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Learning Mandarin Chinese in 7 Weeks

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zilan2367
Newbie
United States
Joined 3798 days ago
27 posts - 29 votes
Speaks: English
Studies: Thai*
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 57 of 66
17 July 2014 at 7:48am | IP Logged 
day1 wrote:
Recording:

There were mistakes, but for a beginner level student - good! I have seen some students with a very good ear for tones, you seem to be one of those.

From my side, only two things need big attention: I think you still need some general tone practice, in a sense, that all the phrases you're reading sound really fine, but I am getting a feeling that you listened to those book CD recordings a few times before making your own recording (nothing wrong with that!).

The numbers, well, 二 "er4" was pronounced in a wrong tone, same as 十 "shi2" and all the 11, 12, .... and following numbers - all either very wrong or just passable. If judged just from these, I'd be very negative about the way you sound. I am assuming that when just given a sentence with pinyin but without audio to practice from, you'd make more mistakes than what were there in the phrases you read for this recording.

So, do some extra tone practice, my favorite sites are these:

http://pinyinpractice.com/tones.htm
(do tone combo)

http://www.laits.utexas.edu/ppp/
(play around with more difficult tasks)

Other thing, when you said 马马虎虎 "ma3ma0 hu1hu0", it sounded a bit weird, especially the tone on last "hū", this word is usually said very fast, so it sort of calls for a zero (no) tone on second and fourth syllable.

Don't misunderstand me - listening to audio CDs is a FANTASTIC way to learn to speak properly, so, if CDs make you sound good, then there is no problem. Keep on doing that. But for some deeper understanding of tones those exercises when you need to choose the right one from two really similar sounding ones are a good practice.


I was bad at pronouncing the numbers because I couldn't find any audio with numbers from 0-100 but now I have an anki deck with audio, so I can practice the numbers again and improve on them.
Have you tried the Integrated Chinese Level 1 Part 1 Character Workbook for Simplified Characters yet? I'm not sure if I should use that to learn how to write characters or continue using my online resources?
Also, is there a good site that can help me learn to type the characters on my computer?
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zilan2367
Newbie
United States
Joined 3798 days ago
27 posts - 29 votes
Speaks: English
Studies: Thai*
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 58 of 66
17 July 2014 at 7:58am | IP Logged 
leosmith wrote:
zilan2367 wrote:
I've decided to submit this recording instead of the video. This is just a sample of phrases I read
in the Yong Ho book. Please critique this.
http://vocaroo.com/i/s0QSip0yNhAT

เก่งมาก!
Considering your level, your sentences were very good! There was a certain well publicized 3-month polyglot who
didn't get to your level, and he studied all day for 3 months. Others have made corrections to your
sentences, so I won't.

But your numbers need some work. Please note that the Mandarin 4th tone isn't the same as the Thai falling tone.
0 - ling3 (s/b ling2)
2 - er1 (s/b er4)
4 - si with Thai falling tone (s/b si4)
6 - lew like the English name with Thai falling tone (s/b liu4) (the iu pinyin is almost always pronounced like the eo in
Leo Beer))
7 - chee1 with English ch sound (s/b qi1)
9 - jew like the English word with Thai falling tone (s/b jiu3)
10 - shi with Thai falling tone (s/b shi2)

One last thing, although I didn't point out specific examples of this, you have some Thai influence on vowel lengths. Keep in
mind that while there aren't different vowel lengths per say in Mandarin, 3rd & 1st tone syllables are long, 2nd & 4th are
short.

What do you mean by "s/b"?
I also noticed that the words I pronounce tend to be longer than the Mandarin speakers in the audio sometimes...

I'm a fast learner in some things such as speaking but I'm not that great at grammar. Luckily, Chinese grammar isn't as difficult as Spanish nor French.
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zilan2367
Newbie
United States
Joined 3798 days ago
27 posts - 29 votes
Speaks: English
Studies: Thai*
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 59 of 66
17 July 2014 at 8:07am | IP Logged 
Does anyone know how long I should stick with each fsi lesson?

I always manage to say one or two words incorrectly and then I redo the entire lesson again.
Is this a good idea or should I just continue to the next lesson?
Also, should I repeat an fsi lesson so that I won't forget it and when should I do this?

As for the Integrated Chinese Level 1 Part 1 Textbook Simplified Characters, should I study the contents by re-reading the chapter, study the anki cards, then rewrite each sentence, character by character?
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day1
Groupie
Latvia
Joined 3891 days ago
93 posts - 158 votes 
Speaks: English

 
 Message 60 of 66
17 July 2014 at 9:31am | IP Logged 
Each person has their own unique studying style that is best suited to them. So probably the best advice is to say that you should do what you feel/think works for you. I can only suggest you try a few methods to see how you feel about it.

Since audio files work well for you, why not try re-listening to all dialogs instead of re-reading? Just take the CD and use it as a dictation practice - listen, then listen again and try to write it down, first in pīnyīn (remember to write and check tone marks!), then in characters (keep the page with new vocabulary open). This way you minimize the risk of learning to pronounce the words wrong (always a danger when you do self study with noone to point the mistakes out for you!)

When it comes to remembering hanzi, well, for some people writing a character down many times works. For some people what works is mnemonics (making up a silly story or picture that helps you remember), some people remember only after seeing the same character in several contexts in texts. So, try the Character Workbook, but, if it does not work, just do something else. For animated stroke order, there are many pages, for example this one:
http://www.usc.edu/dept/ealc/chinese/newweb/character_page.h tml

Chinese people, when they type Chinese, do it by typing pinyin. Try it here: https://translate.google.com/#zh-CN/en/ and if you like it, download Google Pinyin IME. Only one thing to remember: To get ǚ (the u with dots) you type V (letter v).

"s/b" means "should be"





Edited by day1 on 17 July 2014 at 9:39am
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zilan2367
Newbie
United States
Joined 3798 days ago
27 posts - 29 votes
Speaks: English
Studies: Thai*
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 61 of 66
18 July 2014 at 4:41am | IP Logged 
day1 wrote:
Each person has their own unique studying style that is best suited to them. So probably the best advice is to say that you should do what you feel/think works for you. I can only suggest you try a few methods to see how you feel about it.

Since audio files work well for you, why not try re-listening to all dialogs instead of re-reading? Just take the CD and use it as a dictation practice - listen, then listen again and try to write it down, first in pīnyīn (remember to write and check tone marks!), then in characters (keep the page with new vocabulary open). This way you minimize the risk of learning to pronounce the words wrong (always a danger when you do self study with noone to point the mistakes out for you!)

When it comes to remembering hanzi, well, for some people writing a character down many times works. For some people what works is mnemonics (making up a silly story or picture that helps you remember), some people remember only after seeing the same character in several contexts in texts. So, try the Character Workbook, but, if it does not work, just do something else. For animated stroke order, there are many pages, for example this one:
http://www.usc.edu/dept/ealc/chinese/newweb/character_page.h tml

Chinese people, when they type Chinese, do it by typing pinyin. Try it here: https://translate.google.com/#zh-CN/en/ and if you like it, download Google Pinyin IME. Only one thing to remember: To get ǚ (the u with dots) you type V (letter v).

"s/b" means "should be"




I think I will try what you recommended. I'll relisten to the audio and then try to write it in pinyin and hanzi.

I'll try the Character Workbook first then.

I have a macbook air and I can't find the download link for my macbook. It seems like the Google Pinyin IME is for Android.

Are there other programs for a macbook where I can type hanzi or should I use the program in my System Preferences?
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day1
Groupie
Latvia
Joined 3891 days ago
93 posts - 158 votes 
Speaks: English

 
 Message 62 of 66
18 July 2014 at 8:30am | IP Logged 
I think you should be able to add additional language from settings

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-7tC7tlw7E
I hope this tutorial is what you need
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leosmith
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6549 days ago
2365 posts - 3804 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Tagalog

 
 Message 63 of 66
19 July 2014 at 5:12am | IP Logged 
zilan2367 wrote:
What do you mean by "s/b"?

day1 wrote:
"s/b" means "should be"

zilan2367 wrote:
I also noticed that the words I pronounce tend to be longer than the Mandarin speakers in the
audio sometimes...

leosmith wrote:
3rd & 1st tone syllables are long, 2nd & 4th are short.

So for example, in Thai you can have a long or short falling tone, but not in Mandarin. The falling tone (4) is always
short.


Edited by leosmith on 19 July 2014 at 5:13am
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leosmith
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6549 days ago
2365 posts - 3804 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Tagalog

 
 Message 64 of 66
08 August 2014 at 8:01am | IP Logged 
zilan, how are you progressing?


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