Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #26049 in Books
• Published on: 2007-08-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Synopsis
"Learning and Remembering Chinese Characters" provides a systematic study aid designed with the psychological principles to ease and bear on the daunting process of learning Chinese characters. One of the key principles is the use of visual imagery. It has a modern approach: use of simplified characters and pinyin with little emphasis on historical etymology and is learning-oriented, using visual and imaginative memorisation techniques from the psychology of learning with tips on learning habits and an introduction to concepts in gentle progression. For ease of use, characters are introduced in a logical order but prioritised by usefulness (by HSK grade and as measured by frequency of occurrence in Chinese). A practical guide, it has a concise, clear and appealing layout and is well-indexed with easy to-look-up methods. It covers the list of Chinese characters for HSK levels A and part of B. The contents include: Introduction, The nature and purpose of the book, Chinese characters (Building blocks, etc.), Visual imagery and stories, Learning strategies, How to write Chinese characters and More about Chinese characters.

Customer Reviews

fast and effective
Learning chinese characters requires work. Lots of it. So an effective method is vital, and this is it. The book uses mnemonics and 'silly' stories to help you deconstruct the first 800 most important chinese characters (the HSK level A characters) and memorize them. It is simple and very effective. I started an intensive course in chinese a few months ago, and this book was a complete godsend. If you work regularly and systematically you WILL learn the characters,and your retention is far better than viaother methods. It still requires a lot of work - there is no way around that - but this way you will make genuine progress, and the method completely avoids the boring rote memorisation that is both dispiriting and relativly ineffective. In addition, the method employed can easily be extended beyong the first 800 characters. In short, this book provides a SYSTEM that you can apply to all chinese characters. I have no hesitation in giving it five stars. This comes top of my list of essential books for learning chinese.

Great book for memorizing chinese characters
This book uses an amazing concept with immediate results. I always had problem memorizing chinese characters. Some of them really gave me a hard time since they were almost identical (e.g. bai & zi). Using the visual imagery method I was able to remember 90 characters after just 1 week's 20 minute per day studying.
The stories are really easy to remember so I easily connect the character to the meaning and then to the pronounciation. After a while I was able to create my own stories which helped a lot to speed up the memorizing process.
The characters are presented in a very well organised order. The new characters and compounds are introduced only after each character that is involved is previously very thoroughly presented.
The radical of each character is added in a box, the traditional character (where there is one) is given as well, and there is also a detailed stroke order.
What I would suggest for the second edition is to introduce the actual reasons why the characters were created the way they are (if it is applicable).
Generally an excellent job which gave me what I needed - fast and solid results.

Learning Chinese Characters
This is a remarkable book. I strongly recommend it. In addition to making learning Chinese characters easy, it will improve your memory. To begin with, I feared that I might end up thinking of China as a land of teddy-bears, fairies, giants and dwarves. However, once the stories have served their purpose they fade into the background.

Neal Robinson