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A realistic plan for learning Mandarin? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4434 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes  Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 9 of 21 18 July 2014 at 8:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
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The basic goal of learning any language is to be able to conduct yourself in a social setting. As much as
we love to watch TV shows & movies, some with subtitles, the true test of fluency is your spoken language. What I'm finding is that in the beginning a language learner tend to stick with simple Q & A or phrases that are often repetition of the original such as: Allez-vous au restaurant? Oui, je vais au restaurant. All you've added is the word "yes" and changed the verb to agree with the subject but have not added anything to the conversation such as I'm also going to the store to pick up some eggs that sort of thing. In Chinese you may start off with something like: 你去看電影嗎？對, 我去看電影。(Allez-vous au cinéma? Oui, je vais au cinéma). Survival phrases: For introduction always specify your country of origin. For a foreigner you might say: "我是英國人“ / ”我 從英國來的“ (I'm English or I'm from England). Even for a Chinese expat, when you specify your origin, people tend to be very forgiving of your language abilities. 我會講一點點。"Je peux parler un petit peu" to indicate you have a basic knowledge of the language. 我不明白你說, "Je ne vous comprends pas," 請你講慢一點。“veillez parlez plus lentement" to ask the speaker to slow down since you have a limited understanding of the language. Edited by shk00design on 18 July 2014 at 8:10pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5226 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 10 of 21 18 July 2014 at 9:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
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There are a lot of basic things I still haven't figured out. I still can't figure out how to type chinese characters into a computer for example.
There seems to be some different methods for Windows machines, but I use Linux. Anyone have any idea how I'd go about doing that? I considered just converting my computer to Chinese, but I doubt that would help in the first instance! I'm getting the impression that 2years, 2months, and 2days isn't an unrealistic target, but rather just a very difficult one. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4899 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 11 of 21 18 July 2014 at 10:33pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Have you considered working in a little chinesepod101? Of all of the Xpod101 series, this one has a very good reputation here on HTLAL. I know nothing about it, but Ari (who used to be very active on HTLAL) gave it excellent reviews. He used the full course, including studying the vocab, using the worksheets, etc.
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| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5226 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 12 of 21 18 July 2014 at 10:59pm | IP Logged | |||||
I've had that suggestion as well from my friend in Taiwan. She highly recommended the course. I've worked out today I've only actually got between 80-100 hours of course material and language tapes. So even in the first phase when I'm trying to do 2 hours per day, that material will get burned up in a little over a month if I stay on track. Now it might be that I could switch to native materials at that point. I've got 6-8 graded readers on order and a large number of YouTube resources lined up. I'm going to line up as much course work as I can get, but I suppose it isn't a bad thing to have to move to Native Material within the first 2-3 months. So adding chinesepod101 and perhaps some other resources. I'm trying to get a copy of Assimil Le Chinois sans peine. It would help both French & Chinese. I talked to a buddy today at the pub who took Mandarin at University and asked him to give me all his old textbooks and readers if he could find them. This lead to the longest discussion I've had yet with someone trying to persuade me not to attempt Mandarin. It made me realise how useful it is to have a place like HTLAL where people actually encourage you to take silly challenges and even try to give you additional resources! :) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4834 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 13 of 21 18 July 2014 at 11:26pm | IP Logged | |||||
I just wanted to comment that the Chinesepod Ari based his studies on is not part of the Languagepod101 series. The website is chinesepod.com. The Chinese version of Languagepod101, however, is called chineseclass101.com. I guess Chinesepod was there before Chineseclass101, so the latter wasn't allowed to be called Chinesepod101 as well. Edited by Josquin on 18 July 2014 at 11:33pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4899 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 14 of 21 19 July 2014 at 12:09am | IP Logged | |||||
Oh, my fault! Thank you for pointing that out, Josquin! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4434 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 15 of 21 19 July 2014 at 12:39am | IP Logged | |||||
My family uses a number of Apple devices including MacBook computer, iPhone, iPad. They all have the same basic setup with different languages built into the Operating System. You click on System Preferences icon. Under Keyboard you click on the Input Sources tab. On the left panel you see the language(s) you installed already. I'd click on [+] to add a language. Under Chinese I'd find Pinyin - Simplified and then Pinyin - Traditional. On a MacBook you will see the keyboard icon on the top right. On the other Apple i devices you'll see a globe icon to the left of the spacebar on the finger pad. Once setup, I can switch between English, Pinyin - Simplified & Pinyin - Traditional. When you type in the Pinyin, a list of characters will show up in a menu. You basically pick and choose the right ones. I'm not too familiar with Windows. I know you have to go into [Control Panel] and add your language under [Region]. The most tedious approach is to install an English-Chinese dictionary. You would look up characters individually. Once you found a character you'd use your shortcut keys [Ctrl][C] to copy & [Ctrl][V] to paste your character into a document. This is a tedious method but works. Any time you encounter a Chinese character online you want to use, you can highlight it and do the same Copy & Paste trick. Edited by shk00design on 19 July 2014 at 1:33am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5226 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 16 of 21 19 July 2014 at 1:09am | IP Logged | |||||
Excellent! I don't use Mac's but that pointed me in the right direction. If there is anyone using Ubuntu / Gnome3 / Mint / or other Linux, you can add additional keyboards by going into Settings->keyboard then + to add input sources. I've selected ZH which is PinYin, although I'm not sure if it is traditional or not... I also added French & Italian while I was at it. LOL. Probably easier than typing with the ALT-GR key. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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