Stages 0 · 1 · 2 · 3 · 4
English
Letters are sounds, words come in parts, and word order carries meaning.
Seeds
EN-1
Letters stand for sounds
EN-2
Words come in parts
EN-3
Word order is information
EN-4
Getting the gist is enough
EN-5
One meaning, many ways to say it
Stages
0
Early Start
What does this sound like?
1
Observe and Say
How do these letters sound?
- Change one letter, get a new word Letters stand for sounds; blend the sounds and you can read a word you have never seen. Try it
- One sound, several spellings The same sound can be written in more than one way: rain, play and cake share one vowel sound, and position helps choose — ay usually ends a word, ai sits inside. Try it
- Three sounds of -s The ending -s is said three ways, chosen by the word's last sound, not its last letter: /s/ after a quiet sound (cats), /z/ after a buzzing sound (dogs), /ɪz/ after a hissing sound (buses) — and the same rule works for he runs and Tom's. Try it
- 开 is not always open A Chinese word and an English word cover different patches of meaning: 开 is open the door, turn on the light, drive a car and hold a meeting, so learn a word together with the words it goes with. Try it
2
Models and Patterns
Can this word be taken apart?
- Build a word from parts A long word is often a root with parts added: prefixes change the meaning (un- = not, re- = again), suffixes mostly change the word class (-ness → noun, -ful/-less → adjective, -ly → adverb). Try it
- Tenses on a timeline A tense marks where an action sits in time relative to now; English changes the verb (its form or its helping verb), while Chinese keeps the verb and adds words like 了, 正在 or 会. Try it
- You don't need every word Knowing most of the words is enough to follow a story; the unknown ones often explain themselves from context. Try it
- Can you count it in English? English sorts nouns into countable and uncountable as a grammar label, not by whether the thing can really be counted: chairs but furniture, suggestions but advice; uncountable nouns take no a or -s and use much, some or a container word (a piece of advice). Try it
- Which adjective goes first? When several adjectives stand before a noun they follow a usual order — opinion, size, age, shape, colour, origin, material, purpose — so a lovely big old wooden table sounds right and an old wooden big lovely table does not. Try it
3
Structure and Evidence
Why is this structure used here?
- The skeleton of a long sentence Strip away the clauses and phrases and a long sentence still stands on its subject and main verb (and object); find the main verb first. Try it
- REcord or reCORD? In English one syllable of a word is stressed — longer, louder, higher — and moving it can change the word: in many two-syllable pairs the noun is stressed first (a REcord) and the verb second (to reCORD). Try it
4
Systems and Argument
How do I say it accurately and appropriately?
Ideas we expect to meet
- Every English word matches exactly one Chinese word.
- Grammar rules must be memorised before you can use them.
- If your accent isn't perfect, you shouldn't speak.
- Every English word has to be memorised by its shape.