Learn to read Chinese ... with ease! - ShaoLan

For foreigners, learning to speak Chinese is a hard task. But learning to read the beautiful, often complex characters of the Chinese written language may be less difficult. ShaoLan walks through a simple lesson in recognizing the ideas behind the characters and their meaning -- building from a few simple forms to more complex concepts. Call it Chineasy.

Talk by ShaoLan.

[Goabnb]

"Two women means argument."
Brilliant!

[DailyDaves]

I would pay to have a CD from her going over the first 800 characters in this manor. It's so easy to follow!

[balikakamble]

now i really want to learn chinese. thanks for the video.

[ynchu]

I agree that her way does not encompass all thousands of words in Chinese, I'd know, Chinese is my mother language. But it is a creative way for people to learn from. For the people complaining: tell me a language that is easy to learn, one that you didn't grow up with. You just have to stop complaining and try harder. Sorry, but she's not responsible for your inability to learn.

[tianyuxi]

Chinese is pictograph. This is the origin of Chinese characters. But most of the characters can not be explained like this now. Chinese has changed a lot in the long history.

[ChubbyMonkeys]

This is amazing. But, she uses both simplified and traditional words and some words have multiple meanings. I understand that she wants to get people interested in learning Chinese, but it's really not easy at all once you delve into it. Although, this might help you recognize meanings of SIMPLE words easier with pictures and association methods.

For example: 从 - meaning to follow also means "from." This is the simplified version of the word. The traditional way to write 从 is 從. With the traditional way, you can't really use her explanation of one person following another person as you can see and the other problem is not knowing when a word is simplified or traditional.

[gabriels]

I am starting to wonder how are the Chinese keyboards

[kylemagic]

its actually easier and quicker to read. Since you can easily assume what characteristic the word should be by merely looking at the particles that build the character. It's almost like the preflix and suffix in English. For example if I made up a word "Mobilephilia", although you don't know the exact meaning but you can break down into "mobile" and "-philia". Same goes with Chinese.钅is prefix for "metal" in chinese, came from the word 金(gold). so if you see 铝(aluminum) you're almost certain that its associated with metal.

[micaelaroyo]

I loved this! I always thought Chinese was daunting but now it seems so much easier! I even made an entire side wall with the Chinese symbols that I drew!

[PhenomenalWonOne]

I stopped half way through... when I realized suddenly I was fluent in Chinese. Then I decided to finish, at which point I received my Black Sash in Kung Fu. Thank you Ted-Ed! Or should I say... 谢谢

[elijahtalbot]

This is actually really cool. Chinese often seems really complicated however as I have seen elsewhere most symbols they are designed to look like what they mean giving logic to all of it.

[Kriegerdammerung]

She is as beautiful and elegant as Chinese

[Dmartinez]

So smart....mind is blown...I want to learn Chinese!

[deep]

I just watched this video for fun yesterday, but I've been recognising characters everywhere! This is such an effective method, especially for people like me with crappy memory!

[TomoyaKun]

I understand what she's getting at.  I know I'm Chinese and know the writing structure, but I never thought about it that much for it.  Thank you :3

[WickedWaiata]

wow ... thank you for this lesson ... and she is so pretty

[annafei]

Thanks for getting more people interested in learning Chinese.

[alvisng]

I'm chinese and I like chinese words but its super difficult to learn.

[arshnirmaan]

你好。I'm Arsh from Punjab, India. I'm learning Chinese from 1 year by using hello Chinese app and also doing some researchers on internet to learn Chinese. today i got your video on a website hacking Chinese. you are doing really great to make it easy to learn Chinese. it's really easy technique to learn and remember Chinese words. thanks for your efforts i really appreciate your work. 谢谢😊

[eraldmwhay]

I swear I will seriously start learning Chinese TODAY ... thank you Chinese lady for opening my mind to a new world :)