418 Must-know Mandarin Phrases- Download the FREE pdf now: mandarinbp.com/418-phrases-yt✅ WATCH THESE NEXT Master 100+ Chinese Words A Day ▶ ▶ ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-wOrN6sGNTeU.html The Ultimate Guide To Chinese Pronunciation ▶ ▶ ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-FlaJ12tmtu4.html
One thing I've done differently from this method is represent tones with moods. So first tone is a happy or positive mood to the story, 2nd tone is confusion or uncertainty, 3rd is sadness, 4th tone is anger or negativity, and 5th tone is bordom or neutrality. For me it makes the scene more memorable and lively when the tone represents emotion instead of location around the place.
hey guy, i think these are applicable in every language. as a native speaker, actually we haven't done anything else but to adapt to the pronunciation, which can be regarded as practice. That is the thing which works really in learning second-language. Once you "adapt" to it, you will know what people saying without translating to your first-language, which is the situation I want to achieve finally.
@@pokefound253wow really? did you buy the course or something? im in normal classes but we go so slowly its really frustrating and i think i should try this
I started getting into Chinese about a week ago and the most helpful thing so far has been following this channel. This sounds extremely cool personally because my way of forming thought about anything IS through visualizing or playing short sequences. I tried using visuals in a sense to remember Russian words and my efforts were mostly fruitless. I do think, though, that this kind of language association would be extremely easy to implement toward Chinese.
I have been trying to make use of mind palaces for about a decade but I could never get them to function properly. I've started using this system and I can say that for the first time I've actually been able to make use of mind palaces. I just decided to start learning Mandarin because I've been wanting to for a long time and I just found your channel and thought I'd give it a shot. I'm so glad your pronunciation video blew up because it led me to this one! For my first day of studying I've learned about 300 characters and I'll probably learn another 200 or so by the day's end. Recall is a bit slow currently but I'm not at all worried about that because I know it'll become faster and the mind palaces are working great. I can't thank you enough! As an aside, I'd like to say that I barely know any actors at all so I've actually assigned the first set of initials to Masculine Gods, the second set to Feminine Gods, the third set to characters from the Dragon Ball series, and the fourth set to Disney characters. I'm really glad that you provided different examples from your wildcard section because it allowed me to think about the best way to approach this for me.
@@thechaoschapterfreeze8316 Did you watch the video? I just did what he said. Take this character for example: 贯. It's pronounced "guàn" and means something like "pierce through." I just imagine Goku (the character I associated with the "gu" initial) in the backyard of the location I associated with my "an" final *piercing through* the _rice paddy_ (毌) and grabbing the _shellfish_ (贝) that are buried underground. This scene is particularly easy for me to imagine because early in the Dragon Ball series when Goku is training with Krillin under Master Roshi, he has them till farm fields with their bare hands and I imagine Goku doing that same motion as he pierces through the rice field to grab the shellfish. I've found that using familiar scenes like this is particularly useful. When I see 贯 I actually imagine a rice paddy (毌) and shellfish (贝) underneath it and then because I've created the imagery already that jogs my memory of Goku's hand piercing through the dirt in the backyard of my "an" location and that helps me remember that that it's pronounced "guàn" and the action of him piercing through the dirt reminds me that it means "pierce through." I embellish the actual act of piercing in my imagination and there is a close up. Alternatively, if I want to write "pierce through," I know Goku's hand goes through the rice paddy and then grabs the shellfish so I know that I need to put 毌 on top of 贝. While 毌 means rice paddy and 贝 means shellfish, that isn't actually important for remembering this character. You could consider them as a window and a stool if that helped you remember. I prefer using what they actually mean because that helps me remember what the components mean when they stand alone, but that means you have to slow down at least a little bit and learn what the components mean before you learn characters that contain them. Again though it really doesn't matter, especially because the components can have different meanings. 贝 means shellfish by itself, but it can also mean money and is used in the verb "to buy." 月 means moon but when it exists as a component it can also mean flesh. It's easier for me to remember the components by what they actually mean but that doesn't mean it'll be easier for you to remember them by what they actually mean. Also I don't recommend comparing your progress to mine. I'm at least a little bit insane and I have a ton of personal factors that have influenced the speed at which I'm able to do this.
I've watched this several times now. When the chart was introduced, it, threw me, "Wait, what? Why?" so I was relieved that at one pointLuke said, "Do Not Worry!" because I was starting to hyperventilate. But as an artist, I like the idea of creating scenes and scenarios.
im really glad i found this channel!! You make it sound less scary to learn!! However im sooo bummed out that I can't afford the mandarin blueprint package
Hey there , Thank you for watching! We appreciate your interest in our course! Send us an email, let's see what we can do for you . Here's the email contact@mandarinblueprint.com
I’m trying to make this work for traditional characters, but I am having some difficulty. For characters such as 癮 that have many radicals and therefore several “props” things can get pretty convoluted. Any tips? Thanks for the great work and attention!
Because of the complexity of Traditional characters, you'll have an uphill battle as a new learner no matter what method you choose to go with. If you're a fresh learner, I'd strongly advise starting with Simplified, but if you've no choice, then using the movie method will still be superior to any other method, no matter how complex a character might get.
Thanks for the reply! I am already committed to traditional. Do you suggest to keep adding props to these complex characters? Or is there a better way to go about it? @@MandarinBlueprint
Try and learn the radicals together instead as single strokes, if you can remember the characters that go into one hanzi then it'll be much simpler to remember, especially for Traditional characters.
It might seem like it at first but we've tested this method for years with thousands of people at this point. It works and it's easy after 5-10 characters!
Hi Vanya, I am learning Chinese with MB so I can say from personal experience that is not as complicated as it sounds. In the beginning it seems like A LOT to create all these props and scenes and associate them with different people and rooms in different buildings. And, at first, it is. But you'll quickly figure out shortcuts that make it quicker and, before you know it you'll be flying through the program. I personally didn't use their "han zi movie method" for long. I'm not very creative and struggled with it. But, there's a comment section with every lesson and other students share their own scenes. The people there are so creative and entertaining that I never actually had to create a scene. I would just read theirs and there would always be one that stuck with me. Plus, once you are familiar with several kangxi you will naturally switch to learning characters by breaking them down into their kangxi. The other huge advantage to the MB method is the order in which you learn the characters, which makes it way easier, and the fact that they teach you the most commonly used characters first. Believe me, the way Chinese is typically taught if far more complicated.
I agree with what was previously said. I've tried 3 other language programs to learn Mandarin, and this one is by far the best. I even discovered MB from one of those other programs. I've finally gotten my tones down. I never imagined I'd be writing characters after the first day. It's totally worth it. Not only is it motivating and enjoyable, but Luke & Phil are so helpful.
You have to put a little bit of work in the beginning to name every place and person, but after that, it's almost smooth sailing (some characters are complicated to form a story about). Also, I recommend you learn in the order of the Heisig method, everything just builds into the next. There is a anki deck for that called "James W. Heisig - Remembering Simplified Hanzi 1 & 2" (also teaches the traditional form)
mr Bean arrived from a phantasy party, using a Viking helmet with horns. Run to toilet for number 2, after finishing realizes there is no toilet paper, so he divide a towel in 2 to use half as toilet paper
Hello there, Great question, based on how we structure our method, that isn't an issue. I've attached our Hanzi Movie Method series below for you to review. This should give you a clearer understanding of how it operates www.mandarinblueprint.com/blog/chinese-mnemonics/. Please read through all the series and let us know if you have any further questions
I like this idea, and shifted myself over to this method. However I’m studying traditional characters and there are just so many shapes/forms that are really hard for me to turn into metaphors/props. I guess it’s my lack of imagination. I’ve created something like my own “index” of often repeated radicals and shape patterns, so I don’t duplicate naming the same shape, but it’s just not enough for some of the really complex characters. It’s hard for me to rationalize here how the mental hurdle of associating the sound of the word to a scene provides more value than just trying to understand the history of a character. I suspect it’s just a matter of more practice. But overall I would say that this method has helped personify each character. When I’ve been able to create a good scene, it has helped immensely.
@@MandarinBlueprint Wow, I just want to first say I am blown away with your considerate feedback. Thank you for your time on this interaction. I agree with your assessment regarding character memorization driven towards linguistics vs acquisition. I think they can both be done in tandem: leveraging insight gleaned from radicals or history when it's helpful. Otherwise, not worrying about a character's history when the history doesn't seem readily helpful for a particular character. I think it boils down to your point regarding how more mnemonic legwork is sometimes required. I know I'm interchanging the concept of radicals & history here, but I just mean the approach of learning the form of a character via it's historical journey. When I'm up against a character I think will be tricky, in my imagination I often dwell in the "scene" for several moments longer. Oddly, it's often the most difficult characters that are more easily learned, probably because of the mental intimidation and then the accompanying serious attitude my brain seems to take 😅 As a testament to this method, I would also add that on 听写考试，these hooks are good because the only input I/we have is verbal... So I might hear "ji4" and if I'm lost, I might start thinking about Jimmy Hendricks, (whatever it may be), and very oddly, just thinking of Jimmy, in a particular bathroom, often leads to instant memory recall, even though Jimmy by himself offers no insight whatsoever to the character's shape, save for the scene I created. Just a weird phenomenon we tap into here. Thanks again.
You have to understand the value of memory by association to appreciate this method. The video said the world's memory champion use this method. And you can prove it to yourself by memorizing a list of things by associating it with actors, objects , scenes and actions. Once you appreciate and understand the power of this method you will learn much faster and apply this to other areas of your life
Does that mean we have to create 3000 stories in our head? Just as a first impression, this seems very complicated to me. I'm probably wrong, but I fail to see how this would be helpful for me, I see it as an overcomplication of things. Maybe I would use it on specific characters that I can't remember, but for the simple ones isn't it easier to just practice a bit every day and to just remember them? There's so many components we have to think of for just the character 半 for instance, which I can easily remember just by memorizing it. This whole thing just makes me confused 😔
I thought this would be an issue too. BUT after over 200 characters it's easy. And even if some stories slip it's because your brain is replacing the story with just the character and meaning itself.
I'm tending to agree. I'm leaning towards memorizing the radicals & then simply write the characters for any new words a few times, review & boom done. I imagine/associate the meaning of the word with the shape of the character. Less imagining of movie actors/action/sets involved. Seems like more work? Perhaps that's just how my mind works w/language learning.
Can you memorize the tones with emotion rather than the place of setting? For example, if the character is -an in first tone, we just use one room/house but make the setting happy, if it's in second tone we make it confusing, etc.?
Great thinking but I'm afraid it doesn't work. Tones are not connected to the emotions that the words represent. For example, both characters in 开心 are in the 1st tone and both characters in 快乐 are in the 4th tone, but they both mean happy!
It seems like this works well for characters that don't have many strokes or components. As soon as the character is more complex, it sort of fails to code the relevant information. If you were to isolate all the radicals or components used in Chinese and then create a prop for each one, it might be more accurate, but that is lots of work and you'd need to remember loads of props. Definitely not fast or simple in that case.
It's actually faster and simpler than rote learning . For a better understanding and breakdown, I'd recommend checking out our series on how it works. Here's the link: www.mandarinblueprint.com/blog/chinese-mnemonics/ Feel free to reach out if you have any questions after reading.
Could you explain how you would memorize a convoluted character, like, say 我? It's not easy to decompose since the parts are interlinked. I mean, in this case I know it by heart, but I'm wondering how to memorize things with that complexity.
我 is the hand component with the halberd. (or whatever props you choose for those 2 items). so a simple story such as your W (actually wu actor) actor in a bedroom of your O set, using their left hand (since the hand is on the left) they pick up a halberd while proclaiming " I am the ruler of this building, not you... but I"
Hey Thomas, as Luke said, you can choose a male actor whose name starts with 'C,' for example, Cristiano Ronaldo or Chris Hemsworth. Additionally, here's an extra resource to assist you with this approach www.mandarinblueprint.com/blog/facial-mnemonics-to-learn-chinese-pinyin-initials/
If you're struggling with choosing actors, I have attached the following resource that I believe you'll find very beneficial www.mandarinblueprint.com/blog/facial-mnemonics-to-learn-chinese-pinyin-initials/ Happy learning!
Great Video, thank you for sharing. I have one question, should I be focusing on traditional Chinese characters or or simplified Chinese? I am not sure what the difference is.
That is a great question, we focus on teaching simplified characters at Mandarin Blueprint. It really depends what you are learning for, but simplified tends to be an easier place to start and can really teach you everything to read, write and speak!
Hey James , Great question. For example you would use shaq! For better understanding, check out this blog www.mandarinblueprint.com/blog/facial-mnemonics-to-learn-chinese-pinyin-initials/
Almost like Hypnosis. Well, it is Hypnosis of a kind. So, yes, in theory a good way to show people how to use their mind. I use a similar method when I replay my chess games. Thing is, with Chinese you need to have a grasp of the 3 parts: phonetic, pictographic, and ideographic. Anyway, I'm only a minute or so into your video so I'll persevere.
Hey, I've got a question, the wildcard category (ü), i would take gods for example, should I find gods starting with yu, nü, lü, ju, qu, xu? cause even with knowing rather a lot about greek gods, i can't think of one with x, q and j. Would you say I should rather choose any gods (or communist leaders) or try to find some with named initals? Anyways great video
Happy you enjoyed our video! Thanks for watching! Regarding your question, the following can help www.mandarinblueprint.com/blog/facial-mnemonics-to-learn-chinese-pinyin-initials/
I have aphantasia, and can barely imagine things in my mind. This method sounds absolutely exhausting for me, trying to map unknown sound concepts to people, places, and events I have to struggle to imagine, and then work through that backwards to find the information I need. Any ideas for people who cant quickly imagine images?
@MandarinBlueprint Thanks, appreciate it. Gave it a listen, and that still sounds like a lot of unnecessary steps. He's right though, I can produce and remember sound really well, but I can barely see any chinese character in my mind, let alone remembering what actors look like. Luckily, my experience so far is its easy to attach the meaning to the character by itself along with the tone of the sound, so hearing and speaking isn't too hard, neither is reading, but I more often forget a character when writing them.
I fear that this type of method does not suit me. I spend a great deal of concentrated time over months with Wanikani which is somewhat of a similar concept for learning Kanji. The thousands of situations I had learned were largely 'false' associations. After a break of a month or so, I found that virtually all of those fanciful stories had completely evaporated. I probably know about 3000 Chinese characters passively, ie to read in context, all 'learned' over years of exposure. Somehow my brain pattern matches, and sometimes indeed makes mistakes - but actually my Chinese friends seem to have the same problem (maybe in minature). Actively, ie writing, the characters is really problematic - my brain seizes up, but with good old pinyin and computers I get by!
Like Wanikani but this method is FAR superior! The stories are supposed to evaporate as they are merely a bridge to faster long-term memories. You problem is likely either due to poor mnemonics (not your fault, bad coaching) or not reviewing regularly using SRS. Just my two cents.
@@MandarinBlueprint They didn't change into faster long-term memories. I reviewed very very regularly too. It has to be well known that different people learn in different ways.
If you're struggling with choosing actors, I have attached the following resource that I believe you'll find very beneficial www.mandarinblueprint.com/blog/facial-mnemonics-to-learn-chinese-pinyin-initials/ Happy learning!
Neutral tones are a relatively modern thing that's meant to smooth speach; all neutral tones can sound different, depending on what tone the character that comes before is.
Not necessarily. No need to think that far into it, just need to show that the actor is trying to find out where a sound is coming from, that's enough!
Visualization doesn't work for me in any form. It is good when you deal with 300 characters - OK, cha (a tea shed under bamboos), da (a clever man who sits in a hut under bamboos and answers questions in a affirmative tone), etc But then they all begin to mix up because there are so many bamboos and little houses and the meanings become closer and closer to each other, total mess. I only do character analysis now and remember characters in steps - I read, I see relatively new letters and try to remember that @carp@ besides obvious "yu" has also "li" (like maybe a local fish) and herring has "fei" (difficult nature of herrings :) ) I don't try to remember all together - all spelling components, reading and tone. I just try to remember something, and next time I see this character, I'll learn more about it and maybe practice a bit.
I´ve tried a number of paid services with most of them having little success. A majority of what I have gleaned from Mandarin is accredited to nothing other than my own hard work and persistence. I´m not ready to plop down $1K for an approach that ¨might¨ work better. The create a picture story is an old memory trick for shopping lists, names etc which can be applied to anything. Yes, it works, but the user has to build a road map for every word or character. That can be taxing. Forget the money back thing, if you offered an inexpensive starter kit for the first handful of lessons at least we could see if the approach is right for us.
We do offer The MB Challenge, which gives you access to the first 3 Phases of The Mandarin Blueprint, you can find that here --> go.mandarinblueprint.com/the-mb-challenge
This method strikes me as arbitrary and convoluted. The reason I (an American) want to learn Chinese is to understand how Chinese people think (or thought). A language is a map of thoughts. To superimpose western actors or whomever and whatever is to pave over the original relationships that have accumulated around the Chinese writing system for millennia.
Hey Taylor, While you'll get a lot of opportunities to understand how Chinese people think, their culture, and their history, that alone won't get you to fluency. You need to find a way to learn characters. Rote learning will only get you so far. Instead, we find using mnemonics, a universal technique, to be more effective. This is what the actors, props, etc., are for. It doesn't have to be "Western"; many of our members use mnemonics that are Chinese-based. Here's a bit more guidance : www.loom.com/share/efb30820aef5461da3909a1427b22ead
Well, in case of "Ban" (half) I've got Britney Spears.. now on the toilet so "half" to me is now literally Brietney's halves. I suppose this method works.
As a non-native English speaker studying Chinese, it is quite difficult for me to understand when in an invented scene what the hieroglyph itself should mean, and what the tone is. Especially, it is unclear where the tone itself is in the speaker's examples. Unfortunately, this was not clearly demonstrated for me (there are no problems with imagination, I study at the College of Arts at the Chinese University). A little disappointed with the time spent, I will continue to study using the old method.
Heisig's method doesn't scale well, because it teaches false associations. You are much better off learning what the characters in fact represent because then you will wind up with the needed working vocabulary which is around 5-6k actively known characters and another 5-10k passively recognized characters. 3000 characters, even actively known, is NOT enough for literacy.
Phil here (the other MB Co-founder). Interesting points, I have a lot of thoughts about this, so I made a video explaining my perspective: www.loom.com/share/b4c2d95455fe4ffdbe8243c67f4ef485
The Heisig method was probably derived from his earlier work in Japanese: Remembering the Kanji. Because the On and Kun readings for any one kanji can be a huge list, and a single kanji can have many different pronunciations, the meta for Japanese has been to learn the meaning of the kanji separately, and then learn the pronunciation separately in context. This unfortunately doesn't translate well to Chinese where the pronunciation for a Hanzi doesn't change as often.
Three years and only upper beginner/immediate, with some ability to create sentences, understand a fair amount, but characters and reading fell through the cracks. I'm a visual learner and this is perfect! I like that you have a memory system, plus you provide example sentences and more. Thank you for seriously making learning Mandarin fun again.
I'm glad this method works for some people. To me, this method is so incredibly complicated that I don't even understand how anyone could conceive of such a concept. Since I hardly watch TV, I couldn't even remember a dozen actors, singers, athletes or others, to begin with. For heaven's sake, there must hopefully be easier learning aids. 🤔
He's trying to reinvent the wheel here. I'm not a fan at all of this method I think it's way too convoluted and unnecessarily complicates something achievable with an SSR app
It's wayyyy too complicated for me as well. Also, there are different types of learners. It might be outdated, I don't know, but I simply have to write a word several times and say it out loud and I'll remember it. I hardly have to look up words once I've remembered them. So why complicate things?
Duolingo has recently added a feature to learn Hanzi which I find useful as well. It teaches you the different components and the correct stroke order along with the pronunciation and meaning. Way easier than inventing a movie scene for every character 🥵😅
The details are up to you! That's the beauty! You can use friends, characters from books, or whatever works for you. Their suggestions are mainly for introducing the method to people who have never seen it I used a similar one in other context and it worked pretty well, so I think it's gonna be a good one to try
I'm a visual learner... and remembering the shape of the character has never been the problem, only the tones that go with it. Like 'ban'--Half.... I see three boards being chopped in half... no need for horns, or Neo, or a syringe. I had a Chinese student who once gave an oral report on the meaning of all the radicals--she was Hakka. And she shared what had helped her learn the characters. I find knowing the meaning of the radicals helps a ton with understanding the characters. It also helps with finding them in a dictionary.
in brief: The video is a tutorial on a method to learn Chinese characters using a mnemonic technique called the "Hands Up Movie Method". The speaker, Luke, explains the method in detail and provides examples to illustrate how it works. Here's a summary of the key points: 1. **The Method**: The "Hands Up Movie Method" is a mnemonic technique that involves creating a mental movie scene to remember each Chinese character. The scene includes an actor, a set, and props, each of which represents a different aspect of the character. 2. **The Actor**: The actor represents the initial sound of the character's pronunciation. For example, if the character is pronounced "gan", the actor could be someone whose name starts with "g", like George Clooney. 3. **The Set**: The set represents the final sound of the character's pronunciation. For example, if the character is pronounced "gan", the set could be a place that starts with "an", like an ant farm. 4. **The Props**: The props represent the strokes that make up the character. For example, if the character has a stroke that looks like a line, the prop could be a sword. 5. **The Movie Scene**: The movie scene is a mental image that combines the actor, the set, and the props in a memorable way. The scene should be vivid and engaging, with the actor interacting with the props in the set. 6. **Examples**: The speaker provides several examples of how to use the method to remember different Chinese characters. For example, to remember the character for "dry", he imagines George Clooney in an ant farm, using a sword to cut open a cactus and finding it dry inside. 7. **Practice**: The speaker encourages viewers to practice the method with different characters, actors, sets, and props. He emphasizes that the method is flexible and can be adapted to suit each person's individual preferences and experiences. 8. **Further Learning**: The speaker mentions that the "Hands Up Movie Method" is part of a larger course called the Mandarin Blueprint Method, which includes additional techniques for learning Chinese words and sentences. 9. **Conclusion**: The speaker concludes by saying that learning Chinese characters can be fun and easy with the right method. He encourages viewers to try the "Hands Up Movie Method" and to continue their Chinese learning journey.
For my tone (since I'm a visual learner) I immediately saw it as first : high room or important room, second upwards stairs (set at the foot of the stairs looking up or stairs I usually go up on) third: downward stairs (with the bottom of the stairs in the shadows) fourth: at the outer edge of the building (emergency staircase, small room, elevator, corridors, bathroom; something that feels on the fringe of the building, almost out, secondary) will obviously need some refining Edit: I realized why it makes sense to me: 1 feels like the higher tone, the main purpose of the building 2 enters in the main area 3 is under, out of or contrary to the main area 4 leaves the main area. That's what it feels like trying to visualize the tones I guess the 5th would be actively outside like secluded from the main area, actively not in the main area (think the tiniest of toilets way in the back of the garden you kinda forgot existed)
I went for a personal variation of the method but in any case the association strategy is super powerful, I was able to memorize several characters, their tone and meaning very quickly. Thanks a lot!!!!
I see this method sort of as Heisig 3.0, with Gorodish as Heisig 2.0. It sounds like an excellent refinement to the Marilyn method. We all know that the major deficiency of Heisig was the lack of learning the pronunciation, but the great things about Heisig's original method were: 1.) as mentioned in this video, the ordering of learning, starting with a component and building many characters off of each of those components, 2.) his recognition that - for most humans - our *imaginative* memory is far more efficient than our visual memory (it surely is for me), and 3.) these stories/movies will only be used as *temporary* crutches to learn the characters. The movies will fade from our memory but the meaning and pronunciation will not. The movies will have done their job and, at some point, go away so we won't be relying on them as crutches forever.
You get it! It also opens the door to learning words, sentences and graded readers immediately after learning a character, which was impossible with Heisig
We cover the most common 3050 characters in our course (mentioned in the video), and one rule we stick to (with only a handful of exceptions) is to not include any more than 3 "props" (components). We have made this possible with a carefully constructed character order that "chunks" components together as you work your way through the order, so even characters with tons of strokes are only 2 or 3 props you are very familiar with. Now, there are a few situations where this wasn't possible and I think around 5-6 characters total have more than 3 props, such as 微 wēi, for example. For these, we step in and provide a "guided scene", where we walk members through a series of actions to memorize the character. In short, this method works no matter the apparent complexity of the character!
How Chines actually works exemplified with a complex character 照 this is zhao and it means flash of bright light, reflecting; 照 It has the sun on the left , four burning coals underneath, and a sword on top of mouth on the top right. the sword on top of a mouth sounds like jiao and basically means to call forth, as military recruiters do, to call forth, and then assemble. this jiao here is the sound component. The sun and burning coals both convey the meaning of light and reflection. This is how complex characters are formed. This is the sun: 日 it's a picture of the solar disc, the line in the middle once was a dot, it's square because scrivening curved lines into bone or bamboo is really difficult. this is a mouth 口 this is a sword or knife 刀 Complex characters are ALL formed from just 213 kangxi radicals. so zhaopian photograph 照片 zhaoxiangji photographic box machine aka camera 照相机 After much effort I now have an active knowledge of at least 3000 characters and a passive recognition of another 10,000. Because I understand how the language is constructed as opposed to using gimmicks. My goal however was academic literacy, not mere conversational Chinese with the bare minimum of characters needed to navigate cafes and subways.
In response to Quizmaster China: I am using Mandarin Blueprint to learn Chinese now. Before MB I took university courses, used apps, and self-teaching books and audio. For "foreigners" whose native language is English (me), it is VERY difficult to learn Chinese the traditional way because we have no understanding of characters or anything to associate them with. MB really is the best method for people who know nothing at all about the Chinese language. It gives us a strong foundation by "dumbing it down" to concepts that we recognize and understand. Now, that being said, I do use the method you described, now; I recognize 日 as "sun" and 月 as "moon" and combine those two components to sort of "spell" 明. So, for complete bigginers, at least those that are westerners, we need the MB method. But, at least for me, after I became comfortable with the kangxi/radicals I no longer needed to create scenes and naturally stopped. And, indeed, the guys at MB realize this will eventually happen and eventually stop emphasizing their "hanzi movie method" so much once you get to a certain level. So my point is, don't think the method he's describing is intended for use during your entire learning experience of Mandarin and Chinese writing. It is just the best way for us westerners to figure it out in the beginning. At least for me, this method of learning Chinese characters worked much faster than any of the typical methods that I had tried before. You can think of it this way: As we are creating these scenes, we are attaching an entertaining memory to the character we are learning, which makes the learning process fun. It often comes out a bit silly, so we get a good laugh and we enjoy it. So now we have a fond memory of that character, and we remember fond memories and, therefore, the character far better than things that don't have a memory attached to them at all.
@@joaorafaeloliveira1781 unfortunately I have this view: If people are kind enough to give me free lessons I don't tout their competitors, especially were I their competitor. It doesn't seem at all fair to "reward" someone's hard work and sincere effort. I just find memory palaces ineffective and think "just make something up" is terrible advice for learning hanzi. Mandarin Blueprint does have an excellent method for learning Chinese pronunciation! So start with that.
I REMEMBER THE BOOK OF FIRSTLY LEARNING CHINESE CHARACTERS IN THE KINDERGADEN. ONE PAGE IS A CHINESE CHARACTERS AND ANOTHER PAGE IS A PICTURE, SUCH AS 山, ANOTHER PAGE IS A MOUNTAIN
Hello, love the method! Very clever. Thank you for sharing this treasure. In the video you mentioned some mnemonics for connecting to your sets quicker and that it would be in the description but I don't see a link to these mnemonics. If you could share that or point me to the link I'd really appreciate it! Also, do you have any kind of scholarships for the program?
Thanks! Added to the description: www.mandarinblueprint.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Hanzi-Movie-Method-Set-Mnemonics.pdf We don't have scholarships but we are extremely reasonably priced for the value the course provides! You can also get lifetime access with 12 monthly installments.
@@MandarinBlueprint Would it make sense to go through all radicals and pick props for them to represent before getting into the characters? Or is it better to learn several characters that use each primitive(radical) at a time like in the Heisig method?
This works! I can now learn a lot easier. I’m using Integrated chinese and I’m lesson 12 right now and I was struggling memorizing. I remembered 54 words today from this method.
From where the mnemonics are tailored specifically to you, it's SO easy once you get deeper in. It's the most effective way I've found to learn characters. I've also noticed the stories (again from where they are tailored specifically to you) make the characters so much more memorable and often you don't even need a flashcard for it.
Omg it took me nearly a whole day to get all of the names O.O But why do the 7 initials z, c, s, zh, ch, sh, r still count for the male actors? I mean yeah they're there just once, but bu, pu, mu and fu are also there just once and they also get an individual name.
Hey Yuri, Great question. You can check this out to have a better understanding www.mandarinblueprint.com/blog/facial-mnemonics-to-learn-chinese-pinyin-initials/
This is great, but how do I make flash cards that incorporate my actors/props/sets?? Do the front of the cards have the character and the back have meaning + actor/prop/set?
Amazing and more than well structured content plus outstanding presentation! I found you yesterday and am so happy to have the opportunity to watch this 🤩十万分感谢 🤗
For me personally, I have been influenced and know pokemon very well growing up. So for the people/ actors I’m going to imagine pokemon like, b= Bidoof, p= pikachu etc.
"close your eyes if it's safe to do so" (it's not I'm walking down the stairs Infront of my house) "try to imagine yourself outside your home" (I am) 😂 terrible timing for the video huh
The book "Learning Chinese Characters" by Tuttle may be one that you'd like more than Heisig - it fixes the problems that you mentioned, presenting an expandable system where you can create stories and including a system for the tones. I'll keep watching this though, to see if your system has advantages!
I learned basic conversation first using bo po mo fo the phonetic system taught to children in elementary school in Taiwan. I don’t have a good auditory memory and can’t even sing on key, so remembering the tones was very difficult for me. I spoke very slowly. I take anchor words or phrases that I am very familiar with to help me remember the tonal pronunciation of new words. Like hen2hao3. That is my go o to tonal anchor for learning new vocab with a 2/3 tone combo (like mei2you3) .bu2yao4 is an anchor for 2/4 combo words etc
Every time you do that, you are telling me to learn more. Thank you to keep pushing me to learn more. Mỗi lần bạn làm điều đó, bạn đang bảo tôi học hỏi nhiều hơn. Cảm ơn các bạn đã tiếp tục thúc đẩy tôi học hỏi nhiều hơn và tìm một môi trường tốt hơn để sống trong hòa bình, tự do và hạnh phúc.
I enjoyed this video a lot and the method seems very intuitive. Looking forward to trying it out. The only thing I don't feel was explained very well is the final of the word. Like in ren, you used Robert Downey Junior for the R sound, but the EN sound wasn't explained very well. Eventually, I understood that the en sound is one of your 13 locations, but during the explanation you said to use any location it doesn't really matter, causing bit of confusion. I will find a few Chinese words I don't know and try this out to see how it works for me. Thanks for the advice! 😀
Dear Mandarin Blue Print Team I have not words to describe how amazed I am with this video of yours. I am also very and deeply touched with your kindness of sharing this for free with so many people. I have read Joshua’s book and I tried to use some of those techniques in order to learn Chinese. I have created some techniques by myself associating the tones with some actions rather than locations. Your explanation was basically an Eureka moment in my Chinese learning experience. It took it to another dimension. My sincere thanks to you. Your work is absolutely amazing. BRAVO!!! I will take a look into your courses. If one day anyone of your team comes to Japan I would really be honored to meet you in person. I think your concept can be expanded to Japanese learning and Korean learning as well. Thanks again!!!!
Just wanted to share my b`an (idk how to type it on my pc) the B is Bruce Vayne, the "Horns" are the Ears of Batman and the Character for Ten is a sword, and yee the character of One is divided in half so Bruce, dressed as Batman, cuts ppl in half in my schools backyard
Great video, but I personally feel this method is not for me. I'd stick with my way of memorizing Hanzi the conservative way, which is breaking down every component and radical, and understanding their origins and associations. This is how most chinese people memorize Hanzi, even though it doesn't help you with pronunciation/tone, unfortunately. Edit: The reason for this is because a lot of Hanzi can have dozens of components/radicals, and it'll be overwhelming for me to memorize actors, objects, actions, etc for each of them.
Thank you for sharing this. I've being going through this video a lot lately but i found I'm a bit stuck. How do I do 'liu' (six - sorry no tone placement? I get li is a new initial but I can't see 'u' on the place list. Could you help me with this? I have tried figuring it out but just can't see the answer.
You actually split it wrongly - it should be "l" + "ou" even though it's written as "iu". You can see it somewhere in the middle of the chart, below "ou". Hope this helps!
@@MandarinBlueprint Thank you for the reply. I am still a little confused as how 'liu' (six) is actually l+uo. I'll work on this as I wouldn't want to start memorising incorrect Hanzi.
I've been studying Chinese for quite a few years. I'll try your technique out! Thanks for sharing. Although the images for 从 and 人 confused me more tbh🤣but probably because I have memorized the in a completely different way like they teach Chinese with the images that some simple characters are resembling
Hey, I have started learning Chinese a few days ago and this technique is really helpful, I can remember the tone, recognize the character and recall the meaning but it takes me a few seconds to remember how the character was pronounced. How can I tackle this do I can instantly remember the pronunciation? Overall this technique works pretty fine, thanks for sharing!!
Hey there, Great question! We are happy to help. I have attached the link below to provide you with some tips to assist with this www.mandarinblueprint.com/blog/20-powerful-ways-to-improve-your-chinese-pronunciation/ Also, if you are interested in taking it a step further and mastering pronunciation, I'd recommend that you check out our Pronunciation Mastery Course www.mandarinblueprint.com/get-pronunciation-mastery/
The problem that I have for Heisig method is creating new stories and making sure the association of the character to a story works both ways. This is especially difficult when the character doesn’t mean a simple object or a simple action, but an adjective or something abstract. “Sort of thing”, “cause”, “effect”, “together”, “vague”, “self-effacing”, “luxurious” etc. I spend 10-20 minutes trying to come up with good mnemonic. Is there any way to speed up the story creation process?
Hey Lurii, our courses are designed to help Mandarin learners quickly memorize the characters and words and eventually remember them for a life time. You can check out this Rapid Acquisition Crash Course where Luke and Phil teach you how to memorize hundreds of characters in a weeks or even days! courses.mandarinblueprint.com/offers/zKzG4F2o/checkout
If you are stuck with the creation of mnemonics, either with this method or other, use this system: - If you would like to make today the mnemonics for 50 characters, the take a list of 75; - write down the "automatic part" of the system. I mean the actor, place, set and objects. - try to think for 30 seconds in an action to describe the meaning with all the elements. - if you can't, leave it "only" with the first step and go for the next character, hoping to not block yourself with that one also :) - repeat the secuence till you finish the list. -once at the bottom of the list, go back to the top. Maybe now the practice with the other characters or seeing againg the set gives you inspiration. But try only for 30 seconds as before, and skip all those that you don't find inspiration. - once you are at the bottom again, save those "resisting" characters for later on. Better if you don't try them in the next sesion but in the second next sesion, so they won't become "the source of frustration at the start of every sesion". Also, better to put them at the bottom of the list, so you arrive to them after several minutes of "having a ball"
Nice. But question if you can help me out, how do we use it for learning words of two or three syllables because that way we would have two or three different places and different people. Any thoughts on this?
Hey Fred, we actually teach people how to do this within our course. You can check it out at www.mandarinblueprint.com/buy-the-blueprint/. However if you want to have a better understanding of how it works , this should help www.mandarinblueprint.com/blog/chinese-mnemonics/
I don't get it. It is just overwhelming and too much detail at the beginning. and for the same time the video was was to slow and it felt it does not go to the point.. I have no overview..
I was totally lost with all the props and action tbh... for 人 I just imagined Charlie chaplain walking down the street and it stuck immediately... as for 干 I simply saw 二 with a stick in the middle... so does that count?
For simpler characters like those, the method isn't as important. However, the vast majority of characters are far more complex so best rewatch and apply the method fully. Check link in the description for access to our courses for more detailed instruction!
