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.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes (or less). Look for talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design -- plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more.

[janetgu]

The duolingo owl wants to know this woman’s location

[vietnammg]

“A talking tree is pretty idiotic”
American soldiers: *sweat nervously

[yjeqeei]

As a China born Chinese, we started learning handwriting just like this, it's a basic method. And these 8 characters are the easiest characters as well as sth like roots or etyma. Actually, there're more than 8 easy characters which used as roots, they're totally helpful. Most of complex Chinese characters are based on them.
Just like English roots. For example, “aqua-” means something about water, and then, aquatic, aquaculture, aqualung, Aquarius, etc. apper. At the same time, Chinese character "氵", a root comes from "water" and extends "liquid". Then magically, 河 means river, 海 means sea, 油 means oil, 流 means flow, 波 means small wave, 浪 means big wave, 混 means mix, etc. I just show a small part of all characters based on "氵". Guess what, for these characters showed above, not only the part of "氵" is root, the other part on the right also have strong regularity.
What's more, there're enough root characters to help you remember Chinese words. Not too much, so that it's not very difficult to remember. And not too less, make sure they are able to cover most of Chinese characters.
Chinese is literally regular. The day you discover the regularity, you know Chinese well.
I don't know if i describe clearly, cause i really don't good at English. Anyway, hope that what i said would help you.
If you happen to understand what I mean, and you happen to be interested, please revise what i said according to the language habits of the native speakers. I'll appreciate. SVP.

[leehaber]

As someone who has spent over a year learning Mandarin, I wish most characters were this straightforward.

[bubblegum]

She: "Chinese is very easy"
Me, an intellectual: "Japanese volcano exit mouth"

[Jlin]

As a Chinese person, I can tell you the easiness stops there....

[huienchen]

Welcome to the comment section where everyone is either Chinese or has learnt Chinese

[jp]

Wow this was actually really easy. I was able to remember all of these.

Oh I forgot, I already know Chinese.

[gabenini]

“A talking tree is pretty idiotic”

Groot: “ I’m Groot!!! 😡”

[vincentzhou]

The method is cool until you start to see characters such as 魑魅魍魉

[pierrekovacik]

What I love about Chinese characters is that they were created without any outside influence. They look very original and they distinguish from other writing systems.

[ChelseaBubbly]

I like her style. Full of confidence in her:)

[MintyCanRead]

Oh no, I shouldn't have watched this. Now I'm taking this as a personal challenge. Goodbye free time :(

[gzigdls]

Let's go to improve your language skills.
Duolingo: The boy eats an apple.

[Britta_Nong]

As a Chinese I feel like getting to know the characters is the biggest struggle of learning this language, but as soon as you learn about 2000 of them you're all set, no need to memorize new vocabulary anymore, everything will be self explanatory to you. And unlike western languages, our grammar is the easiest I know, there's no conjugation, no tenses, no feminine or masculine words, talk anyway you want we'll understand you no matter what, this is what I love most about our language🤣

[luciusy.m.]

As a Chinese, this talk is an eye-opener reminding me of something I've never noticed before about my language.

[CheeseDiaryChina]

As a native Chinese speaker, I type Chinese in my phone to check how to write some characters correctly when I can’t remember it.

Edit: Thank you for all the likes and taking interest in learning Chinese. I tried to answer all your questions, however I don't get notifications on all replies and it's a bit difficult to give a full answer to some of the questions.
I upload videos on my channel about learning Chinese and its culture. So do go check out to see if there's any videos that would answer your questions :) Or write comments there and maybe your questions will be answered in my next video ;)

[AD-tgvu]

I am a Japanese, and my family name is 出口(exit). I didn't know that it is derived from "to exile the enemies beyond mountains"(ﾟ∀ﾟ)

[NetiNeti]

I have probably watched over 1000 TED talks in the past 10 years. But this one will remain one of my favorites.

Five years after this, I moved to Vancouver where I learnt Chinese, and was able to practice it with natives (biggest community outside China).

Another 5 years later, I am in China teaching English to students.

Thank you, Shao Lan, you changed my life!

[CycloneFox]

While woman (女) is a little abstract, man (男) is actually pretty easy to remember: You have a rice field (田 <- looks like a field) and the character for strength (力 <- abstract, but it kinda resembles a strong arm). Together, the man (男) needs strength to work on the field.