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Best course for Mandarin?

  Tags: Resources | Mandarin
 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes Post Reply
idiomasaur
Diglot
Groupie
United Kingdom
youtube.com/user/idi
Joined 5500 days ago
45 posts - 50 votes
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Spanish, Mandarin

 
 Message 1 of 8
11 January 2010 at 11:25pm | IP Logged 
I'm going to be starting to learn Mandarin this year, after I better my French, German and Spanish, and I was wondering:
What course did you use to learn Mandarin?
What course would you recommend?

I want to have a course that not only gets me proficient in the language but also able to read and write as well as I will be able to speak.

I've heard good things about the Living Language Ultimate Chinese basic-intermediate course.

Thanks in advance!
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goosefrabbas
Triglot
Pro Member
United States
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Speaks: English*, French, Spanish
Studies: German, Italian
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 2 of 8
12 January 2010 at 2:34am | IP Logged 
I've never studied Mandarin, but I've seen other members here talk about this course.
http://ocw.usu.edu/Languages__Philosophy_and_Speech_Communic ation/First_Year_Chinese_I
It's free, and there are at least five levels from what I can tell.
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Ari
Heptaglot
Senior Member
Norway
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2314 posts - 5695 votes 
Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese
Studies: Czech, Latin, German

 
 Message 3 of 8
12 January 2010 at 5:35am | IP Logged 
I've used ChinesePod to great benefit. It's not free (in fact, it's rather expensive), but it's the single best (and
largest) language teaching program I've ever seen. You can sign up for a free one-week trial to try it out.

If you can really dole out the cash, you can even get ten minutes of speaking practice on the phone every day. But
that's on the Executive Plan, and that's as expensive as Scientology. I recommend the Premium plan if you can
afford it, since the Personal Vocab tab and the integration of Skritter really work well.

Edited by Ari on 12 January 2010 at 5:38am
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Chris
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Japan
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Speaks: English*, Russian, Indonesian, French, Malay, Japanese, Spanish
Studies: Dutch, Korean, Mongolian

 
 Message 4 of 8
13 January 2010 at 5:58am | IP Logged 
Living Language is good, but it is very limited in what it teaches you in writing.

How about Yong Ho's courses - basic and intermediate? They come with CDs and are very reasonable. Check out the reviews on Amazon com and uk.
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Chris
Heptaglot
Senior Member
Japan
Joined 7120 days ago
287 posts - 452 votes 
Speaks: English*, Russian, Indonesian, French, Malay, Japanese, Spanish
Studies: Dutch, Korean, Mongolian

 
 Message 5 of 8
13 January 2010 at 6:26am | IP Logged 
How about a mix of Dashan's 'Communicate In Chinese' VCD course, and Sinolingua's 'A Key To Chinese Speech And Writing' Vol I and II?

Or, just do the Sinolingua stuff, if you can still get hold of them with the tapes!
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Yukamina
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 6263 days ago
281 posts - 332 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Japanese, Korean, French

 
 Message 6 of 8
13 January 2010 at 9:58pm | IP Logged 
Ari wrote:
I've used ChinesePod to great benefit. It's not free (in fact, it's rather expensive), but it's the single best (and
largest) language teaching program I've ever seen. You can sign up for a free one-week trial to try it out.

If you can really dole out the cash, you can even get ten minutes of speaking practice on the phone every day. But
that's on the Executive Plan, and that's as expensive as Scientology. I recommend the Premium plan if you can
afford it, since the Personal Vocab tab and the integration of Skritter really work well.

I did the free trial over a year ago, I found the site painfully slow. So slow that I wouldn't use it. Has that improved(or was it only slow for me?)
1 person has voted this message useful



stelingo
Hexaglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 5831 days ago
722 posts - 1076 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian
Studies: Russian, Czech, Polish, Greek, Mandarin

 
 Message 7 of 8
14 January 2010 at 12:11am | IP Logged 
Chris wrote:
How about a mix of Dashan's 'Communicate In Chinese' VCD course, and Sinolingua's 'A Key To Chinese Speech And Writing' Vol I and II?

Or, just do the Sinolingua stuff, if you can still get hold of them with the tapes!


I am using 'A Key To Chinese Speech And Writing' Vol I and like it a lot. I had a quick look at the second volume and it doesn't seem to follow the same format. how did you find it?
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Snowflake
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5958 days ago
1032 posts - 1233 votes 
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 8 of 8
22 January 2010 at 4:41am | IP Logged 
Well since Chinesepod was mentioned, check out http://popupchinese.com/. It seems to be a competitor of Chinesepod and it's free.


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