phonics, but you can’t do that with Mandarin. So getting
students to memorise characters is a really big task. I spend
a lot of time on radicals. This can be a big help later on.
For example, if students know the ‘girl’ radical, it will help
them to recognise the character for ‘mum’, ‘sister’ or ‘aunt’.
When I was a child, we were asked to write new words many
times each day, so eventually we remembered them. This
approach will not work for Westerners learning Mandarin,
unless they have attended a local Chinese school since they
were young. The style of learning is so different. To help
Western children learn, I often make up stories to help them
remember the radicals and components. When I tell the
story again, they will remember how to write it.”
The stories behind the undeniably beautiful Mandarin
characters can provide a fascinating insight into traditional
Chinese culture. Some characters are logical – for example,
the character for food looks like food in a square bowl,
and the character for fire looks like a sparks coming off
a campfire. Many simple characters, such as the one for
“
person”, can often be a basis of many more complex
characters. Using background stories to grab a Western
student’s attention and help cement the character in the
memory can make what could be a laborious task into
an interesting exercise in its own right, and add another
dimension to their studies that they would not encounter
when learning a second European language.
Rhian agrees that to teach Mandarin characters
effectively, just sitting in a class and memorising them is not
ideal, and a more hands-on approach is required. “With
Mandarin, your hand needs to ‘learn the characters’ too,
so this needs a more kinaesthetic approach to learning and
teaching,” she says. “On average, you need to see or hear
a ‘word’ seven times if it is not immediately memorable,
plus you have to write a character seven times (correctly!) to
learn it. So the process of teaching and learning Mandarin
requires a more involved, multi-sensory approach which
should be easier for children than adults. Relying on ‘chalk
and talk’ to teach characters will not be very effective.”
Tone deaf?
The second major difference for Westerners when learning
Mandarin is getting to grips with tones. With other
The stories behind the
undeniably beautiful Mandarin
characters can provide
a fascinating insight into
traditional Chinese culture.
March 2013
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