Recently, in the comments of a couple of blog posts (his and mine), I’ve disagreed with Ramses of Spanish Only (and, recently, Mandarin Only) fame about learning the readings of Chinese characters at the same time that you’re learning to recognize and write them. I think it’s a good idea and he vehemently disagrees, but in the end, it’s a pretty minor thing.
Really, almost all disagreements over so-called methods are minor, trivial things. That’s the problem with methods in the first place.
Methods don’t matter
Let’s say you were trying to tear down a wall. It’s a big wall, maybe a very big wall. I’m the helpful sort, so I decide to provide you with some tools. The tools run the gamut, from the rock hammer that Andy Dufresne used to burrow out of prison to one of those suitcase nukes the Russians lost track of after the Soviet Union fell. You can only pick one. Which do you choose?
If all you cared about was taking down that wall, the suitcase nuke would be the obvious choice. If collateral damage were a concern, you might pick something lighter but still destructive. If, perhaps, the destruction of this wall was just a hobby, you might pick something very light and slowly work away at it, tearing it down over many decades. The point is, there are a lot of ways to tear down a wall, and for the most part they are differentiated only by their relative speed and effectiveness.
Language learning (and learning just about anything else) is much the same way. There are some clearly inoperable ways to try to learn (osmosis, I’m looking at you), but so long as you’re being reasonable and putting in the effort, the exact way that you study doesn’t matter nearly as much as whether or not you study at all.
People tend to get hung up on whether or not they’re doing something right, to the point that they lose sight of their original reason for doing anything at all. Repeat with me: methods don’t matter, doing something — anything — matters. Don’t miss the forest for the trees.
Related posts:
- The tyranny of a single source of information
- The messy in-between
- Repetitio est mater studiorum
- Interview with Steve Kaufmann
- One language or many, take two
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Thank you for writing this.
I’m so sick and tired of all these flamewars about whose method is the right one, and whose is not.
Pick anything that works for you and stick with it, or if you don’t know what works for you best, try different methods and see for yourself. It’s as simple as that.
Absolutely. I think a lot of the problems stem from people being lazy — they don’t want to “try different methods and see for [themselves],” and so they pick one and defend it with all the fervor of the converted.
I should note that I don’t think Ramses is one of these people — he has tried things for himself, and found methods that work for him, but he’s an exception to the rule, I think.
Thanks for the comment!
I’ve tried MANY methods, so everything I put on my weblogs is tested by ME
.
Actually, I’m not bashing people that do want to learn the pronunciation at the same time. It’s only that I’ve read many papers on memory load and how we learn languages, and from my own experience I know that it’s difficult for many people to concentrate on several things at the same time (hey, I’m a guy after all, not a woman!
).
So if you can learn the pronunciation at the same time; karma to you!
Another motivation for not learning the pronunciation along with the characters is that I don’t know the correct pronunciation. So unless I have audio recorded by a native speaker, I don’t want to hear/say anything so just leave out the pronunciation all together (as Heisig suggests).
Like I said in my comment above, I don’t think you’re one of those people. You’ve clearly worked out what works for you.
I’ve definitely struggled at times with language learning and there’s no doubt that many of the methods I used as a student at a Mandarin training center sucked. I can thank sheer stubbornness for the progress I’ve made.
Disclosure: I am a fan of Heisig’s method, and I don’t think you should learn the pinyin while you’re learning the Hanzi. However, I also note that this is what suits me – and everyone has different goals & preferences.
In reality, Heisig is just one tool. I use podcasts, flashcards, reading, speaking, etc. So I don’t need Heisig to be everything (hanzi & meaning & pinyin & …) – I just need it to help me understand what I’m reading.
But as you say in your headline, it’s about doing something. Until you’re in a strong study habit, until you’re enjoying your studies, perhaps people shouldn’t be doing anything that they find less than pleasing. As for me – I love the speedy progress of Heisig, and having to learn the pinyin from there, with all the homonyms, would slow me down – and simply frustrate me.
(You can follow my progress using Heisig’s method, on my blog – where I’m tracking speed, recall, tricks, etc.)
I’ll be interested in hearing about how your shot at Heisig goes. It seems to me that most of the people advocating it haven’t actually finished it (even Khatzumoto, though he said he did something similar).
Regardless, though, like you say (and I said!), doing something matters more than what exactly you do. If Heisig floats your boat, then by all means!
John, I’m really enjoying Heisig – although I’m already at a basic conversational level, so the learnings have something to “stick” to.
I have every intention of finishing at least book 1 – I’m at about 650, and there are still really important hanzi up to about 1100, so I’ll get there. Whether I do book 2 will depend on where I’m at by they time it gets published!
In terms of hearing how my efforts go, here are my last two posts:
http://mandarinsegments.blogspot.com/2009/09/500-little-step-or-giant-leap.html
http://mandarinsegments.blogspot.com/2009/08/reading-day-18-500-characters.html
And if you’d like to bookmark all stories related to my experiment, I use this tag:
http://mandarinsegments.blogspot.com/search/label/RTH-experiment
Regards
Greg
I have to say that for me, Heisig seems a little bit of an odd one to start with. I have had fun chats with both Ramses and Greg, often playing devils advocate a little, trying to say that Heisig seems a vey silly approach.
I have to admit; I really like the method. I think once I have a grasp of the talking element and recognise some symbols going back and learning symbols en masse with a story may be beneficial.
I hate the idea that I may be able to read and understand the language perfectly but not be able to communicate in it at all. Also I feel (it would admittedly after doing the first 15 like this) is a different kind of enjoyment.
For now, I am happy learning through my methods. But you are right John, if you are learning, then you are activley doing the same thing as everyone else just in your own way.
I like the Heisig method and probably will go back to it to help more importantly with the writing aspect, but I want to be able to pronounce the words first so I can make some conversation, which to me shows better progress.