Learn to read Chinese...with ease by ShaoLan

Ted Summary Learn to read Chinese...with ease by ShaoLan

Chinese characters are part of a beautiful language, but to outsiders can be difficult to learn. A Chinese person would know 20,000 characters, but only 1,000 are used frequently. Knowing 200 will let a traveler get by, to work out road signs, menus, timetables. Shaolan goes through 8 basic characters and explains how to chain them together to form more complicated characters.

As a long time learner of Chinese for ~12 years who came away from it knowing very little, this was a much more interesting way of learning it. To see how the characters are formed makes it more memorable than rote learning.

A wonderful talk that makes me want to learn the language again (and that is quite an impressive feat).