Hacking Chinese

A better way of learning Mandarin

Articles tagged with ‘Memorisation’

  1. Is learning things by heart good for improving your Chinese?

    Learning things by heart used to be a mainstay of language education but is now often frowned upon. Is learning things by heart good for improving your Chinese or just a waste of time

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  2. Are mnemonics too slow for Chinese learners?

    Mnemonics are clever memory devices designed to make it easier to remember things, but considering that they take time both to create and retrieve, are they really that useful for learning Chinese?

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  3. 5 levels of understanding Chinese characters: Superficial forms to deep structure

    How much do you need to care about the actual composition and meaning of a Chinese character when learning it? In general, better understanding means it’s easier to learn, but is there a limit to how closely you should stick to actual etymology? This article explores the spectrum from using superficial images to real etymology from the perspective of a language learner.

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