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How to learn Chinese | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Oshirigakusai Super Polyglot Newbie Syrian Arab Republic Joined 5502 days ago 6 posts - 7 votes Speaks: GermanC2, RussianB2, Mandarin, Korean, FinnishC2, SwedishB1, DanishB2, NorwegianB1, Icelandic, Hungarian, Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian Studies: English, Polish, Ukrainian, Faroese Studies: Old English | Message 1 of 9 10 October 2014 at 12:17am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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How to learn Chinese?!
I’d like to ask you guys how I can master Chinese at a basic fluency level (according to HTLAL definition). More specifically, I'd like to focus on how to reach a basic fluency in oral skills. I have tried learning Chinese a few times, but I have never succeeded. I said few, because I have restarted a couple of times between 2008 and 20014. Tones are my main problem regarding Chinese. Although its grammar is quite easy for me, I have never been at the level which I could orally express myself. I cannot hide my frustration over my poor speaking abilities, no matter how much I have tried to improve both listening and speaking. Speaking is definitely my worst skill. Even in my mother tongues, people always say that I think too much before answering them. They ask me the reasons I don’t answer them immediately. It really pisses them off. It really pisses me off, too. What this information has to do with learning Chinese? I don’t know. It may help you guys give me some insight to the main question I have right now... PS: my Chinese and Taiwanese acquaintances say that my writing is good. I don't have problems for writing, though I "cheat" because of my previous 漢字 knowledge. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| robarb Nonaglot Senior Member United States languagenpluson Joined 5058 days ago 361 posts - 921 votes  Speaks: Portuguese, English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, French Studies: Mandarin, Danish, Russian, Norwegian, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Greek, Latin, Nepali, Modern Hebrew | Message 2 of 9 10 October 2014 at 2:38am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
This is a rather vague question, so you may benefit from searching the archive for numerous threads about Chinese, study techniques, and oral fluency. I don't think this site has its own official definition of basic fluency.
Your chance of succeeding is greater if you don't quit and restart. Stick with it, even if you don't seem to be progressing as well as you'd like.
I doubt this. You probably just don't have enough fluency and mastery of the language yet. Sure, you may make tone mistakes, but it's rare for a learner to make mostly tone mistakes and few other mistakes. When you begin to master the language, tone recedes into the background; it becomes second nature. It's okay if you sometimes aren't sure about the tone and have to guess. Usually, people will understand you if the word you're trying to say is a natural one for the context. (If both your tone and your word choice are off, it gets hard to understand.
Your chance of succeeding is greater if you get over your frustration and speak more. Even if you speak poorly, this will gradually make you improve. It's normal to have these negative feelings, but you need to learn not to let them prevent you from speaking, because that is what you need to do to become better at speaking.
This is a tough problem. Have you tried saying more placeholders? (uh, huh, 那个）Or making more eye contact and expressions? Hard to say. If you don't have enough opportunities to chat with your Chinese-speaking acquaintances, I recommend getting lessons on italki to improve speaking. Good luck! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5235 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 3 of 9 10 October 2014 at 11:27am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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I'm also learning Mandarin, but sounds like you're further advanced than me. However I have a collection of links in my Mandarin Log which you might like to go through.
These two links might be the most helpful. A realistic plan How to learn Mandarin 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Oshirigakusai Super Polyglot Newbie Syrian Arab Republic Joined 5502 days ago 6 posts - 7 votes Speaks: GermanC2, RussianB2, Mandarin, Korean, FinnishC2, SwedishB1, DanishB2, NorwegianB1, Icelandic, Hungarian, Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian Studies: English, Polish, Ukrainian, Faroese Studies: Old English | Message 4 of 9 10 October 2014 at 1:37pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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@robard,
Thank you for posting your opinion. I am using this time to reflect about what I did wrong and what I should keep restarting from the scratch. Perhaps the question is not about restarting from the scratch. I can still continue doing what has worked with me. My chances of succeeding are greater than failing since I have won a battle against cancer (even though I haven’t reached my 30’s yet…). Now that I don’t need to study while commuting to the health care center or hospitals and the fact that I am not in a wheelchair anymore, I can finally use my time in a way I used to study. It is not the same as studying at hospitals, clinics, physiotherapy rooms etc. My last checkup showed us (me and the doctors) that I am finally 100% healed! All I need is to recover my right hand (I am right handed) movements. I like to write sentences in hanzi in order to memorize the tones in a context. I think there is a difference between handwriting and typing when I learn Chinese. I don’t know what your definition of fluency is, but just as a matter of curiosity, I have taken the HSK 4 in 2011. By that time, I chose to take both listening and reading. My listening skills aren’t good, so I took the minimum points to pass at that section. As for reading, it was pretty easy. I was doing mock tests of HSK 6 for reading. The “new” HSK 6 level is probably around B2 or B2+ level. I don’t think it is C2 level. It cannot be at all… so, yes, I am not fluent yet, but in terms of speaking only. I can write (handwriting), type and read. I have studied both Modern and Classical texts with a monk. He relied on in a L2 language because of other people who couldn’t understand spoken Chinese as well. I know that proficiency tests don’t show anyone’s fluency necessarily, but what I want to show you is that there is a huge gap between my skills, even though I have focused more than 75% of my time in listening and watching videos (some of them were designed for HSK 1, 2, 3, 4 levels or TOCFL). If I can’t listen with high accuracy, I will probably never be able to speak with decent commands. I have studied with the following materials: NCPR 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. Teach Yourself Hanyu Series 1 to 11 Gloss Boya Chinese1, 2, 3, 4 Chinese class 101 Chinesepod.com Imandarinpod Integrated Chinese Making out in Chinese PAVC 1,2,3,4,5 Some of the main references I have used: Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar - A practical guide and Workbook Basic Chinese - A Grammar and Workbook Routledge Comprehensive Chinese Basic Grammar Routledge Comprehensive Chinese Intermediate Grammar Schaum's Outline of Chinese Grammar The Phonology of Standard Chinese The Morphology of Chinese A Linguistic and Cognitive Approach The handbook of Chinese Linguistics Wen-Hua Teng- YUFA! A Practical Guide to Mandarin Chinese Grammar - Oxford University Press, USA (2011) C.-T. James Huang, Y.-H. Audrey Li, Yafei Li The Syntax of Chinese Cambridge Syntax Guides 2009 Chinese - A linguistic introduction – Chaofen Sun Chinese - An Essential Grammar – Yip Po-Ching and Don Rimmington Intermediate Chinese A Grammar and Workbook Grammar - Yip Po-Ching and Don Rimmington Numeral Classifiers in Chinese – Xup Ying Li Chinese grammar without tears Charles N. Li, Sandra A. Thompson Mandarin Chinese A Functional Reference Grammar 1989 Baxter, William H. A Handbook of Old Chinese Phonology 1992 A Grammar to Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language - 復旦大學出版社 (2005) The roots of Old Chinese Zheng Lijie Prepare for HSK Grammar Test in 21 Days Advanced Chinese Edition 2007 So, if I couldn't reach a decent level (for reading) despite all my effort during these years, I think I must be someone who don't know how to learn Chinese at all. Indeed, I don't know how to study Chinese yet since my overall skills aren't that great, but still, I do believe I have good vocabulary knowledge and grammar (writing). Recently I have purchased about 14 books designed for Japanese speakers. Some of them contain audio and I will start listening to the CD before I read the texts or sentences; otherwise, I will make the same "mistake" by "cheating" or relying on ideograms first. Chatting has never worked with me. Even though I haven’t taken any material, I could chat using everything I learned. Typing is pretty easy since I don’t need to think much on the tones. I don’t rely on tones. This is one “problem” I have already identified. It is good that native speakers can understand my writing, but they think that I can speak everything I can read. This is a false statement. I have just checked again and here it is what I typed: “hanzi”, but not “hànzi”. I didn’t press anything other than “h a n z i”. It automatically appeared “漢字” in traditional characters. Last time I used simplified settings was in 2008 or 2009. I also typed the same thing and it came: 汉 字. So, what’s the point in here? I don’t need any tones. If needed, then, I can type the syllable and guess by pressing the tone (1, 2, 3 or 4; sometimes 5 is quick when the syllable it is one such as 嗎). The problem is not with the keyboard, but the fact that when I have time to chat, even though I notice that the tone is first, second, third or fourth), few days later I tend to forget it. I know this Italki website pretty well. I have practiced some of the languages I am good at and it worked pretty well for me, except for Chinese. I tried mostly professional lessons with Chinese language, unfortunately none of the methodology I tried worked with me. Then, I tried 2 weeks ago, I guess, learning with a community tutor and after 40 minutes, I started speaking without relying in other languages. Well, for 20 minutes I could finally speak more decently in a normal speed and without making too many tonal mistakes. I asked her to follow this instruction: after speaking whenever I didn’t understand (I would tell her) and she would type the sentences in hanzi. Then, I would try to think in the tones). Perhaps the better choice for me is doing more different drills such as writing in pinyin and trying to guess the hanzi, instead. If I see any hanzi, my brain immediately processes the meaning first. I am trying not to rely on typing when I take online lessons. I had a bad luck because all my 5 teachers/tutors cannot teach me anymore either because of the schedule that has changed at their side or because of mine. I am trying to find 3 or 4 tutors and practice 3,4 times a week. I am also trying to record messages and send to my Chinese acquaintances, instead of chatting only. I will ask them to record if they feel comfortable with that, so that I will force myself to hear their accent and understand. It will be a good exercise. I have been following Glossika and Professor Arguelles since their first video on Youtube. I am not sure whether the videos are still there, but I remember some of the tips for Chinese learners’ they have commented on. Perhaps I will take a look again. PS: If you click on your profile's name > Languages > Add a new language: You are going to see the following: "Basic Fluency - you understand at least 80% of a regular newspaper in your target language and can hold regular conversations about any topic, understanding what people say and getting your point across". I can understand more than 80% of a regular newspaper, magazine, ads etc from Mainland China and Taiwan. However, speaking of regular conversations, no way. I don't consider myself at basic fluency. On the contrary, I am far away from mastering A1 right now. PS2: My friends say that I am not a "normal person". I usually don't speak looking at someone's eyes. I need to focus on a object, instead; otherwise, I am not able to concentrate on what people are saying, including my mother tongues. I have tried all my life, but it doesn't work with me. When I first meet someone, they feel that I am weird, but I don't care about it. If I focus my eyes in any object, sky etc, I can definitely speak. This is who I am. This is how I am. It has been 2 decades like that. Things won't be easy to make eye contact... Despite all the things above, yes, I use placeholders. Anyway, I will improve little by little. @rdearman, Thanks for your tips. Any comment, criticism, tips, advice are always welcome. Even though I have learned all languages by myself (except for Chinese), I always have something to learn from other people, no matter their current level. Since I have not been active during all these years, I will take a look on this forum more carefully. I have already saved on my bookmarks some of the Chinese language learners’ log, including yours! I will follow them and try to get some information that might help me at mid and long term. Edited by Oshirigakusai on 10 October 2014 at 1:46pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6581 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 5 of 9 10 October 2014 at 2:20pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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My standard advice is ChinesePod. It's my favorite language learning platform (though I haven't used it for years, so I don't tknow what it's like nowadays). It can be daunting to be confronted with thousands of nonlinear lessons and it's such a smorgasbord of tool that it's hard to know how to use them. I wrote a post about the method I used, which served me quite well.
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| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6596 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 6 of 9 10 October 2014 at 3:02pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Um, you see the following when you update your profile: -- Intermediate is below 'Basic Fluency' and above 'Beginner'. Basic Fluency - you understand at least 80% of a regular newspaper in your target language and can hold regular conversations about any topic, understanding what people say and getting your point across. Advanced Fluency means that you can read a popular novel and not miss more than 2 words per page on average, and hold advanced conversations with minimal mistakes. -- According to previous threads and polls, the consensus seems to be that basic fluency is active B1/passive B2. Edited by Serpent on 10 October 2014 at 3:06pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| day1 Groupie Latvia Joined 3891 days ago 93 posts - 158 votes Speaks: English | Message 7 of 9 10 October 2014 at 5:13pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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I'd try to put aside all your other textbooks and switch to Chinese Listening Comprehension books instead. When those get too easy, move to audiobooks (NOT normal books), I find that for me personally huge amounts of interesting audio input, or, when possible, chats with natives, do wonders for my pronunciation and "fluency" (as in, free flowing speech, with enough mistakes)
My favorite publisher, Cheng&Tsui, offers a good book called Across the Straits, their other title Making Connections is of a lower language level (low intermediate?). There are a lot of similar (but less good) books published in China : http://www.blcup.com/en/list_1.asp?id=155 Do your learning through ear (not eye), and see if it helps. You can run your vocabulary through quizlet, put hanzi on one side and pīnyīn on other, and see if that helps. Here's a book for you to read: http://pinyin.info/news/2010/new-book-in-pinyin/ I used to have very good one-on-one conversation classes where we had an agreement with teacher, that we keep on chatting whatever (what i did that day, what my family is like, what ever, politics, if you wish), and just struggle to keep it going. Some of my worst grammar mistakes were corrected, absolute minimum of new vocab introduced. That got me speaking. I had had long months of random classroom teaching, and these few weeks of this sort of exercise daily got me twice as far as all the classes. It's sometimes about finding the right person with which you manage to "click" and get over the mental block. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| robarb Nonaglot Senior Member United States languagenpluson Joined 5058 days ago 361 posts - 921 votes Speaks: Portuguese, English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, French Studies: Mandarin, Danish, Russian, Norwegian, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Greek, Latin, Nepali, Modern Hebrew | Message 8 of 9 11 October 2014 at 4:24am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Oh right. I forgot this was in the profile section; on the forum people usually use the CEFR levels. So, since my post above the OP has added a lot of relevant detail to the situation, and now it's really interesting. I responded to the original post with some general tips, because the question seemed like it was from a novice who had problems or doubts about reaching fluency. But now your profile lists a lot of languages that you presumably haven't had the same problems with, so you must be a very experienced language learner. You probably have a really good idea of what you're doing. It isn't a problem with unrelated languages, since you speak Estonian and Basque. As for the problems with "normal" communication, there seems to be a decision point. You can either accept that you'll speak with your particular style, which sometimes leads to problems, or you could get professional help to diagnose the problem in a more detailed way and suggest coping strategies. I don't want to play doctor but what you describe is reminiscent of autism spectrum disorder, a.k.a. what people used to call Asperger's syndrome. I'm not saying you have this condition, but people who do usually have problems similar to what you describe. The professional solutions to these kinds of problems are still kind of primitive, though. Nobody understands the root causes of them. What could be the problem with Chinese fluency, if you are so successful in learning other languages? I suspect it may be interference from 漢字. It sounds like you might be automatically focusing on the meaning, drawing on your well-learned ability to process Japanese and sometimes bypassing the Mandarin word entirely. Combined with a learning strategy that heavily relies on written text, I can see how this could lead to problems. I wonder if the answer is to stick with the speaking--in whatever context you feel most comfortable--and, more experimentally: try reading and composing texts fully in pinyin, without ever converting to characters. This will force you to process the Mandarin phonetics, but using the modality you learn best in. Edited by robarb on 11 October 2014 at 4:26am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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