Zen Hanzi: A Game for Raising Hanzi Component Awareness

Abstract

Mastering thousands of logographic characters, such as the Chinese hanzi or Japanese kanji, is a unique and daunting obstacle for many students of those languages. In this paper, we investigate the efficacy of our component-focused hanzi learning game, Zen Hanzi, in addressing this issue. Zen Hanzi aims to assist Chinese as Foreign Language (CFL) learners in getting over some of the trickier aspects of hanzi, such as differentiating between similar-looking components. We describe our experimental game and provide a comparison study where 63 participants learned 10 complex hanzi using either our game or Quizlet, a flashcard app frequently used in Chinese courses. Results found that both groups had similar improvement on the hanzi recognition test, but the treatment group showed significantly better scores on the hanzi composition test (p<0.004). Our work extends prior findings on the benefits of component awareness to beginner hanzi learners, as well as contributes a scalable design for component-focused logographic learning tools.