Chinese, Chineasy, easy Chinese

Problem
How do you learn Chinese characters? What do the signs on the bus or train mean - and how do you remember them?

Answer
1 My first effort was a placemat for children which had the letters of the numbers. Easy peasy. Like Roman numeral on their side. One horizontal line was one. Two horizontal lines, one above th other, was two. Three horizontal lines was four.

2 Use Chineasy.

Story
A long time ago I cut out of the Sunday Times an article on this, the entrepreneur ShaoLan Hsueh, but I never followed up. A grand tidy up of my house resurrected the article. I looked for links. I found one to a Ted talk.

I type in her name and C h i n e a s y and Youtube and up comes the link. There's the lovely lady showing half a dozen Chinese characters as black strokes with coloured additions to make pictures.

She demonstrates eight characters, including: mouth, person, woman, tree, mountain.

The magic part is the way two words you already know are combined to make a third word. This means it is easy to learn the third word. Learning the third word reminds you and reinforces your recollection of the first two words.

This combination of two visual characters is rather like the way many English words combine Latin and Greek root words. (English combinations include Telephone which is tele and phone meaning sound.)

At the end she she shows the sign for exit, combining mountain symbol on the left (three uprights, like a bed frame with a pole in the middle for the mountain peak), plus person, a curved two stroke figure running. So now when I sit on a train and see the Chinese word for exit, I shall recognize it instantly.

On May 17 2017 I saw that you can buy:
a Kindle book from about £7.19
a paperback book, used from £2.95, new from £6.72,
or a set of 60 flashcards cards at £12.95
or a set of 100 postcards £14.91.
(Add postage unless you have an Amazon membership deal for free delivery - and check that if so the item you choose comes from Amazon and is included - not from a separate delivery address not including postage).

On Ebay I found some more, but not at prices which undercut Amazon. However, offers can vary since new people put products up every hour of every day, so don't take my word for it. Check the latest deals.

Tips
Here's the link to the lovely lady giving the Ted talk.
https://www.ted.com/talks/shaolan_learn_to_read_chinese_with_ease

Here's a look inside the book on Amazon.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Chineasy-New-Way-Read-Chinese/dp/0500650284

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker, teacher of English and learner and teacher of other languages.
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