The 'RPAI' Method for
Learning Chinese Words
You might know something about Chinese characters from last article, now we move on to Chinese words. I also summarized four aspects to pay more attention. I called it 'RPAI'.
1.Root of a word
In Chinese, some frequently used characters are used as the root of a word. I lead my students to summarize the root of words and learn the new words with same root. Some roots, after they combine together to form a word, keep their original meaning, so they are rather easy to memorize. Other roots, after combining with others to constitute a word, have their original meaning altered.
Let's take a look at this sentence "Qng bng w kichmn." Some students read it with pause like " | Qng bng w ki ch mn." which is translated to 'Drive the car for me please door'. Then, they may realize it made no sense, or some students asked me whether "mn" is a person whose family name is "mn", so the translation can be 'Drive the car for me please, Mr. Men.' I appreciated their imaginative things, but this is not the right meaning of this sentence.
There is a word "kich" meaning 'to drive car', therefore many students assume "ki" and "ch" as a word. However, generally, we find out the root of a noun first. In this case, "mn" is the root for "chmn", so "chmn" should be regarded as an object and "ki" this verb is to match "chmn".
Classification of root for words help students find enable them to connect these words, which improved the speed of memorization and enabled the students to break down the sentences correctly.
2. Part of Speech
Part of speech is important when you memorize a word. You may know the part of speech of some words in English from the suffix. Chinese is not that easy. Then how to know the part of speech of each word in Chinese? You may get a clue from the radical as we mentioned before "d" and "ln" or from the root of a word such as "wde", "nde" and "bngde". I will not go much into details today. When you read, part of speech help you to understand the meaning of a word and also enable you to know the connection of two words.
We take the conjunction "h" as an example. Let's see this structure 'AhB'. Generally, the conjunction connects two objects or phraes with similar type. When you read the sentence "Wb h L Jin sh pngyou.", you might not know "L Jin" as a name of a person but you can judge as a person from the structure "Wb - my dad".
3.Abbreviation
Abbreviation occurs in daily life. For instance, "BBijng chzchde chpi dush jngB kitude. (The plate number of cabs in Beijing starts with "B".). You may wonder what is "jngB". Actually, "jng" is the abbreviation of "Bijng". If you know more about these kinds of abbreviation, you can better understand sentences. Now, it's your turn to guess what knids of vehicles hold "jngA" and what for "jngB".
4.Idioms
Idioms are quite hard for students when reading. I would like to share one example about idioms with you. "Lowngta bxhuan q rdude dfang.(Mr.Wang doesn't like to go to the place where is too crowded.)". "wng" is a family name for person. "lo" is added in front of "wng" to call him respectfully.
"lowng" this person is not always older than the other people but probably experienced. Besides, it is just a nicer way to call somebody. In this case, you need to pay more attention to that.
Summary
'FRC' & 'RPAI'
Since you master 'FRC' and 'RPAI' mentioned above, you can try to practise reading sentences. I trained our teachers to break the sentence for students in the beginning. If you are a self-learner, you should also break the sentence while you read. After you get used to it, it becomes a habit then you can read Chinese easily.
Meanwhile, if you want to further understand the sentence, you should find out the words which indicate grammar or sentence structure which will be shown in the future.
The End
Scan the QR Code to Get
a Free Trial Lesson
Supervisor: Crystal Huang
Don't forget to share this article with friends by pressing the top right corner.
What are some of your favorite Mandarin phrases and buzzwords! Comment below!
Editor's Pick
Comments
Post a Comment