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Eric’s Mandarin Log (see post 1 for course list) | ||
Tags: Mandarin | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Sepp Diglot Newbie Portugal Joined 4052 days ago 8 posts - 12 votes Speaks: English, Portuguese | Message 129 of 141 23 November 2013 at 3:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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Sorry to bother you here, but I can't send you a PM as your mailbox seems to be full.
Paul 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6379 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes  Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 130 of 141 31 December 2013 at 1:59pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've "finished" TYS Chinese Complete. Finished is in quotes because I didn't revise the last couple of chapters very well. I had some serious issues with this course and tried to fight through them but at the end I ran out of steam.
Let me start out with one good thing to say about the book. I liked that there was a storyline followed throughout the book. Ok, so it was the cliched westerners going to China to study but it didn't feel too cheesy. The characters were generally likeable and that helped a lot. I have a lot of complaints. First, the difficulty ramped up way too quickly. The chapters in the second half of the book introduced dozens of new words per chapter. It was too many. Second, the dialogs became way too long. One dialog was over 7 minutes. The dialogs also became somewhat artificial. In one chapter the couple was sitting on a beach talking about how Chinese like to take pictures. Then, one says, well, Chinese are a bit different than us. They liked to formed business partnerships with thier classmates and people from the same villages. Huh? Also, I don't need to learn vocabulary like long jump pit at this point in my life. Third, after a certain point, the dialogs weren't translated anymore. Fourth, while the voice actors were generally professional and prettygood, there were a serious problem with their cadence in some places. Maybe it was the editing. In Chinese, there is a certain cadence in how sounds are grouped and where breaks are placed. When it isn't done correctly and naturally, it makes it harder to understand the sentence. Fifth, too many grammatical explanations and very dry ones at that. I stopped reading them early on. Hmm, probably some other things but that is probably enough to get the idea that I didn't enjoy the course so much. Actually, I thought the first half the book was quite ok but overall I probably stuck with it too long. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6379 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 131 of 141 20 May 2014 at 5:44am | IP Logged | ||
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Wow, I haven't updated my log in a long time. In fact, I haven't had much time to study. I did work through Linguaphone Mandarin Chinese All Talk, which surprisingly is not a bad course, particularly if you have a little background already. If you are a beginner though I think it would be a nightmare.
The course follows the typical pattern of the All Talk courses that I have listened to. An English-speaking businessman travels to a foreign country with zero knowledge of the local language. A local representative of the company helps the businessman by interpreting while teaching him some of the language. Don't worry! It's easy to learn (fill in incredibly hard language here)! I will help you! I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of grammar taught. As usual, there was too much vocabulary and it was introduced too quickly. Surprisingly, and disappointingly, there was hardly any mention of tones. The Chinese actors were not great but ok. The British actor was TERRIBLE. His English pronunciation was pleasant enough. His Mandarin pronunciation made me want to jab a sharpened pencil in each ear. It wasn't just that it was unpleasant, which it was, but he was obviously reading off a script in pinyin as if it were English (ignoring the tones of course). Oftentimes I couldn't understand what he was saying. Anyhow, overall, I would still say that the course is worth doing, particularly if you are looking for something light and fluffy to do in your spare time say during your commute to work or school. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6379 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 132 of 141 25 May 2014 at 6:01am | IP Logged | ||
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My two children are now pretty comfortable speaking complete sentences in Chinese. It took a lot of work to
get my son especially to speak. He really resisted it. A couple of things that helped was instituting Chinese only at the dinner table and finding some cartoons in Chinese that he really likes (Pocoyo). Now he is a lot more adventuous and is always asking how to say words in Chinese (zhe shi shenme?). So I am falling far behind them but also have a couple of more language partners at home. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| drygramul Tetraglot Senior Member Italy Joined 4468 days ago 165 posts - 269 votes Speaks: Persian, Italian*, EnglishC2, GermanB2 Studies: French, Polish | Message 133 of 141 25 May 2014 at 10:25am | IP Logged | ||
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I am interested in this.
If I may, how old were they when they started learning mandarin, and did you teach them or they're learning it at school? The reason I am asking is too know if children from an early stage can learn a tonal language like natives (in the way that it's interiorized and not necessarely perfectly pronounced) even if the parents don't speak it at home, let's say when they're 6 years or older. Please forgive me if you already wrote that and I missed it. Edited by drygramul on 25 May 2014 at 10:25am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5236 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 134 of 141 25 May 2014 at 10:34am | IP Logged | ||
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Have a question for you, and hopefully it is applicaable to your log. You did your first post here on 30 June 2007 at 9:44pm. In another 30 days or so it will be 7 years since you started?
So how is your Mandarin? Can you perhaps do a 7 year summary for those of us who might like to follow in your footsteps? Great work BTW, and very interesting log. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6379 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 135 of 141 25 May 2014 at 4:26pm | IP Logged | ||
The situation is a little complicated. Although my kids are in an English dominated environment, they have always been exposed at least a little to Mandarin. The first language of their grandmother, who watches them during the day, is Mandarin. Strangely enough though she tends to speak to them in English. Their schooling is probably 80% in English. And my wife who is a native speaker of both until recently mostly spoke to them in English. I think they were exposed to Mandarin enough that when the time was right they were able to activate it and quickly went from speaking little to being able to speak pretty comfortably, at least about basic things. When we realized they were beginning this stage, we started to speak to them more and my wife started reading bedtime stories to them, which really seemed to help. Edited by newyorkeric on 25 May 2014 at 4:42pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| drygramul Tetraglot Senior Member Italy Joined 4468 days ago 165 posts - 269 votes Speaks: Persian, Italian*, EnglishC2, GermanB2 Studies: French, Polish | Message 136 of 141 25 May 2014 at 5:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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So, if I'm not mistaken, their exposure in their early childhood was mostly passive, a sort of imprinting that however sufficed when they had to turn to an active production, right? How old were they when they started this second phase?
I wonder if for a non-mandarin speaker would be enough to expose his children to cartoons, show or music in that language and send them later to a school in order to give them a head start in that language. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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