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Best way to learn Mandarin | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| viedums Hexaglot Senior Member Thailand Joined 4667 days ago 327 posts - 528 votes  Speaks: Latvian, English*, German, Mandarin, Thai, French Studies: Vietnamese | Message 9 of 19 27 June 2012 at 2:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think Mandarin is a good introduction to Asian languages. But it’s very different from Japanese and Korean, despite the fact that they’ve borrowed a lot of Chinese words.
My advice to you if you want to travel in Asia: don’t forget Southeast Asia. It’s a beautiful region and very diverse linguistically. If you get a grounding in Mandarin sounds and structure, you’ll find that Thai and Vietnamese are quite similar, while Khmer and Burmese, although farther afield, are in the same ballpark. The island languages are a different story, although they are interesting too, especially Tagalog. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tastyonions Triglot Senior Member United States goo.gl/UIdChYRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4666 days ago 1044 posts - 1823 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 10 of 19 27 June 2012 at 3:20pm | IP Logged | ||
How in the world does this help anyone?! "Don't try to learn the language, you're probably not sharp enough to do anything useful with it." I can see advising an English native not to expect super-fast progress in Mandarin, but there's no reason for such complete negativity. 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Yoyo2o Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4537 days ago 5 posts - 5 votes Speaks: Polish, English* Studies: Spanish | Message 11 of 19 28 June 2012 at 2:54am | IP Logged | ||
Singapore, and probably Vietnam. I'd like to learn a couple languages but for the first one I'd like to learn the one that can be the most useful. I know that many people in South Korea know English so thats what I can speak there. I don't really know about the other countries though. Still doing my research. I will learn at least one language that I mentioned. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tibbles Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5192 days ago 245 posts - 422 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Korean | Message 12 of 19 28 June 2012 at 6:06am | IP Logged | ||
Everything you said is 100% contrary to my experience and those of fellow Mandarin learners. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Elizabeth_rb Diglot Groupie United Kingdom polyglotintraining.b Joined 4637 days ago 54 posts - 84 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: GermanB1 | Message 13 of 19 05 July 2012 at 11:13am | IP Logged | ||
I haven't found this to be true in any part from my own experience. OK, one or two weren't very polite, but most have been delighted to talk to us in their own language, both here in the UK and over in Taiwan. I find people to talk to me quite seriously and be very helpful and encouraging. As I've been engaged with the language one way or another for over 17 years, including teaching beginners for around 10 of those, I do know that tones provide a challenge, but I also know many non-native speakers who've both attained an excellent command of the language (native level NOT being necessary) and who have also mastered the tone system quite satisfactorily. It *can* be hard, but it's by NO means impossible. So, to return to the original question: OP: I'm not sure where you're located or what your needs for the language are, but I recommend having regular lessons of some sort, if you can possibly afford it, even if it's just a good language exchange partner. Also, you need a decent textbook that can teach you the language patterns thoroughly. Re the script, don't shy away from it! It is a challenge, but a fascinating one and nothing like as hard as some people make out. Some of the modern self-study texts are beginning to teach it in an accessible way (Palgrave's 'Mastering Chinese' looks exactly what I would have done had I been writing a beginners' book including script.) It's also very worthwhile getting a level of literacy as, should you need the language for business engagement or even life in the country, you really *don't* want to be profoundly illiterate! As an example, a British friend of ours is married to a Japanese lady and they live near Tokyo. He claims that he only wants to learn to speak and doesn't need to learn to read. However, whenever we were out and about, he had to ask, 'What does this say, Michiyo?' all the time. He certainly DID need to learn to read, but he was content to be helplessly reliant on his wife. You could also see how, in a business context, this could lead to serious problems too. Just my thoughts, but all the best with the language!=) You don't need 'luck' or any special talent, just the same as you need for all languages - regular structured work and practise. Edited by Elizabeth_rb on 05 July 2012 at 11:14am 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Homogenik Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4825 days ago 314 posts - 407 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Polish, Mandarin | Message 14 of 19 05 July 2012 at 7:13pm | IP Logged | ||
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Even though I haven't gotten far (yet) in mandarin, I have been quite satisfied with my progress through Pimsleur
even though it has very little vocabulary. I think it's an excellent first step. The chinese girl I'm meeting with now to exchange was impressed at my pronunciation for my level. Either she's just trying to encourage me or the work I did with Pimsleur paid off. Of course it's an insufficient method but it's really a good introduction. That or the Chinese Pods of course (haven't gotten around to those yet). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5960 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 15 of 19 05 July 2012 at 7:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm going to also suggest www.lenaia.com. I originally started using them for their approach to radical and characters. But after working with the Shutterbug game in MindSnacks, I'm finding that an aural prompt with pictures is really helpful to avoid mentally translating back and forth between English and Mandarin. Lenaia uses video clips to teach vocabulary. For instance, you'll see a traditional clock with a hand pointing to say 1, hear in Mandarin that it's a number and is the number 1. Then the clip goes onto 2, etc. Edited by Snowflake on 05 July 2012 at 10:54pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| SueK Groupie United States Joined 4752 days ago 77 posts - 133 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 16 of 19 05 July 2012 at 7:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm learning Mandarin via Pimsleur. About half way through Pims II I started to notice my ability to hear tones improve. Co-workers in China compliment my pronounciation now. They're probaly being kind, as the Chinese are very polite people, but there's no doubt that they can in fact understand what I say, which is very cool and absolute proof that it can be learned by a non Asian adult.
The vocabularly in Pimsleur is very limited, so I still struggle to find things appropriate to say at any given moment. Also, it expects you to intuit grammer, vs flat out telling you. It drove me crazy at first, but now I have to say that there wasn't a great deal of point to learning a lot of vocabularly until I learned how to hear and reproduce the sounds correctly. Now that I do have that, I don't have to go and re-learn a ton of vocabularly correctly. As for grammer, when I eventually do have a larger vocabulary, hearing how the average person uses the language will probably be moe effective for me than learning rules anyway. I do recommend learning some pinyin. Until you learn to hear the nuances of the language, it can help you understand how to pronounce and it's really helpful if you have questions you'd like to post on the internet. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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