Word sculpting

What is word sculpting?

Word sculpting is a way of learning words from top to bottom, slowly removing layers of difficulty on all levels. I started calling it like this for the lack of a better name, but it is pretty accurate actually. 

Imagine you're somewhere at a beginner - intermediate level in Mandarin Chinese and you'd like to learn the Mandarin word for 'situation'.

You ask your friend and they say the word situation in Mandarin is: qíng kuàng

You could either stress your brain and try to remember everything about the word perfectly on your first try - every sound, every aspiration, intonation, tones, word usage etc., or you could break the process down into steps:

Relax and just remember whatever you can in the first step. Lets say, you will only remember that there is an 'i' in the first word and an 'a' in the second:

Step 1: .i.. ..a..

The next time you have to say the word maybe you'll have an easy time recalling the 'i' and the 'a' and in addition you will think: Oh yeah, the first syllable started with an aspirated q sound:

Step 2: qi.. ..a..

and you slowly add the rest every time you have to use the word:

Step 3: qin. kuan.

Step 4: qing kuang

Step 5: qíng kuàng

It sounds very tedious, counterproductive and sounds like it takes a lot of time just to learn one word, but bare with me. The above example only explains the logic behind the system. I'm not using it exactly like this every time and not with every single word, usually only with words that are very difficult to remember. But come to think about it, I do use it with words that are easy to remember too, because there always is something to improve. 

For instance, I might've learned a word easily, because it sounded similar to a word I know from another language, but maybe I didn't notice that the open 'a' in that word was actually a closed one, maybe I didn't notice the stress in the word wasn't on the first, but on the second syllable etc. So, I improve these details the next time I get a chance, until there is nothing more to improve.

Also, you can start from anything you remember, not necessarily the vowel, or if you remember more than the vowel, or the first consonant it's ok too. The point is to gradually add information about the word.

It's a very natural process which takes place in your mind very automatically and quickly and I don't think any textbook or anything else could be built on this. The point of the method is to give yourself the luxury to remember certain words bit by bit and not all at once as is usually done.

The reason why I call this method sculpting is that it very much resembles the process of carving a statue out of stone. You start off with a huge lump of rock, you first remove the biggest blocks in your way and as you get closer to what you need you carve out smaller and smaller details until you are left with the perfect statue you want. 

I think I do the same thing with entire languages. First, the language is like a big lump of rock, just this cloud of sound which makes no sense. I start slowly removing layers, whether trying to understand grammar, build vocabulary, work on pronunciation, train my ears to understand the language etc. Bit by bit, layer by layer, observing the 'statue' taking form and then smoothing out the details until I get to what I need.