Memorisation of material is a big part of many people's approach to learning
Chinese. Some aspects of memorisation are essential: seeking out ways to enforce
and retain what you're learning in the long term is important. If you don't do
that, learning Chinese will be like trying to hold a growing quantity of sand in
your hands. In other ways, though, memorisation can be a bad approach.
This article is about the ways in which memorisation is not helpful for learning
Chinese, and is inspired by
Rule #2
from the Twenty Rules for Formulating Knowledge.
Memorisation alone
Used alone, memorisation will let you build up a large but loosely-connected
knowledge of Chinese. You'd probably be very good at vocabulary quizzes, writing
Chinese characters in isolation and possibly performing rigid dialogues as well.
But that would be about it. If all you do is memorisation, you'll struggle to
develop any of the following:
- Natural fluency
- The all-important 语感
- Ability to engage in real conversations
- Pronunciation
- Comprehensive reading ability
- Ability to produce original text in written Chinese
…and many other important aspects of knowing Chinese. You may notice that the
above are things that many Chinese students of English struggle with. This is
because education methods in China often do focus on memorisation over other
aspects of the learning process.
Whilst memorisation alone will limit your Chinese learning potential, it is an
essential part of a wider approach. This is like eating a balanced diet; you
need various macronutrients to live, but if you exclusively eat one group,
you're not going feel too great.
One-to-one conversion
Memorisation is often paired with a one-to-one conversion approach between a
student's native language and the target language. For example, many people
learn vocabulary using a list of words with Chinese on one side and an English
translation on the other. This is
not a great approach ,
even when you are specifically aiming to memorise things.
Human languages do not map one-to-one with each other, and the sooner your
learning methods reflect that, the better. Realistically you will need some
direct conversions in the early stages to get started, but the bigger goal is to
build a working knowledge of Chinese that is independent from your native
language.
Memorisation can help you do that by letting you retain information long term
and by prompting you to actively use your knowledge. When memorisation plays a
part in this kind of learning model, it is very helpful. But it is a means to an
end, which is to gain natural fluency in Chinese over time.
Learn before you memorise
The above leads to this conclusion: you should learn before you memorise. That
means that memorisation comes in after a primary learning task to ensure that
you can keep the benefit of the learning in the long term.
For example, reading through a Chinese text and aiming to understand it can then
be capitalised on by adding SRS flashcards that cover what you've learnt. That
way, the flashcards relate to meaningful, organic knowledge that you have and
will help you to reinforce that in the long term. If you'd gone straight to the
flashcards without that initial learning, you'd lack the benefit of the
contextual knowledge.
As your knowledge of Chinese grows, you'll have more and more contextual
knowledge that can be improved via memorisation. The context and wider learning
are what makes memorisation an effective tool, not the other way round.
Link:
Learn before you memorise