American expat Richard Sears, 70, holds one of the cards from
Chinese Character Origin Cards, a product featuring augmented reality and animation showing the evolution of 108 Chinese characters. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]
Learning hanzi (Chinese characters) can be a hard undertaking for foreigners and even for young Chinese.
The good news is that Chinese Character Origin Cards, a newly-launched product, can make learning them easy and fun.
Picture 108 hanzi such as ren (person), niao (bird), and lei (thunder) coming alive right in front of your eyes, telling you how they have evolved from the pictographs carved on ancient oracle bones all the way to what they look like now.
This may sound surreal, but it's just what the cards promise their users.
Featuring augmented reality and animation, the cards were co-developed by American expat Richard Sears, better known as Uncle Hanzi in China, and Shiwangme, a Nanjing-based company specializing in AR and AI applications.
Sears went viral online in 2011 after his website, hanziyuan.net, was promoted by Chinese bloggers and local media. The continuously updated database of ancient Chinese characters boasts more than 104,000 ancient Chinese character forms from various archeological sources.
"I liked the idea of using 2D animation and combining it with 3D AR to show the correct etymology of Chinese characters to Chinese children," said the 70-year-old, who decided to work as a special expert with Shiwangme to develop the product in 2018.
Sears found that hanzi primers featuring ancient pictographs are aplenty in the market but they are usually inaccurate or even wrong, not to mention without a proper explanation of cultural connotations behind the characters.
Chinese Character Origin Cards featuring augmented reality and animation shows the evolution of 108 Chinese characters. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]
"Tapping the wealth of Uncle Hanzi's decades-long research and his strong database, we are able to show learners the evolution of Chinese characters correctly," said Shiwangme founder and CEO Zhang Shuai.
The augmented reality featured in the cards "would definitely offer users high-tech thrills and make the interactive learning experience much more fun", Zhang added.
Released under the brand Chinese Book Store, co-created by Sears and Zhang in 2018, Chinese Character Origin Cards has received positive market feedback.
Launched July 1 on Modian, a Chinese platform specializing in crowd-funding cultural creative projects, the Chinese Character Origin Cards project raised more than 113,000 yuan ($16,385) within a month, nearly five times higher than its original fundraising goal.
The evolution of Chinese character
Wei from a pictograph to its modern form is depicted through animation in
Chinese Character Origin Cards. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]
Nearly 1,000 users on the platform supported the project, which combines AR and etymology.
"I ordered one for my first-grade nephew who's learning hanzi basics; I'm sure these AR cards will add fun to his learning," a supporter commented.
"The concept is so cool! I ordered one despite the fact that I'm in my 30s," commented another user.
Because of the joint project with Shiwangme, Sears won the Jinling Friendship Award, a biennial award set up by the Nanjing municipal government to recognize foreign experts' contributions to local economic and social development, on June 22.
However, Zhang and Sears won't rest on their laurels.
"It's only the first batch of cards. We will roll out two more. A total of 324 hanzi will be included to help hanzi learners lay a solid foundation," Zhang told China Daily Website. His team will put out the cards in more languages so that both Chinese and international Chinese learners can benefit from their creation. The English version will hit the market soon.
The AR technology enables
Chinese Character Origin Cards users to see more digital information that comes with a card. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]
Yet, making AR cards is far from what Zhang and Sears have envisioned about their co-built brand, whose mission is to make the Chinese language easy for learners around the world
They will develop online courses and games, besides AR cards and books.
They also will upgrade Sears' website, whose resources are accessible to all internet users.
As the website mainly deals with ancient Chinese character forms and their meanings, it falls short of offering materials for further elaboration.
To solve the problem, illustrations and animation will be included, Zhang said, adding, "We'll also help upgrade the technology so that searching characters on the website with a shared component will be much easier."
Chinese Character Origin Cards is paired with 108 one-minute animation videos to show the evolution of 108 Chinese characters. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]
Chinese Character Origin Cards features 108 commonly used Chinese characters in the first batch developed by Shiwangme, a Nanjing-based high-tech company. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]
