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How I learned 3000 characters in 30 days. The definitive guide to learning Chinese characters.

Learning Chinese characters is an arduous task and will literally eat years of your life if you aren't smart about it. I've seen a lot of misinformation in the Chinese language scene and have decided to write this guide based on my personal experiences and tips and tricks to form the ultimate guide to learning Chinese characters.

To start off I'll discuss human memory. The memory is a peculiar thing and is not widely understood by the public. Hell I'm not sure if I got this right since I'm not a neurosurgeon, however I based this on my understanding and experiences. There are multitude of ways to optimize your memory to best learn Chinese characters

1) Understand memory making process

Memories are not a single thing but is rather number of processes running simultaneously. It's best thought of as a two part system. Working memory and long term memory.

Working memory can be thought of as the one that stores memories for a short period of time. It itself is made up of 4 systems. The central executive, the phonological loop, the visuo-spatial sketchpad and the episodic buffer. The central executive controls the other system in a sense and clears out the useless parts while updating it with new information and is what allows working memory to work in harmony with long term memory. The phonological loop deals with sounds and stuff. It it's made up of two structures auditory memory and subvocal rehearsal. The auditory memory is what it says on the tin. Subvocal rehearsal is when you repeat something over and over again in your head, it's a vital piece in making sure the auditory memory doesn't decay. Visuo-spatial sketchpad is your sight and your spatial memory that's combined into one. Now you may be asking yourself why are there 2 different systems for processing memory? Researchers have found out that auditory memorization does not interfere with either visual or spatial memory. But visual memory does interfere with spatial memory and vice versa. The final piece in short term memory is the episodic buffer. It integrates the disparate memories into one single cohesive unit. It should be noted that working memory can only hold 4 pieces of information at a time.

2)Understand the Chinese characters

This video is aimed at Japanese but it works for Chinese

3)How do I apply this to learning Chinese characters? This is the meat of the guide.

  • 1) Download Anki on your PC as well on your phone

  • 2) Get an Anki deck on Remembering the Hanzi by James Heisig (decide if you want traditional simplified or both here)

  • 3) Have the front card be a Hanzi with the keyword and the reading on the back

  • 4) If the card has useless info (such as Heisig number) then delete that part

  • 5) Learn the stroke order of all the radicals and practice a bit

  • 6) Set a consistent number of cards to add and always review, never skimp on reviews

  • 7) Always pronounce the character in the correct pronunciation. Pinyin is a lie and you can easily have terrible pronunciation if you don't pronounce it correctly. Many pinyin endings are very different in pronunciation but look the same in writing. Use this chart and this video to understand IPA. Also add a creaky voice/vocal fry to the third tone.

  • 8) Always utilize the character's radicals to the fullest potential. So if you see the character 吐 then you would know that is has something to do with 口 (mouth) and is pronounced like tǔ. Of course there have been sound changes so it sometimes only resemble the ending. Keep in mind that pinyin and used to be both pronounced /k/ but it doesn't anymore. That's why Beijing used to be called Pekin and Chongqing used to be Chungking. That's why the phonetic competent can represent either.

  • 9) Keep in mind that characters often change pronunciation when they're used as a radical in an another Hanzi, I found Pleco to be extremely helpful here

  • 10) Don't use mnemonics, if hundreds of characters are unique then no character is

  • 11) Always use blocking, they save so much time and effort. Essentially you need to associate a word with a same sounding word but different meaning so if you ever see that character then you immediately recall the other character with the same pronunciation.

  • 12) Use any "dead time" you have. I.e times where you aren't doing anything productive like being on the stool or waiting at a queue.

  • 13) Change all everything to Chinese. Browsers, video games, youtube can all be changed into Chinese. The main reason is to get practice outside Anki. If you see a character you know then pronounce it outloud. Maybe hang out in your local Chinatown or try reading everything on a Chinese noodle packaging.

  • 14) When you see an object whose hanzi you know then point at it and say it outloud.

4) Motivation This is by far the most important piece in this whole puzzle. I found spreading the work load throughout the day felt the least exhausting. The idea that I only have to suffer for a month and you won't need to learn new characters again was really good and kept me going even when I wanted to quit. However I had a major advantage in that I had already internalized Chinese characters from Japanese. Your first 100 Characters will be the toughest to remember. After that it gets easier but not by much. After about 1000 characters it becomes really easy to memorize. Beginners should only learn 20 at most daily.

Well this about wraps it up. Looking back it looks more like a drunk rambling than an actual guide but I hope this guide will help you. Oh and skip all the grammar characters, they should be learned as part of grammar. This guide isn't a Heisig guide, never use mnemonics they are a detriment and inferior to rote memorization.

Many people seem to be confused on the purpose of the guide. This guide is intended to best optimize your brain to learn Chinese characters. If I told you to memorize eight one zero two you would struggle. However if I told you that it's just the current year backwards then you would have no problem memorizing it. I see too many people try to brute force and memorize the characters by writing them over and over again just like trying to brute force 8102. This guide uses all the tips and tricks to make learning it easier; to make it more like remembering 8012 as the current year in reverse than trying to force it. Even if you don't plan on following this guide I hope you learned something to make your own studying easier.