“It is a legacy, and something I would like to share,” she says. And she’s (so far) funded the project herself from her savings, giving it all away free via her Facebook page and website. She’s developing a kind of shareware for the mind – a groundbreaking method of reading and interpreting Chinese characters for westerners, called “Chineasy”. Hsueh later moved to London and set up a venture capital investment firm in 2005, but her latest project is one directly linked to her family roots among the paint pots and calligraphy brushes. She didn’t immediately take on her parents’ artistic legacy: describing herself as an unashamed “geek”, she studied biochemistry at university, wrote some unlikely and bestselling Microsoft user manuals (“I used my imagination and put a lot of my own thoughts in”) and went on to be a first-wave internet entrepreneur, co-founding pAsia, an early internet success story, in 1995. “I grew up in this environment, in the mud, in the ink, in the paintbrushes,” she says. Visit the website at .uk.ShaoLan Hsueh was born and raised in Taiwan, the daughter of a calligrapher and a ceramic artist. May not be reproduced on other websites without permission from Wired. Reprinted here for educational purposes only. Hsueh has launched a Facebook page with more information about the initiative.įrom .uk. I want to share it with people who want to learn about China,” she concludes. That’s also enough for many practical uses, such as reading road signs and restaurant menus as well as grasping the gist of newspaper articles and websites.” “What is most intriguing is that if you can learn just the top 200 characters, it is enough to be able to read about forty percent of popular Chinese literature,” she explains on her site. She explains that a scholar of the Chinese language will master 20,000 characters, but you only need around 1,000 for basic literacy. At the same time she is also working on a book. Hsueh is currently working full-time on the project and plans to launch a new website in June, with more characters and more “tutorials” showing how to use different words. I want people to understand China, Chinese and Chinese culture without getting lost in translation,” she told .uk. “People look at Chinese and see this Great Wall of China. ShaoLan says that subsequently she was contacted 8,000 times by people who were interested in the project. This was then written up by Idealab’s CEO Bill Gross in a LinkedIn post. Hsueh presented Chineasy in an eight minute TED talk in February. Hsueh partnered with illustrator Noma Bar to bring the first characters to life, but has plans to work with other illustrators as she develops the methodology. “It’s a hobby that has developed into a methodology, using characters, animations and colors,” she added. No one will learn from that curriculum,” she explained. They have been going to a Chinese club but they learn nothing. This triggered her to try and find an easier way to teach the language. She moved to the UK more than a decade ago and has two children, but became “really frustrated that they couldn’t read Chinese.” She has always been fascinated by the beauty of Chinese characters, but appreciates how impenetrable the language can be to foreigners. Hsueh grew up in Taiwan and is the daughter of a calligrapher and a professor of ceramic art. I have combined that with a set of beautiful graphics that allow people to recognize patterns and therefore the meaning of symbols very quickly,” Hsueh told .uk. “My methodology breaks down several thousand characters to identify the fundamental element behind each character. Starting with eight core characters - fire, tree, Sun, Moon, person, mouth, door, mountain - students can learn 64 different words and combine them to create simple sentences. Meanwhile the character for the word “fire” is similar - give or take a few additional pen strokes - or is visible within the characters that mean “hot”, “burning”, “stir fry” and “to head up.” For example, the character for the word “tree” has similar visual characteristics to “woods”, “forest”, “idiot” and “almond”. Once people can recognize these characters, it is easy to recognize a family of related characters. (by Olivia Solon, .uk) – Entrepreneur and venture capitalist ShaoLan Hsueh has developed a simple methodology - called Chineasy - to allow non-Chinese readers to learn written Chinese characters.Ĭhineasy - which aims to “penetrate the Great Wall of Chinese Language” - works by taking a few core characters from the Chinese language and using illustrations and simple stories to help people memorize their meaning.
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