Story time: One of the languages I speak is Mandarin.
Mandarin does not exactly have an alphabet. Instead, it has thousands of individual characters. Because of this, there isn’t a “Chinese keyboard” for computers or smartphones. There wouldn’t be enough space for thousands of characters.
So how the heck do you type Chinese characters?
There are a number of different ways, with the most common one for Mandarin learners being pinyin. You simply sound out a character using an ABC alphabet and type it on your keyboard.
For example, look at this character: 我. To type it, I type the letters “wo” on my keyboard because 我 sounds sort of like “wo.” After doing that, I’m provided with a number of characters to choose from that have the “wo” sound in them.
I know that might be a little confusing for those of you that don’t speak Mandarin, so I’ve included a screenshot below. To type the character “我” I would select option 1 on my keyboard.
Here’s where things get interesting: anyone who lives on the island of Taiwan does NOT use pinyin.
They use zhuyin instead. Here’s what zhuyin looks like.
Confusing and intimidating, right? At least I thought so when I first saw it.
One day I was bored and challenged myself to learn the entire zhuyin alphabet as quickly as possible.
Each of the symbols above has a single sound. I memorized the entire alphabet by following a three-step process that took me a total of about 10 hours.
Note: I should mention that I already speak Mandarin and am familiar with the sounds of the language. Memorizing the zhuyin alphabet was a matter of associating sounds I already know to individual letters. The process I outline below would still have worked if I were a beginner, but it would have taken longer.
Furthermore, for full transparency’s sake, I had tried once before for about 1-2 hours to learn this alphabet, but forgot everything by the time I tried again.
Step 1: Associate a mental hook with each letter. The more memorable, the better. (1.5 hours)
A memory hook is a trick that helps you remember something.
When you choose your memory hooks, all that matters is that they help you to remember - it doesn’t matter if they don’t make sense to other people.
See below for a few examples of memory hooks I used for zhuyin. Remember: some of the memory hooks I used will seem complicated and convoluted to you, but make perfect sense to me.
Zhuyin letter: ㄩ
Pronunciation: Same as the letter “U” in French.
Memory hook: This zhuyin letter looks quite similar to “U” in French.
Zhuyin letter: ㄈ
Pronunciation: Same as the letter “F” in English.
Memory hook: ㄈ is only one line from actually looking like an English “F”
Zhuyin letter:ㄒ
Pronunciation: Sort of like the letter “S” or “SH” in English. The equivalent in pinyin (a more widely used system to type characters) is the letter X.
Memory hook: When I was a kid I invented a word which was XT, pronounced extee. Therefore, since the zhuyin ㄒ looks like an English T and is pronounced the same as the pinyin X, it reminds me of the word extee (XT) I invented as a kid.
Zhuyin letter: ㄚ
Pronunciation: Sort of like “ah” in English.
Memory hook: The zhuyin ㄚ looks like an English “Y.” When I put an “a” after the letter “Y” I get the word ya. The second letter of ya is similar to the pronunciation of the zhuyin ㄚ
Essentially, you want to create a story with each letter in a new alphabet. If you’ve never tried this, it will be a tiring mental workout, but you will master the skill over time.
PS - If you are inexperienced with coming up with a personalized memory hook system, listen up. I’ll spend 1-hour with you (for free) on Zoom to start creating one for your target language’s alphabet. It will be a personalized short-cut to learning a new alphabet. Best of all, this memory hook technique can also be used to remember new vocabulary faster as well.
In other words, 1 hour, for free, with me will help you memorize a new alphabet and new words faster.
I looked at my calendar and will have space to do this with 15 people in October. First come, first serve.
Fill out the form at the bottom of this page if you’re interested. It would be slow-going for people that are new to this skill to go it alone, which is why I’m offering to help.
Step 2: Use flashcards (1.5 hours)
I found a flashcard deck online with the zhuyin alphabet. I went through the deck, card by card, saying the sound of each letter by memory. If I forgot the sound, I looked it up. I did this over and over for about 1.5 hours. The flashcard deck in particular that I used was already made by someone else on Quizlet.
Step 3: Type short words on the notes app on my phone (7 hours)
Sometimes I’d type random words on my keyboard and other times I would text my Mandarin-speaking friends using the zhuyin keyboard. It would take me a long time to type a single sentence, but clearly it was worth it: I got a hang of the alphabet in only 10 hours or so after all.
I also tried to read short words written in zhuyin. This helped too.
Let’s summarize the three steps above.
First: Associate each letter in a new alphabet with a memory hook. As a reminder, I will have time in October to spend 1 hour with 15 people to start creating a personalized memory hook system. I will do this for free. Fill out the contact form on this page if you’re interested. First come, first serve.
Second: Drill flashcards. Do them over and over.
Third: Type or write words with the new alphabet. Reading short words will also help.
Thanks for reading this! If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact me.