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Difficulty of Mandarin, Purely Spoken | ||
Tags: Difficulty | Mandarin | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Qaanaaq Newbie United States Joined 4125 days ago 14 posts - 25 votes Speaks: English* | Message 1 of 19 09 April 2014 at 5:47am | IP Logged | ||
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I have recently become interested in Mandarin for business. I would like to learn how to converse and don't really
care for the reading/writing aspect. It'd be nice to learn and all that, but I'll be honest, speaking it is far more important to me. It is obviously impossible to quantify how "difficult" a language is, but I like the FSI's gauge, more or less (http://www.effectivelanguagelearning.com/language-guide/lan guage-difficulty). Does anyone with Mandarin experience think that it is Category V - 2200 hours mainly because of the characters? Thai, Lao, Vietnamese are all tonal (and more tones than Mandarin), and only Category IV - 1100 hours ... so I'd imagine a lot of Mandarin's difficulty is due to its writing system. Would it be unreasonable for someone to become fluent in spoken Mandarin after a year of study, mainly in country? Edited by Qaanaaq on 09 April 2014 at 5:48am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6583 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 2 of 19 09 April 2014 at 7:02am | IP Logged | ||
First rule of HTLAL: Don't say "fluent". It doesn't mean anything, or rather it means lots of different things to different people. So that question is impossible to answer. Yes, the writing system is absolutely the most difficult part of Mandarin. The spoken language is one of the simplest ones out there, from any sort of objective view. However, there are a few hurdles for an English speaker: First of all, the vocabulary is wholly foreign. It's not like European languages where you get a few thousand words for free. Every word has to be laboriously memorized. You don't even get names and places for free. If you want to talk about Shakespeare or Marie Curie, you'll have to learn what Shakespeare and Marie Curie are called in Mandarin. Second, the sound system is very foreign. Not just the fact that it's tonal (which is a big hurdle for some people), but there are many similar sounds that are easy to mix up, and the unfamiliarness of it means it's very hard to get the words to stick in the beginning, leading to a longer startup period where you have to study a word over and over and over and yet you keep forgetting it. Lastly, since the language is spoken over such a large area, there are many dialects that have distinct sounds that might make it hard to understand them. A person speaking Beijing Mandarin and someone speaking Taiwan Mandarin sound quite different. But the grammar is extremely simple, so that's a big plus. Getting to a level where you can converse effortlessly isn't too hard, though the formal registers will probably be difficult without knowledge of the writing system, since the language will be mixed with Literary Sinitic ("Classical Chinese"), a different language using the same writing system. These expressions will be very hard to learn without an understanding of the characters they are composed of. A year in China coupled with laborious study will likely get you to a comfortable conversational level about daily topics like what to eat and where to go, but you'll hardly be able to discuss science or politics. Or Shakespeare. 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| day1 Groupie Latvia Joined 3893 days ago 93 posts - 158 votes Speaks: English | Message 3 of 19 09 April 2014 at 9:08am | IP Logged | ||
I would disagree. The beginning Chinese and grammar are indeed simple, that I will not deny. But once you progress further, it gets more difficult. First, like you rightly mentioned, the vocab offers no shortcuts - you do have to learn it all, even Shakespeare's name. But there is also the way (order) the Chinese put ideas together in a sentence. Very un-western. Even if you take the characters out of the equation it will not become that very simple, let alone simplest one out there. Can you attain a good conversational level in one year spent studying in China? I believe it's possible, but in my experience the vast majority of people don't. I did my first year of Chinese in China, full one year of classes. I felt OK afterwards, I did feel I knew quite a lot, could manage quite a lot. But that was more because I had become used to whichever level I had, used to dealing with things with whatever skills I had. Was I "fluent"? No way. Was I intermediate? Maybe. Most of my classmates were on a similar level, I also saw the same pattern later on with other people, so it wasn't just me or bad teaching in my school. I don't think that the characters were the most difficult bit. I wouldn't say that the characters were what slowed me down. I would have gotten more of my stay out if I would have more actively sought ways to live English-free while there. On the other hand, I have seen some exceptional people who have learned amazing amounts of Chinese in one year in their native countries, not even in China. Lot's of hard work, lots of passion, lot's of talent probably, in some cases a loving Chinese partner willing to help. Go for it! But if you don't work your ass off, you're likely to be very, very far away from genuinely "fluent" after the year is done. And go to a smaller place with less English speaking people. It'll do you good. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| aabram Pentaglot Senior Member Estonia Joined 5534 days ago 138 posts - 263 votes Speaks: Estonian*, English, Spanish, Russian, Finnish Studies: Mandarin, French | Message 4 of 19 09 April 2014 at 9:45am | IP Logged | ||
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We've had students who have been a year in China come back and do classes with the rest.
They indeed have much better vocabulary, more native speech patterns, better pronunciation etc but just few have been freely conservational. When it comes to topics like space exploration, genetically modified rice or women's rights (these are some of the topics in NPCR, by the way) they're just as helpless as the rest of us. I'd guess that yea, you could reach satisfactory level on your chosen field to get more or less comfortably by. Then again I don't know how it would work out for you to live in China as an illiterate person. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| lichtrausch Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5961 days ago 525 posts - 1072 votes Speaks: English*, German, Japanese Studies: Korean, Mandarin | Message 5 of 19 09 April 2014 at 7:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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The problem I see with avoiding the written language is that most people find reading to be the most effective way of learning vocabulary.
4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| ChiaBrain Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5809 days ago 402 posts - 512 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish* Studies: Portuguese, Italian, French Studies: German | Message 6 of 19 09 April 2014 at 7:59pm | IP Logged | ||
Are there a lot of good Pinyin-only resources available for learning through reading? Edited by ChiaBrain on 09 April 2014 at 8:01pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6583 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 7 of 19 09 April 2014 at 8:48pm | IP Logged | ||
Not really. There are some research papers and a handful of books written in pinyin, but that's about it, as far as I know. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5960 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 8 of 19 09 April 2014 at 9:14pm | IP Logged | ||
A variation on this would be to use kids books with Bopomofo as the selection seems to be pretty decent. Of course then Taiwanese and mainland Mandarin differences would have to be kept in mind. Edited by Snowflake on 09 April 2014 at 9:16pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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