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Best Use of Native Mandarin Speaker | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| construct Newbie United States Joined 5504 days ago 36 posts - 39 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, French | Message 1 of 2 14 October 2011 at 8:54am | IP Logged |
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So I am about to embark on the long and arduous journey towards fluency in Mandarin Chinese and am in the
fortunate position to have access to a native speaker to help me along the way. Now since I can't just have him follow me around everywhere I go, I'm wondering how I can best utilize the time he's willing to spend helping me. I was thinking for starters having him relentlessly critique my tone recognition and production, others suggestions? thanks =]. Edited by construct on 14 October 2011 at 8:56am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| OneEye Diglot Senior Member Japan Joined 6850 days ago 518 posts - 784 votes  Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, Taiwanese, German, French | Message 2 of 2 14 October 2011 at 11:32am | IP Logged |
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I don't tend to use my native speakers all that often. I prefer to keep them in a glass cabinet and admire them, and occasionally show them off to my guests. ;)
If he's up for the job of correcting your tones and pronunciation, then by all means that's a great place to start. I'd recommend doing the FSI Pronunciation and Romanization unit at home and then asking him to correct you. Be aware though, he may or may not know exactly how to help you when it comes to the phonetics in the language, beyond "that's not right, it's like this". As far as actually telling you things like where to place your tongue, how to shape your mouth, and so on to get the right sounds to come out, well, he just may not have the training for it. So just be ready for that possibility. You may also ask him to help with your handwriting, showing you where your strokes need improvement. This will help a lot. I see so many students here in Taiwan that haven't learned the proper way to write because so little time is devoted to it in most textbooks. They end up with really terrible handwriting, and what's more, a serious lack of understanding of how characters are formed, how to balance the proportions among the different components, etc. Good luck! It's a long journey, as you said. I don't know your situation but if you can devote a year or so to studying in Taiwan or China once you get to a good intermediate level it will do wonders for you. I've gone from being unsure in even the most basic conversations to being able to handle most daily situations with ease, including important things like visits to the immigration office or bank. And I've been here for two months. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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