I've been in Suzhou almost 4 years now, and I speak pretty decent Chinese. Far from fluent, but I can be understood and say about anything I want. It occurs to me that most of us foreigners CANNOT speak Chinese very well, not because we are stupid, just because we haven't figured out HOW to learn it. Well I have figured out a way for me to learn it. I learn new words every day, yes literally every day.
I'm letting the secret out of the box, here is how I learn. Follow this thread if you want my DAILY lesson learned. I have been running/walking a lot in Suzhou and finally learned the word for "jogging/running".
The word for the exercise "running" is "跑步" or "Pǎobù" in Pinyin. I will never, ever forget it. Why? Because I use a silly Mnemonic Device for every single word or phrase. Here is PaoBu:
When I jog I feel like Batman punched me in the face. It makes a "POW!" sound, because you know, BATMAN. It is third tone since he uses an uppercut to hit me and his arm goes down and then up, just like 3rd tone. And... when Batman punches you it really scares you, which is why you say "Boo!" (4th tone scary!).
Every single solitary word or phrase I learn is in this manner, I have a stupid, silly story for each and every thing I learn, to remember it. Without that, I'm lost. But with it, well I frequently dazzle my friends with the complex words and sounds that I can memorize. Want more? I have literally thousands of these and I am always making more up.
I try to at least look at the characters too and see if they fit my silly story, in the case of PaoBu, the "Pao" character has the same radical as "road", the one of the silly guy sitting at a laptop desk, only he looks like he is hitting a wall or something in: "跑", so I think of the "POW" sound and know it has to do with Batman and my urge to run. I have nothing on "Boo!" other than the character itself looks pretty scary!
I'm letting the secret out of the box, here is how I learn. Follow this thread if you want my DAILY lesson learned. I have been running/walking a lot in Suzhou and finally learned the word for "jogging/running".
The word for the exercise "running" is "跑步" or "Pǎobù" in Pinyin. I will never, ever forget it. Why? Because I use a silly Mnemonic Device for every single word or phrase. Here is PaoBu:
When I jog I feel like Batman punched me in the face. It makes a "POW!" sound, because you know, BATMAN. It is third tone since he uses an uppercut to hit me and his arm goes down and then up, just like 3rd tone. And... when Batman punches you it really scares you, which is why you say "Boo!" (4th tone scary!).
Every single solitary word or phrase I learn is in this manner, I have a stupid, silly story for each and every thing I learn, to remember it. Without that, I'm lost. But with it, well I frequently dazzle my friends with the complex words and sounds that I can memorize. Want more? I have literally thousands of these and I am always making more up.
I try to at least look at the characters too and see if they fit my silly story, in the case of PaoBu, the "Pao" character has the same radical as "road", the one of the silly guy sitting at a laptop desk, only he looks like he is hitting a wall or something in: "跑", so I think of the "POW" sound and know it has to do with Batman and my urge to run. I have nothing on "Boo!" other than the character itself looks pretty scary!