Learn Chinese

移民儿童学中文

与大多数华裔移民一样，我希望自己的小孩学会中文。不同的是，我重听说，轻读写。我任然坚持认为他们成年后再学读和写不会比幼年时更困难，这是因为与拼音文字不同，汉语文字与发音基本没有联系。越年轻越容易学汉语的规律只适用于听说，不适用于读写。谁叫五千年前的祖先选了象形字，弄得中文这么难学，记了读音还要记字形？

比较读与写，我重读轻写。在当今计算机信息化时代，我这样做也有道理。虽然手写输入永远有效,但越来越多的输入是靠计算机。十有八九移民儿童会用拼音输入。因此他们只需在打入拼音后列出的中文字中认出所需的那个字即可。

一年前的一天（2004年8月），8岁的晶晶和4岁的莉莉在玩写中文。我问晶晶是否愿意学中文，她说愿意。从那一天起，我每天晚上用10到15分钟的时间教中文，平均10天大概有1天中断，理由如生病，回国，等，但不会是因为放假，周末，很少因为太累或太忙。我只教认字（阅读），没有写。不过有时也叫她用手比划，只是为加强认字的记忆,笔顺不管。前一两个星期教拼音，自那以后就用小学语文课本了。她的学习进度不快不慢，大概平均一天两个字或不到。因为我不停得给她复习，她学过的字可能50%能脱离语境记住，75%能在语境里记住。现在已经一年了，估计她已学了六七百字。《人民日报》海外版常有儿童版，她能读最简单的短文。

怎样记字最快？	How to memorize characters the fastest way?
由于每天不到15分钟，在短时间里记住尽可能多的字变得很重要。二十年前我有记忆英语单词的嗜好。我发现把单词写成一列，解释写到第二列，用手或一片纸挡住解释，这办法让我记得最快。这个办法现在稍加变化用到晶晶的学习中；中文字写在左边，拼音写在中间，英语解释写在右边，有时配上组词。她复习时用手或纸片挡住中间和右边，看着左边的字读出发音并说出意思，我考她也是这样。
几年前我看过一个吉利斯纪录的电视节目。世界上记忆力最好的人能把45个不同的东西按几分钟前呈现给他看的顺序背出来。节目主持人问他有什么诀窍,他说，关键是要想出或编造出与那样东西有关的情景；如果我需要记住闹钟然后毛巾，我就想象早晨闹钟把我闹醒了，我起来用毛巾洗脸。	There was a Guinness World Record show a few years ago, where "the person with the best memory in the world" can name the 45 different items in the order they had been shown to him earlier. The host for the show asked him for any trick he used. He said the key is to come up with or conjure up a scene related to the items; if I need to remember an alarm clock then a towel, I imagine the clock wakes me up and I get up to wash with the towel.
这个诀窍被我用到了几乎每一个中文字的学习中。不要以为来源于象形字甲骨文的中文还可以借助字形来帮助记忆。不错，很少数的字还可以，例如“雨”，“火”，“田”，等。但绝大多数的字已经不象形了。我可是曾经专门学过小篆，背过《新华字典》，偶尔翻一翻《说文解字》的那种"古董"。我还是不得不承认用那位“世界上记忆力最好的人”的办法仍然比找到一个字的原本含义更能帮助晶晶。通常是我跟她一起找新字的clue或hint。这里举几个例，请别笑话。	I've used this trick in learning almost all Chinese characters. It's silly to assume the characters, evolved from pictographs, hieroglyphs and Oracle bones, can be memorized based on their shapes and forms. Sure, very few can, such as 雨 (rain)，火 (fire)，田 (field). But by far the most no longer preserve the shapes and forms. I'm a "learned" man, having studied the Seal characters used two millennia ago, memorized the Xinhua Dictionary and occarionally consulted Shuowen Jiezi. But I have to admit that the method used by "the person with the best memory in the world" is superior to finding the etymology of a character in helping my daughter study. We normally look for a clue or hint together, as follows for example. No laughing please.
东：那两点像是滴下来的水，它发出什么声音？很：英语的hen是只鸡，你看这个字左边像不像羽毛，右边下面像不像鸡的腿和爪子？所以你就记住hen是中文的很。 ...	东： The two dots are like dripping water. What sound does dripping make? 很： "hen" in English is a hen. Isn't the left side like her feathers and lower right like her leg and paws? So you remember "hen" is 很 in Chinese. ...
从来没有人编一本中文联想记忆字典把像上面这些荒诞的联想汇集起来。^注毫无疑问,这些荒诞的联想因人而异,而且有时绞尽脑汁也想不出一个好主意,加之这些联想在字已经牢牢记住后就没有用了。但你仔细想一想，这本荒诞的字典有很高的应用价值,它可能是让你快速记汉字的唯一方法。	Never has anyone gathered these imaginations or association of ideas and compiled an imaginative memory dictionary of the Chinese characters.^note Undoubtedly, these absurd imaginations are unique to each person, and sometimes no imagination is good enough for a specific character, and further, these imaginations become useless as soon as the said character is firmly committed into memory. But, if you think about it, this absurd dictionary is of high practical value. It may be the only way to help you memorize Chinese characters in a short time.

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^{注 note}
[2012-05 Update]
Alison Matthews, Laurence Matthews Tuttle Learning Chinese Characters published in 2007 is exactly what I was dreaming of.

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