Build you base vocabulary with mnemonics. Learning words through comprehensible input is the ideal way to build vocabulary. With OCLO, life gets considerably more comfortable for you, but there is still going to be a period where you must learn words individually before you can rely on context.
Mnemonics and Living Links
Beginners acquire words by creating links from their memory banks to new vocabulary. These living links draw their power from your life experience, much like character mnemonics do.
Connect the word's characters to your lived experience.
The definitions, characters and pronunciation, etc. What people, places, objects, feelings, or events from your life does the definition conjure up for you? Are they personal memories, or something from a TV show, movie, book, or video game? All of those things can be used as mnemonics to help you learn Chinese.
How about the word “说明” shuōmíng – “To Explain” sounding a little like Sean Connery saying the word “Swimming”? Does that conjure up the image of Mr. Connery giving swimming lessons?
Reinforce this connection by finding a mnemonic image that represents it.
You may have difficulty trying to find a picture of a certain topic, but that doesn't matter. Use your Google skills to find an image that reminds you of your connection in some way.
Type the Chinese word of the English translation into an image search engine and choose the most interesting image to be your mnemonic. You can always swap it out for another one while reviewing later on, and any image is better than no image.
Put your mnemonics into a flashcard and move on to the next word.
Our flashcards provide a field just for this purpose. They also contain native and female audio, regardless of whether you are reviewing pinyin spellings, characters, words, sentences, or entire stories. Audio is vital.
You can continue to use this technique even after you have surpasses the beginner stage and are learning through context, but it is most useful for beginners. Once you get used to this process, it can take seconds. For more information, you may check this video.
Memorizing Chinese words using the excellent four techniques
Chinese vocabulary acquisition is far more straightforward than you might think so long as you can follow any or all of these four steps.
Learn the characters.
If you learn most Chinese characters words are simple to acquire. Unlike English with its multiple root languages, Chinese has far fewer contradiction in its general rules. Ever heard
that rule “‘i’ before ‘e’ except after ‘c’?” Ha, it ought to be: “‘i’ before ‘e’ except after ‘c,’ oh, and about 30 exceptions to that original statement of ‘c’ being an exception.” English, sort yourself out!
Most Chinese words are like this. You will only recognize how easy they are. However, if you learn the characters first. Get on it!
Make connections to the sound to memorize Chinese words.
As you attempt to find a connection to a new vocabulary word, say it loud! Does anything come to mind? Is there any connection, even a tenuous one to a sound you already recognize? What if you visualized someone staring at their knees, perplexed, wondering how these knees go there, only to then say hello to several new acquaintances that entered the room?
Are you a bit into your Chinese learning journey? Surprised to find out that “肌肉” jīròu – muscle” is the same pronunciation as “鸡肉 jīròu – chicken meat?” Can you imagine a chicken that is jacked af like Arnold Schwartzenegger in his prime?
Whether the Chinese word you are learning sounds like something from your native language or a previously learned Mandarin word, taking a moment to recognize the sound connection will make the memory all the more solid.
Put your mnemonics into a flashcard and move on to the next word.
If you remember something, that means it made enough of an impact on your that your highly-evolved meat-computer between your ears has determined it might be useful knowledge in the future. Memories are cool that way.
When you find your memory that connects to a new vocabulary word, use it! Otherwise, you're making things harder on yourself. You memories are the most potent set of tools that make learning easier.
Use images to memorize Chinese words.
In the Mandarin Blueprint method, we show you how to quickly take your lived experience and turn it into an intelligent Google image search. From there, it's two clicks away from the image you choose automatically embedding itself into your spaced-repetition link vocabulary flashcard.
It's technology that we're already used to apply correctly. You're not only using images, you're using images that relate to your lived experience.
Living Links
At every stage of this game, remember to keep searching your brain for those links you already have to Chinese. You're not a newborn baby, so you have experiences that can help you memorize Chinese words that much quicker. In a way, it's a resurrection of your past to create a more connected future.