The Deconstruction Method to remember more Chinese vocabulary

I often get asked how to remember Chinese vocabulary and phrases more effectively.

It’s a common challenge because Mandarin is so different from English with its tones, pronunciation, and characters.

It's like learning to ride a bicycle for the first time when you've only ever walked.

But here's a powerful strategy: deconstructing words and phrases into their component parts.

Think about how we learned to ride a bike. We used training wheels to break down the complex task into manageable parts—pedaling, steering, and balancing. Training wheels took care of the balancing part so we could focus on pedaling. Eventually, we didn't need the training wheels anymore.

This same approach can make learning Chinese much easier. By breaking characters down into radicals, functional components, tones, and pinyin, you simplify the learning process.

For example, the Chinese idiom "精益求精" (jīng yì qiú jīng) can be broken down into three parts:

1. "精" (jīng) means "refined" or "excellent."

2. "益" (yì) means "to improve" or "to enhance."

3. "求" (qiú) means "to seek" or "to strive for."

So, if we put it all together, "精益求精" essentially means striving for excellence or seeking perfection in what is already excellent. It's about continuously refining and improving something that is already of high quality, never settling for mediocrity.

This Deconstruction Method is effective because you can focus on each only individually and slowly and then put it all together.

This also adds more context and associations in your memory (encoding).

The better you encode, the deeper and more associations you build in your memory, the easier it is to remember.

But this technique isn’t just for individual words or idioms—I use deconstruction and encoding to remember longer phrases too.

And there are many ways to encode (word associations, word maps, example sentences, real-world context, etc.)

We dive deep into how to Deconstruct and Encode in Step 4 of the Copy Paste Speak System, so you can remember more of what you learn and improve your conversational skills.

Ready to get started? Click the link below to enroll:

https://copypastespeaking.danyopang.com/

Bonus: Because I have some extra time this week, for the next 3 people to sign up, I’ll hop on a call with you to make sure you’re clear on how to implement this into your study plan.

精益求精，

Danyo

PS Vocabulary of the day:

精益求精 (jīng yì qiú jīng)

Translation: Strive for perfection; constantly improve oneself.

Example sentence: 他在工作中一直精益求精，从不满足于现状。 (Tā zài gōngzuò zhōng yīzhí jīng yì qiú jīng, cóng bù mǎnzú yú xiàn zhuàng.)。 He always strives for perfection in his work and never settles for the status quo.

This is an idiom I love using. Let me know if you’d like to see more “vocabulary of the day” like this.