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Towards Mandarin fluency - Team 鹊 TAC’14 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Ninibo Diglot Groupie Germany Joined 4014 days ago 88 posts - 116 votes  Speaks: German*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 57 of 69 07 April 2014 at 1:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm finally back home and quite out of the loop, it will take some time to read up on what i've missed..
Anyway, London was amazing and i cannot wait to go back. I didn't do any Chinese, unfortunately, but i spoke a lot of English, which is always a welcome practice, since i usually only write. I have been thinking though, if i want to do the Super Challenge after all. The reason is, that i really have problems to watch Chinese. I don't know why, but i don't have the patience to sit down and watch Chinese TV for an hour, i'd rather spend that time reading.. I think the Challenge starts next month, so i still have some time. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6083 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 58 of 69 07 April 2014 at 7:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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Ah, that's right... Super Challenge is starting again, isn't it. Are you gonna sign up? I think my skills are still to weak and feeble to make good use of 100 films in Mandarin ⊙▂⊙
HSK 5/6 seems to be the perfect level to make use of such a challenge! I'll get there some day! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5863 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 59 of 69 08 April 2014 at 3:42am | IP Logged | ||
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I don't think i'm ready for a Chinese Super Challenge, either. Hopefully i'll be a bit more prepared for the next one.
It's funny that you don't like watching Chinese TV, i much prefer watching TV to reading as i understand a lot more and find it more interesting. I tend to prefer reading in my better languages (Spanish and Catalan), though. You could always just ignore the video portion of it, that's what i'll probably end up doing at least, though i'm not planning to do it for Mandarin. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ninibo Diglot Groupie Germany Joined 4014 days ago 88 posts - 116 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 60 of 69 11 April 2014 at 8:11pm | IP Logged | ||
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@Sunja, @Crush
Yes, i decided to go for the super challenge. I'm pretty sure watching that many movies will bethe hard part. I don't actually have the patience to sit down for 90 min to watch anything, even in English or German..Reading is no problem though, weird. I'll reread Sanmao's books in the beginning, because i'll be rather busy at the start of the super challenge. Then i'll have to work out a TV schedule. Another of my bigger goals this year is also working on speaking, because that's by far my weakest skill, i can barely say anything. I don't know why i'm afraid to speak to people in Chinese, but i can't get over that. I hope italki tutors are easier, i mean, they are used to people butchering the language. I'd love to come closer to be actually able to use Chinese by the end of the year. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5164 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 61 of 69 11 April 2014 at 8:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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Looks like we have similar goals, Ninibo! (even though my comprehension is lightyears
behind yours). I hope you will have good results with italki. I'm also using Sharedtalk for instant chatting. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ninibo Diglot Groupie Germany Joined 4014 days ago 88 posts - 116 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 62 of 69 11 April 2014 at 9:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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@Expugnator
I haven't used either yet. Is Shared Talk like italki, just not with tutors, but other people exchanging languages? That would be something to try after i've had some lessons on italki. What are you experiences? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5164 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 63 of 69 11 April 2014 at 9:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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Sharedtalk doesn't have tutors indeed but it has instant chat. That is, it has a
voicechat and a normal chat where you can people's availability right away and invite them to chat. Normally there are many Chinese there. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4442 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 64 of 69 11 April 2014 at 10:07pm | IP Logged | ||
When you want to improve on your speaking skills, the first thing is to be around the right groups of people. If there is a local Chinese community centre you'd participate in organized activities. You can even make friends with people who are more recent arrivals. If you are around people who can speak English even at an intermediate level, there is a tendency for you to switch back to English. Once I was travelling in Taiwan. Someone from the tour was from London England. We would be out in the local markets and I was asked to translate what the street vendor said. If you are abroad with a group of people, there is a tendency to rely on the person who is most fluent in a local language to do all the talking. The rest of the group would be talking among themselves in English. A few years back I was working in a government centre serving unemployed people. Many of them were recent immigrants. There was a lady in the same office who came from Romania. She would be talking to Italian people with limited English because the 2 languages are similar. Occasionally Chinese people with limited English would show up. They wanted to know what the government can do for them and tend to be attentive what you tell them. They are very accommodating even if your Chinese isn't very fluent the fact that you try to provide them with the right information. A year ago I was travelling in the US in Houston Texas. At the airport, couple from Taiwan was trying to decide whether to take a taxi or an airport shuttle into town. After buying a ticket they asked me in Chinese how much it would cost to take a shuttle. In this part of the world English is the official language and everybody is expected to be able to speak it with certain level of fluency. Normally I wouldn't initiate a conversation in Chinese unless I know the other person well. On the phone you'd say "Hello" instead of 喂 Wéi. Even at the dinner table with Chinese people many of the second-generation would be talking among themselves in English. There was an odd time when someone was asking for Mrs. Li (找李太太) in Chinese. You can answer in English "Sorry, wrong number" or "你打错了电话"... I recently came across a polyglot of mixed ancestry Stuart Jay Raj. With a father of Indian heritage he lives in Thailand (if I'm not mistaken). He studied and compared various Asian (including Thai, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Cantonese & Mandarin) & European languages for many years and speaks like a native in practically every language he mastered. He has his own online blog and many good tips for learning languages. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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