Things Just Got a Whole Lot Easier: Pareto’s Principle | Jinbupal

Things Just Got a Whole Lot Easier: Pareto’s Principle

March 3, 2019

Okay, so we’ve learned about Chinese characters. Now let me ask, does the idea of learning all those characters still scare you a bit? It definitely scared me! That is, until I found out about this magical statistical principal. It’s a complete game-changer and it’s the secret will put you miles ahead of countless of other Chinese learners.

What is it? It’s called “Pareto’s Principle.” Perhaps you might have heard of it before by the name, “The 80/20 Rule.” This statistical law shows that in many naturally occurring circumstances, 80% of the results will come from only 20% of the efforts. You can take advantage of this statistical fact by focusing your time first solely on the 20% of the content which will result in 80% of the results. But to give us a further introduction to this principle, take a look at the short video below:

Before we go further, we should be clear that language learning is a long-term process and you should not expect fluency in some unreasonably short period of time. The learning curve for learning any language is much like climbing a steep cliff up to a plateau and then setting out on a journey up a long, gradually sloped road. Once you have a grasp of enough words and characters to read and be understood (ie, you’ve reached the plateau), you can learn more and more vocabulary to improve your skills as you continue studying (the long road). This long road is a topic for another time – today, we want to talk about climbing up to the plateau as quickly as you possibly can.

In my experience, the Pareto’s Principle will not be applicable for your entire language learning experience. This is because being a fluent speaker (and, more importantly, understanding spoken language) will absolutely require that you know a lotof words, some of which are used relatively rarely. However, as I will discuss further in future posts, leveraging this principle can be incredibly useful when it comes to getting familiarized with Chinese characters quickly so you can reach a level of high confidence in your reading skills as efficiently as possible. With this confidence, you will feel ready to tackle challenging content that interests you surprisingly quickly.

Applying Pareto’s Principle to Chinese characters suggests that roughly 20% of all existing Chinese characters will account for around 80% of the text that you will encounter by frequency in almost any source of the Chinese language. Pretty cool, right? By focusing on the most frequently-used Chinese characters, you can rapidly make substantial progress in your ability to read characters. After learning just 100 characters, you should start recognizing about 40% of characters by frequency. At that point, you should have a level of knowledge high enough to identify and sound out about 40% of the characters on any page you read, as well as identify the subjects, parts of speech, and structure of sentences.

Now jump ahead to a knowledge of ~465 characters and this equates to roughly 80% of written Chinese by frequency. When you think about it, that’s pretty amazing. Compare 465 to the 50,000 total characters we discussed earlier. That’s not even 1%! We discussed in the last post that you could read a typical newspaper with a knowledge of 3,000 characters. Compare 465 characters with these 3,000 and you get even less than 20%! That’s the 80/20 Rule in action!

People typically first cite the difficulty of learning Chinese by the need to know so many characters. But we just took that vague “so many” and narrowed it down to the list of characters you see below.

的一是我在这了不们有他个人会到就为来时能大上和以可要而得对那中你也出些过自说都于如生么多地种所现后但样下事成没行者年经发之里公很然家用理想方因还着果子只同看其最分当意去法实己学斯美动作定好司开情尔它从面前更本无国比道相做间起力常问或并性高小利什天价点数信克心股知进特让正此被将与易应交每资两机关把题员度工已重场业结变物手像几次论候感全部明受第回使觉新解认加计投元非选通合直她表真提话体位主确管何期且给系市活长件金注身接见该类外任式代向决例完西始由平策率保统少产许又至值格量持制东再打化头原则目总别处世入攀反商况运需程亚单路难某儿票名失算记教收历德却内概及究等存店达先希基观科即险择球必取条才万文思影告买假快预整望水太象另安试习电约够断走乎拉略马测车声立报研改山远带钱字各顿线设放越界证色老权风识错考三惯效验根边形十指言务布气购响怎神项义息海低听规品求社脑罗胜仅日巴尼显案争政二具据造标建住找强英命准图示书引随消死口维客白参满甚费战段清便往纪容转似岩未阿伯续尽愿女服简致极须月队益史眼呢近判步优爬估民功推组传包乐视述谈除导支展模早令

Source: JinbuPal Proprietary Corpus

Not so daunting anymore, right? I found that it was incredibly motivating to know that I could start chipping away at this block of characters with totally feasible goal of 80% character recognition. Again, I want to reiterate that what we are talking about here is reaching the plateau as quickly as possible, not fluency.

Once you reach this plateau, learning the characters should actually seem like it was pretty easy, it just takes some time. Knowing these common characters will make the process of learning other characters easier and easier because you should now be quite familiar with the radicals you recognize from the characters you know. Additionally, you’ll be able to notice the components of phono-semantic compounds to make a good guess at the pronunciation of unfamiliar characters. At that point, you can then focus your efforts on what I think is actually the hidden difficulty of the Chinese learning curve: learning words.

My hope is that now you see learning Chinese characters as a much less difficult task than you initially thought. I know you’re probably excited to start learning characters right away, but first let’s continue on our journey through the guide and discuss how character pronunciation is expressed through pinyin.

Next up: Learn About Pinyin

How to get started learning Chinese Series

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *