Mnemonics and Bopomofo

Language Learning Chinese
1

Is there anyway to combine bopomofo with mnemonics( aka memory tricks) to help remember tones and the meaning of words?

2

Are you asking about memorizing the bopomofo “alphabet” or are you trying to memorize the actual words contained in the entire Chinese language?

3

Asking about using memory tricks and Bopomofo to help memorize words ,not Zhuyin itself. Wondering if anybody has any advice on that. Is that clear?

4

Anything could be a mnemonic. Your imagination and memory are the only limits. I’ve never heard of such a system though. It seems to me there are so many characters to remember tones and meanings for that it would be self defeating. As was once said of the memory system of Matteo Ricci, “They are the true laws of memory, but one must have an amazing memory to make any use of them.”

5

Try directional gestures.

It really doesn’t matter what the gesture is; just use it consistently with that given word, and choose one that relates somehow in your mind to the meaning of the word, AND for which the movement of your hands and arms follow the contours of the tone(s) for the word.

Examples here. Yes, that’s Shitoushan.

These gestures really stick. I have no idea why, but they do.

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6

There are way too many words in the Chinese language for a universal trick for memorizing the meaning of each word, but I can tell you how children memorize the meaning of words in school here. There are no shortcuts.

They learn new words by first reading and memorizing a passage in which new words appear, and use the accompanying vocabulary list as a reference guide.

After memorizing the passage and being told what the new words mean, they will automatically recall in their head a specific sentence containing a new word when the teacher asks them what that word means. Through context, they can then figure out what that word means.

Let’s say the teacher asks me what “field” means. I’ll recall that word in a sentence from the passage that I’ve already memorized: “Tommy went to the field behind the school to play ball.” Well, what is located behind the school where you can play ball? A big wide flat grassy expanse. That must be what “field” means.

It’s not that different from how a schoolchild in the West learns new vocabulary in English, except I don’t believe they do as much memorization in the West. Instead of automatically recalling a new word that they’ve already memorized in a passage, a schoolchild in the West might ask the teacher to use that word in a sentence when being asked what it means. Memorizing the passage will allow you to avoid asking the teacher to use that word in a sentence.

If you don’t feel like memorizing entire passages, then at least just write out a sentence containing each new word that you learn, and then just memorize those sentences. Just make sure each sentence you write contains enough contextual clues to help you figure out via context what the new word means.

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7

Interesting idea, and I can see how the full-body (one might also say “multi-modal”) involvement could strengthen memory.

I have had some limited success remembering tones by associating the Chinese word with an image corresponding to the contours of the tone sequence, such as a rising then falling tone being visualized as a mountain peak.

8

Speaking of mountain peaks, written Chinese characters often come with a handy mnemonic for remembering meaning built into the system!

And pinyin has one for tones

I really don’t understand the value of bopomofo

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9

What built-in mnemonic system does pinyin have for remembering tones that bopomofo doesn’t have?

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You’re seeing meaning that I didn’t intend

Tonal system can be the same, but pinyin can still be a more effective learning tool

What is the value of bopomofo?

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Continuity, meaning not having to switch to a new system.

Bopomofo is the same thing as pinyin except not written in Latin characters. It came before Taiwanese students were learning any languages that used Latin characters.

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For everyone learning Chinese after knowing a Latin alphabet, this is bass ackwards

Ok, bopomofo is useful for Taiwanese children. Thanks, I have learned something today :slightly_smiling_face:

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I mean, that’s who it’s intended for. :man_shrugging:t2:

That’s not who bopomofo is intended for. Second-language Chinese learners around the world (including Taiwan) use Pinyin. My foreign friends who are studying Chinese at NSYSU use Pinyin there too.

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14

There you go @KB2, perhaps the best solution is to forget about that bopo mofo

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You can have it right beside each character, there are fonts with zhuyin fuhao you can use to read Chinese online for example (do it all the time). Not sure if there are Chinese fonts with Hanyu Pinyin attached. It’s also less debated cause people don’t argue which romanization system is better based on their own language.

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16

I’ve found that using the numbers of the tones can help in recalling the correct tones.

Example: äș‹ç”±, which has tones shi4 you2. In my flashcard training, I use the English translation of “reason”.

So I associate the word “reason” with the tone sequence 42. In Douglas Adams’s science fiction novel, the number 42 is supposed to be the ultimate answer to life, the universe, and everything – which you can also think of as the “reason” for everything.

So when I see “reason” I can associate that with 42, which then gives me the tones. This requires that you use your imagination to invent meaningful associations in a meaningless sequence of numbers (the tone sequence), and to associate those meanings with the word you are drilling on.

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Seriously. Put a unique gesture to each new word, and make sure the contours of your hand motions follow the contours of the tones for the syllables. I’ve had students remember the tones and not be able to recall the words. Never saw that before starting to use this method.

I also color character texts for beginners, so that they can see the color of the tones. I would make tones scratch and sniff if I could. But the most important thing is to hear the language so, so much. I can’t tell you what tones are which in Cantonese, but I can pronounce them correctly for the Cantonese I do know. That’s because I learned it by hearing a lot of Cantonese I could understand (I had a teacher who used comprehensible input). If the tone “sounds right” that’s more useful than being able to recall it and then apply it, though of course both are better than not knowing and not being able to use it right.

As to why bopomofo is useful – if you ask an adult Taiwanese person to write down the pronunciation for a word, they will use bopomofo, and most will get the pronunciation correct – even if their own accent doesn’t really pronounce it that way. It’s what, 40-some symbols? If you’re scared of learning 42 symbols Chinese maybe isn’t the language for you. :broken_heart:

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18

Let me do you one better
 How did you memorize the sequence of the alphabet (ABCs)? You can associate letters with everyday items (e.g. A is for apple, B is for ball, etc.), so maybe I dunno
 ㄅ is for ćŒ…ć­ïŒŸThere are also how it came to be formed on its Wiki, but more than half of them are its ancient origins or harder to remember.

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Today I learned that Zhuyin is apparently a “symbol of Taiwan identity”, so there is that.

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Here’s an article listing 9 reasons to learn bopomofo. I started trying to use bopomofo on my phone and it’s not as bad as I thought. I hope that with repeated usage of the on-screen keyboard, I’ll eventually learn to recognize the bopomofo symbols.

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