|
 |
Chinese Mandarin - Casual beginner log | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Toffeeliz Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5678 days ago 116 posts - 130 votes  Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: Russian | Message 17 of 22 06 January 2014 at 9:31am | IP Logged | ||
|
Hey kraemder,
just a note to wish you luck on your Mandarin journey. I enjoyed reading your 2013 Japanese log and will follow your posts here. A few words; if you can get New Practical Chinese Reader, I would use this textbook as it's very solid for grammar, vocab and functional language and will take you up to intermediate level by book 4. Also, don't shy away from simplified characters. You will be able to make the link between simplified and traditional using your knowledge of Japanese kanji. There are more materials for simplified. Best of luck! p.s. - In Firefox I use 'Perapera chinese' as a pop-up dictionary, and nciku.com is a good general tools/dictionary website. Edited by Toffeeliz on 06 January 2014 at 9:48am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| aerozeplyn Senior Member United States Joined 5146 days ago 141 posts - 202 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 18 of 22 26 January 2014 at 11:16am | IP Logged | ||
|
If you want to get really good with pronunciation, check out FSI's pronunciation module:
http://www.fsi-language-courses.org/Content.php?page=Chinese ^--- look under "Resource Module", then there are 6 tapes for Pronunciation and Romanization. The "Text" link has a PDF of the sheets used for the Pronunciation module. I used these tapes a little bit after i quit Rosetta stone, and honestly I wish I had started with these tapes...it was sooo useful! If you haven't already, definitely check out some people's logs for inspiration and to overview the possibilities. My log is linked below, and irrationale also made a great log (on this website) of his journey from absolute beginner to basic fluency. 加油！ http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=23435 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 19 of 22 26 January 2014 at 5:58pm | IP Logged | ||
|
The reason why Chinese is a difficult language is because of the characters. According to Steve Kaufmann, a
polyglot online Chinese as a spoken language is simpler than most European languages with no subject-verb conjugation, verb tenses and a straightforward numbering system. Learning some basic phrases phonetically with Pinyin is a good start. Personally I don't know how to write half the characters supposedly in my vocabulary. I learned to recognize them and rely on online dictionaries to type messages on online blogs and letters to friends. Don't forget, Pinyin isn't the only option for inputting Chinese characters. There is also the English-Chinese dictionary input method 英汉输入法 on computer. You basically input each character by the English equivalent. For example: 1 way to say "I'm happy" is 我很开心. You can enter the English words separately as i followed by very followed by happy instead of wo hen kaixin. On a portable device such as iPad it is common to enter characters with Pinyin. However, you can set the keyboard to show a writing pad. You basically scribble a character on the screen with a finger. People from Taiwan still prefer to use the older BPMF phonetics for inputting characters. 2 TV series for picking up words & phrases and basic conversation available on YouTube: Liang Xi Mei 梁細妹. It is also listed under Gao Xiao Xing Dong 搞笑行动 (a comedy series from Singapore) 大耳朵图图 daerduotutu (a children's cartoon series from China) I like these 2 in particular because there is 1 theme for each show. The dialog revolve around the main theme and the words & phrases aren't too difficult to follow with a lot of repetition. Edited by shk00design on 26 January 2014 at 6:01pm 2 persons have 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 20 of 22 26 January 2014 at 10:46pm | IP Logged | ||
|
梁細妹 seems interesting...Is it possible to find it with subtitles?
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ElComadreja Senior Member Philippines bibletranslatio Joined 7236 days ago 683 posts - 757 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, Latin, Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew, Cebuano, French, Tagalog | Message 21 of 22 27 January 2014 at 2:55am | IP Logged | ||
|
I'll say this about Rosetta Stone. My Spanish accent has never been called G-- awful and
I never could get my voice to match up with the Rosetta Stone thing. And if it's a woman's voice, forget about it. 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 22 of 22 08 February 2014 at 8:08pm | IP Logged | ||
Haven't found any version of the 梁細妹 series come with subtitles in Chinese or English. Even the later 梁婆婆 series where the mother played the role of a grandmother did not come with subtitles. The first Chinese phrase you'd hear in each episode is usually "伤脑筋" or mind-boggling / troublesome. The rest of the dialog you are on your own with occasionally an English word filled-in. In my area there are Chinese video stores where you can find videos with subtitles but I don't know about this one... 1 person has voted this message useful |
If you wish to post a reply to this topic you must first login. If you are not already registered you must first register
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
