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Mandarin - Learning just the speaking? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Bryos Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5001 days ago 6 posts - 6 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish | Message 1 of 11 11 March 2011 at 5:22am | IP Logged | ||
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Hello!
I'm very interested in learning how to speak Mandarin because I like the people, the culture, and I like the feeling of learning a language. However, I'm more interested in learning how to speak and listen in the language than spending countless hours learning how to read and write each individual character. This brings me to the idea of just learning how to speak Mandarin through using only pinyin. I was wondering if this is good idea or if it ends up making things harder. Has anyone learned just spoken Mandarin through the use of pinyin? I'm wondering if this is a smart idea and if it can work out. Also, I have resources that solely teach spoken Mandarin and they seem pretty good to start me off: 1) Pimsleur Mandarin 2) FSI Mandarin If anyone has any other resources that work, feel free to let me know. Thanks in advance for your comments. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| crafedog Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5810 days ago 166 posts - 337 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Korean, Tok Pisin, French | Message 2 of 11 11 March 2011 at 5:51am | IP Logged | ||
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Hiya
That's a very interesting question. I'm sorry to say that I don't have any experience with Mandarin so we'll have to wait for a member who knows more about this but I do have a little bit of advice. Though I'm sure that's something that many learners of Mandarin have wondered in the past, I can think of one serious issue with this approach: you would essentially be illiterate. Ignoring the social implications/what this does to your claim to have learnt the language in the eyes of others, this would mean that you would miss out on a lot of the culture. As you said, you're a fan of the people, the culture etc, so ideally you would like to spend some time in a Mandarin speaking country. It would be a shame to still feel lost/still 'foreign' walking around and not being able to understand the street signs, restaurant menus, movie guides, a book from your friend, all of the internet etc. Have a think about that first before you make any major decisions about what to learn/not to learn. In terms of recommendations I'd probably recommend Michel Thomas. One of my favourite programs, entirely audio-based. I haven't tried the Mandarin edition but you should have a look for some reviews. Most of the courses are of extremely high quality. Hope this helps. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tangerine Newbie England Joined 5203 days ago 19 posts - 38 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 3 of 11 11 March 2011 at 4:53pm | IP Logged | ||
I've been studying Mandarin for about 4 years now, and I have spent 'countless hours' reading and writing Chinese characters. When I first started learning Chinese i just learnt by pinyin. It was definitely quick to pick up words but, for me, being illiterate wasn't acceptable. I imagined one day speaking kick-arse Chinese and then somebody asking me to write down a short note and not being able to do it. Just didn't seem right. It has, without doubt, been a huge investment of time to learn the characters for every new word I learn. That said, I'm now in a position where I can read newspapers, movie/TV subtitles, novels, (some) inscriptions at famous places, etc. For me, that has been a huge source of motivation through the years and still inspires me to continue learning more and more characters. I also like the experience of writing the characters, appreciating their form and thinking about their origins. This is a huge part of Chinese culture which I would definitely not want to miss out on. Also, I think it's now actually easier for me to learn new words as most for most new words I know one or both of the characters of which it's made up of. So, I already have the sound and meaning for half/the whole word in my brain and it's just a matter of mixing the sounds/concepts together. This seems A LOT easier than trying to remember different pinyin words which may or may not refer to the same character. It's probably for this reason that if I read stuff in pinyin now it's MUCH harder to read and comprehend than the characters themselves. However, as I said, this has taken a lot of time. I think it's fair to say that my decision to learn characters has significantly delayed the development of my oral and listening skills somewhat. Whilst I'm pretty happy with my listening and speaking skills, I still have about 1.5/2 years to go before I'll be satisfied - I think. I have met one or two guys here in 中国 who have pretty much mastered oral mandarin chinese without learning to write. They seem happy enough with being able to communicate fluently without writing. Also, don't forget that reading and writing are two different skills. One guy I met can read very well but can't write anything himself. If you just want to get to the stage where you can read enough stuff to get by, I don't think it'd take too much effort to do. I recommend flashcards for learning to read and/or write characters - they've worked for me! Anyway, the choice is yours. You can always start off with just pinyin, get a feel for the language then give characters a try later. Good luck! 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| lichtrausch Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5952 days ago 525 posts - 1072 votes Speaks: English*, German, Japanese Studies: Korean, Mandarin | Message 4 of 11 11 March 2011 at 5:27pm | IP Logged | ||
I feel the same way. It's so empowering to become literate in a language. Experiencing the written word coming alive is one of my favorite feelings. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Bryos Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5001 days ago 6 posts - 6 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish | Message 5 of 11 11 March 2011 at 5:34pm | IP Logged | ||
Yeah, the problem with learning the characters in the beginning is that it delays you. I feel like delaying my ability to speak would make me less motivated to learn the language because speaking and listening is the part of language learning that I enjoy the most by far. Even now with my Spanish, I pretty much only talk to people and listen to the Spanish news or watch shows in Spanish. I hardly ever read in it except for the occasional Wikipedia article. I think I just need some advice before I dive into the language. Do you know how those guys who learned Chinese without learning to write went about learning Chinese that way? Does anyone else know any ways that are efficient? Any other good resources that focus on just the speaking/listening parts of Chinese? Thanks again guys! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Bryos Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5001 days ago 6 posts - 6 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish | Message 6 of 11 12 March 2011 at 6:14am | IP Logged | ||
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If anyone has any more audio resources or advice on this subject, feel free to add it! I would greatly
appreciate it! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5951 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 7 of 11 12 March 2011 at 6:43am | IP Logged | ||
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Check out the various podcast sites. Most of them have associated pinyin transcripts.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mayfair Diglot Senior Member Australia theasiaanalyst.wordp Joined 5411 days ago 48 posts - 74 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Mandarin | Message 8 of 11 12 March 2011 at 7:59am | IP Logged | ||
This is definitely true. I'm only a beginner in Mandarin, but I think my experience with Japanese is relevant, because the latter relies heavily on Chinese characters. There was a stage in my learning when I hated learning kanji (Chinese characters) - mostly because we were given a list of 20 per week to learn and then tested on them. As a sort of reflex to this teaching methodology, I simply refused to learn them. My spoken Japanese came along nicely regardless. Up to a point. Eventually, one encounters so many new words that it's becomes incredibly confusing and difficult to remember them without knowing the characters. Biting my lip and learning the characters aided vocabulary acquisition immensely. (And once you develop a taste for them, the intricacies of Chinese characters are fascinating. They are now my favourite part of learning Japanese.) Having said that, I think FSI will take you to quite an acceptable level if you can get through it. If you really don't want to learn characters for the moment, perhaps the best course of action would be to work through Pimsleur and FSI, and then once you finish them, decide whether you want to continue improving your Chinese. If so, it would be wise to learn the characters at that stage. Jiāyóu! Edit: You're also not necessarily limited to audio-only courses. You could look for a textbook that contains both audio and both pinyin and hanzi, but then focus only on the pinyin. You'd need to make sure that the English translation page lists the pinyin. (New Practical Chinese Reader stops using pinyin after the first volume, I've heard.) Then, if you decide to learn characters, you can work through it a second time focusing only on the characters. Since you'll know the content, it will be easier to learn the characters the second time around. Edited by mayfair on 12 March 2011 at 8:09am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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