visual Systems: Mandarin
This started when…
I moved to China. I still get asked today whether or not I know the language. My response is yes. I wanted to create a project that expressed the most important aspects of my learning experience while attempting to master Mandarin. These items communicate what I feel were the most important tools of my language development. While living in China I attended two different schools and each provided a learning structure that granted me insight to these learning tools in mastering this language.
One of the first moments of impact was when I was traveling with my family and visited the historical site, learning about the origins of the written language using trigrams. These developed into characterizations or rather pictograms. Those them developed into characters. It really struck me as important to retain this vital transition as i was learning how to read and write Chinese characters at the time. I began to see and understand the transition in an artful way.
I developed this infograph to visually depict a learning system that can help inform the steps taken and the tools available when learning Mandarin. I am still learning every day how to perfect my skill in the language and finding new ways to learn creatively.
This infograph is a visual representation of the core principles of the Mandarin language and the different stages of learning based on the system structured in immersive programs for foreign students.
The Eight Principles of Yong are the principles of written Chinese. Yong (Simplified Chinese: 永) is a Chinese character that contains all the common strokes: drop, horizontal stroke, vertical stroke, hook, rising stroke, left-falling stroke and right-falling stroke. This work is a visual aid in a classroom that supports students written Chinese principles.
These are flash cards that show written directions and on the backside the strokes form the meaning of the word as Chinese characters are derived from pictographs.
