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My new project: MANDARIN! | ||
Tags: Mandarin | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| burgler09 Diglot Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6054 days ago 72 posts - 88 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese | Message 1 of 3 02 January 2009 at 9:20pm | IP Logged |
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Spanish and Portuguese went great for me! but honestly, I have no interest in the other romance languages, so I'm going to start on Mandarin... What is an average amount of time with mandarin before you begin to have a basic conversation? What are some hard parts of Mandarin? Any tips from people? I guess I already understand the pronunciation is quite difficult.
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| TerryW Senior Member United States Joined 6363 days ago 370 posts - 783 votes Speaks: English* | Message 2 of 3 02 January 2009 at 11:56pm | IP Logged |
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I recently started learning Mandarin.
As far as pronunciation, check out the "Pronunciation and Romanization" part of the free online FSI course: FSI Chinese Mandarin (and the rest of the parts if you like it) I found the Michel Thomas Beginner Mandarin 8-disk set to be very good, and am just now starting on Michel Thomas Advanced (5 disks). It's very good for learning the structure of sentences. It really breaks up every syllable very slowly, while the FSI course uses "full speed ahead" speaking, so the 2 courses together are a good balance. Also, I'm very visual, so I like seeing the pinyin spelling and tone symbols in the FSI textbook (and in the Assimil book), versus the audio MT course. (Although the MT course does include a little card with most of the new words spelled) I started a few lessons of "Assimil Chinese 1" too, which looks very good, but I think it will be easier to use after the MT Advanced course. And I'm only mid-Module 1 in the FSI course, can you tell I use the kitchen sink approach? ;-) As far as the MT course, I do not find the hand gestures and colors assigned to each "tone" to be helpful at all. Maybe because I'm very visual, or maybe because I play keyboard and guitar and have no trouble converting a simple symbol (-, /, U, \) into a tone. I don't think the gestures/colors add anything to 4 simple symbols, but that's just me. I also found the Memory Aids (mneumonics) for each vocabulary word in the MT course to be way too convoluted to use, and just use my own ways to get the words into memory. Edited by TerryW on 03 January 2009 at 12:41am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| neil-flynn Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5967 days ago 116 posts - 117 votes Speaks: English* Studies: SpanishB2, Mandarin | Message 3 of 3 03 January 2009 at 3:35pm | IP Logged |
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The tones and pronounciation are hard at first, but once you get past that stage, you'll find speaking quite easy. But like with any language, you have to practice with natives. It really depends on what kind of basic conversation you want. I found that after i had finished the MT basic and advanced courses, i could understand basic sentences, and even get the gist of some native speed dialogue. I remember finishing MT and then watching Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, and being able to pick out words.
But if its just asking someone how they are etc, it will take you no time at all (once you've got your pronunciation sorted). Whereas Japanese is thought to be easier to start and harder to perfect, Mandarin is thought to be harder to start but easier to finish 1 person has voted this message useful |
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