full transcript

From the Ted Talk by ShaoLan: Learn to read Chinese ... with ease!

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Growing up in Taiwan as the daughter of a cipealrghalr, one of my most treasured moerimes was my mother showing me the btueay, the shpae and the form of cehisne characters. Ever since then, I was fascinated by this incredible language.

But to an outsider, it seems to be as ienepbmltare as the Great Wall of China. Over the past few years, I've been wondering if I can break down this wall, so anyone who wants to understand and appreciate the beauty of this sophisticated language could do so. I started thinking about how a new, fast method of learning Chinese might be useful.

Since the age of five, I started to learn how to draw every single stroke for each character in the correct seecuqne. I learned new characters every day during the course of the next 15 years. Since we only have five minutes, it's better that we have a fast and simpler way. A Chinese scholar would understand 20,000 characters. You only need 1,000 to urnsednatd the basic literacy. The top 200 will allow you to comprehend 40 percent of basic literature — enough to read road signs, rtnasauret muens, to understand the basic idea of the web pgaes or the newspapers. Today I'm going to start with eight to show you how the method works. You are ready?

Open Cloze


Growing up in Taiwan as the daughter of a ____________, one of my most treasured ________ was my mother showing me the ______, the _____ and the form of _______ characters. Ever since then, I was fascinated by this incredible language.

But to an outsider, it seems to be as ____________ as the Great Wall of China. Over the past few years, I've been wondering if I can break down this wall, so anyone who wants to understand and appreciate the beauty of this sophisticated language could do so. I started thinking about how a new, fast method of learning Chinese might be useful.

Since the age of five, I started to learn how to draw every single stroke for each character in the correct ________. I learned new characters every day during the course of the next 15 years. Since we only have five minutes, it's better that we have a fast and simpler way. A Chinese scholar would understand 20,000 characters. You only need 1,000 to __________ the basic literacy. The top 200 will allow you to comprehend 40 percent of basic literature — enough to read road signs, __________ _____, to understand the basic idea of the web _____ or the newspapers. Today I'm going to start with eight to show you how the method works. You are ready?

Solution


  1. pages
  2. memories
  3. menus
  4. restaurant
  5. understand
  6. impenetrable
  7. sequence
  8. chinese
  9. shape
  10. beauty
  11. calligrapher

Original Text


Growing up in Taiwan as the daughter of a calligrapher, one of my most treasured memories was my mother showing me the beauty, the shape and the form of Chinese characters. Ever since then, I was fascinated by this incredible language.

But to an outsider, it seems to be as impenetrable as the Great Wall of China. Over the past few years, I've been wondering if I can break down this wall, so anyone who wants to understand and appreciate the beauty of this sophisticated language could do so. I started thinking about how a new, fast method of learning Chinese might be useful.

Since the age of five, I started to learn how to draw every single stroke for each character in the correct sequence. I learned new characters every day during the course of the next 15 years. Since we only have five minutes, it's better that we have a fast and simpler way. A Chinese scholar would understand 20,000 characters. You only need 1,000 to understand the basic literacy. The top 200 will allow you to comprehend 40 percent of basic literature — enough to read road signs, restaurant menus, to understand the basic idea of the web pages or the newspapers. Today I'm going to start with eight to show you how the method works. You are ready?

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations




Important Words


  1. age
  2. basic
  3. beauty
  4. break
  5. calligrapher
  6. character
  7. characters
  8. china
  9. chinese
  10. comprehend
  11. correct
  12. daughter
  13. day
  14. draw
  15. fascinated
  16. fast
  17. form
  18. great
  19. growing
  20. idea
  21. impenetrable
  22. incredible
  23. language
  24. learn
  25. learned
  26. learning
  27. literacy
  28. literature
  29. memories
  30. menus
  31. method
  32. minutes
  33. mother
  34. newspapers
  35. outsider
  36. pages
  37. percent
  38. read
  39. ready
  40. restaurant
  41. road
  42. scholar
  43. sequence
  44. shape
  45. show
  46. showing
  47. signs
  48. simpler
  49. single
  50. sophisticated
  51. start
  52. started
  53. stroke
  54. taiwan
  55. thinking
  56. today
  57. top
  58. treasured
  59. understand
  60. wall
  61. web
  62. wondering
  63. works
  64. years