For me a new mental gimmick is the best kind of toy there is—better than a new electronic gadget. My latest toy is a technique for memorizing the pronunciation of Chinese characters—my own invention, I am proud to say. This might end up being my greatest contribution to civilization, even better than my killer nacho recipe.
Lots of attention has been given to the problem of remembering how to write Chinese characters (see, for example, my review of Heisig and Richardson's book). By comparison, remembering how to pronounce the characters has been the neglected well-behaved sibling. But pronouncing the characters is by no means trivial—especially since the Chinese (Mandarin) language uses important sound contrasts that just don't exist in English, including of course tone of voice.
With my system I can link just two concepts (as is done in most memory systems) to represent the pronunciation of any Chinese character, including the tone. If you are using Heisig and Richardson or something similar to remember how to write characters, this is the perfect companion. You can also use the system to memorize spoken Mandarin words even if you don't care about writing them (not what I would recommend, but some people like it). It will take a bit of time and effort up front to memorize the basic correspondences, but this will be paid back with interest pretty quickly (within a matter of days in my own case). This post gives a complete description of the method—so bear with the length. You might also learn a little about Mandarin phonology.
The fact that this is possible at all is thanks to the Chinese "one character = one syllable" principle and also thanks to the rather constrained Chinese sound system, which makes it possible to list all Mandarin syllables in a rather modest table. My system uses a similar table, but pushed and pulled around a bit. It also has much in common with the "Bopomofo" system, which represents every possible Chinese syllable with one to three symbols taken from an alphabet of 37 symbols. I won't use the rather exotic-looking symbols themselves here, but their pinyin equivalents.
21 out of the 37 symbols can appear only at the beginning of a syllable:
b-, p-, m-, f-, d-, t-, n-, l-, g-, k-, h-, j-, q-, x-, zh-, ch-, sh-, r-, z-, c-, s-
Another 12 can appear only at the end of a syllable:
-a, -o, -e, -ê, -ai, -ei, -ao, -ou, -an, -(e)n, -ang, -(e)ng
(...although certain syllables in both cases consist of a single symbol such as s ["si" in Pinyin] or ai, so that the beginning of the syllable is also the end.)
Three more symbols, representing -i-, -u-, or -ü-, can appear at the beginning, middle, or end. The -i- and -u- sound essentially like they would in Spanish, whereas -ü- sounds like a French "u" or a German "ü".
Examples:
zh+ang = zhang in Pinyin
u + ang = wang in Pinyin
zh + u + ang = zhuang in Pinyin
zh + (e)n = zhen in Pinyin
i = yi in Pinyin
j + i + (e)n = jin in Pinyin
If you have been paying attention, you should have noticed I have only listed 36 of the 37 symbols. The remaining symbol, representing er, never combines with another and represents a syllable in itself.
All Mandarin syllables are made up of a limited number of such combinations. (Compare this with the rough-and-ready situation in English, where a single syllable might be "strength" or "boxed" or "splashed". Good luck finding a table of English syllables.)
The Basic Approach
The first step in the method is to use a mental picture of a given individual (real or fictional) to represent each of the initial symbols. We're going to call these representatives personages. I have made the following assignments, but you can use others if you like them better:
Babe (Ruth) for b-
Peter (Pan) for p-
Mark (Twain) for m-
Frazier (Crane) for f-
Darth (Vader) for d-
Tarzan for t-
Noriyuki (Morita) for n-
Leonardo (da Vinci) for l-
Groucho (Marx) for g-
Karl (Marx) for k-
Herman (Munster) for h-
George (Washington) for zh-
Charlie (Chaplin) for ch-
Sherlock (Holmes) for sh-
Ringo (Starr) for r-
Zach (Galafianakis) for z-
(Christopher) Columbus for c-
Sam (Spade) for s-
I tried to pick these to be as visually distinctive as possible. I put the last names in parentheses because I recommend you get on a first-name basis with your personages. You'll be spending a lot of time with them. Notice everyone on the list is male; also I left out j-, q-, and x-. The reasons for this will become apparent in due time. The names are a clue to the associated sound: Babe for b-, Groucho for g-, and so on. This "clue" will actually be important only in the early stages of use—eventually (pretty soon, really) you will learn the correspondences by heart anyway.
We also need to introduce a new "null" initial symbol, which I will denote Ø-. So, for example (b- + -ao) gives you bao but (Ø- + -ao) gives you plain ao. This null symbol also gets an associated individual:
Ø- Albert (Einstein)
We might as well go ahead and introduce the "null" final symbol, denoted -Ø. So (s- + -ao) gives you sao but (s- + -Ø) gives you plain s (which is, however, written "si" in Pinyin).
(Now I have to interrupt myself to emphasize an important point: the "i" in Pinyin "si" is nothing like the "i" in "yi" or "ji". "Si" is pronounced more like "sz" than English "sea". Same for "zhi", "chi", "shi", "ri", "ci", "zi". If you don't understand this point then go back and ask your Chinese teacher about it, because it will wreak havoc with your Chinese pronunciation. The Pinyin symbol "si" is written with just the "s-" symbol in Bopomofo. To help keep this point in mind, I'm going to use parentheses to write it like this: "s(i)", "zh(i)", etc.)
Now the do-it-yourself part: for each of the twelve final symbols -a, -o, -e, -ai, -ei, -ao, -ou, -an, -(e)n, -ang, -(e)ng, and -Ø, choose a familiar place—a house, a restaurant, or a hotel. You will have to exert the modest effort to remember which places go with which symbols. I can't do this part for you because they need to be places familiar to you. (This is a point about the "memory palace" that many people seem to miss.) But for the sake of explanation we're going to pretend with a few examples:
-Ø your own house
-a the Plaza hotel in New York City
-e Maxim's restaurant in Paris
and so on....
(We lump -e and -ê together because these just happen never to appear in the same situation.) Now each syllable can be visualized as an image of a particular personage in a particular place. For example:
ba = b- + -a = Babe Ruth at the Plaza Hotel.
zha = zh- + -a = George Washington at the Plaza Hotel.
zh(i) = zh- + -Ø = George Washington at your house.
zhe = zh- + -e = George Washington at Maxim's.
ta = t- + -a = Tarzan at the Plaza Hotel.
a = -Ø + a = Albert Einstein at the Plaza Hotel.
We can summarize all the combinations (so far) of initials and finals in a table:
| -Ø | -a | -o | -e | -ai | -ei | -ao | -ou | -an | -(e)n | -ang | -(e)ng | ||
| Albert | Ø- | er | a | o | e | ai | ei | ao | ou | an | en | ang | eng |
| Babe | b- | ba | bo | bai | bei | bao | ban | ben | bang | beng | |||
| Peter | p- | pa | po | pai | pei | pao | pou | pan | pen | pang | peng | ||
| Mark | m- | ma | mo | me | mai | mei | mao | mou | man | men | mang | meng | |
| Frazier | f- | fa | fo | fei | fou | fan | fen | fang | feng | ||||
| Darth | d- | da | de | dai | dei | dao | dou | dan | den | dang | deng | ||
| Tarzan | t- | ta | te | tai | tei | tao | tou | tan | tang | teng | |||
| Noriyuki | n- | na | ne | nai | nei | nao | nou | nan | nen | nang | neng | ||
| Leonardo | l- | la | lo | le | lai | lei | lao | lou | lan | lang | leng | ||
| Groucho | g- | ga | ge | gai | gei | gao | gou | gan | gen | gang | geng | ||
| Karl | k- | ka | ke | kai | kao | kou | kan | ken | kang | keng | |||
| Herman | h- | ha | he | hai | hei | hao | hou | han | hen | hang | heng | ||
| George | zh- | zhi | zha | zhe | zhai | zhei | zhao | zhou | zhan | zhen | zhang | zheng | |
| Charlie | ch- | chi | cha | che | chai | chao | chou | chan | chen | chang | cheng | ||
| Sherlock | sh- | shi | sha | she | shai | shei | shao | shou | shan | shen | shang | sheng | |
| Ringo | r- | ri | re | rao | rou | ran | ren | rang | reng | ||||
| Zach | z- | zi | za | ze | zai | zei | zao | zou | zan | zen | zang | zeng | |
| Columbus | c- | ci | ca | ce | cai | cao | cou | can | cen | cang | ceng | ||
| Sam | s- | si | sa | se | sai | sao | sou | san | sen | sang | seng |
Notice that certain of the possible combinations, for example *be, just don't occur. This would mean, for example that Babe Ruth will never visit Maxim's. Notice also that we have handled the oddball syllable er by arbitrarily representing it as (Ø- + -Ø), or Albert Einstein at your house. This saves us from having to create an entire new column of the table just to handle this one case.
This is the basic idea of the system. We still have some unanswered questions, though:
(1) What about those pesky tones?
(2) What about the intermediate symbols -i-, -u-, and -ü-?
(3) What about the initials j-, q-, x-?
All to be answered in the fullness of time.
Handling Tones
First, question (1): we're going to expand the image to include the tone for the syllable by refining the location:
1st tone: In front,
2nd tone: Just inside the entrance,
3rd tone: Any other location inside,
4th tone: In the bathroom.
So, for example George Washington at the reception desk of Maxim's is zhe (2nd tone) whereas George Washington sitting at a table in Maxim's is zhe (3rd tone).
More Enhancements
Now, question (2), but first we focus just on the intermediate -i-. Standard Bopomofo practice would be to represent the syllable liao, for example, as l- + -i- + -ao. But we don't want to juggle three parts for the syllable, so our approach is to merge l- and -i- into a new initial li-. And since we need to distinguish li- from l-, we introduce a new personage Lauren (Bacall) to represent li- as opposed to Leonardo (l-). Similarly, we introduce:
Indira (Gandhi) for y-
Brigitte (Bardot) for bi-
Paris (Hilton) for pi-
Marilyn (Monroe) for mi-
Dorothy (Gale) for di-
(Mother) Teresa for ti-
Nancy (Pelosi) for ni-
Lauren (Bacall) for li-
Some points worth noticing: (i) This list is much shorter than the first, because f-, for example, never appears before -i-; (ii) These personages are all female, which will help you keep track of which initials have -i- and which don't.
And now we can introduce the remaining initials:
Gidget for ji-
Katherine (Hepburn) for qi-
Hattie (McDaniel) for xi-
There was no point in introducing these earlier because (just as f- never appears before -i-) j-, q-, and x- never appear except before -i- (or -ü-).
You may wonder why I chose Gidget to represent ji- instead of someone whose name begins with "J". This is to avoid confusion between zh- and j-, which are quite distinct in Chinese, although both come close to "j" than any other English sound. Confusing j- with g- is not really an issue because g- never appears before -i- or -ü-, exactly the opposite of j-.
(Representing j- by "G", q- by "K", etc. also has a solid historical basis, because Mandarin used to have a *gi syllable, but the g- took on a softer sound before -i [thus becoming ji], just as the English "g" in "giraffe" did, or the Italian "c" in "ciao". Likewise for *ki and *hi. Why do you think "Beijing" used to be spelled "Peking"? But once you learn the system by heart it won't matter anyway.)
So we can update our table with the new syllables (we're not finished yet, though):
| -Ø | -a | -o | -e | -ai | -ao | -ou | -an | -(e)n | -ang | -(e)ng | ||
| Indira | y- | yi | ya | yo | ye | yai | yao | you | yan | yin | yang | ying |
| Brigitte | bi- | bi | bie | biao | bian | bin | bing | |||||
| Paris | pi- | pi | pie | piao | pian | pin | ping | |||||
| Marilyn | mi- | mi | mie | miao | miu | mian | min | ming | ||||
| Dorothy | di- | di | dia | die | diao | diu | dian | ding | ||||
| Teresa | ti- | ti | tie | tiao | tian | ting | ||||||
| Nancy | ni- | ni | nie | niao | niu | nian | nin | niang | ning | |||
| Lauren | li- | li | lia | lie | liao | liu | lian | lin | liang | ling | ||
| Gidget | ji- | ji | jia | jie | jiao | jiu | jian | jin | jiang | jing | ||
| Katherine | qi- | qi | qia | qie | qiao | qiu | qian | qin | qiang | qing | ||
| Hattie | xi- | xi | xia | xie | xiao | xiu | xian | xin | xiang |
The columns of the table are represented with the same places you already identified (all though you won't need all of them for this table).
Final Pieces of the Puzzle
Next step is to handle -u-. Just as with -i-, we fold this into the various initial sounds to make a new series of initials bu-, pu-, mu-, etc. And just as before, we assign personages for each of the new initial symbols:
Wonder (Woman) for w-
Bugs (Bunny) for bu-
Popeye for pu-
Mickey (Mouse) for mu-
Fred (Flintstone) for fu-
Dick (Tracy) for du-
Totoro for tu-
Ninja (Turtles) for nu-
Lisa (Simpson) for lu-
Garfield for gu-
Kang (& Kotos) for ku-
Huey (Donald Duck's nephew) for hu-
the Joker for zhu-
Charlie (Brown) for chu-
Shrek for shu-
Richie (Rich) for ru-
Ziggy for zu-
Casper (the ghost) for cu-
Superman for su-
| -Ø | -a | -o | -ai | -ei | -an | -(e)n | -ang | -(e)ng | ||
| Wonder | w- | wu | wa | wo | wai | wei | wan | wen | wang | weng |
| Bugs | bu- | bu | ||||||||
| Popeye | pu- | pu | ||||||||
| Mickey | mu- | mu | ||||||||
| Fred | fu- | fu | ||||||||
| Darth | du- | du | duo | dui | duan | dun | dong | |||
| Totoro | tu- | tu | tuo | tui | tuan | tun | tong | |||
| Ninja | nu- | nu | nuo | nuan | nong | |||||
| Lisa | lu- | lu | luo | luan | lun | long | ||||
| Garfield | gu- | gu | gua | guo | guai | gui | guan | gun | guang | gong |
| Kang | ku- | ku | kua | kuo | kuai | kui | kuan | kun | kuang | kong |
| Huey | hu- | hu | hua | huo | huai | hui | huan | hun | huang | hong |
| Joker | zhu- | zhu | zhua | zhuo | zhuai | zhui | zhuan | zhun | zhuang | zhong |
| Charlie (Brown) | chu- | chu | chua | chuo | chuai | chui | chuan | chun | chuang | chong |
| Shrek | shu- | shu | shua | shuo | shuai | shui | shuan | shun | shuang | |
| Richie | ru- | ru | rua | ruo | rui | ruan | run | rong | ||
| Ziggy | zu- | zu | zuo | zui | zuan | zun | zong | |||
| Casper | cu- | cu | cuo | cui | cuan | cun | cong | |||
| Superman | su- | su | suo | sui | suan | sun | song |
You will need to keep Charlie Brown distinct from Charlie Chaplin, but if you think this is going to be a problem for you, you can always change one name or the other. You will notice some spelling oddities: for example, zhu- + (e)ng becomes zhong instead of *zhung, but these merely reflect the way Pinyin works.
And then, finally, we create a series of initials with -ü- and their associated representatives:
Aphrodite for yu-
Neptune for nü-
Luna for lü-
Geryon for ju-
Cupid for qu-
Hermes for xu-
This time we use names from Greco-Roman mythology, to distinguish this series from the preceding three. You will notice that the Pinyin system drops the little dots over the -ü- in most cases. Once again, this is done only when there is no possibility of confusion. We keep the dots in nü-, because n- can precede both -u- and -ü-. We drop the dots in ju-, because j- can precede -ü- but not -u- (so you know the dots should be there even when not written). And Pinyin uses yu- to represent initial -ü- by itself.
Here is the final part of the syllable table:
| -Ø | -e | -an | -(e)n | -(e)ng | ||
| Aphrodite | yu- | yu | yue | yuan | yun | yong |
| Neptune | nü- | nü | nüe | |||
| Luna | lü- | lü | lüe | |||
| Geryon | ju- | ju | jue | juan | jun | jiong |
| Cupid | qu- | qu | que | quan | qun | qiong |
| Hermes | xu- | xu | xue | xuan | xun | xiong |
The final column of this table (yong, jiong, qiong, xiong) springs one last gimmick. The combination (ju- + -(e)ng) does not represent *jung (that doesn't exist) but rather jiong. Strictly speaking, jiong would be composed of (j- + -i- + -u- + -(e)ng). For our purposes, this gimmick saves us from having to come up with another four personages to represent, for example, (j- + -i- + -u-). I wish I could take credit (or blame) for this idea, but it comes from the Bopomofo system. My guess is the creators of Bopomofo did not want to deal with sequences as long as four symbols.
Let's close with an example. I'm going to take the case of this character:
苗
Heisig and Richardson assign this character the keyword "seedling". It is composed of two simpler characters: 艹 ("flower") and 田 ("rice field"). To memorize the writing of the character, the normal approach would be to make up a little story combining the elements of "seedling", "flower", and "rice field". But we're going to go one better, by working the pronunciation of the character into the same story. This is pronounced miao with a 2nd tone. (Note 艹 is pronounced hua and 田 is pronounced tian, so there's no help there.) We break miao up into mi- and -ao. The personage for mi- is Marilyn (Monroe) and my location for -ao is the Keio Plaza Hotel in Shinjuku (you would of course pick your own location). So we could imagine something like this:
The lobby (2nd tone) of the Keio Plaza hotel (-ao) has inexplicably been converted into a rice field (田). Strange seedlings sprout and rapidly grow to a great height, developing large flowers (艹). Each flower blooms to reveal a figure of Marilyn Monroe (mi-). It's important to visualize this, like a movie, rather than just read the words. This image will stick with you, and it contains all the basic facts about 苗.
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34 comments:
Hey - I found your post through Google. This is exactly what I was looking for, I'm also reading the books you talked about to memorize Chinese characters. Thanks for the post!
Hello - I was just about to work on the same type of mnemonic system for memorising the Chinese characters myself when I found this.
I already speak Japanese and after studying Chinese for about a year now know around 2000 Chinese Kanji but sometimes stumble on the pronunciation which doesnt stick so well.
I am going to give it a go and will let you know how I get on but wanted to thank you for putting together such a great start.
Thanks. I hope it helps. It has certainly helped me, and by now it's second nature.
I've thought about expanding the system to cover Japanese on-yomi (as well as Cantonese, for when I get around to it). The first step was to create a syllable table for on-yomi along the lines of the syllable tables for Mandarin you see all over the place. This might be the first-ever syllable table for Sino-Japanese--at least I couldn't find an example on the Web. I came up with a system of 24 initials and 30 finals (no tones, of course). It would remain to come up with 24 individuals and 30 locations and sub-locations to flesh out the system.
I have given some thought to whether it is a good idea to re-use the same individuals or locations from language to language, and I think it best to come up with a new set for each language to avoid confusion.
For the record, the 24 initials for Sino-Japanese are: (null), B, T, D, H, K, G, M, N, R, S, Z, W, Y, CH, J, SH, KY, GY, BY, HY, MY, NY, and RY. I was figuring to use female individuals to distinguish the embedded "Y" sound--for example maybe Kim Kardashian for "KY" but Kurt Vonnegut for plain "K".
The 30 finals are: A, ACHI, AI, AKU, AN, ATSU, E, ECHI, EI, EKI, EN, ETSU, I, ICHI, IKI, IKU, IN, ITSU, O, OCHI, OKU, ON, OTSU, OU, U, UI, UKU, UN, UTSU, UU. Again, one could use sub-location to indicate the (first) vowel (A, I, U, E, O) and location to represent the ending. So, for example, a certain restaurant could represent "TSU" and depending on location within the restaurant you get ATSU, ITSU, UTSU, OTSU, or ETSU. Or another place could be "I" and sublocation indicates "AI", "EI", or "UI".
Thus one needs really eight locations to represent -(null), -CHI, -I, -KI, -KU, -N, -TSU, and -U.
Thank you a lot for this. I've just started with Remembering Simplified Hanzi (Spanish version) last week, having finished Remembering The Kanji back in 2005. Having a background in Japanese Kanji, I found that, for me, the hardest part of the Chinese Hanzi was not the recognition -which is almost automatic- but the pronunciation. This article has spared me from lots of frustration. Thank you again.
Please do continue with the Sino-Japanese version. This one will be helpful when I work on Mandarin, though! Thank you! :D
Please do continue with the Sino-Japanese version. This one will be helpful when I work on Mandarin, though! Thank you! :D
Brilliant! So very helpful!
It's a very interesting idea. I'm going to give it a try.
One note, you can double check, but I believe your statement "艹 is pronounced hua" is incorrect.
I think you're right--not that 艹 seems to have much life as an independent character. I might have dug that pronunciation out of some dictionary, but now I can find both cao and ji.
Lovely, Steve! Found your post through Benny the Irish polyglot. I've been using mnemonic techniques for a looong time, remembering all sort of stuff, but never had the thought of bringing it to learning words in Mandarin. Thank you so much!
By the way, when you have longer words, with my than one syllable, do you make a story with them combined or what's your technique?
Best
Hey there, thanks for this.
Re 艹 , it's a modification of 艸 which is grass, cao.
I started implementing your technique today and was a little confused to read "a = -Ø + a = Albert Einstein at your house", and "er = Ø + Ø = Albert Einstein at your house". First one must be "Albert Einstein at the Plaza", following your example. BTW I choose Ø = space station, because I moved often recently and my home is a little less exciting than a space station anyway.
Easy explanation--I made a mistake. Thanks for catching it; it's fixed now.
For words with more than one character, I use the Heisig "keyword" technique to remember the sequence of characters. This method then tells how to pronounce each character on its own. Chinese characters are fairly (not completely, alas) stable in terms of pronunciation from one word to another.
Hi,
Seems like a very thorough system. Thanks for sharing!
Have you come across 'Learning Chinese Characters' by Alison and Laurence Matthews? They have a similar system for remembering pronunciation and the character. It's just a bit simpler: tones are persons (e.g. third tone is a teddy bear) and syllables are remembered as a single word soundbite/keyword (e.g. ye -> Yeti).
You can see the basic system in Amazon's preview mode (the first pages):
http://www.amazon.com/Tuttle-Learning-Chinese-Characters-Vol/dp/080483816X
I'm curious if you considered representing each syllable with just one memory symbol (like the Matthews method) but then discarded the idea and decided to split the syllables and use two symbols?
No, I haven't seen the Matthews and Matthews book--thanks for mentioning it. I never considered using just one "keyword" for each syllable and the reason is you will need roughly 400 different keywords to represent all the different syllables, plus 4 for the four tones. So you have about 400 things to memorize altogether to put the system in mind. And it still takes two ideas for any character (pronunciation + tone).
My system requires memorizing 51 personages for the initials and 12 places for the finals--much less overall. And it still takes just two ideas to represent any character (pronunciation + tone).
The insight that made this doable for me was to break a character's total pronunciation (initial+medial+final+tone) not into (initial+medial+final)+tone [which is the most intuitive] nor into initial+(medial+final)+tone [which is traditional], but into (initial + medial)+(final+tone) [which is the best from the standpoint of arithmetic].
My impression from a look at Matthews' book is that the system is intended to be more intuitive--using English words that sound kind of like the Chinese syllables, so you don't have to commit the whole system to memory up front. But what about something like "xuan", or distinguishing "che" from "chi"? I found that I need the most help remembering the syllables that are the hardest to distinguish based on English pronunciation.
The Matthews book is rather limited and sadly it doesn't have a complete list of keywords for all syllables. In fact it covers just about 800 characters. And some of those 800 don't have keywords at all, i.e. for some syllables you have to come up with a keyword yourself. For example 'xuan' (which you mentioned) has no keyword in the book. There are no similar sounding words in English for 'xuan'. One solution is to user other languages. Or you could find a person or character whose name has that syllable (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xuan) and use that.
On the other hand some syllables can have more than one keyword because there are many similar sounding words in English for the syllable. For example 'dai' can have 'dice', 'diamond', 'diary'. Having many keywords doesn't tax memory because the similarity of the sounds is a memory aid itself.
But as said some syllables don't have similar sounding English words so you have to make keywords that are not based on sounds. There are probably around 50-100 of these cases. And some syllables sound so similar to the English speaker that it's hard to find distinctive English keywords for them. Like 'che' and 'chi' which you mentioned. In the book 'che' has at least two keywords 'church' and 'cheroot' while 'chi' is given just one: 'chapati'. Then you just have to know that 'chapati' corresponds to 'chi' even though it sounds similar to 'che'. But this is not that hard, i.e. it does not hinder the recall process.
However in some cases the Matthews book handles the lack of good keywords in rather confusing ways. For example one keyword can be used for two different syllables. An example of this is the keyword 'powder' which can be used for both 'pao' and 'piao'. Then how can you know which syllable it refers to? Well the difference is marked by doubling the memory symbol which represents the tone. For example the pronunciation mnemonic for '跑' ('pao3') could be "...TEDDY BEAR is marking his runs with POWDER" and for 票 ('piao4') "...*TWO* DWARVES are snorting POWDER from the ticket". So if there is just one DWARF in the story the pronunciation would be 'pao4' but because there are two it is 'piao4'.
This is not a very good solution. Marking the pronunciation this way makes the recall process very slow. I have to make an effort to remember if it's pronounced 'pao' or 'piao' by consciously checking if there are two individuals in the story or not. Because this solution was so taxing I replaced 'piao' like syllables with my own keywords.
There are some other tweaks in the system too (like how to remember if a character has multiple pronunciations and tones) but this reply is getting too long already so I won't go into them.
In general the Matthews system feels a bit unfinished. Your system sounds much better - at least on paper ;)
Some questions:
1) How many characters have you learned with your system?
2) How fast is the recall process? My main concerns with your system are: dividing the syllable to many different memory symbols, the symbols do not always appear in a logical sequence e.g. the inital can appear at the end of the story, and the fact that the individual's names don't resemble the sounds that much. I've used systems like this before and I'm certain you can remember everything with it but how fast is it? Do you have to consciously construct the syllable by adding the symbols together or does it just come instantly?
Thanks!
I'm currently at around 2400 characters and adding new ones at around three per day. It would not be fair to say I learned all of these "using" the system, as I knew a good many before I invented the system. But undeniably I have found the system a tremendous help.
I have also found now that the system works sort of backwards to help me recall the writing of characters. Chinese characters often have their own internal hints as to how they are pronounced. Unlike my system, these hints are often ambiguous. But I find that once I recall the pronunciation of a character, that combined with the native Chinese phonetic hints embedded in the character often brings the writing to mind.
As a rule I don't expect this nor any mnemonic system to bring facts to mind "instantly"--and certainly not fast enough for fluent speech. I think of it more as a dictionary you carry around in your head and can consult at will. Over time--with repeated practice--the mnemonic code fades and is replaced by natural memory, which is instant. I use Anki, about which I will have more to say in a future post.
The "stories" I use are actually more in the way of "images" combining several elements. These sometimes include motion but almost never duration, if that makes any sense. Thus placement of an idea at the "beginning" or "end" is not an issue. Again, in practice, recalling the pronunciation of a character generally seems to be a combination of natural memory and mnemonic code. Often I end up relying on the code for a specific, easy-to-confuse detail, such as which is the tone, or does it begin with "p" versus "b"? This crucial detail tends to pop into mind pretty instantly. It doesn't take me any longer now to recognize, for example, that Mark Twain stands for "M" than it does to recognize that the letter "M" stands for the sound.
This comparison points up an inherent trade-off between the initial effort required to use a system and its efficiency in the long run. People tend to gravitate towards immediate gratification. I recall a competition on some late-night talk show between 90-something-year-old Morse-code operators and kids text-messaging on their cell phones. The old codgers blew the kids away. But Morse code takes effort to learn, and a lot of practice to do well.
Really excellent system!
This is useful if anyone wants to choose some new names:
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Fictional_characters
Really looking forward to trying this out!
-Rob
Interesting system. How would you adapt to handle multiple-parts?
ex. chu1 zu1 che1 = taxi or
For chu1 zu1 che1= could be Charlie Brown and Ziggy and Charlie Chaplin in a taxi outside of Location 1
Or at different locations, i.e.,
huo3 che1 zhan4 = train station
This is where the Heisig system comes into play, wherein each character is assigned a unique English "keyword" related to the meaning. For example, in simplified characters) 出 is "exit", 租 is "rent", and 车 is "car." So you need to remember "taxi" is "exit-rent-car" or "出租车". You can use my system to recall that 出 is pronounced "chu1", 租 is pronounced "zu1", and 车 is pronounced "che1".
I have been looking for something like this for so long. Most of the time when I would search for Chinese mnemonics, I would just find them for characters or people would simply say "is none". Thanks so much!
Hi Serge,
very interesting system, I'm currently trying to adapt it to Cantonese. You mention in the comments that you planned to do that too, did you get around to it? :)
cheers!
s.
I haven't really got into Cantonese but I've done some preliminary work. Cantonese seems to have more vowels, more tones. One thing that made the Mandarin system manageable was splitting the syllable into four components:
initial consonant + initial vowel + final vowel or consonant + tone
That way there are not too many possibilities for each component. Then I use a person to represent the first two components (name + category) and a place to represent the last two (location + sublocation).
If we were to try the same approach with Cantonese, we might take a syllable such as taam6 and split it into:
t + aa + m + 6
Then t would come from the first letter of the person's name, aa from the category of the person, m from the location, and 6 from the sub-location.
At a first pass, it seems we need initial letters for:
-, b, p, m, f, d, t, n, l, g, k, ng, h, gw, kw, w, z, c, s, j
Use some gimmick to represent ng, for example, since I don't know anyone whose name starts with ng (like maybe use "sh" instead?)
Initial vowels are:
aa, a, e, o, oe, eo, u, yu
So we need eight categories of persons (maybe singers, athletes, politicians, ...?).
A few combinations (like b+oe) are not used.
Finals are:
i, u, m, n, ng, p, t, k
So we need eight locations.
And then 5 or 6 sublocations for the tones. (Some people distinguish a "high falling" tone and some don't.) Some say there are 8 or 9 tones, but the last few can be identified by the finals p, t, k, so they don't need a separate code.
And then finally some gimmick for the syllables m and ng. Maybe code them as "mi" and "ngi", which don't exist.
Thanks a lot for the Cantonese details! I think you missed "i" as an initial vowel, but OTOH, "eo" and "oe" seem to be kind of the same (at least never appear in the same situation, like -e and -ê in your Mandarin method), so you still end up with eight categories of people.
The "high falling" tone is mentioned as "nearly extinct" on a 1970's Cantonese course (FSI), and seems to be gone as of today, but there are still six tones left: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyutping#Tones
Also, there should probably be a "-"-final,too?
I tried to map it out, and I arrive with 146 people to memorize: 11 for -/b/p/m/f/etc., 20 for baa/paa/etc., 20 for -a-, 16 for -e-, and so on. If I got it correctly, Cantonese should have 635 syllables, so it would still be a time saver in comparison to the brute force approach; but when looking at the Cantonese syllable table, I get the impression that with all these holes, there should be a more efficient method, including significantly less than the roughly 150 items needed with the modified Mandarin approach.
Any ideas if there's significant space for improvement? I'm really bad with this kind of stuff (is it combinatorics?) unfortunately :P, but will try my best to do the work on this system that I'm capable of.
For example, using just initials (20) and complete finals (such as -aang, -eng, ..., 56 in all) would end up with roughly half the items to memorize, but then the familiar place approach won't work that well (I have heavy orientation problems myself, coming up with more than ten places i'm familiar with is a daunting task :P). One idea I'm having now is to use people for the full finals (but then it would be harder to associate the names in the beginning; how to connect a famous person and "-ei", "-aak", "-aat" etc.?). I could then use the location idea for the 20 initials, which seems more manageable, and attach the tone to it, like in your system.
If you find any errors in my thoughts, or have ideas on improvement, I'd be very glad to hear about it :)
cheers!
s.
I have to disclaim here: I was kind of winging it, and my knowledge of Cantonese is pretty rudimentary anyway. So I am not surprised you caught some slip-ups in my previous comment.
That said, I think your suggestions are extremely useful.
Six tones rather than five: You are correct. Jyutping doesn't seem to provide a way to identify the "high-falling" tone, and from my limited listening experience, it seems to be on the way out. I have taken to labeling this "Tone 0", with the understanding that it is generally indistinguishable from Tone 1 in Jyutping.
Need a "-" final: You are right.
Need "i" as an initial vowel: You are right.
You clearly have a natural flair for this kind of thing, and did some useful legwork here. I think using places for the initials and persons for the complete finals has a lot of promise. It cuts down on the number of items and is fundamentally very straightforward--always an advantage.
Maybe you could reverse the final to get the person's name? E.g. "-aak" turns into "Kaa-" or "Kate", "-im" turns into "Mi-" or "Mike."
Keep in mind that you can use a different letter, as long as you are systematic about it. Like use "F-" to represent "-u", since Cantonese never has "-f". Use "H-" to represent "-ng", based on the fun fact that in English "ng" never comes at the start of a syllable but "h" never comes at the end.
Or use the first letter of the name to represent the final consonant and "category" to represent the vowel.
There is some room for savings by mashing together rows of the table. One of the worst offenders is "-ep", which apparently appears only in "gep". So one could code it as "gek" (which doesn't occur) and remember that "gek" is really "gep". Each time you do something like this, you cut out one personage from the system but give yourself an additional loophole to remember. It's not clear that the trade-off is beneficial.
The Cantonese symbol table has a lot of voids in it, but somehow these seem to be less systematic than in Mandarin--at least to my eyes thus far--and thus harder to exploit. But there's nothing wrong with keeping it straightforward.
For the places in my Mandarin system, I used houses of people in my family, as well as restaurants, etc. You could also use your school or office. Personally, I wouldn't have a problem coming up with 20 new locations. Go visit 20 new restaurants if you have to.
I would love to hear details if you come up with something. I'm more than happy to give suggestions, but I think you've got great ideas of your own.
Thank you so much for your input! Those few suggestions made all the difference of letting me complete the system for Cantonese.
I use U/V/F/W for "U", as U was written V in Roman times anyway :) H for NG, as both are hard to pronounce for some speakers. L for not having a final, as it never occurs at the end. P can also be B, K can also be G, T can also be D. I can also be J.
So I come up with eight categories for the finals:
-aa- -a- -e- -i- -o- -ö- (aka oe/eo) -u- -ü- (aka yu)
In order not to have to come up with eight categories, I partition them into male/females:
-aa-: male actors
-- : Leonardo di caprio
-i : sam Jackson
-u : schWarzenegger
-m : steve Mcqueen
-n : jack Nicholson
-ng : Harpo marx
-p : al Pacino
-t : quentin Tarantino
-k : ben Kingsley
-a- : female actors
-i : angelina Jolie (as Tombraider)
-u : sigourney Weaver (in Alien)
-m : marilyn Monroe
-n : anna Nicole smith
-ng : selma Hayek (in Dust Til Dawn)
-p : natalie Portman (in Leon)
-t : liz Taylor
-k : woopie Goldberg
-e- : male musicians
-- : franz Liszt
-i : michael Jackson
-u : stevie Wonder
-m : wa Mozart
-ng : Heino
-p : elvis Presley
-k : Cat stevens (as Yussuf Islam)
-i- : female musicians
-- : Lisa Lopes (as Left Eye)
-u : nelly Furtado
-m : Madonna (with cone bra)
-n : Nena (with balloon)
-ng : whitney Houston
-p : Bjork
-t : Tatu (kissing)
-k : shaKira
-o- : male fictional characters
-- : Leatherface (with chainsaw)
-i : Yoda
-u : Frankenstein
-n : Neo
-ng : sherlock Holmes
-t : Tarzan
-k : King Kong
-ö- : female fictional characters
-- : eLastigirl
-ng : Helena (riding a wooden horse)
-k : Catwoman
-i : Jeannie (with crossed arms)
-n : Nike (wearing Nike shoes)
-t : Daisy Duck
-u- : male historical politicians
-- : Louis XIV (with wig and fat)
-i : Yeltsin (with vodka bottle)
-n : Napoleon
-ng : Hitler
-t : Trotski (with ice pick in neck)
-k : helmut Kohl (alternatively Qadafi)
-ü- : female historical politicians
-- : rosa Luxemburg
-n : Nofretete
-t : margaret Thatcher
leaves two: m and ng, that both (although the Cantonese syllable table above shows it) don't occur with initials. M is thus Mao (as -um doesn't exist), ng is Hillary (Clinton) (as -üng doesn't exist).
It was amazing how hard it was to find female counterparts to many of these categories (not that I found it easy to find the males)! I cheated a little in some parts (ignoring the initial sh in schWarzenegger and shaKira), but don't think that will be too confusing further down the road. Also, I used last names most of the time, but made some exceptions, and hope these won't confuse me. We'll see if Harpo Marx ends up in my mind where Sherlock Holmes ought to be :P
For the six tones, I use:
1 (highest tone): on the roof
2 (rising to high): on the stairs/elevator
3 (middle): anywhere inside
4 (low falling): in the cellar
5 (rising to middle): on the toilet
6 (low): in front of the location
One benefit of your Mandarin system lacking in my Cantonese one is that as you associated the initials with persons, you immediately have the initial letter from the name, whereas it's more abstract to arrive at the letter from the location (with is my initials). We'll see how that works out.
I found 20 locations, and will see in the next days how the system works for me. Feel free to adapt/change/criticize :) I'll probably write it up more cleanly on my blog in the next days/weeks.
This is awesome. I have nothing to suggest at this point.
This definitely deserves a self-contained write-up. Please send me a link when you do so.
Here's my post on the Cantonese variant.
Time to sleep :)
s.
Very interesting post. I think this will be useful for me, when i'm starting to learn chinese characters with Heisig.
But I have one question:
How are you handling the fifth neutral tone?
Almost none of the characters have the fifth tone defined as their "native" tone. For example the character 了, commonly pronounced "le" (neutral) in its citation form is "liao3". I have found there are many tone shifts when a character is incorporated into a word and haven't decided on a systematic way to remember these.
However, if you want to incorporate a fifth tone into the system, all you need is a fifth sublocation for each location (the back door? on the roof?).
Thanks for the post.
I have designed a mnemonic system for memorizing the consonant and vowel simultaneously. So rather than t + a as two images. I just have one ta=tar(the black sticky stuff on the road). To which I add the tone using a background happening. For example the 4th tone must be to with water.
I just choose an approximate English sound as a hook, not as the exact way to pronounce. If there is no English sound, I use a word starting with same approximate sound.
It means I have to start off with a much bigger mnemonic infrastructure, but once learnt there are less components to the image.
Your method is fine. But!(pardon me). It is how to backtrack. I see a Chinese word which expresses one idea. How do I get back to the pinyin?
For your information: I was impressed by an article on arxiv.org about learning Chinese from a group led by Jinshan Wu: see there article number 1303.1599
Peter
I'm not sure I understand your question. If you successfully associate a personage and location with a given character, then the personage gives you the beginning of the Pinyin and the location gives you the end and the tone. For example, if you picture Tarzan (t) at the entrance to the Keio Plaza Hotel (ao, 1st tone), then you know the Pinyin is tao1.
Thanks for the pointer to the article. I haven't looked at it carefully yet, but it appears the authors have taken a systematic approach to something that Heisig and others do informally: which is to determine a study order for characters by balancing the character frequency with interrelationships. I myself have memorized a fair number of fairly obscure characters because, although rare, they appear as components of more common characters.
With help of the memory palace a story leads to an object. That is fine for western language because objects are referred to in language. In "your" case it leads from pinyin to the meaning and with a little help to the character. Now I want to get back from the character to the pinyin. Also in a system. So from cùn to 寸 and then from 寸 back to cùn. In this case, in one way or another, it is my brain who has to backtrack this.
For your information the following:
See http://jinshanw.6579.idcice.net/indexE.php
In the middle you can put in a character and it will tell you its composition according to Jinshan's order.
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