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Mandarin: Number of hours | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Ende Newbie United States Joined 7203 days ago 6 posts - 6 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin | Message 1 of 34 31 March 2005 at 6:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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I was wondering if anyone could provide an estimated number of hours of studying/using Mandarin required before you're "fluent" (I know, it's a flexible word) in the language.
I've heard the number 2500 somewhere, but now that I think about it, it may just have been in the context of 2500 hours in Mandarin gets you to the same level that can be reached in a Romance lanuage after studying for about 1000 hours. Thoughts? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Malcolm Triglot Retired Moderator Senior Member Korea, South Joined 7318 days ago 500 posts - 515 votes  5 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Korean Studies: Mandarin, Japanese, Latin | Message 2 of 34 02 April 2005 at 3:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think 2500 hours sounds about right. I just sat down with a calculator and it seems that I've put 800-1000 hours into Mandarin. This includes Pimsleur, the Mandarin portion of language exchanges, classroom time, self-study from books, and listening to radio broadcasts. While I can communicate is this languages, I feel that I'm less than halfway to my final goal of fluency (including reading and writing). Perhaps someone who's reached fluency can elaborate on this.
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| Bradley Groupie United States Joined 7226 days ago 55 posts - 56 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 3 of 34 07 April 2005 at 7:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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How would the estimate be changed if you live in China? I know it would stay 2500 hours, but what would actually constitute an hour? Instead of just studying, you would be living in the language and the culture, so I guess you could actually pick up like 10 hours a day by being immersed in the language daily. Thoughts??
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| Malcolm Triglot Retired Moderator Senior Member Korea, South Joined 7318 days ago 500 posts - 515 votes 5 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Korean Studies: Mandarin, Japanese, Latin | Message 4 of 34 08 April 2005 at 9:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think the number of hours would stay the same, but you'd be able to count the time that you're actually using Mandarin. More specifically, only the time during which you're engaged in conversation would count. This would definitely not be 10 hours a day, but probably something between 20 minutes and 4 hours depending on your lifestyle. Just walking through the streets and hearing some random words doesn't count; you need to be actively engaged in conversation.
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| Bradley Groupie United States Joined 7226 days ago 55 posts - 56 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 5 of 34 10 April 2005 at 7:06pm | IP Logged | ||
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So you don't think watching the television or listening to people talk would have any great effect? I would think that once you are somewhat decent in the language, that just hearing other people talking around you and television, classes in Mandarin and all this would definitely help a lot too. At least for listening comprehension, which is very important.
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| guillaume Pentaglot Groupie France Joined 7184 days ago 59 posts - 57 votes Speaks: French*, English, German, Spanish, Japanese Studies: Mandarin | Message 6 of 34 11 April 2005 at 1:11am | IP Logged | ||
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Listening to conversations or watching TV will help of course but it is nowhere as effecient as being really engaged in conversation. When you are speaking with somebody you pay much more attention to the language, I think.
Now as for classes in Mandarin, choose wisely. I went to Shanghai and took some classes at Tongji University (4 hours a week) and unfortunately they weren't very efficient since the class had to go at the pace of the students and unlike all the other students I had much free time and spent almost all my free time either studying Mandarin or talking with Chinese friends. This was an evening class and I guess all the evening classes will have the same problem. So if you can't attend daytime classes in a good University, you should take one on one classes. There a couple of good schools that provide this in Shanghai, if you want I can give you the addresses (I don't have them right now) Else if you want to take a full time class, I know that Tsinghua university in Beijing has good but very intensive classes (a friend of mine went there). Another school you could try is Fudan in Shanghai (I know some people who took the Mandarin class there and who really mastered the language well). Now the good thing is that in Shanghai (I don't know for other parts of China), it is relatively easy to find native speakers to talk to and that are willing to really show you there culture and help you with the language. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Bradley Groupie United States Joined 7226 days ago 55 posts - 56 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 7 of 34 11 April 2005 at 8:49am | IP Logged | ||
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I understand that being actively involved in conversation with someone is the best form of practice, but just the atmosphere of being immersed in a culture while attending a university and studying the language is a GREAT supplement, that just adds to your experience. I appreciate the advice on the universities and schools. I am still a couple of years away from looking into China though, or Japan, because I am getting ready to leave for Russia in a couple of months. Beijing is where I think I would want to study, since this is probably the best place for Mandarin. I hear there winters can be rather harsh at times, though I'm sure it's not much worse than around here (close to Chicago).
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| Cthulhu Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 7226 days ago 139 posts - 235 votes Speaks: French*, English, Mandarin, Russian | Message 8 of 34 11 April 2005 at 5:42pm | IP Logged | ||
You should seriously consider that in the intervening years; going to Beijing to study Mandarin is somewhat akin to going to Brooklyn to study English. I mean, there's nothing *wrong* with Beijing Mandarin per se, if you're into that kind of thing, but there're plenty of cities with much clearer Mandarin, staying closer to what passes for accepted standards in the linguistic world. I've seen Beijingers take a lot of heat for their infamous rhoticization. As for the general thread, I've tried to calculate the number of hours it took me to come to terms with Mandarin, but I hardly know where to begin. I can't seperate the time I spent on the writing system from the time I spent working on my communication skills, but a great deal of the former involved things like Classical Chinese that I can't really count as Mandarin but are still a necessity for reading many original works in "Mandarin." If I were to hazard a guess, I'd *probably* say it took me something like 3000 hours, but the real number could be anywhere from 2000 to 4000. I guess 2500 hours is pretty reasonable, depending on what kind of goals it's using for a guide. Edited by Cthulhu on 11 April 2005 at 5:49pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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