Learning to Read Chinese as a Heritage Student

Learning to Read Chinese as a Heritage Student

Being exposed to Chinese as a child did give me significant advantages, I am certain of. I know what a lot of words mean once I know how it sounds, and in what context it is used. So when learning Chinese characters, for many common words and phrases, I simply have to attach a pronunciation to a foreign character. For example, when I am confronted with foreign word 爸爸, I only need to build a link saying "爸爸 is pronounced bàba," since I already know that bàba means "father" from everyday use. This is in contrast to a foreign learner who will have to learn each link separately (爸爸 is pronounced bàba, 爸爸 means "father", bàba means "father").

It definitely is easier for me to acquire new words and characters. In fact, I have progressed much faster than I had expected.

My Progress

So my real study of Chinese has been split into two temporal sections. About a year and a half ago, I began seriously studying Chinese reading. I first went though premade HSK lists, and went though HSK levels 1-3 fairly quickly. I was probably midway through HSK 4 after about 4-6 weeks of studying, when I went on an extended family vacation. And after my vacation, SRS study was overwhelming because I had a huge backlog of thousands of cards to get through. It was demoralizing (and I think a strong negative of SRS systems - you must review cards every day, otherwise the backlog builds up, and you are less willing to review the cards you need to catch up). So I never got out of my SRS backlog after a 2 week vacation, and I never got back into the swing of studying. I put it off for a year.

I got back into studying Chinese about 6 weeks ago, sometime after my winter break. I dusted off my Pleco app and bought some more books, and have been studying since. It took me about a week or two to go through all of the cards I learned the first time through. (I deleted my score file and started over from HSK 1). I have gone though all of the cards up to the New HSK5 level. I decided to hold off on HSK6, and instead studied the top several thousand most common words, most common words used in movies, and most common words used in newspapers. I also went though the words in the Old HSK 1-3 that were not included in the New HSK. This may sound like a lot of new words, but it was doable with my trusty Pleco SRS system.

I think I have reached a point where I know plenty of characters and words, and I need more practice reading in context.

SRS Overload!

I have been reading a little bit, but since I've sort of overloaded my SRS system (a mistake on my part), I have too many cards to review (up to 500 cards on a big day). I've stopped/slowed down adding of cards, and am just maintaining my current card system. Once it has died down, I'll be able to concentrate my efforts away from SRS towards reading.

SRS is like a game to me. I review cards while waiting in line, waiting for my boyfriend, eating lunch, basically whenever I have a few minutes to myself. It has gotten addictive, and Yes, I think there is such a thing as Too Much SRS!

My goal is to wean myself off of SRS, stop adding new cards, and focus on seeing my words "in the wild" while reading native material.

I am glad I have made so much progress in the past few weeks, and I look forward to continuing my studies.

Do you have any Chinese language learning goals (short term or long term) that you would like to share? Have you ever overwhelmed yourself with SRS?

Recommended Resources:

Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy

Not a Learning book per se, but a really nice linguistic analysis of the Chinese Language. He explains a lot of the misconceptions that people have about the Chinses language, and details the Chinese writing system from ancient times to modern.

ABC English-Chinese, Chinese-English Dictionary (ABC Chinese Dictionary Series)

A really great dictionary. If you are beginning, you will probably want a paper dictionary. It comes in handy, even in this era of electronic dictionaries. And the ABC ECCE is one of the best. It has both English and Chinese lookup.

Chinese Characters: A Genealogy and Dictionary (English and Mandarin Chinese Edition)

Simply the best geneological-etymological condensation for the modern reader. Harbaugh breaks over 4000 characters down into 200 simple ideographs from which each family of characters branches off. This is more for serious students who are interested in the entymology of characters, but is immensely helpful in learning word concepts and meaning.

Remembering Simplified Hanzi: Book 1, How Not to Forget the Meaning and Writing of Chinese Characters

This book presents memorizing characters with short mnemonics and stories to help you learn. This may be good for beginner learners, but I prefer learning the true entymologies (see Harbaugh's book above). This book does not teach pronunciation, so you will have to work on that separately.

Tuttle Learning Chinese Characters: A Revolutionary New Way to Learn and Remember the 800 Most Basic Chinese Characters

Another book with stories and pictures to help you learn and memorize Chinese characters. This mnemonic device method is very popular, and gives rapid results for the beginner.

Beginning Chinese Reader (Beginning Chinese Reader, Part I)

A DeFrancis reader for the beginner. Good if you prefer to have more structured lessons, presenting about 10 new characters per lession (more as you progress). Nice to have if you are self studying, but want to follow a specific teaching plan.

Why I Decided to Start Learning Chinese (again)

Why I Decided to Start Learning Chinese (again)

My Backstory

I am a second generation Chinese female in my mid-20s. I was born in Beijing, but moved to the USA when I was around 3 years old. My parents are Chinese and speak Mandarin almost exclusively at home. I would consider myself a conversational speaker, being mostly exposed to "kitchen talk," with enough vocabulary to get around if stranded alone in China. Not fluent by any means, and I understand much more Mandarin when spoken at me than I am able to produce myself. This is not uncommon, since passive recognition is naturally easier than active recall production. However, my great failing is that I am almost completely illiterate. I cannot read or write. And this is the story of why I choose to remedy that problem.

As a child, my brother and I were both enrolled in Chinese school held every Saturday. We reluctantly studied just enough Chinese to get by in class every week, and promptly forgot it all the subsequent week. As a child, it is difficult to appreciate the intricacies of a language as complex as Chinese, especially when you are expected to do well in regular American school, then give up your weekends for additional Chinese school. None of your friends had to go to school on the weekends, and it just wasn't fair! Or so I thought. And so I skated by in Chinese school, only cramming for weekly quizzes on the car ride to school, barely passing, and simply not caring. I attended Chinese school for several years, and did not make any strong effort to retain the material. I eventually got to the point where I quit Chinese school completely. I forgot everything I learned in those few years, and simply did not care. I wasted the very limited window of opportunity where the plasticity of a child's brain is most amenable to learning and retaining new languages. Language study would never be as easy as it could have been had I stuck with it then. But I suppose you never realize your unique opportunities until you have let them go to waste.

The Change

I did well in regular American school, did well in my undergraduate university, got into a prestigious medical school, and started doing research in a difficult dual degree program. As I got older, I realized what an advantage being able to read, write, and speak Chinese would be. China is becoming more of a global power, Chinese is being used more and more in business, and knowing Chinese may give one an advantage in the types of clients (or patients) one is able to comfortably interact with. And more than just the utility side, I felt sad somehow that I had given something up of my Chinese heritage. I am still able to understand spoken Mandarin, and can converse casually on non-specialized topics.

My Goals

However, I wanted to learn to read (and possibly write) Chinese.

My ultimate goal is to be able to read native Chinese newspapers and fiction novels at a slow to normal speed, without the need for looking up words in a dictionary.

I have decided to prioritize reading. (As I mentioned before, I am satisfied with my current conversational level of Mandarin, and will not be focusing on listening or speaking skills. I could, however, benefit from additional speaking practice with a partner... but that will have to wait.)

I will not be focusing on learning to write Chinese characters at this point. In the future, when my reading skills have progressed satisfactorily, I may begin writing. However, current technology for writing characters digitally using pinyin input is satisfactory for now.

I am a little disappointed in myself, since I feel that I could have had a much stronger background, coming from a Mandarin speaking family and being exposed to Chinese as a child. I could have learned a lot more during my window of natural language acquisition. But since I didn't, I will just have to work harder now to make up for it.

What prompted you to start learning Chinese? Have you had any opportunities that you missed taking advantage of?

Recommended Resources:

Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy

Not a Learning book per se, but a really nice linguistic analysis of the Chinese Language. He explains a lot of the misconceptions that people have about the Chinses language, and details the Chinese writing system from ancient times to modern.

ABC English-Chinese, Chinese-English Dictionary (ABC Chinese Dictionary Series)

A really great dictionary. If you are beginning, you will probably want a paper dictionary. It comes in handy, even in this era of electronic dictionaries. And the ABC ECCE is one of the best. It has both English and Chinese lookup.

Chinese Characters: A Genealogy and Dictionary (English and Mandarin Chinese Edition)

Simply the best geneological-etymological condensation for the modern reader. Harbaugh breaks over 4000 characters down into 200 simple ideographs from which each family of characters branches off. This is more for serious students who are interested in the entymology of characters, but is immensely helpful in learning word concepts and meaning.

Remembering Simplified Hanzi: Book 1, How Not to Forget the Meaning and Writing of Chinese Characters

This book presents memorizing characters with short mnemonics and stories to help you learn. This may be good for beginner learners, but I prefer learning the true entymologies (see Harbaugh's book above). This book does not teach pronunciation, so you will have to work on that separately.

Tuttle Learning Chinese Characters: A Revolutionary New Way to Learn and Remember the 800 Most Basic Chinese Characters

Another book with stories and pictures to help you learn and memorize Chinese characters. This mnemonic device method is very popular, and gives rapid results for the beginner.

Beginning Chinese Reader (Beginning Chinese Reader, Part I)

A DeFrancis reader for the beginner. Good if you prefer to have more structured lessons, presenting about 10 new characters per lession (more as you progress). Nice to have if you are self studying, but want to follow a specific teaching plan.