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How far can you actually get in Chinese? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Tesuji Newbie United States Joined 4772 days ago 7 posts - 9 votes Speaks: English* | Message 1 of 18 22 November 2011 at 2:42am | IP Logged | ||
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I was wondering if any of you know someone or happen to be someone who has actually managed to become proficient in Mandarin. I've been studying it for some time now and it feels absolutely hopeless. Even when I know a word, I get blank stares due to tonal pronunciation. Let's not even get started on difficulties of reading. I suppose the article, "Why Chinese is so Damn Hard" expresses most of my views about Chinese and I was hoping that their were some success stories to counter these views.
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| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6443 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes  Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 2 of 18 22 November 2011 at 2:55am | IP Logged | ||
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How far can you go? Take a look at Dashan.
The writing system takes a while to learn, as does sorting out your tones, but both are something that quite a number of foreign learners have accomplished well. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| jasoninchina Senior Member China Joined 5235 days ago 221 posts - 306 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Italian | Message 3 of 18 22 November 2011 at 3:41am | IP Logged | ||
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Chinese is hard and it does take years, but it is completely feasible to become proficient. I've been studying more or less for two years now and I'm on a second graders level. The time it takes is up to you really, but it does take time. I've been studying everyday for the last six months and its made a big different. But, if you look at my progress on a greater scale, I'm moving at a snails pace. It's a little disheartening but that part of the game. Don't give up.
One thing that helps me is to track my progress. Keeping track of how many characters and words you know is great. I also recently took a look at what I was studying last year. The material I'm on now is quite a bit more complex. It's always gratifying to know that you can read pages and pages of that "mysterious" script. You didn't say how long you've been studying or how you're studying, but feel free to post some more info and the community can definitely give you some tips. There are some folks here who have been at this a lot longer than I and could be of great help to you. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5963 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 4 of 18 22 November 2011 at 4:07am | IP Logged | ||
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If you're having difficulty with the tones, try chorusing and shadowing. I'm concentrating on listening and speaking first with characters being on the back burner. That doesn't work for everyone, but to each their own. Good luck.
3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| nway Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/Vic Joined 5419 days ago 574 posts - 1707 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean | Message 5 of 18 22 November 2011 at 4:08am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm not sure why you would single out Mandarin as opposed to any other language. It's a language like any other, and it's certainly not the only one that uses tones.
Do you seriously think no one has ever successfully learned Mandarin as a second language? -.- Pro-tip: Mandarin is a second language for several hundred million people in China. So yes, it's possible. Edited by nway on 22 November 2011 at 4:12am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Tesuji Newbie United States Joined 4772 days ago 7 posts - 9 votes Speaks: English* | Message 6 of 18 22 November 2011 at 6:09am | IP Logged | ||
A teacher of mine once told me of a game he and a colleague would sometimes play: The contest involved pulling a book at random from the shelves of the Chinese section of the Asia Library and then seeing who could be the first to figure out what the book was about. Anyone who has spent time working in an East Asia collection can verify that this can indeed be a difficult enough task -- never mind reading the book in question." Sorry for such a long quote, but I think it's more potent to hear the lamentations of a person who has clearly dedicated their life to this language than me. To answer an earlier enquiry, I studied in school for a year and now I am actually in China (without any native English speakers I might add). Unfortunately I am in Sichuan, and Sichuanhua is the standard dialect here, which only adds to my troubles. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Tesuji Newbie United States Joined 4772 days ago 7 posts - 9 votes Speaks: English* | Message 7 of 18 22 November 2011 at 6:11am | IP Logged | ||
Impressive ^_^ 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| nway Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/Vic Joined 5419 days ago 574 posts - 1707 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean | Message 8 of 18 22 November 2011 at 6:30am | IP Logged | ||
Ukrainian and Russian share a high degree of mutual intelligibility. The same cannot be said of most of the Sinitic languages. As for your quote, it's about the written language. I can assure you those native Chinese citizens had no problem *speaking* their language. Just because it uses a challenging written system doesn't imply it must, by extension, be difficult to speak as well. English could *also* be written using Chinese characters, but that wouldn't make it harder to speak. Anyway, I've found that different languages just click with different people. Vietnamese isn't treated as an insurmountable linguistic beast like Mandarin is, and yet I find Vietnamese to be 10X harder to pronounce. Thai, meanwhile, has five tones and therefore "technically" "should" be harder than Mandarin, and yet I find it to come much more naturally than the occasionally stiff and restrictive tonal palette of Mandarin. I've also found that a language that originally didn't "click" can sometimes click if I loosen my preconceived inhibitions and just absorb the language as if I was hearing it for the first time. It worked for me with German and, to an extent, Vietnamese, so maybe you just need to internalize Mandarin in a different setting. Or just find another language that better "clicks" with you. After all, it's not worth stressing yourself out over a personal hobby. Edited by nway on 22 November 2011 at 6:30am 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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