Comments on: How to use mnemonics to learn Mandarin tones and pronunciation

By: Remembering is a skill you can learn | Hacking Chinese

Remembering is a skill you can learn | Hacking Chinese — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 01:04:20 +0000

[…] When learning Chinese, tones and pronunciation are good examples of abstract things that are hard to visualise. I discussed how to use pegs to solve this problem here: How to use mnemonics to learn Mandarin tones and pronunciation. […]

By: 7 kinds of tone problems and what to do about them | Hacking Chinese

7 kinds of tone problems and what to do about them | Hacking Chinese — Wed, 12 Mar 2025 19:12:37 +0000

[…] If you struggle to remember tones and pronunciation, I’ve written about a clever method to memorise them here: How to use mnemonics to learn Mandarin tones and pronunciation. […]

By: Don't use mnemonics for everything | Hacking Chinese

Don't use mnemonics for everything | Hacking Chinese — Mon, 23 Dec 2024 13:17:22 +0000

[…] you keep forgetting the tone, create a mnemonic for the tone. If you keep forgetting certain components, create a mnemonic to make them stick. If you forget the […]

By: The Hacking Chinese guide to Mandarin tones | Hacking Chinese | Hacking Chinese

Sun, 21 Jan 2024 20:11:29 +0000

[…] Read more about how to do this in practice here: Extending mnemonics: Tones and pronunciation. […]

By: Are mnemonics too slow for Chinese learners? | Hacking Chinese | Hacking Chinese

Thu, 06 Jul 2023 06:58:08 +0000

[…] Extending mnemonics: Tones and pronunciation […]

By: Ailee

Ailee — Mon, 05 Jul 2021 03:48:43 +0000

I’ve basically been using a personal adaptation of the Mandarin Blueprint “Hanzi Movie Method”. They’ve basically rearranged the initials and finals in such a way that there are only 13 finals, and 50-something initials (yi- is considered an initial for instance, and if you had a character that was just ‘yi’ you’d use the ‘yi-’ initial + a “Null” final. And if you had a word like 用 ‘yong’ you’d use the ‘yi’ initial, knocking off the ‘i’ and using the -ong final.)
They did this because they use finals as locations (“sets”), and initials as people/characters(“actors”). And most people know way more people than they do locations. So rearranging the initials and finals make it easier.
The tones are different ‘rooms’ in the sets (1st tone is outside the entrance, 2nd tone is kitchen or inside the entrance, etc.)
And the components are “props” aka objects. (or ppl or animals)
And basically you imagine scenes including all of these elements.
It sounds like a lot, but it just takes a bit to get started and then it makes things much easier. Because if you happen to forget one element of a character, it’s very easy to remember it again. Rather than the whole thing falling apart, it’s just like one element falls off, but the rest of the mnemonic structure helps you retrieve it fairly easily on your own, w/o having to look things up again.
Of course you also don’t need to stick to it so strictly all the time, but overall it’s a good system.

One of the ways I deviate from their method though is that they actually categorize the initials, so some of them you choose specifically a female “actors”, some specifically male, some specifically real people, and some fictional. They have a reason for this, but I don’t make this distinction. I don’t consider it too important, and it’s much easier to come up with whatever fits.

By: Olle Linge

Olle Linge — Fri, 29 May 2020 08:35:54 +0000

In reply to Gordon. Sounds interesting! Would you mind giving us an example or show how you go about this? It might be helpful for others, too. I'm not dyslexic, but I also mix up the order of words in Chinese sometimes (especially rarer words where both characters mean sort of the same thing).

By: Gordon

Gordon — Thu, 28 May 2020 21:05:12 +0000

I am mildly dyslexic and I often reverse the order of a word (詞). I use mnemonics to remember which character is first and which is second. I developed a list of mnemonics for each of the 400-odd sounds in Mandarin. It takes a bit of time when I learn a new word, but it’s worth it.

By: Muhammad

Muhammad — Wed, 17 Oct 2018 09:03:48 +0000

In reply to Ben Winters. do you have them in anki? if yes could you send me ?

By: Olle Linge

Olle Linge — Fri, 10 Aug 2018 06:11:29 +0000

In reply to Alexander. I assume you mean what I do to remember the tones? Learning here is a bit ambiguous because it could refer to both learning to pronounce tones and combinations of tones, as well as remembering which tone is which. I've just seldom had a problem with that, not sure why. Lots of listening probably helps too, so you start feeling what's right and what isn't. I did use mnemonics though, but only when I really needed to.