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Snowflake’s Mandarin Log | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| jraglin Newbie United States Joined 4459 days ago 17 posts - 17 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin | Message 593 of 740 12 September 2012 at 10:17pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I just started studying Mandarin a few days ago and was wondering at what point in my
progress do you think it would be beneficial to begin watching movies in Chinese, also are there any you recommend for beginners? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| leonidus Triglot Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 6324 days ago 113 posts - 123 votes  Speaks: Russian*, English, French Studies: German, Mandarin | Message 594 of 740 13 September 2012 at 12:26am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Short answer: in 2-3 years. Long answer: it depends on the movie and your total study time, and what you want to understand in the movies. You'd be able to understand a few simple words here and there pretty quickly, but that doesn't get you very far. To be able to understand a movie requires a lot of underlying work, and besides they often speak in the movies indistinctly, on the run, shouting, etc., that makes it even harder than understanding pre-canned dialogues or even news announcements. So don't be in a hurry to watch movies, it's not a productive way of learning for a total beginner. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5957 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 595 of 740 13 September 2012 at 3:46am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I subscribe to the idea that listening to native speaker material, like movies, should be started as soon as possible. I started later and it took something like 9 months to understand words spoken at native speed which I supposedly learned 1 1/2 years prior to that point. If you decide to start now, take a look at dubbed animated movies such as Pixlar or standard Disney productions. The usage is easier than something like "Lord of the Rings". BTW, DLI has their students listening to native speaker material, like the equivalent of CNN news, on day 1. So you could jump in feet first. It's up to you. Good luck! Edited by Snowflake on 13 September 2012 at 6:36am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5957 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 596 of 740 13 September 2012 at 3:50am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Recently found out that an acquaintance went to DLI. When I mentioned the huge variety of listening material that Khatzumoto is throwing at me, the response was "That sounds great! Those are some of the sorts of things we did at DLI". Edited by Snowflake on 13 September 2012 at 4:09am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| leonidus Triglot Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 6324 days ago 113 posts - 123 votes Speaks: Russian*, English, French Studies: German, Mandarin | Message 597 of 740 13 September 2012 at 11:18am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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"As soon as possible" is very relative. Listening to native level materials from day 1 won't do any good, especially in a tone language like Mandarin. You have to train your ear first to hear the tones on slow and clear speech. Otherwise in movies and even in very clearly pronounced news programs on radio and TV, you'll just be hearing a mishmash of sounds, nothing else. That won't be very productive and can easily discourage from further studies.
Training the ear for tones can't take less than 1 year under the best of circumstances, and then you also need to pick up 2-3 thousand of words, again, to be able to make out at least certain words and phrases in native materials. Looking up in the dictionary too much can again discourage easily. That's why, I think it makes no sense to go into native level stuff from day 1. For easier languages it can take a shorter time, because it'll take much less time to train the year for sounds and get a good baggage of words, many of which are cognates. But for Mandarin I doubt it can take anything less than 2 years to make your listening to native materials anything better than a total pain. I remember it took me at least 1.5 years to get into native level for English, granted that was my first language it was longer than it could be if I had previous experience with languages. But for Mandarin previous experience with European languages gives you almost no discounts. A lot of things can be your enemies in language studies and can unmotivate from further steps, especially when you do self-study, so choose them wisely. Edited by leonidus on 13 September 2012 at 11:23am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| LaughingChimp Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4697 days ago 346 posts - 594 votes Speaks: Czech* | Message 598 of 740 13 September 2012 at 1:31pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Immediately. You have to get used to the native pronunciation and that takes time. You will waste a lot of time (months at least) where you won't be able to recognize the words you already know, if you won't listen from the beginning.
It's important to start listening as soon as possible ESPECIALLY in a tone language like Mandarin. Speaking a non-tonal language trained you to split the tone from the speech. If you want to learn a tone language, you have to unlearn this and learn to hear tones and the rest of speech as one whole sound. People who don't do this have constant problems with tones, because they can hear either tones or consonants and vowels, but not both together. I would not recommend training tones separately, it most likely even reinforces this problem. Hearing "a mishmash of sounds" happens with any language with a very different phonology from your native language. It's not caused by tones.
You can watch with subtitles initially. Edited by LaughingChimp on 13 September 2012 at 2:02pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| jraglin Newbie United States Joined 4459 days ago 17 posts - 17 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin | Message 599 of 740 13 September 2012 at 3:48pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Thank you so much for this. I have been looking into AJATT and similar methods but was not sure at what point it was a good idea to start. I have not currently studied any writing because I am attempting to learn speaking and listening skills first, but subtitles would be impossible for me without reading skills... Do you know any places where I can find Chinese talk radio or News recordings? You can respond on my Language Log if I am flooding yours too much :) Edited by jraglin on 13 September 2012 at 3:51pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| leonidus Triglot Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 6324 days ago 113 posts - 123 votes Speaks: Russian*, English, French Studies: German, Mandarin | Message 600 of 740 13 September 2012 at 7:36pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Wait a minute, where did I say you don't need to listen? You have to listen till your ears get red, that's not even debatable, but NOT the native level materials if you're a rookie. There are audio courses of every kind imaginable that feature slow, clear and distinct pronunciation and drills. That was my point.
you can check out: http://rss.dw-world.de/xml/podcast_radio_china but seriously, this is not the way to go. Try Chinesepod or similar service that provides beginner level audio lessons, is my advice. Edited by leonidus on 13 September 2012 at 7:39pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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