Learning About Reversible Chinese Words

I wanted to write more about Chinese education. I did write about the constraints that hit Chinese education. I had problems with how too much memorization became the focus. With Chinese, there's also the world of reversible words which change in meaning. In English, we can compare that to the anagram where switching letters change the meaning. For example, evil and vile may be synonymous but live and evil aren't. In Chinese, we can have two characters getting swapped which may either change the meaning entirely or change to a related meaning. Remember that they may be related but they don't have the same meaning. I could remember how the Hokkien calls visitors lang ke and while we called the customer ke lang. Both are people but both have a different purpose.

I got into the LTL Mandarin School website and found reversible Chinese words. I won't tackle it all here because 164 words would mean I'll have to write an entire lecture. I think one of the biggest problems of Chinese education is the lack of practicality. I still think that memorizing question and answer (问题, Wèntí) and fill in the blanks (填空, Tiánkòng) would mean something if it was connected to a conversation than just a story. I'm afraid that Chinese language teachers have been constrained by a silly syllabus for too long. Maybe, they have had better use as conversational teachers to an adult Level 1 class than they have to Grade 1 students. I also think that it might be time to return the yes or no answers. It will be written as 是 (Shì) and 不 (Bù) to refer to yes or no.

These pictures taken from LTL Mandarin School could be a good guide to what could be done in teaching reverse words. It would be good to slowly learn the etymology of each word and how reversing the sequence changes the words. 

I think a good way to do a yes or no exam (是 (Shì) and 不 (Bù)) for reverse Chinese words is through questioning. For example, we can start with something with questions like:

1. 牛奶 (niúnǎi) means cow's milk and 奶牛 (nǎiniú) means milk cow. 
2. 蜂蜜 (fēngmì) means bee and 蜜蜂 (mìfēng) means honey.

The answers would be this in a Chinese conversational class:

1. 是 (Shì), because 牛奶 (niúnǎi) means cow's milk and 奶牛 (nǎiniú) means milk cow.
2. 不 (Bù), because 蜂蜜 (fēngmì) means honey and 蜜蜂 (mìfēng) means honey bee.

This would be a more meaningful yes or no exam. I think it's not enough to simply yes or no but why yes is yes and no is no. 

I think another exercise to check their understanding is through 造句 (Zàojù) which is referred to as cho ku in Amoy. It would mean that people have to use the reversible words in sentences and write them down in Chinese. For example, we can use the words 蜂蜜 (fēngmì) and 蜜蜂 (mìfēng). The sentence-making exercise would be like this:

• 我喜欢吃蜂蜜。(Wǒ xǐhuān chī fēngmì.)
• Translation: I love to eat honey.
• 蜜蜂去花上采花蜜。(Mìfēng qù huā shàng cǎi huāmì)
• Translation: The bees went to get nectar from the flower.

My idea is that every 造句 (Zàojù) exercise should make students write down the Chinese sentence complete with proper pinyin. They should also write down the English to avoid sentences like this:

• 人民正在造就人民 (Rénmín zhèngzài zàojiù rénmín)
• Translation: The people are making people.

By making students write down the pinyin and the Engish translation, Chinese language teachers will be able to find out their learning comprehension. Then I recommend Chinese language teachers to make them to memorize the sentences and translate them in oral recitation. That means grading will be based on learning rather than grading will be based simply on grading alone. A good grade is a reflection of good character if it's based on learning. Otherwise, if a good grade is based on simply memorization then cheating happens and a good grade isn't a good grade at all.