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Mandarin: Year 3.7 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| proudft Senior Member United States Joined 5146 days ago 124 posts - 156 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin | Message 41 of 111 12 June 2013 at 11:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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Given that my reading is proceeding along passably, and my known vocabulary is now over 4000 words, and my speaking/listening is still pretty awful (and was my main goal to improve, whoops), I'm pondering giving FSI Chinese a shot. Its lack of characters won't be an issue now, since I imagine I can figure out which ones go with the pinyin easily now. And the price is certainly right.
Download spot, if you have not discovered it on your own yet. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mike245 Triglot Senior Member Hong Kong Joined 6965 days ago 303 posts - 408 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Cantonese Studies: French, German, Mandarin, Khmer | Message 42 of 111 13 June 2013 at 5:36am | IP Logged | ||
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Good luck with your Mandarin learning! I just discovered your log, and have enjoyed
reading through your past posts. FSI sounds like it would be a great way to unlock your speaking abilities. Years ago, I went through the first few modules and found it boring but very helpful, especially the production drills. I am also around 4,000 words in my Cantonese studies, but have found that it's still not quite enough to understand television shows, etc. I think the almost complete lack of cognates and transparency between English and the Chinese languages makes listening to native sources hard unless you know twice that many words. Given your rate of learning new words though, that should come quickly! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4267 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish | Message 43 of 111 13 June 2013 at 10:41am | IP Logged | ||
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Same problem here, with roughly the same level in Chinese. It's reassuring to discover
that people who are at a comparable level share comparable problems with 听力. I've also started to use ChineseLearnOnline and ChinesePod podcasts in the hope I can reinforce my understanding of spoken Chinese. One thing I'm doing right now: I do mock HSK5 tests, which is above my level, just to see what mark I get, and I plan to do the same tests at 6 month intervals, to check whether there is an improvement. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| proudft Senior Member United States Joined 5146 days ago 124 posts - 156 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin | Message 44 of 111 14 June 2013 at 12:57am | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks, fellow Chineseians!
I went through one of the FSI lessons today, "Classroom Expressions", and, actually this looks like it might be the thing I need right now. The tape-lady says the thing, you say the thing, now this time you say it first before her, etc. If the format is the same for all of this it might go a long way to freeing me from the written word -- my wife and I keep vowing to speak Mandarin at home and keep failing, mainly because I don't even know where to start. It's like I'm an actor without a script. Anyway, this looks promising, will report back after I finish a couple of the units - which is like 5 hours of tapes each so it'll be a few days at least. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| js6426 Diglot Senior Member Cambodia Joined 4513 days ago 277 posts - 349 votes Speaks: English*, Khmer Studies: Mandarin | Message 45 of 111 14 June 2013 at 3:48am | IP Logged | ||
I have exactly the same issue with my wife! It is a massive challenge to speak anything more than a couple of sentences before frustration sets in, both because I can't get out what I want to say (unless I am saying something relatively simple), or because she gets fed up waiting for me to try and express myself! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mike245 Triglot Senior Member Hong Kong Joined 6965 days ago 303 posts - 408 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Cantonese Studies: French, German, Mandarin, Khmer | Message 46 of 111 14 June 2013 at 5:17am | IP Logged | ||
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I have the same problem where I can't speak to my partner in Cantonese. But I have no
problem speaking to his mother in Cantonese and in fact, it feels strange to speak to her in English. I think some of the difficulty may not be a language issue per se, but rather, that you associate the relationship with one language, which makes switching hard. Especially if you are used to communicating complex ideas in a language with your spouse/significant other, it suddenly feels artificial to use a different language to communicate in kiddie-talk. In his language log, emk wrote about just forcing himself to speak with his wife in French, even though it felt like his brain was "melting" for several weeks, until the strain forced him to get better at the language. I suppose that's one good solution, although I haven't had the discipline to try that approach. In emk's case though, I believe his wife is a full-out French native speaker with French as her dominant language, although she is also fluent in English. It might be tougher to carry this out if Mandarin is not your wife's dominant language and she has mostly a "family" vocabulary that also limits her range of expression. Edited by mike245 on 14 June 2013 at 9:05am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5858 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 47 of 111 14 June 2013 at 8:42am | IP Logged | ||
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I actually found that the FSI Chinese course wasn't as helpful for getting me to speak as the other ones i've done. It might be different since you're at a higher level than i was when i went through it (it was basically the first course i did). After around Module 7 they stop focusing so much on speaking ability and start working more on passive listening ability. If your listening is suffering this'll probably help you quite a bit. Personally, i don't have much trouble understanding people when i talk to them, but when the conversation isn't with me (such as a TV show or when they're talking to their friends) it's much harder to understand. My speaking also sucks. If i can manage to mumble across my meaning i can generally understand the response, the issue is getting the other person to understand :P
One tip i've found useful when studying other languages that i need to start applying to Mandarin: when you're speaking and come across a phrase you don't know how to say, write it down or make a note of it (in English). Then look it up later or ask someone about it. Chances are you'll remember it easily and find plenty of situations to use it in. It's amazing how many times the same phrase will stump you without you even realizing it. EDIT: Also, the classroom expressions module has a different format from the rest of the modules, at least the main modules, though you do get that kind of drill throughout the course. There's also translation drills where they'll give you the English translation and you have to reconstruct the Chinese sentence (which has already been presented to you). Edited by Crush on 14 June 2013 at 11:17am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| proudft Senior Member United States Joined 5146 days ago 124 posts - 156 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin | Message 48 of 111 14 June 2013 at 9:41am | IP Logged | ||
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So many people all of a sudden!
Really the main problem with speaking at home right now is one of lack of shared time. Due to some awful work schedules, we don't have much time to talk to one another 'idly'. If we sat down at a table and stared at each other and just started talking, we could probably manage it, but there has lately always some vitally important business to take care of that we barely have time to cover in English, and Mandarin just doesn't cut it at this point. I'm sure this is a problem for lots of people though, and we'll just have to figure something out. Perhaps we need to introduce Mandarin Sundays, or have special hats we wear to indicate it is now Mandarin Time. Man, the hats idea was supposed to be a stupid joke, but now I'm thinking it's a good idea. I did try the FSI course a while back, basically as the first thing right out of a one-semester community college course. But my auditory memory was horrendous, I would remember basically nothing from it each time - I couldn't even remember a long sentence by the time the speaker got to the end of it - and my motivation was not what it is now to get this language learned, and I just quit, frustrated. It is MUCH better now. I think the sad fact is that Chinese is just plain hard and you have to ram against that brick wall for a long time before you start to see cracks. For me, it's been the characters that have been the key.... I have to have something to associate with the sounds, apparently. It doesn't even have to be a character I know super well, even a vague shape is ok, but it has to be something. I never really thought I was a visual learner - I've played saxophone for like 25 years - but I guess I am. Who knew! But I can easily imagine that it's something different for every person that finally gets things starting to click. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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