User:Brettz9/chinesestudystrategy

Below is an ongoing list for myself (aimed at being comprehensive) of an overview of possible methods of Chinese language study (along with software or websites which I find to be useful to do so). I am hopeful for the chance that some (free!) software might eventually make possible all of the below possibilities in one integrated package.

Note on Clavis Sinica below: Even though this program is a genius program, it does not allow one to view multiple characters at a time and their meaning (unless connected). This may be disadvantageous for learning the characters for the first time (but ok for testing oneself). A better option may be to paste a list of characters to be studied to the Annotator, opting to have a "separate wordlist" generated (deselect zhuyin).

Character by part (common groupings):

 * Stroke number - (Annotator is ideal; Clavis Sinica with cut-and-pasted list of characters of a given number of strokes - See Wiktionary:Chinese_total_strokes_index)
 * Study of other characters with similar number of strokes (e.g., start with comparing and learning characters with few strokes to build vocabulary and confidence)
 * One could start with the most common or least frequent stroke numbers...
 * Shape - (Annotator is ideal; Clavis Sinica with cut-and-pasted list of characters of a given number of strokes - See Wiktionary:Chinese_four_corner_index or Wiktionary:Chinese_Cangjie_index though neither seems ideal at gathering very similar shapes together (ideally it would be arranged 2-dimensionally for ideal comparisons)
 * Study of characters with that similar shape; very useful for differentiating between graphic "minimal pairs" if one can borrow a phonology term
 * While doing such study, it may also be ideal to use graphic mnemonics (in order not to overapply one mnemonic to other similar shaped characters (note: use not only images (preferably real mnemonics, but if better for memory, false ones), but borrowing also other already-known characters).
 * Just a list would ideally (and naturally) be arranged by stroke number as well
 * One could start with the most common or least frequent shapes...
 * Radical - (Clavis Sinica)
 * Nice formatting but no tones
 * Little formatting but has tones
 * Study of other characters that use that radical
 * While doing such study, it may also be ideal to use graphic mnemonics since a radical mnemonic would be helpful in that these are intended to convey meaning (if the radical itself does not provide a readily apparent image as should usually be the case); (note: use not only images (preferably real mnemonics, but if better for memory, false ones), but borrowing also other already-known characters).
 * One might also study other thematic groupings (see Sino-Tibetan_Swadesh_lists or do Google search or Basic_English_template_Sino-Tibetan (or Google Search?)).
 * One could start with the most common or least frequent radicals...
 * Phonetic component (additional root) - (Annotator would be ideal if one could get a list of characters using the same additional root/phonetic component; Clavis Sinica only one at a time)
 * This kind of study may be useful in noting (the likely many) exceptions for pronunciation of a given additional root.
 * Study of other characters that use that additional root
 * One could start with the most common or least frequent phonetic components/additional roots...
 * Character - (Clavis Sinica)
 * Study of other characters that use that character as part of the character
 * While doing such study, it may also be ideal to use graphic mnemonics since one would not wish to overapply one mnemonic to other characters using that mnemonic (or one should exploit this mnemonic in combination with the other components of the larger character); (note: use not only images (preferably real mnemonics, but if better for memory, false ones), but borrowing also other already-known characters)
 * One could start with the most common or least frequently used component characters...
 * Compound - (Clavis Sinica)
 * Study of other compounds that use that character
 * While doing such study, it may also be ideal to use graphic mnemonics to see how the common component may be related to other uses; (note: use not only images (preferably real mnemonics, but if better for memory, false ones), but borrowing also other already-known characters).
 * One could start with the most common or least frequent compounds within this list of compounds using a given character...

Character (or compound) by frequency
(Annotator is ideal; Clavis Sinica with cut-and-pasted list of characters of a given number of strokes - See Jun Da frequency lists for characters and compounds (bigrams)); see also this word list:
 * One would think this would correspond somewhat with number of strokes, but it is not necessarily the case (maybe there is some small correlation).
 * One should consider frequency lists of compounds as well, noting how characters gain or drop in rank depending on how they are considered

Character (or compound) by theme

 * For basic word study, one could study Chinese (or even multiple languages at once) effectively by adding categories to and then sorting the following lists by such categories: Sino-Tibetan Swadesh lists and Basic English template Sino-Tibetan. It can be much easier to rehearse words when it is easy to relate them together in a thematic grouping (e.g., learning the words for various utensils at once or various food items at once, etc.)

Sound (including study of characters with common sounds)

 * Study of sounds and/or characters corresponding to these sounds (especially considering different characters which can have the same sound/tone or even just sound); see Wiktionary:Chinese_Pinyin_index; one might also obtain a list of specific sounds (e.g., for word frequency--see below) by using a search for a given syllable within ~WordLookup for the mac or, better yet, viewing the resulting list from characters borrowed from the Wiktionary pinyin index for a given sound or sounds (e.g., a group with the same sound but different tones (though ideally first common tones too)) and pasting them into Annotator ideally or Clavis Sinica for testing)
 * Such study would be of interest in contrasting the words (by sound alone and/or character) which have the same sound.
 * Such study might be done by generating and weaving together common meanings (even if false) between characters (or words for those not learning characters) of common sound (e.g., somehow mentally linking tang1 (soup) and tang2 (hallway or sugar) together)
 * Such study might be done in conjunction with the phonetic/additional root: seeing whether the additional root is shared and for which ones; and seeing which characters have a similar sound but do not share the same phonetic/additional root
 * Frequency (most or least common) of sound or sound/tone (syllables, but phonemes also interesting) might be a good way to do such study (as well as alphabetical or other systematic approaches) (study by tone alone may be interest if broad correlations could be found, say between third-toned characters and specific meaning-types or with certain-toned characters and certain pronunciations); see Chinese text computing; see this sound frequency count (may need to be sorted by frequency); see also list on local HD: freq-notones3.cwk and freq3-b-withtone.cwk ; see also "Study of sounds" above on how to use software (online or off-line) this way; about 24 have tone 5 also (399 groups of nontonal syllables--study one group per day for a year)
 * Sound mnemonics may be of use here in associating sounds from Chinese with those of English (or more familiar Chinese sounds)

Practice in reading/writing:

 * Would ideally have randomized flashcards for any of the above lists (words or sentences), prompting for a translation Chinese <--> English

Practice in speaking/listening

 * Would ideally have randomized sound "flashcards" for any of the above lists (words or sentences), prompting for a translation Chinese <--> English

All of the above would ideally be searchable with corresponding example sentences (only some print dictionaries?).

All of the above (if studying radicals/characters) would also be ideally shown with ancestral forms of each character.

See radical section on study with other thematic groupings.