Thursday 5 July 2018

Learning: One Step Reach Heaven


There is a Chinese proverb "一步登天" . That's what I propose to do. Mount Heaven in One Step.

Is it possible? I am ambitious. Not only mount heaven in 1 step. But do it by August to register for the topmost exam.  Without attending school.

I can memorize entire pages of texts & diagrams. And I know Chinese. How hard can it be?

Ok, don't talk much. I start now. Chiong AHHHHH....!!!!!

Update... 1:51am 9 July...

"the human legs radical"... says the lady host. Human legs radical? The screen shows the bottom strokes (legs) of the Chinese words. Orhh... human legs. It's the bottom 2 strokes under the Chinese words like "light/shine"  光.

Before this, the "human radical" was introduced by the 2 lovely hosts. 人.

In Chinese, the "human radical" is called "Ren Zi Pang". Not radical. Translated, it means "person stroke side". Or... the side is a "human" writing/stroke.

In Chinese, we don't learn in this way. We don't memorize strokes separately like that. We do pay attention to the side strokes of words, but we don't memorize these side strokes because there are many words pairing with these side strokes. We just remember that a word is written with which side stroke.

For instance, we don't separately memorize the bottom "legs" of the word 光. We remember it as 1 word.

But it's understandable that learning without learning the Chinese foundation is difficult. Hard to teach it. So, I suppose this English way is the best method.

Whatever way it sounds, the Chinese meaning remains the same. I heard that there are words that look like Chinese words but with different meanings from Chinese. I haven't seen such words (yet).

Arghhh.. >.<  I'm skipping this video. It's like learning Chinese all over again. I already know.

And curiously, they are still using the old way of writing the "speak" side stroke for words like "plan"  計. This old left side stroke is currently still in use in Taiwan, called Traditional Chinese. Taiwanese comic books are still using this style of Chinese. The modern China version is called Simplified Chinese & that side stroke has simplified to 计.

Update 1:58pm (what's the damn date... sigh....checks laptop corner...) 10 July Tues...

Looking at the verbs... I suddenly remembered the lessons I had years ago ... arghh...

I forgot. I suddenly remember I have no interest in learning it.  Suddenly, it seems overwhelming. How can I take the exam??? >.< People study for 2-4 years.... And I want to do it in 1 month?? A few days???

No, I got the alphabet. I still forget 1 or 2 words, but... I basically memorized already.... I just need to see words put together first... Now where to get that kind of exercise...?? Like sheets of exercises with answers.

It's like 2-4 words put together & I can read each one, but don't know their meaning. U know? So, it's a matter of building the vocabulary. Right?

Like English... we started out learning the alphabet & then use them to form single words "cat" "dog" & build the vocabulary from there. Then expand from there to verbs & sentences. We don't start out with alphabet then straight to verbs, right?

Why is it that those lessons start out first with teaching the verbs? In class, even after learning the verbs, I still can't read.

There's this big gap between learning their alphabet & actually being able to read.


2:38pm...

Crap. There's a lot to learn. I'm substituting English words to the particles & checking to see if it stays the same with the English idea. Seems stable so far.

"Ni" = by.  "Wa" = was/are. "O" = precedes a verb. The verb can be present tense or past tense or past participle.  Okayyy...

I think I just jumped from 0 to level 4.

Going down the examples in the exercise & explanations.... >.<   It'ssss soooo long-winded....