Chinese Total Package – Outlier Linguistics

The Chinese Character Masterclass

A 90-day online video course with supplemental material to teach you how to learn Chinese characters.

We've been teaching a course about how to learn Chinese characters at ICLP—one of the world's most prestigious Chinese language schools—for years. Now it's available to the public for the first time as an online course!

You'll get lifetime access to over a dozen video lessons about Chinese characters (simplified and traditional) and how to learn them, plus you'll learn:

  • 300 characters, specially curated to teach you how characters actually work
  • all about functional components in characters
  • how to learn new characters more efficiently
  • how to recall characters you've learned more reliably
  • tips for learning vocabulary

The Outlier Dictionary of Chinese Characters

      • The Expert Edition
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      • Our dictionary is an add-on for the free Pleco dictionary app, which covers both Simplified and Traditional characters.
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      • It contains "Essentials" Entries for 2000+ characters (plus regular updates until we reach 4000). Essentials Entries contain:
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      • ‣ A form explanation: why does this character look the way it does?
      • ‣ A component analysis: what are the character's functional components and how do they function?
      • ‣ Meaning tree for every character: how are all the meanings related to each other?
      • ‣ Stroke order for both PRC and ROC standards
      • ‣ Ancient forms for all semantic components 
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      • The Expert Edition also contains "Expert" Entries for about 150 characters (plus regular updates until we reach 4000).
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        • Expert Entries contain extensive information about the character's origin, evolution, and other interesting historical information.
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        • In short, it contains everything you need to know to master the characters you're trying to learn!
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The Mandarin Pronunciation & Accent Masterclass

  1. In this online video course, you'll learn how to improve your Chinese pronunciation, how to develop a more native-like accent, and by the end of the course you will have mastered the art of acquiring a good accent—in any language!

    You'll get access to 1-2 videos per lesson (15 lessons in all), plus supporting PDF and audio materials.

    You'll get lifetime access to all 15 lessons about Chinese pronunciation and how to improve your accent. You'll also get:

    • methods that actors use to learn new accents and dialects
    • methods that conference interpreters use to improve their accent, diction, and fluency
    • drills for improving your tones—both pronunciation and hearing!
    • tips for learning to understand different accents with less difficulty
    • tips for acquiring a more native-like feel for grammar and sentence pattern

Chinese Character Semantic Components Poster PDFs

  1. Each Semantic Components poster PDF contains:

    • ◆ 50 common semantic components, beautifully handwritten by calligrapher Harvey Dam
    • ◆ explanations of their form and meaning(s)
    • ◆ pronunciation in Hanyu Pinyin (and Zhuyin Fuhao for the traditional poster)
    • ◆ stroke order
    • ◆ important additional information about the component, including related components
    • ◆ variant forms
    • ◆ a Chinese name or description of the component (so you can talk about components with your Chinese-speaking friends!)
    • ◆ a few example characters using it as a semantic component.

     

    These are hi-resolution, A1 size (59.4 x 84.1cm, 23.39 x 33.11 inches) PDF files available with both a simplified and traditional character focus (2 posters each), though both versions will contain both sets of characters.

The Chinese Character Masterclass

    1. Unit I: Intro and Foundations
    2. Week 0: Intro to the course/what to expect
    3. Week 1: Rules of Memory
      Week 2: Three Attributes of Writing/Three Functions
    4. Week 3: Deep Structure, Surface Structure, and Stroke Order
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    6. Unit II: Functional component types

    Week 4: Form Components
    Week 5: Meaning Components
    Week 6: Sound Components
    Week 7: Sound series (characters with the same sound component)
    Week 8: Empty Components
    Week 9: All about character meanings

    1. Unit III: Learning new characters and recalling learned characters
      Week 10: The "IME Method"
    2. Week 11: Spaced Repetition
    3. Week 12: The Pipelining Strategy
      Week 13: The Minimalist Strategy

 

The Mandarin Pronunciation & Accent Masterclass

    1. Unit I: A "Sound" Foundation
      Lesson 1: Building a “sound” foundation
      Lesson 2: What to prioritize
      Lesson 3: Stages of accent development

      Unit II: Mandarin Pronunciation & Romanization
      Lesson 4: Tones
      Lesson 5: How to improve your tones
      Lesson 6: The initials
      Lesson 7: The finals
      Lesson 8: Multi-syllable words I: Tone Change Rules
      Lesson 9: Multi-syllable words II: Tonal Interaction
      Lesson 10: Regional accents

      Unit III: Developing your accent & fluency
      Lesson 11: Chorusing
      Lesson 12: Rhythm and intonation
      Lesson 13: Grammar and sound patterns
      Lesson 14: Shadowing
      Lesson 15: Developing fluency

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