How to Learn Chinese Faster and Smarter

Summary

In this video, the speaker shares an effective system for learning Mandarin Chinese, focusing on prioritization, memorization, and mobilization of vocabulary. They advocate for using vocabulary frequency lists to focus on the most commonly used words and suggest personalizing vocabulary lists. The speaker recommends Anki for spaced repetition and active recall, breaking down characters to understand word meanings, and using tools like Pleco and comprehensible input through media for context. They also emphasize the importance of using newly learned words in daily life and practicing with a language partner to enhance fluency.

Takeaways

• 📚 Prioritizing vocabulary learning is crucial. Focus on the most frequently used words and those relevant to your personal interests to maximize communicative competence.
• 🔍 Use vocabulary frequency lists to identify the most commonly used words in Chinese, which can significantly aid in basic language proficiency.
• 📈 The Pareto principle (80/20 rule) suggests that focusing on a core vocabulary will greatly enhance your ability to communicate in Chinese.
• 💡 Anki, a spaced repetition software, is highly recommended for memorizing and recalling new vocabulary effectively.
• 🧠 Breaking down Chinese characters to understand their individual meanings can provide context and facilitate better memory retention.
• 📖 Comprehensible input, such as graded readers and listening materials, helps in reinforcing and contextualizing new vocabulary.
• 🎞 Engaging with media like podcasts, TV shows, and movies can provide real-world examples of vocabulary usage and improve listening skills.
• 🗣️ Practice using new vocabulary in daily life by creating sentences and thinking in Chinese, even if you're not fluent.
• 🤝 Interacting with native speakers through language exchanges or conversation partners is an effective way to practice and receive feedback on your usage of new words.
• 🔗 The Canto to Mandarino Blueprint is a course designed for Cantonese speakers to rapidly learn Mandarin by leveraging their existing language skills.

Q & A

What is the main issue discussed in the video script?

The main issue discussed is the difficulty learners face in retaining and effectively using newly learned Chinese vocabulary during conversations with native speakers.

What are the three main parts of the vocabulary learning system mentioned in the script?

The three main parts of the vocabulary learning system are prioritization, memorization, and mobilization.

Why is the vocabulary frequency list recommended for language learning?

The vocabulary frequency list is recommended because it lists words from most to least frequently used, allowing learners to focus on the core words that are essential for basic communication.

What is the Pareto principle in the context of language learning?

In language learning, the Pareto principle, or the 80/20 rule, suggests that focusing on the most frequently used core vocabulary will significantly enhance communicative competence more than learning less common words.

What role does the software Anki play in the memorization process discussed in the video?

Anki is used as a spaced repetition software to create flashcards that aid in memorizing vocabulary through active recall and repetition.

How does breaking down Chinese characters into individual parts help with memorization?

Breaking down Chinese characters into individual parts helps by linking their meanings to the overall word, providing context and aiding in understanding the language more intimately.

What is the significance of using comprehensible input for vocabulary learning?

Comprehensible input, which includes reading and listening to materials in the target language, helps in reinforcing vocabulary by encountering words in context and aiding in memorization.

What does the video suggest as a method to practice using newly learned vocabulary?

The video suggests creating sentences using the new vocabulary, thinking in the target language, and practicing with a language partner to mobilize and use the new words effectively.

How does the Canton to Mandarin Blueprint course relate to the video's content?

The Canton to Mandarin Blueprint course is designed for Cantonese speakers to rapidly learn Mandarin by leveraging their existing Cantonese knowledge, which aligns with the video's theme of efficient language learning techniques.

What is the importance of using newly learned vocabulary in daily life as suggested in the video?

Using newly learned vocabulary in daily life helps to reinforce memory and integrate the words into long-term memory, making it easier to recall and use them in actual communication.

Outlines

00:00

📚 Mastering Mandarin Vocabulary

The paragraph discusses the common struggle of learners trying to recall newly learned Mandarin vocabulary during conversations. It introduces a comprehensive system to enhance vocabulary learning, drawing from personal experience, expert advice, and research. The system is divided into three parts: prioritization, memorization, and mobilization, which are essential for effective vocabulary retention and usage. The speaker, Izzy, shares insights from self-studying Mandarin alongside a medical degree at Cambridge, emphasizing the importance of focusing on frequently used words and personal relevance to leverage the Pareto principle for efficient language learning.

05:05

🔠 Breaking Down Characters for Better Memory

This section delves into techniques for memorizing Mandarin vocabulary, highlighting the use of Anki, a spaced repetition software, for creating flashcards that aid in active recall. It suggests breaking down words into individual characters to understand their meanings and contextual relevance, which is facilitated by the Pleco app. The paragraph also touches on the importance of comprehensible input through reading graded materials and listening to various forms of media to encounter learned words in context, thereby reinforcing memory and understanding.

10:05

💬 Practical Application of New Vocabulary

The final paragraph emphasizes the importance of using newly learned vocabulary actively to enhance language proficiency. It suggests incorporating new words into daily life, creating sentences, and thinking in Mandarin to practice mobilization. The speaker recommends using tools like Pleco for inspiration and engaging with a language partner for practical conversation. The paragraph also mentions a sponsored course, the Canto to Mandarino Blueprint, designed for Cantonese speakers to learn Mandarin efficiently, and encourages viewers to apply the discussed strategies for effective language learning.

Keywords

💡Spaced Repetition

Spaced Repetition is a learning technique that involves reviewing information at increasing intervals over time, which is crucial for moving information from short-term to long-term memory. In the video, it is used in the context of memorizing Chinese vocabulary with the aid of software like Anki, where flashcards are reviewed at optimal intervals to enhance retention.

💡Vocab Frequency List

A Vocab Frequency List is a tool used in language learning that ranks words in a language based on how often they are used. The video emphasizes the importance of focusing on high-frequency words to build a strong foundation for communication. It is mentioned as a strategy to prioritize learning the most commonly used words in Chinese, which can significantly improve one's ability to converse in the language.

💡Pareto Principle

The Pareto Principle, also known as the 80/20 rule, suggests that 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. In the video, it is applied to language learning, indicating that focusing on the core 20% of the most frequently used vocabulary can lead to 80% communicative competence. This principle is used to justify the strategy of prioritizing certain words over others.

💡Anki

Anki is a powerful spaced repetition software that helps in memorizing information effectively. The video describes how Anki can be used to create flashcards for Chinese vocabulary, providing context through sentences, characters, and radicals. It is highlighted as a tool that supports active recall, a method of reinforcing memory by testing oneself.

💡Active Recall

Active Recall is a learning technique where learners actively attempt to retrieve information from memory rather than passively reviewing it. The video mentions using Anki for active recall by turning over flashcards to reveal the answer, which helps in reinforcing the memory of new vocabulary.

💡Comprehensible Input

Comprehensible Input refers to receiving language input that is slightly above one's current level of understanding but still understandable. The video suggests using graded readers, podcasts, TV shows, and other forms of media to provide context for new vocabulary, making it easier to remember and understand.

💡Mobilization

Mobilization in the context of language learning refers to the ability to use learned vocabulary actively in speech or writing. The video stresses the importance of not just memorizing words but being able to use them in real-life communication. It provides tips on how to integrate new vocabulary into daily conversations and thoughts.

💡Pleco

Pleco is a dictionary app for Chinese language learners that offers features like character breakdown, example sentences, and flashcards. The video recommends Pleco for understanding the meaning of individual characters in Chinese words, which can aid in memorization and provide context for vocabulary learning.

💡Cantonese to Mandarin Blueprint

The Cantonese to Mandarin Blueprint is a course mentioned in the video designed for Cantonese speakers to learn Mandarin more efficiently by leveraging their existing knowledge of Cantonese. The video explains how the course helps in understanding the similarities and differences between the two languages, making the learning process more accessible.

💡Language Reactor

Language Reactor is a Chrome extension that provides dual subtitles and dictionary definitions for Chinese media content. The video describes how this tool can be used to enhance comprehensible input by allowing learners to hover over Chinese subtitles to get instant definitions, thus aiding in vocabulary acquisition.

Highlights

The struggle of using newly learned Chinese vocabulary in conversation is a common experience for language learners.

A comprehensive system is introduced to effectively learn and use new Chinese vocabulary.

The video combines personal experience, expert advice, and research-based learning techniques for language learning.

The video is structured into three parts: prioritization, memorization, and mobilization of vocabulary.

Vocabulary frequency lists are recommended for strategic learning of the most commonly used words.

The Pareto Principle (80/20 rule) is applied to focus on the most valuable vocabulary for communication.

Anki, a spaced repetition software, is highly recommended for memorizing vocabulary.

Breaking down Chinese characters to understand their meanings can aid in memorization.

Pleco app is useful for understanding characters and their usage in context.

Comprehensible input through reading and listening helps in vocabulary retention.

Graded readers and language learning apps are suggested for increasing vocabulary in context.

Watching Chinese shows and using language tools can enhance vocabulary understanding.

The Canton to Mandarin Blueprint is introduced as a course for efficient Mandarin learning.

Mobilization of vocabulary is emphasized over mere memorization for effective language use.

Practical tips are given for using newly learned vocabulary in daily life and conversations.

The importance of thinking in Chinese and creating sentences with new vocabulary is discussed.

Language exchange and receiving corrections from native speakers are recommended for vocabulary practice.

Transcripts

you've just spent hours and hours

learning hundreds of new chinese words

and now you're sitting down to chat in

chinese with a native speaker in the

space of about 30 seconds all of the new

vocab you thought you had just burned

into your memory seems to evaporate from

your brain and you're left tongue-tied

and struggling to say anything beyond

even a basic nihama if you've ever had a

similar experience of struggling to

memorize and then actually use new

chinese words and you're looking for a

complete system to supercharge your

vocab learning then this video was made

for you today i'll go over the best

system i found so far for effectively

prioritizing memorizing and then

actually mobilizing new chinese

vocabulary that you've learned this will

be from a combination of my own personal

experience self-studying mandarin

alongside my medical degree at cambridge

tips from experts who've written books

about language learning theory and also

evidence-based research in the field of

memory and effective learning techniques

i'll walk you through how to apply this

practically and also

focus especially on techniques beyond

just the basics of spaced repetition if

you're new here my name's izzy i just

graduated from cambridge university and

i'm about to start work as a doctor and

on the side i study mandarin in my free

time without further ado let's get into

the video so this video will be broken

up into three main parts firstly

prioritization secondly memorization and

thirdly mobilization in each of these

sections i'll break down a few different

techniques that you can apply and talk

about how it all fits into the structure

and really for a complete vocab learning

system you actually need all three parts

to kind of work together almost like

legs of a tripod you kind of need all

three to support the structure so

firstly prioritization the first

question we need to ask when we're

learning a language is what to learn and

in terms of what vocab to focus on it's

all good and well learning random bits

of vocab that you pick up here and there

but some words are factually not used as

frequently as others so for example in

english the word windmill is unlikely to

be used as much as the word the which

i've already used several times in the

making of this video this is the same

across all languages chinese included so

what we really want to do is in order to

be able to speak quickly and to actually

be able to communicate with people we

want to focus on that core

center of words that are really

frequently used in everyday life so to

be strategic and smart with choosing

what vocab to learn we can use something

called vocab frequency list so

vocabulary frequency lists are just an

incredible tool that's actually really

highly recommended by lots of people in

the field of language learning including

in certain books like fluent forever

which i would really highly recommend

vocab frequency list essentially lists

out the words in a language from the

most frequently used to the least and so

this means that by taking let's say the

top thousand words that are most

frequently used in the language actually

you can basically speak the language at

a basic level with just the core 1000

words you can find these vocab frequency

lists either online or also you can buy

books which have vocab frequency lists

i'm going to include some links below to

books on amazon and also some free

resources online that you can use for

vocab frequency

lists for chinese so to supplement the

vocab frequency list you may want to

note down any words that are really

related to you for example for me

personally i really frequently use the

words yishung ishential

those sorts of words talking about

myself when i'm introducing myself to

somebody i'll often use these words to

tell them about myself and and who i am

and what my hobbies are this

prioritization structure where you use

vocab frequency lists for the language

in general combined with your personal

vocab list of words that are really

valuable for you to know personally

leverages something known as the pareto

principle or the 80 20 rule which is

essentially that this core vocab will

really allow you to communicate quickly

and other vocab that's not really

related to you or is not so commonly

used isn't really going to move the

needle as much in terms of your

communicative competence so now that

you've decided what to learn the next

question is how to learn it for

memorization of pretty much anything i

absolutely love

a piece of software called anki you've

probably heard me talk about this in my

other videos because i just use it so

much for languages anki is essentially

spaced repetition software where you can

create flashcards to really supercharge

your learning with space repetition and

also active recall of all of these new

pieces of vocab so for me my mandarin

learning anki decks have a word on it

and then when i turn over the flash card

or press show answer

then it provides a sentence where it's

given in context along with more details

about the exact characters and the

radicals in them

and also a picture as well

and what i'll do is i'll essentially

just repeat after the

card in order to practice my

pronunciation shift v

essentially brings up this little pop-up

where you can record your voice

and then it plays it back to you which i

think is pretty neat

other than just face repetition on anki

in chinese a lot of words are formed by

two characters which combine to form the

meaning one thing i would really

recommend is when you learn a new word

is break it down into each of the

characters that are making up the word

and try to understand their meaning

because often it will link in in some

way to the overall word and it also

helps you to put the word in context and

relate it to the rest of the language so

for example the word

means telephone dien sort of means

electric and hua is like speech or

speaking so it literally means electric

speaking which is sort of like a

telephone i guess and on the other hand

another word

means computer which means electric dien

means electric again it's the same dien

and now means brain like now

and so electric brain put together means

computer and both of them both tien juan

diana both have dien meaning electric in

it and so when you break it down and you

break down each of these words into the

smaller parts then you can get a more

intimate understanding of the language

in context an app called pleco is really

really good for this because you can

just type in whatever word you are just

learning or copy and paste it and then

you can click on each of the characters

in it and it will give you a little bit

more information about it so for example

here dn means electricity

telephone lightning etc

is word or talk and then you can even

just go into the ends page on its own

and then click on words and you can see

all all these other words that use the

character diane in them

so many words and this just gives you

this almost mental map in context which

i find personally really helps me to

stick and remember vocabulary so much

more effectively another tool that i

find so helpful for putting these new

words in context and helping to memorize

them in this big network of memories and

connected language components that

you're building in your brain

is comprehensible input in terms of

vocabulary this comprises two main

sections firstly reading so getting some

kind of graded reader is a really good

way to gradually increase your

vocabulary and often graded readers they

are based loosely off of vocab frequency

lists and they will focus more on

frequent words and so you can either get

a graded reader book i'll leave some

links below or there are also apps such

as the chairman's bow or do chinese

which are also really good and secondly

is listening so this includes things

like podcasts tv shows youtube videos

movies radio

all of these sorts of inputs try to

identify the words that you've learned

whenever they crop up in any of the

listening material that you have so for

example in a podcast if they use a word

that you've learned in context then

maybe pause the podcast and then repeat

that sentence out loud again try to

imitate their accent as closely as

possible to try to sound more native

i've recently started watching a chinese

show on netflix called the rational life

and i've also been using a chrome

extension called language reactor which

essentially has dual subtitles along

with a bunch of other functions where

you can for example hover over one of

the chinese subtitles and it will pop up

with a dictionary definition of the word

so if there are some words that you

don't know then you can sort of get

familiar with them in this way i've

always been a big fan of the chinese pod

podcast and i'll leave links to all my

favorite resources for comprehensible

input down below on the topic of

figuring out how to learn mandarin

faster this video is very kindly

sponsored by the canto tomando blueprint

which is a course designed specifically

for people with a cantonese speaking

background to rapidly learn mandarin by

leveraging their existing cantonese

knowledge i'd also just like to say that

i only take on sponsorships that i

genuinely believe in and that i think

will be of interest to you guys the

course is taught by kanto mando who are

a group of youtubers along with a team

of professional tutors i was invited to

take the course which essentially

teaches a novel method of relating and

converting between cantonese and

mandarin as the languages are so similar

this is a more efficient way of learning

mandarin than learning it directly from

english because there's less of a jump

linguistically it doesn't really matter

what level your cantonese is you don't

need to know how to read or write

beforehand as long as you can speak a

little bit of cantonese then the course

would be suitable for you you can use

the entire program at your own pace

which i really like for a flexible

part-time study schedule like my own and

you also get lifetime access for example

with this sentence here sheldon goes

over the cantonese sentence and it's

mandarin translation along with a

english translation at the very bottom

one thing that really amazed me was

actually how similar cantonese and

mandarin are and you can really see that

here when they're lined up next to each

other in terms of the grammar and the

sentence structure i really like how

they

show you very clearly the slight

differences between mandarin and

cantonese word choice such as

here puja dao is

in cantonese so d would convert to

bulgada in mandarin if you're interested

in the program then check out the link

below for more details so now you know

what to learn and how to put it deep in

your long-term memory by combining space

repetition active recall and also

comprehensible inputs we need to talk

about how to actually use these new

words this is where the actual magic

happens knowing a language is not about

how many vocabulist items you can

memorize and reel off it's more about

whether you can actually communicate

with people and use those words in a

sentence in a natural way that can

communicate your meaning sometimes in

the land of language learning especially

from school days

too much focus can be placed solely on

the rote memorization part and not

enough on the actual mobilization so for

this final step we're bringing it all

together don't ask yourself if you've

memorized the new words ask yourself if

you can use them here are a few

practical ways you can put this into

practice and learn to speak with your

newly learned vocab for the next few

days after learning a word try to use

this vocab in your daily life when you

look around at your daily surroundings

try to think of sentences or words that

describe your surroundings using your

vocab you can either say this out loud

or even just think it in your mind

silently and form sentences in your mind

try as much as you can to think in

chinese using these new words even if

you don't know all the words in a

sentence that you want to say the first

step is for any new piece of vocabulary

that you learn come up with five

sentences including this new word and

say it out loud or write it down try to

come up with sentences that are

structurally different from each other

so that your brain can learn to

synthesize and create sentences in all

sorts of different ways with this new

word again i really like pleco for this

because on the page where you can see

the definitions for a word you can also

see a few example sentences so for

example for the word that we used

earlier

we can see that there are a few

sentences on the page that just show you

how it's used in context

so for example

and so then you can look to pleco if

you're looking for a bit of inspiration

the second tip for this is for the next

few days after learning a new piece of

vocab try to use it in your daily life

in some way try to describe your

surroundings or describe a situation

using that new word as much as you can

try to think in chinese

and even if you don't know every single

word for a sentence you want to say in

chinese you can substitute words in for

example if let's say i wanted to say

i want to eat noodles but i didn't know

how to say most of the words in that

sentence but i just learned the word for

noodles

then i could say i want to eat me and

y'all and this is training my brain to

understand miyantia as meaning noodles

and being able to pop it in sentences

the third tip is practicing with a

language body either in conversation

where you discuss topics around a piece

of vocab that you've used and you try to

bring this piece of vocab into the

conversation but alternatively one thing

i really liked doing with my chinese

language buddy was each day i would type

to her type a message to her about what

i was up to in the day and maybe include

some sentences that included the new

vocab that i'd learned i'd send this to

her and then she would correct my

paragraph and then read it out loud and

send me an audio note and i would listen

to this audio note over and over again

repeating it and trying to imitate her

accent and get as close to her accent as

possible this was really effective for a

few reasons because i was using vocab

that i'd recently learned that i had put

in context of my life and was relevant

to what i was doing and was in the

context of a sentence and then it had

been corrected by a native speaker with

audio of them reading it out loud so

that i could be sure it was correct and

really get familiar with being able to

mobilize and use all these new bits of

vocab don't forget to check out the

canto tomando blueprint down below i'll

leave a link in the description if you

enjoyed this video i think you might

like this one over here where i talk

more about learning mandarin and my

exact structure for it thank you so much

for watching as always take care of

yourself and i will see you in the next

video bye