What does the process of learning Mandarin Chinese look like?
By Serene Zawaydeh, January 20, 2022
Many languages have specific number of letters in the alphabet that form all words in that language. For example, there are 26 letters in English, while Arabic has 28 letters. This set of letters forms all the words in the language and you will be able to read any word. If you see a new word in English, you can easily look up its meaning in a dictionary. There are subtle differences between languages. In Arabic, one dot changes the letter and changes the whole meaning of the word. To look up a word, you need to know the three letter root of the word as many words are derived it. For example, bird, plane, airport are all derived from the three letter root of the verb to fly. Chinese is very different than other languages when it comes to the number of characters in the language. Estimates could easily go over 135,000 unique characters. Around 3500 characters are needed to read a newspaper.
I started learning Mandarin Chinese in September 2019 and obtained a full mark (300/300) in HSK3, 汉语水平考试 （三级）. But that’s just the beginning of learning the language. Chinese is my fifth language, following Arabic, English, French and German. I have a background in Electrical Engineering and my MBA studies were in French. Despite my knowledge of 4 languages, when I visited China some years ago, I could not read, write, speak, or understand what others were saying.
Chinese words are made of characters, and the same sounds not only have different meanings, but the same sound and even the same writing can have two different meanings. Learning Chinese requires precision, practice, patience, concentration, focusing on the details, and repetition. This will help with learning the required words, and recognizing the words and their meanings while reading the questions. It is more than just short termed “memorization” that could be forgotten easily.
If you are a new learner of Chinese, and see a new Chinese word for the first time, you cannot actually look it up in a physical dictionary because you don’t know how to pronounce. The pronunciation of the word is made easier with pinyin, which is like English letters with the tones (first, second, third, fourth, and neutral tone). In the first three levels of the existing HSK exam, you are given the pinyin for the words. Starting HSK level 4, the student is expected to read without the pinyin and the HSK 4 exam does not have pinyin.
Handwriting
Although writing is not a requirement for HSK Level 1, I started practicing in HSK Level 1. Some students might not actually pay attention to writing in HSK1 and HSK2 as all the words in the book have the pinyin. In my opinion, writing is very important right from the start. Reaching HSK Level 3 without writing means there is a higher possibility of dropping out or not continuing with the language. The HSK exam is being redesigned and writing will be a requirement right from Band 1. Practicing writing on a paper right from the beginning is important to keep up with the amount of incoming information.
In order to have proper or nicer handwriting, it is better to use the paper that is designed for writing Chinese characters. Following is a sample worksheet Chinese Writing Worksheet.
There is a certain stroke order for writing the words. At the beginning, it is time consuming but writing gets quicker with practice. Yabla provides good stroke orders which helps develop the handwriting.
Stroke order for 我 – which means I
Source: https://chinese.yabla.com
Redesigning Chinese Language Exam Requirements
While HSK3 seemed like a big step from HSK2, it turned out to be very simple compared to HSK4. The HSK exam is being redesigned and will be much harder especially for beginners. The number of words will be increased starting from the first band which will have 500 words instead of 150 words in the old HSK1. Hand writing will be required from the beginning. The current HSK4 is equivalent to Band 2, so it is just the beginning of learning Chinese.
Chinese Words
New students learning Chinese definitely need to be patient and persistent.
The Chinese characters are short when spoken. Many words consist of two characters, some words consist of three or even four characters. While progressing in learning the language, there are more and more combinations of words that give new meaning. This is why it is important to learn the required words well in order to keep building up the vocabulary. Different characters are combined to give new words. It’s important to continue building up vocabulary.
In HSK Level 1, it was a surprise to hear our HSK Level 1 teacher say what “Bus” means as it looked so complicated in Chinese. 公共汽车 was such a long word for just three letters in English.
Our teacher got us interested in the language by giving us examples and stories of why the characters are written in a specific way, in addition to examples of Chinese idioms.
Meanwhile, short words are definitely tricky. A short word that sounds like “shi” can have a lot of meanings and many different ways to write it. Combined with other syllables, it makes new words. Here are some examples of the different words that have “shi”. In HSK Level 4, the pinyin is not provided, which means knowing the meaning of the word and what it sounds like just by looking at it.
Getting used to typing is useful and is a test of your knowledge of how to read the words and whether you have the right pinyin. Typing means that you know the word you wanted to type, you how to read it and what its pinyin is, you already know what the word looks like, and it also means you were concentrating while typing and selected made the right selection of the word. If you are not careful while typing, you will end up choosing many wrong words. Before learning typing, it is important to write the words on paper.
In order to type, you need to add Chinese Simplified to the Language Settings. You can add the Pinyin on top of the words by selecting the “Phonetic Guide” in Microsoft Word. HSK curriculum teaches Simplified Chinese. Words that are written in Traditional Chinese are more complicated than Simplified Chinese.
A Paragraph about Happiness from HSK Level 4
While studying HSK4上, I found the dialogues and questions to be very interesting once words are understood. The book itself does not have the full translation of the dialogues, and only the meanings of the new words. The workbook does not have any pinyin. While the listening parts of the exam in levels HSK1 to HSK3 are repeated twice, the listening parts in HSK4 are not repeated. Going back to the new curriculum, HSK 4 is like Band 2 which is still the beginning of learning Chinese.
The following paragraph is last dialogue in Chapter 10 in HSK4上 which is the first book of two books in HSK4. The book does not provide the translation.
HSK4上, Dialogue 10-5, page 123
什么是幸福？ 有的人认为， 工资高， 能赚钱就是幸福； 心情放松， 身体健康才是幸福； 也有人认为， 能帮助别人就是一种幸福。 还有人说， 小时候幸福是一件东西， 比如一块橡皮、 一块糖， 得到了就很幸福； 长大后幸福是一种态度， 生活的态度决定了我们幸福感的高低。 那怎么样才算是真正的幸福？ 其实， 幸福并没有一个标准答案， 每个人对幸福都有不同的理解。 不管你认为幸福是什么， 只要你用心去找， 就一定能发现它。
What is happiness? Some people think that happiness is getting a high salary, being able to gain money; to have relaxed mind, good health is happiness. There are people who think that helping others is a type of happiness. There are also people who say that when you are little, happiness is a thing, for example giving a child an eraser or a piece of candy is happiness. Later on, when growing up, happiness is an attitude. Attitude in life determines whether our feeling of happiness is high or low. So then how can we decide what is real happiness? In fact, happiness does not have one standard answer, every person has a different understanding with regards to happiness. Whatever you think happiness is, just use your heart to go and find it, then you will surely find it.
Frequently used Resources for Learning Chinese
Pleco: Mobile application. Dictionary. Can search for words by writing Characters on the screen.
Chinesimple.com: Mobile application. Extremely useful for practicing and learning continuously. Each level has one application.
Chinese Zero to Hero: Great Explanations for HSK dialogues and grammar. Rich content
Yabla: Online dictionary. Stroke order for the words helps develop handwriting.
List of Blogs I wrote about Learning Chinese
LinkedIn Profile: Serene Zawaydeh
https://www.linkedin.com/in/serenezawaydeh/
