The hardest part of Chinese is that it feels arbitrary.
It has its own logic, but it takes trial and error to figure it out.
Wouldn’t it be great if there was a shortcut?
A way that you could almost learn from your mistakes before even making them?
The good news is that you can. Have you heard of sentence mining?
What is sentence mining?
Google “sentence mining” and you’ll find a community of hardcore sentence miners who engage in passionate debates on the subject.
Sentence mining is studying a language by collecting, saving, and reviewing sentences. This is in contrast to a more typical approach of memorizing words individually.
If you’re a regular reader of our Chinese idiom posts, this probably all sounds familiar.
How will it improve my Chinese fluency?
Sentence mining is a shortcut to Chinese fluency, because definitions are rarely sufficient for you to really understand what a word means and how it’s used.
For example, take the Chinese idiom 轰轰烈烈 (hōng hōng liè liè). Online Chinese Nciku’s definition is “vigorously, dynamic.” Bing’s definition is better: “on a grand and spectacular scale.” But in neither case do you feel equipped to use 轰轰烈烈 with your Chinese friends. If you do use it, I bet you’ll brace yourself as soon as 轰轰烈烈 leaves your lips. Based on your friend’s reaction, you’ll figure out whether you used it correctly or not. This is, of course, just trial and error.
By contrast, if you sentence mined, you’d have a much better sense of what 轰轰烈烈 means and how it’s used. You’d realize it’s really used for grand undertakings that are public and usually awe-inspiring. You’d also know that “那部电影，轰轰烈烈！” is not something people say – it sounds awkward at best and is totally incorrect at worst.
Here’s a metaphor. Chinese words are people, and English definitions are their names. You don’t know someone because you know their name, and you don’t know a word because you know its definition. By seeing a person in different contexts, you know them better. And by seeing words in different sentences, you know them better too.
So that’s what our blog tries to do. Here’s our post on the Chinese idiom 轰轰烈烈 (hōng hōng liè liè).
How to do sentence mining?
This part is rather straightforward:
- Find an internet resource that provides a steady supply of reliable sentences (Nciku and Bing are usually good here). This is one of the ways that the internet makes learning Chinese much easier.
- Select simple sentences that still convey the word’s meaning.
- Incorporate the sentences into your own study routine (notebook / flashcards / spaced repetition learning etc. ).
Other resources on sentence mining
If you want to explore the subtleties of sentence mining more deeply, we recommend these articles:
- Sentence Mining – Xamuel.com
- Sentence Mining: An Essential Tool for Language Learning - BeyondBounds.org
- Strategies for Sentence Mining – MyAnimeList.net
- 10,000 Sentences: Why - AJATT.com
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Hi!
This is so logical and simple that people really miss this out. I have recently started watching videos and am taking note of new words and finding definition over at mdbg.net.
What I do, I usually put the word and definition on the subject line of an email and put the sample sentences on the body then send it to my own email address and compile them afterwards.
I found this true when looking for the Chinese word for a flat tire and got two definitions 泄气 and 爆胎. It was only through the sentence examples did I learn that 爆胎 is the right word to use in this particular context.
Thanks for the great insight.
Hi Allan,
Thanks a lot for the helpful comment!
That sounds like a great system for collecting sentences. Of course the more important part of any study system is that it’s simply and easy enough for you to stick to.
Funny that you mention flat tire – I had one the other day. Hope that’s not why you ended up learning that word.
Thanks again!
This is pretty neat, I have always been trying to find websites with example sentences. I am going to try this out, thank for very much for the advice!
Thanks for the kind words Aaron! Hope you find it helpful!
And here I thought nobody ever read that post. ^^
Thanks for linking to the Japanese Language and Culture Club @ MyAnimeList.net
Reading over that post that I made forever ago, I feel like I want to revise it a lot because I wonder if it’s really that helpful. Perhaps I can amend it instead.
That was a great post! I think we Chinese learners can also gain a lot by seeing how Japanese learners approach language learning. Thanks a lot!
Thanks for this simple explanation! I’m starting this way of studying now. Makes so much sense. I’ve been missing out!
You’re welcome Joy! I’m glad we could help!
Thank you very much for the post, and its information and links. For me sentence mining is the first step, the second being sentence processing. Perhaps the best way to “mine sentences” (but not the easiest) is using a corpus together with a concordancer. I wish there was a corpus specifically for learners of Chinese as a foreign language (and a dictionary of collocations, too!)
Thank you for the comment. I didn’t even know there was something called “sentence processing” or “concordancer” — I will definitely check those things out.
But I know what you mean about a corpus for learners of Chinese as a foreign language. I think we’ve all been there — learning a word from a dictionary, only to find that no one uses it! Language learning is hard enough as it is and that can be extremely discouraging.
I do of know one site that has what you might call a corpus.
It is FluentU of course. We use languages from native videos by Chinese people, so you never have to worry about it being tainted by artifical language — only organic stuff here. 
We also introduced a new feature called decks which let you study words in a more organic way (http://chinese.fluentu.com/decks/). Anyway, thanks!
Alan