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Three Month Moratorium from Mandarin | ||
Tags: Study Plan | Mandarin | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| naomi94 Newbie United States thepolyglotexperienc Joined 4660 days ago 17 posts - 15 votes Studies: Swedish, French | Message 1 of 4 19 May 2013 at 8:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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Good Afternoon Language Learners,
This is my story: I started listening to Pimsleurs Mandarin Chinese, and listened up to ten lessons regularly. It was difficult and I had to listen to the same lesson several times over before I could really understand everything. I have two small babies, and have no time to take a class. I was listening to the lessons when I took them for a walk. I did this regularly for a few months. In my blog, I documented my progress in Mandarin Chinese. I started with Living Language and a few other language programs (memory escapes me). Disaster Struck when I went to organize the content on my I-pod, and I-tunes deleted everything. I have not had time to put the lessons back on my I-pod. It takes a few hours, and at night I am completely exhausted. So, it has been a few months since I listened to anything in Mandarin Chinese. So, here is the situation: we moved to a new apartment, and in the next few days I will have some alone time to get everything back on my I-pod. I would like to start with a new, fresh approach. What advice do you have for me, as far as my “new approach” to learning Mandarin Chinese? Edited by newyorkeric on 20 May 2013 at 2:18am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| liddytime Pentaglot Senior Member United States mainlymagyar.wordpre Joined 6230 days ago 693 posts - 1328 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Galician Studies: Hungarian, Vietnamese, Modern Hebrew, Norwegian, Persian, Arabic (Written) | Message 2 of 4 19 May 2013 at 8:51pm | IP Logged | ||
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You should contact tanyab! She became fluent in Russian and Armenian at home. I'm pretty sure she did it with
small children as well. I found the LL course a bit overwhelming. So much is thrown at you in each lesson. I thought Assimil was much more manageable. Contrary to the claims on the box, you will not be at a B1 when you finish. Possibly a high A2... but then you can go back to Ulitmate CHinese and use it as a thorough review. As you know, there is no shortcut to Chinese mastery! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Paco Senior Member Hong Kong Joined 4278 days ago 145 posts - 251 votes Speaks: Cantonese* | Message 3 of 4 19 May 2013 at 9:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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It seems you are quite experienced in learning languages. (I visited your blog; a
lovely blog!) Am I right to say Chinese is the only one you feel uncomfortable learning? If it is true, I think you should better first figure out why so. Is it the 4 tones? Or are you not comfortable with the monosyllabic units? If Pimsleur does not work for your Chinese, I suggest you drop it or return to it later. I do not like Pimsleur mainly because a) I cannot take hold of the progress, b) English in the audio stops me from assimilating and, most importantly, c) the pre-made course gives too much on my strong points but too little on my weak points. I second liddytime, that LL might be too overwhelming for someone like you, the owner(?) of a shop and mother of two. Assimil should suit you if you like the approach. Good things about Assimil: User-friendly format Short lessons (I value these two very much; still manageable when I get busy) Vocabularies keep recurring to aid memory Decent audio Good things about its Mandarin course: Progressive (might be a little bit too slow; at least better than too fast) Romanisation included You can turn Assimil into tailor-made lessons: if you are uncomfortable with the sounds, listen a few more times; you can take a photo of or copy the lesson you are doing and have a quick look occasionally during your walk while constantly listening to the lesson; you may ignore the lines of Chinese characters for the moment and get back to them when you feel comfortable with the spoken language. I do not think you need a grammar overview, as English and Mandarin, I would say, are quite similar, that word order are so important to both that English is essentially an analytic language with not much inflectional quality inherited from its ancestors. But if you do, perhaps you can try Hugo's Chinese in Three Months? But I have not had an overview of the course yet. Best of luck! Edited by Paco on 20 May 2013 at 1:34am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6380 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 4 20 May 2013 at 2:17am | IP Logged | ||
I'm wondering why it would take so long to transfer the programs back to your Ipod. ALSO: Please stop dropping your URL into your posts. Edited by newyorkeric on 20 May 2013 at 2:18am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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