something in Japanese based solely on the kanji. Of course, she's not gonna be able to understand exactly what's going on. It's kinda the same with me and Chinese. I know a few characters because I kind of dabbled in Japanese before, but in my head, I can only come up with the Japanese name for the character, not the Chinese.
As a native speaker of Cantonese, I found it very disturbing when simplified Chinese characters are taught with associations which are misleading for the origin of the characters. The simplified Chinese characters are a product of distorting Chinese culture and non-logical. For example, "Love without heart" when it comes to the simplified version of the Chinese character. I strong suggest ShaoLan should teach the traditional one in the very first place.
I just looked into her new book, it not only shows how Chinese characters have been created but it also explains the difference between simplified and traditional Chinese characters. There are always both characters given, with a priority given to the traditional one. I'm still talking about her book(s), NOT the talk she gave at google.
I am studying Chinese in Brazil in one of the best colleges. But if you are planning to learn to speak Mandarin with these classes, you are wasting your time. I am a teacher of foreign languages and I confess that I have never seen a class so bad as this. It is a lot of small talk and little education.
It is a step forward, the idea is good, it can be used to improve existing systems. Step ahead 20 years, you will see the evolved version of this idea incorporated into existing teaching material to make it more effective.
Erdal Bora I felt kinda offended when she said she invented this method, while every Chinese start learning the first dozens of characters using this method. First of all, she's fooling non-Chinese by telling them that she invented a method which has actually been there in China for centuries. Second, she chosed to withold the fact that this method can only take you to kindergarten, no way further than that. This is fake promise.
It is one thing to teach characters using mnemonics and fancy pictures, it is another to claim that those teaching methods are historically accurate. If she was a professor at university, she would've already been fired and had her credentials revoked. That's the level of lying, misrepresentation and plagiarism this person commits. If you want to know more about character etymology then you should check out www.outlier-linguistics.com/blog
Pretty disappointed to see this on Google Talks. I come here to hear about new challenging ideas, this video is definitely doesn't belong. Being a Chinese advanced learned I don't understand why this woman presents thousand-year old BASIC character decomposition technique as something groundbreaking and unique.
Agree, and her method doesn't work for most characters as not all characters are pictograms. If someone uses her method to learn Chinese, he will soon find it not applicable to most characters and be frustrated
I guess you didn't see the video all the way through. Didn't she say she cant speak the Japanese language, but she can still communicate and read the words in Japanese? It's same with Chinese language. This is a basic method, and with learning how to pronounce different words, one should learn how to SPEAK, and READ.
This is just a bit of art. It's not really a serious method of learning Chinese. You can tell from her poor English that she is not a linguist. If you want to learn a language, you should learn with a teacher whose English is really good! It might get you started learning Chinese, but it won't help you learn the 3000 or so characters that you need to know to be able to read Chinese emails as I have needed to do for work.
Extremely disrespectful to use a christian cross to highlight that when western people look at the sky they imagine a cross. If she wants western people to buy her book she should not be trying to make fun of them Thumb down to her. I'd think twice before buying her book.
Despite the eye-catchy graphics, this is just nonsense. Water + Cow = Buffalo? WTF? Learning another language in this way might help memorizing the character itself, it is fine when you use it for your personal memorizing and practicing efforts. But giving out talks...? It doesn't make any sense at all. It only confuses and misleads people even more. Please. People in London, stop.
Water + Cow = Buffalo makes perfect sense to me. It's a water buffalo. I think her explanations of the words she chose were very interesting and really helpful in terms of mnemonics.
This is a good talk. It's a language that requires pure memorization so it's not natural for most people. The author uses fancy graphics that could be useful for some, but I think the most value comes from the recognition that anyone can create new vocabulary (hence concepts) by understanding the modular nature of this language. You start with a base set of vocabulary and construct new ones by juxtaposing one with another. The intention is to try to make memorization easy. It's a good alternative to the traditional learning approach, which is to have a teacher with a whip and lots of test. The risk for this approach is that you might end up learning a lot of characters but you don't know how to use them properly in a sentence. She acknowledged that many people start by learning at the sentence level and not at the character level. I think it depends on what you want to do with this knowledge. Some might argue that for travelers, it is sufficient to just know the characters and not necessarily phrases or sentences.
I’ve spent about 100,000 hours studying English humor and Western culture, and about 100,000 hours studying Chinese culture. My native language is Chinese. I teach Chinese in humorous way and with cute pictures. Hope somebody recommend my videos to those who want to learn Chinese
The characters used by the speaker is traditional Chinese, which is used by fewer people than simplified Chinese. If you have learned traditional Chinese characters, you may not understand everyday language when you come to mainland China.
I just came across Shaolan videos today, but I used mnemonics as well 3 years back during my trip to China, in fact I guess she d didn't get as creative as she should with several Chinese character, like for characters she mentioned for gold and boy, for gold character in Chinese language looks more like" pieces of gold (bricks) under a certain building (bank)" and that boy character rather more looks like a baby wrapped up and tied with a string (cord), the head of character shows the hoody part of wrap. For more difficult words I always created stories to teach them to myself, it was really fun, but of course I only learned Chinese while I stayed there in China, I guess Shaolan's videos will help me get refresh and come up with more better ideas to memorize these words.
Isn't this how people already learn Chinese characters, and been doing so for a hundred years? The single, most brilliant invention of Chineasy is their brand name, "Chineasy" itself.
