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Chinese Characters and Your Kid’s IQ
-by Ernie Diaz
Asian people are smarter than the rest of us. Just kidding. We’re still allowed to joke about racial differences, right? Perhaps not. Maybe there are too many mouth-breathers, the kind who sincerely ask you “What are Chinese people like?”, as though the world’s most populous country had no more variety than a burger stand. Less harm in publicly pretending everyone’s exactly equal.
But privately, we debate. Were there any epicanthic folds in those remedial math classes back home? How come everyone at our uni’s research facilities had surnames of either one or six syllables? Wait a second. Why do Chinese people cross the street at green lights in the face of onrushing traffic?
Here’s the short answer. Everybody’s different (sorry Oprah, everybody’s “special”), but Chinese people do come out slightly ahead in IQ, on average. And it’s not about blood. It’s about training. Chinese character training, to be precise.
A Greek research team in Cyprus attributed a five-point IQ advantage to a group of Chinese children over a similar group of Greek children. Equal in number (120), gender distribution, and family backgrounds, the two groups showed roughly equal intelligence at eight years old. By twelve years old, however, the Chinese children tested significantly higher for spatial problems. Eighteen percent of them ranked as highly efficient visualizers, compared to six percent of the Greek children tested.
The conclusion derived from the experiment was that memorizing some 2500 Mandarin characters at an early age stimulates the intellect, at least more effectively than learning twenty-six letters and how they sound in combination. Every Westerner who’s assayed learning characters as an adult knows how bloody hard it is, all those strokes and sub-characters packed into a non-linear box. Make a horizontal line beneath a plus sign just a little too long, and a soldier becomes earth, buried by your lack of spatial awareness.
On the oethr hnad, Eglisnh rqiuers far lses acucrcay. As lnog as the fsrit and lsat lerttes are crorcet, raeedrs kown waht you are tyrnig to say. Heavier weights cause greater strength. Harder lives cause deeper characters. Isn’t it fair to reason that more complex tasks make faster brains? Word-pictures are highly complex, and drawing rows of them requires fine motor activity. Thus the endless hours in Chinese primary schools spent copying down single characters, over and over, delaying recess but hastening spatial acuity and orthographic awareness.
For those that find the analogy facile, fair enough. We won’t even delve into the New Agey realms of whole-brain learning, and how reading and writing Chinese characters stimulates both sides more effectively. Nor shall we flog the old disciplinarian approach which holds that a lot of memorization must lay a suitable foundation before any quality thinking can take place. And 2500-odd characters is a significant feat of memorization.
Instead, we’ll point to a study which indicates that learning characters gives an edge in the field of mathematics. A psychologist at San Jose State University studied three groups of first-grade children: 24 from the U.S., 25 from mainland China and 40 from Korea. They were all from upper-middle-class families, and attending academically rigorous schools. All of the children were shown how to represent numbers with purple base-10 blocks and white single-unit blocks.
The children were asked to use the blocks to represent the numbers 11, 13, 28, 30 and 42. Then they were asked to use a different arrangement of blocks to do so. All of the Korean children managed a second interpretation, as did three quarters of the Chinese kids. Only one American child managed to do so. The lead psychologist, Irene Miura, attributed the results to the fact that in Asian languages, number names follow a base-10 system. As a result, Asian children learn to be mathematically flexible before they are ten-one years old.
“Hey, that experiment has to do with language, not characters!” Alright, so teach your child to speak Mandarin. No one seriously doubts the mental advantages of learning a second language early. The mathematical creativity will be a bonus. For the five-point IQ advantage, no SpongeBob Squarepants until your youngster shows you ten new Chinese characters, copied down perfectly, fifty times each.
Then again, some of you may have been observing U.S. presidents, Wall Street bankers, news anchors, and the like, wondering, “How closely tied are IQ and success in life?” Don’t ask that neurosurgeon; she would trade all her parents’ pride for an extra hour’s sleep each night. Even trickier to gauge the correlation between IQ and happiness. Folks like Bobby Fischer and the Unibomber reveal that, after 120 or so, each additional IQ point makes it that much harder to put up with the dopey antics of all us mediocre intellects.
A final caveat: ask a Chinese parent which education system is better, and you won’t go broke betting on a superior western response. Seems all our defensive harping about the value of creative thought versus rote memorization has had an impact. Grass. Fence. Greener?
Related posts:
- The Luck of the Chinese – Lucky Kids, Gourds, and Dragons
- The Great Chinese Nap
- Those Chinese Text Messages
- Getting to Know the Chinese Laugh
- Returning Chinese Stuck in the Middle
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Primary school for chinese children is so dificulty!!! when i was a student the teacher made repeat characters so minotinously that all students are so sad. No joy no color, we pupils always have to study. Parents not let us play with our friends or have romantic games at school, only platonic loves for friends. today is more difficulty for students as china becomes more rich and students must work more harder for university. I want to go to a foreign country to study but althought my parents cant afford, so instead they send me to beijing to study english. but it is more fun than regular school, our teacher is younger canadian and we get to play games together. have you ever played the killer game, it so so so fun!!!!! What do foreigners think about education system in your countrys? If you want to make friends and have coffee and eats send me email
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Learning to read 2,500 pictorial symbols, as Chinese students do in grade school, yields a 5-point advantage on IQ tests, compared with the scores of Westerners whose languages are based on alphabets, according to according to
prep.
Since the southern Han Chinese and northern Han Chinese are genetically different, China can improve the quality of its population simply by encouraging intra-marriage between these two groups.
~Matt
Hi,
I just cant believe that Chinese people do come out slightly ahead in IQ. Its kinda unprofessional to come out with sucha claim all based on some small test made on group of children.
Is there any other proof of that ?
It could be true tho.. I would just like to see the results of some other more solid testing..
today is more difficulty for students as china becomes more rich and students must work more harder for university
The fact is that it all depends upon the base formation of children.
children mould themselves in an environment they are brought up in , why is it brought up that asians are more smarte than american?
the fact is that they are given an environment which is full of knowledge and teaches them that one is nothing withut prxticle knowledge.
its not about being chinese or american , it is the values that they have been brought up with chinese people are tought to be more hard working where as americans are more casual towards life itself.
its not a joke or racism its just about the rules that one is taught from the childhood ,, so one turns out to be the same what he is taght to do ..
it has been related to as a joke many a time , but it is serious , if you want your child to be a smart one , you have to start at the grass root level.
cultivating the habit of reading and keeping a check on the latest world events can be starters.
its not a joke or racism its just about the rules that one is taught from the childhood.. INDEED!
Chinese characters convey information on their meaning, whereas the western alphabet conveys information on pronunciation. So whilst the Chinese are forced to memorize the appearance and sound of a character, western children are forced to learn the meaning of a series of characters. Its a system that is different in design, but since the Chinese characters are more graphic in nature, I suppose the more creative centre of the brain gets stimulated as well.
Chinese children more creative? Take that, nurture over nature hardliners.
In the Chinese writing system, the characters are morphosyllabic, each usually corresponding to a spoken syllable with a basic meaning.
Recently, the Chinese government announced that it is prepared to issue a new list of (simplified) Chinese characters. According to XinHua News, For the first time in nearly 20 years, China will issue a modified list of simplified Chinese characters in…
Chinese are genetically different, China can improve the quality of its population simply by encouraging intra-marriage between these two groups.
Chinese are different,it is fact.It is correcting approach.
The average IQ for the average kid is 100. Is your kids IQ average?.
Some call the writing of the early Táng calligrapher Ōuyáng Xún (557–641) the first mature standard script. After this point, although developments in the art of calligraphy and in character simplification still lay ahead, there were no more major stages of evolution for the mainstream script. Chinese writing had reached full maturity.
Maybe we Americans should realize the value of the mind and invest more so in intellectual causes rather than just physical investments.
Chinese characters are used both by meaning to represent native words, ignoring the Chinese pronunciation, and by meaning and sound, to represent Chinese loanwords.
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Although most often associated with the PRC, character simplification predates the 1949 communist victory. Caoshu, cursive written text, almost always includes character simplification, and simplified forms have always existed in print, albeit not for the most formal works.
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With IQ Chinese you learn Chinese characters, both simplified and/or traditional, … When something is fun, it captures your attention…and holds it!
Originally, many Chinese characters were standardized drawings of ideas. Over time, the drawings were simplified until they only vaguely resemble the original drawings.
So whilst the Chinese are forced to memorize the appearance and sound of a character, western children are forced to learn the meaning of a series of characters.
It would always be nice to learn another language that is out of our own comfort zones which just show how much we can really learn within our lifespan.
It has been related to as a joke many a time , but it is serious , if you want your child to be a smart one , you have to start at the grass root level.
cultivating the habit of reading and keeping a check on the latest world events can be starters.
Discipline can be instilled at a young age and by learning more things than usual could affect the development of their brains at an early age.
The high marks Asian Americans get for emotional intelligence focus on our above-average academic and career attainments.
We nice post we informative…. Nice to read
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There are many different hypotheses regarding the path that might have been taken from simple organic molecules via pre-cellular life to protocells and metabolism.
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Very informative and detail posting, I think it is a great help for the people who wants to know more about these things.
After this point, although developments in the art of calligraphy and in character simplification still lay ahead, there were no more major stages of evolution for the mainstream script. Chinese writing had reached full maturity.
While the quartet did play live, the music played simultaneously over speakers and on television was a recording made two days prior due to concerns over the cold weather damaging the instruments. Ma was quoted as saying “A broken string was not an option. It was wicked cold.”
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Discipline can be instilled at a young age and by learning more things than usual could affect the development of their brains at an early age.
After this point, although developments in the art of calligraphy and in character simplification still lay ahead, there were no more major stages of evolution for the mainstream script. Chinese writing had reached full maturity.
Primary schooling is so importat to any child. Good blog spent lot of time reading these.
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I thinks ridiculous about the state of primary school and children in china. first they not well nourished and they do not have basic facilities… really very sad.. I appreciate comment..
Nice posting. I was looking for this kind of informative posting. I look forward to read more detail posting on this topic. Thank you once again for posting this kind of information.
Nice posting. I was looking for this kind of informative posting. I look forward to read more detail posting on this topic. Thank you once again for posting this kind of information.
I think Asian children are more intelligent than children from other parts of the world. This is because they have been taught in a different style. But children from western countries make use of calculators from the very low grade which is not good.
Come on…
The IQ test is a test.
Which culture is most trained to achieve the highest score, regardless of how or why?
Yes Chinese.
Problem solving skills are limited because of the ability to memorise for tests.
English is a problem solving language because it is code and puzzle.
Wow, I didn’t know they trained the Chinese how to take the IQ test, and I’ve been here a while.