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Next adventure: Mandarin - 鹊 TAC’14 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Flarioca Heptaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5880 days ago 635 posts - 816 votes  Speaks: Portuguese*, Esperanto, French, EnglishC2, Spanish, German, Italian Studies: Catalan, Mandarin | Message 41 of 128 26 April 2013 at 2:02am | IP Logged | ||
You're welcome. I hope that they'll be as helpful for you as they have been for me, thanks to informations from lots of people, many from HTLAL. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Flarioca Heptaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5880 days ago 635 posts - 816 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Esperanto, French, EnglishC2, Spanish, German, Italian Studies: Catalan, Mandarin | Message 42 of 128 27 April 2013 at 2:02am | IP Logged | ||
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Major change of plans and some further details
Instead of "Beginner's Chinese" by Yong Ho, I'm going to use "Méthode 90". Besides that, I've also a better and more detailed idea about how to handle all these initial stuff (at least until another change of plans). First, let me write here why Assimil has never been on my list. Two very simple reasons: Pinyin translation under each line of Chinese characters seems a VERY bad idea, for me. Maybe some other people enjoy it, but I don't, not at all! Second main reason is the lack of deeper grammar explanations, which is, in my opinion, a major problem in a beginning course. I've enjoyed a lot the "Perfectionnement Allemand", I've learned how to read and listen Catalan through "El Catalán sin esfuerzo", but I wouldn't start studying a language like Mandarin without a fair amount of grammar, in spite of some (absurd) claims that Mandarin has no grammar. That said, "Méthode 90" seems to have many of the better Assimil features: lots of small lessons, building up each one upon previously studied material. However, it doesn't have the forementioned problems. Both pinyin and the French translations are on another page, and the grammar explanations seem much deeper than Assimil's. Besides that, "Méthode 90" seems also to have some other very nice features: All lessons introduce about the same number of new words. The exercises are of different kinds and they are included in the CDs. The concern about the writing skill is neither shallow nor too deep. This is what I can tell you now, just after skimming the book. I'll probably try later "Beginner's Chinese" as well as "Boya Chinese: Elementary Starter I", but at this point "Méthode 90" seems to me a much better way to learn Mandarin. Now, about my plans to handle this stuff. After the end of "Michel Thomas" and "The Sounds of Chinese" I'll start doing the lessons from "Basic Spoken Chinese". I'm especially interested about their drills, which seem a FSI way to work on a language, hopefully improved. For about a week, this is going to be the only Mandarin that I'll study, along with some phonetical drills. After that, "Basic Spoken Chinese" is going to be my commute plus night activity. I'll then start studying "Learning Chinese Characters", which I already enjoy after reading just the introduction. I'm already sure that this is going to be VERY useful and lots of fun. I'll finish its first seven chapters, after which "Méthode 90" will be the leading material. The new characters that are going to be introduced, about 18 each lesson, will be memorized with the help of "Learning Chinese Characters" and included in a Pleco flashcard deck, for a number of daily workouts. My grammar books may be put in use as soon as it seems necessary, no need to set a moment. I'm already "speaking" Mandarin ... well, I can already say "what is the meaning of 'ni hao ma'?". Since "Méthode 90" also cares about the writing skill, it seems that all skills receive, at least, some attention in this plan. I'd be very happy with any suggestions, which are certainly even more important at the beginning of any activity. Edited by Flarioca on 27 April 2013 at 2:25am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Flarioca Heptaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5880 days ago 635 posts - 816 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Esperanto, French, EnglishC2, Spanish, German, Italian Studies: Catalan, Mandarin | Message 43 of 128 27 April 2013 at 6:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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Finished Perfect Mandarin Chinese CD2 today.
Of course, there are many ways to start studying Mandarin, I've tested only two ways, Pimsleur and Miche Thomas. If I still had a 30 minutes commute, I'd probably do both simultaneoulsy, but mostly to make the commute time something more useful than just bring me from one place to another. However, MT fits better the way I like to learn things, for two reasons: First, they give more explanations. Second, the way they lead you through the building of new phrases is more challenging. Anyway, I'd say that a initial phonetical/phonological study is imperative for anyone trying to learns Mandarin. Indeed, it's quite important for any language, but even more so in the case of languages whose phonology is more alien to ours. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Flarioca Heptaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5880 days ago 635 posts - 816 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Esperanto, French, EnglishC2, Spanish, German, Italian Studies: Catalan, Mandarin | Message 44 of 128 30 April 2013 at 4:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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When I was trying to learn music, since, as most of people, I don't have perfect pitch, I was training the relative pitch, mostly by associating each interval with a well known music, as lots of people do it.
Could this idea also be useful to learn Mandarin tones? I mean, it's easy to learn the basic idea behind tones, but it isn't so easy to recognize and produce them correctly. The HTLAL member Vlad seems to believe that this idea could work indeed. So far, I've chosen the words in the next picture (1st tone: green, 2nd tone: blue, 3rd tone: red, 4th tone: black, neutral tone: gray). I'll next use Audacity to create a mp3 with sounds for all these words, including my own utterances of them. All these words appear at or before CD2 of Perfect Mandarin Chinese. 
Edited by Flarioca on 30 April 2013 at 4:29pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Flarioca Heptaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5880 days ago 635 posts - 816 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Esperanto, French, EnglishC2, Spanish, German, Italian Studies: Catalan, Mandarin | Message 45 of 128 03 May 2013 at 6:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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Finished CD3 today. It's different from the previous one, because the native speaker repeats each phrase twice, the second time close to natural pace.
It should be added that another great feature of Assimil is the rate they increase the speech pace. It really allows a smooth transition and by the end you're listening at a speed close to the natural one. The picture bellow shows how it goes for the " El Catalán sin esfuerzo" 
I hope that "Méthode 90" has a good solution for this problem as well. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Flarioca Heptaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5880 days ago 635 posts - 816 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Esperanto, French, EnglishC2, Spanish, German, Italian Studies: Catalan, Mandarin | Message 46 of 128 04 May 2013 at 6:06pm | IP Logged | ||
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For various reasons, some words have been changed and fang2 shen1 haven't even appeared so far in Michel Thomas course.
The picture bellow also has the Zhuyin correspondance. The mp3 file is ready and I'm going to listen to it some time before producing and listening to my own version of each word. 
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Flarioca Heptaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5880 days ago 635 posts - 816 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Esperanto, French, EnglishC2, Spanish, German, Italian Studies: Catalan, Mandarin | Message 47 of 128 09 May 2013 at 4:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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Perfect Mandarin Chinese Michel Thomas finished today (9th May 2013).
It's wonderful when you realize that you already can say something in Mandarin. However, I finish this course with the feeling that I haven't learned as much as in the Russian one, but, well, this is Mandarin! I still believe that this is possibly one of the best first courses you can do in Mandarin. I'm also very happy about my decision to dedicate lots of time to Mandarin phonology, about which I'm still very far from finishing. As a side note, I wonder why the last phrase of this course has been "she was not very interesting" ... The problem is that my "islands" are still very few and very far away from each other. Some important basic "islands" are missing, because I cannot yet introduce myself, for instance. Maybe, the next four CDs of the Vocabulary courses will increase the number and proximity of these "islands". Anyway, I'm quite sure that this is going to change soon with the next courses I'm going to study, which often start with basic stuff like "my name is ...". Edited by Flarioca on 09 May 2013 at 4:10pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Flarioca Heptaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5880 days ago 635 posts - 816 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Esperanto, French, EnglishC2, Spanish, German, Italian Studies: Catalan, Mandarin | Message 48 of 128 11 May 2013 at 6:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've started the Vocabulary Course (Total Mandarin MT) today. As already said, you MUST complete the Perfect Course before starting this one (and, again, I don't think that this is fair).
Anyway, it seems that the amount and pace of spoken Mandarin will increase, which is good and also conveys the idea of improvement! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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