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How do I start learning Mandarin? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Crassyo Diglot Groupie United States Joined 6116 days ago 92 posts - 92 votes  Speaks: Spanish, English* Studies: Russian, French, German, Italian | Message 1 of 11 24 September 2010 at 5:06pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hello everyone. I've been wanting to learn Mandarin for a while now. I have studied a few languages in the past
(German, Russian, French, Italian, Dutch), but I am having trouble finding a way to start learning Mandarin. For the languages that I studied before, all I did was complete the Michel Thomas course or Pimsleur; while doing Assimil and workbooks. It has helped me get a good grasp for each of those languages. The problem with Mandarin though, is how do I start? Should I complete the Michel Thomas course? Should I focus on speaking at first? Should I even bother learning the script at the beginning? What is the method you guys used to get started with Mandarin? I'd really appreciate any help or recourses you can provide :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6583 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 2 of 11 24 September 2010 at 5:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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I guess I'll offer the same advice I always do when people ask how to learn Mandarin: try out ChinesePod.com. It can take you from absolute beginner all the way to able to engage with native materials.
If it seems to some forumitos that I'm constantly promoting their stuff, then yeah, I guess I am. But I try to mention them only once per "how to learn Mandarin" question. :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6784 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 3 of 11 24 September 2010 at 5:24pm | IP Logged | ||
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Excellent question, I'm wondering the same thing, and I've been doing the same things as
you in "easy" languages. :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Britomartis Groupie United States Joined 5810 days ago 67 posts - 74 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 4 of 11 24 September 2010 at 8:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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Whether you start out by speaking or reading is up to your individual goals for the language. Some people claim that learning to read is instrumental in understanding the words, but my view is that Chinese schoolchildren learned to speak long before they could write a character.
I've been keeping a blog (not so much lately as I'm swamped with school) on starting from scratch with Mandarin, and I've reviewed a bunch of podcasts and shared useful links such as tone recognition practice: http://linguisticwanderlust.blogspot.com/ It may be helpful. :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| justberta Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5586 days ago 140 posts - 170 votes Speaks: English, Norwegian* Studies: Indonesian, German, Spanish, Russian | Message 5 of 11 24 September 2010 at 11:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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Go to China,
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| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5960 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 6 of 11 25 September 2010 at 2:44am | IP Logged | ||
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As Britomartis says, it's really up to you. I had been working on everything (听说读写/聽說讀寫, tīngshuōdúxiě) but had to cut back due to my schedule. So now I'm focusing on listening comprehension and speaking. I plan on hitting the reading and writing later. If you decide to work on speaking first, here are some sites to check out
http://fsi-language-courses.org/Content.php?page=Chinese www.chineselearnonline.com/ popupchinese.com/ The entire FSI course is available free at the site listed. The CLO and PopupChinese sites have their audio material available free. BTW, the CLO site is based in Taiwan, PopupChinese in Beijing. There are other sites with free audio lesson material though I'm unfamiliar with those... others will have to chime in. Good luck! Edited by Snowflake on 25 September 2010 at 2:45am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| luhmann Senior Member Brazil Joined 5334 days ago 156 posts - 271 votes Speaks: Portuguese* Studies: Mandarin, French, English, Italian, Spanish, Persian, Arabic (classical) | Message 7 of 11 25 September 2010 at 3:55am | IP Logged | ||
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First off study phonetics, work with anything that provides plenty of audio with a transcript. You don't need to bother memorise the characters at least until you've mastered pinyin.
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| Britomartis Groupie United States Joined 5810 days ago 67 posts - 74 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 8 of 11 25 September 2010 at 6:33am | IP Logged | ||
I've found that FSI is so helpful for pronunciation. And CLO is actually my favorite of the various free-ish podcasts that I looked at. So I second this recommendation. :) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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