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Trying to tackle Mandarin as a beginner | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| pwn Newbie CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 3957 days ago 4 posts - 4 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 1 of 9 03 March 2014 at 6:36am | IP Logged | ||
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tl;dr: I have no idea where to begin or what I'm doing, I want somebody to point me in
the right direction. Hey guys, I'm new to this forum and new to language learning. I'm trying to learn how to speak Mandarin Chinese and I quickly realized I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing. I purchased the Pimsleur level 1&2 from my local library and I purchased Moses McCormick's FLR method level 1, but I have no idea how to use these materials. Any vocab I try to gain gets lost pretty quickly, and I can't really recall it fast enough to be useful in any way. Can somebody please help me get on my feet? Thank you for your time. Edited by pwn on 03 March 2014 at 6:42am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ElComadreja Senior Member Philippines bibletranslatio Joined 7229 days ago 683 posts - 757 votes  2 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, Latin, Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew, Cebuano, French, Tagalog | Message 2 of 9 03 March 2014 at 7:11am | IP Logged | ||
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How long have you been doing this? You might not be able to do it because you haven't
had enough time with it yet. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| pwn Newbie CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 3957 days ago 4 posts - 4 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 3 of 9 03 March 2014 at 7:36am | IP Logged | ||
Roughly three months. From what I have read you should at least be able to try to utter some sentences in the language by this point. EDIT: More time won't help if I still have no idea what I'm doing. Edited by pwn on 03 March 2014 at 9:32am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ElComadreja Senior Member Philippines bibletranslatio Joined 7229 days ago 683 posts - 757 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, Latin, Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew, Cebuano, French, Tagalog | Message 4 of 9 03 March 2014 at 11:07am | IP Logged | ||
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How far are you in Pimsleur? I try to do 1 lesson one day (repeating several times),
repeat it the next day, and then push to the next lesson. It's pretty much impossible to make the responses in Pimsluer quick enough the first time or so around. When I get overwhelmed I go back over earlier lessons. There are tones and sounds that are very strange (at least for the English speaker) and I think they are best explained in FSI. If you're having problems remembering words you could try flashcards, ANKI, Iverson's wordlists, goldlist. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 DavidStyles Octoglot Pro Member United Kingdom Joined 3932 days ago 82 posts - 179 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Latin, French, Portuguese, Norwegian Studies: Mandarin, Russian, Swedish, Danish, Serbian, Arabic (Egyptian) Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 9 03 March 2014 at 11:10am | IP Logged | ||
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If you're having trouble with Pimsleur, you might prefer a couple of products that specialise in giving a very rapid, very easily attainable base level in a language, in a "ground up" fashion rather than Pimsleur's traditionally more phrase-based approach.
There are many products that try to do this, but the two I'd recommend the most are: 1) Michel Thomas Method courses (often considered a bit expensive, but exceptionally good at getting a complete beginner to understand all the most important structures and core functional vocabulary without effort) 2) Michael Gruneberg courses (marketed both as "Linkword" and "Unforgettable Languages") which are very good at giving a very rapid vocabulary explosion (but a little light on the grammar). These are also considerably cheaper than the MT coures. This only does "Level 1" (of its 4 levels) for Mandarin, though. Still, in the space of an afternoon even just that first part can give you a vocabulary of about 300 words and some core constructions in which to use them, so a better springboard than none. One thing that both of these courses focus on, and is something that I like, is getting the learner to actually understand the language and be able to make one's own constructions, not merely parrot phrases. You might also like to try Lingocracy which has the added benefit of being free. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| pwn Newbie CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 3957 days ago 4 posts - 4 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 6 of 9 03 March 2014 at 12:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you both very much! ElComadreja, I'm not so far in Pimsleur because some of the
content just isn't sticking, so I don't progress. However, I'll try to repeat the lessons more than once per day as per your suggestion! And DavidStyles, I'm going to go to my library tomorrow to see if they have these courses you're talking about. Thank you both very much for your suggestions! After reading reviews, the Linkword courses seem more like what I need, since (in my opinion) the Mandarin tones, grammar and accent are very easy to get the hang of! Edited by pwn on 03 March 2014 at 12:22pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| yantai_scot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4793 days ago 157 posts - 214 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 7 of 9 03 March 2014 at 9:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've learned some Mandarin both before and during an extended stay out in China.
I definitely found Anki extremely useful for remembering characters. I also had a different SRS app on my mobile that I used before I left. By all means, use pinyin to get your tones and constenants on track but try and shift into working directly with characters as soon as possible. Another handy thing was an app that lets you write a character in with your finger to access a dictionary. Really handy when trying to translate from Mandarin. I can't remember the specific one I used. You did need to try and use the proper stroke order. It was extremely forgiving but you couldn't just start any old place on the screen. Oh, and find some fun cultural stuff in Mandarin on Youtube. Peppa Pig in Mandarin is sweet- Peppa Zhou and also there's the massively popular (with kids) Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf which will certainly never be aired on the BBC's childrens' channels due to its gun toting protagonists and poor Wolf's regular experience of domestic violence at the hands of his wife. Good theme tune though. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| day1 Groupie Latvia Joined 3883 days ago 93 posts - 158 votes Speaks: English | Message 8 of 9 30 March 2014 at 6:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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Could it be the case that you have a strong visual memory and a crappy audial memory, and thus Pimsleur refuses to stick? Could it be the case that you have a mind that enjoys patterns and UNDERSTANDING? I mean, for me Pimsleur does not do a good job. I find it hard to focus, hard to remember, hard to retain. It's just not for me. [But it's perfect for many others]. I prefer seeing it written down, seeing some grammar explanation, some "rule", rather than trying to just internalize the patterns.
On the other hand, since you're doing a language where correct sounds are crucial for being understood, you should stick with Pimsleur (I hear it helps to learn very good pronunciation), maybe try to supplement it with some beginners textbook for some visual input and explanations. Why not try the book "Chinese Companion I - A Pronunciation And Character Guide", that could be just the book you need to supplement your Pimsleur learning. Maybe you should consider making an ANKI deck for sentences (don't forget to use audio plug-in!). Michel Thomas method, suggested above, is also a good audio based method, comes with a booklet where you can at least see the stuff you're learning written down. I've always preferred Michel Thomas to Pimsleur myself. The approach is more dynamic and explanations are given to WHY something is said a certain way. If your library has these CDs, give it a try! There are many good Chinese textbooks out there, such as Integrated Chinese, Assimil, Chinese Made Easier. Teach Yourself and Colloquial also sell very decent titles, a company named TUTTLE has published some good stuff (and some bad stuff - check reviews on amazon). I really believe that you just might be using a learning method that is not well suited for YOU. Don't give up! Just try doing things some other way. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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