This document summarizes research from several studies on learning Chinese conducted by scholars from various universities in Hong Kong. The studies focus on cracking difficulties in learning Chinese tones, characters, reading, and writing. They apply the theory of variation to show that learners discern features better when exposed to variation within contexts of invariance. For example, learners remember tones more clearly when consonants and vowels are kept constant but tones vary. The studies also find learners can generalize tonal patterns to new contexts.

1. On the Learning of Chinese Marton, F., Tse, S. K., & Cheung, W. M. (Eds.) University's SRT Forum Sciences of Learning 24 March 2011

6. Chik, P. P. M., & Marton, F.

8. Ki, W. W., Marton, F., & Pang, M. F.

10. Can intonation language speakers handle both cases ( i.e. successfully distinguish the spoken words within the same group) ? Yes, they can. Can they remember the word-sound with the tone in it afterwards? Sig diff . Question: In which case, will the learner has a better discernment of the tone feature and memory of the tone as part of the word-sound? (1) when the words (learning instances) are of the same tone (2) when the words (learning instances) are of different tones Our research set the learner to learn a group of spoken words, so that in the end, when given a word-sound, the learner can tell what it means Half-hour computer-based training - learning 9 spoken words in groups of 3

13. Lam, H. C.

14. Tse, S. K., Marton, F., Ki, W. W., & Loh, E. K. Y.

17. Part-whole relation 句子 Sentence 我愛吃水果。 詞語組合 Phrase 吃水果 詞語 Word 吃 字 Character 吃 部件 Components 筆畫 Str okes

19. 對比 (Contrast) Learning of antonym (opposite words) by pairs A lot A few Cold Big Curve Hot Small Straight

20. 虫 類比 (Generalization) Learning of a series of characters share the same radical Radical “insect” “ Butterfly” “ Bee” “ Dragonfly” “ Spider” “ Snake”

22. 蜻 「部件」 青 晴 清 睛 漢字的結構：字音 請 Components “ green, young” /cing1 “ dragonfly” /cing1 “ eye” /zing1 “ (water) clean and clear” /cing1 “ sunny” /cing4 “ request, invite” /cing2 區分 (Separation)

23. 好 忘 建 屋 載 函 匣 周 國 街 草 東 笑 森 清 漢字的結構組合 融合 (Fusion) Common structures of Chinese characters

24. 77 common components can construct 1000 Chinese characters

25. Tse, S. K., Marton, F., Ki, W. W., & Loh, E. K. Y.

26. Chik, P. P. M., Leung, A., & Marton, F.

27. Tse, S. K., Marton, F., Loh, E. K. Y., & Chik, P. P. M.

28. Cheung, W. M., Marton, F., & Tse, S. K.

29. Lee, H. C., Marton, F., & Tse, S. K.