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How Much Easier is Spoken Chinese? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| brian91 Senior Member Ireland Joined 5255 days ago 335 posts - 437 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 1 of 8 30 March 2010 at 12:31pm | IP Logged |
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From reading this website, I have been reminded that it is better to learn how to speak a language before you write
it. There is an inspiring story in the non-forum section of this website of an English man named Keith who learned to speak Chinese in China successfully. My question is: How much easier is spoken Chinese (Mandarin in my case) compared to written Chinese? I'm sure the writing system is complicated, but maybe spoken Chinese is actually quite manageable? Like German or Malay? Please let me know, Brian, 18, Ireland 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6281 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 2 of 8 30 March 2010 at 8:30pm | IP Logged |
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It's very manageable, as there is hardly any grammar to it. Like Malay, I'd say. You
still have to invest more effort into learning the vocabulary and the way of expressing yourself because it's an exotic language for an English speaker. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| The Blaz Senior Member Canada theblazblog.blogspotRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5411 days ago 120 posts - 176 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Swahili, French, Sign Language, Esperanto | Message 3 of 8 01 April 2010 at 4:32am | IP Logged |
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Just curious. I find I need to write down my words to learn them, I can't just hear vocab
and remember it. If I were learning Chinese with only an interest in speaking it, is it pinyin I would be using to record my vocab? Would I be using courses which teach in pinyin? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| delectric Diglot Senior Member China Joined 6992 days ago 608 posts - 733 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: German | Message 4 of 8 01 April 2010 at 7:50am | IP Logged |
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brian91,
Speaking Chinese is much easier than writing it. The problem is that if you're not in the country (China). I think it might be hard to always get chances to use Chinese. If you're staying in Ireland and don't have any immediate plans to go to China or need to go to China than maybe you could start by drilling your tones and your pronunciation. The problem is this is boring! Speaking is about communicating but don't think that the fact that Chinese has 'less' Grammar than an Indo-European language or Japanese (another difficult language) you will be communicating faster in Chinese. Many polyglot friends of mine who have come to China to learn Chinese get frustrated, because, at first it's very hard to be understood beyond the basic set phrases. It's not so uncommon to hear foreigners complaining (in big international cities like Beijing) that the Chinese just aren't patient or just don't spend the time to work out what the foreigner 'obviously' wants. "Westerners listening to foreigners speak English would understand the foreigner's quirky accent!" I kind of had this attitude too for a little while. However, once my tones and pronunciation got better it became quite obvious that the fault wasn't really (entirely) so much in the Chinese waiters, taxi drivers etc. but in myself. A good example of what happened to myself recently was a friend of mine told me to meet him. He only speaks toneless oral Chinese sounds like zh/j ou/ao/uo just don't come out of his mouth right (at least not all the time). He doesn't know pinyin either. Now perhaps if he was making a sentence to someone they might well guess what he's talking about. I just had to give the name of a place to the taxi driver. Of course I was met with a blank stare! Luckily I could describe the general location, and after trying to approximate what tones and phonemes the place name might be, he eventually understood. Context 'can' fix toneless Chinese but not always. ma1 ma2 ma3 and ma4 oh and ma are 5 different distinct sounds with distinct meanings, just like 'bitch' and 'beach' are two different sounds/words. If you've ever taught Brazilians English you'll know that many can't distinguish between these two words/sounds. In China, buying things in a shop, ordering food, asking for direction etc., in these situations the context is clearly understood so you'll get by, but beyond this 'at first' in Chinese there may be difficulties. It's easy enough to use your logic to understand that tones are like distinct phonemes but getting this distinction into your 'heart' (internalising) is much harder and requires a good period in China or a lot of listening, drilling and being corrected when you speak. German and Malay will be much much easier to learn to speak than Chinese. German because of the huge amount of similarities with English and Malay because of the simple pronunciation, grammar and of course it also contains lots of English words. I would think you'll also actually find the grammar of German, French and most other Western European languages easier than Chinese. I'm not denying here that Chinese grammar is comparatively easy compared to Chinese writing or its pronunciation but Western European languages have a grammar that feels normal/natural for the native English speaker. Sure with French, German etc you'll be making mistakes with conjugating verbs and gender but for oral communication it probably won't hinder understanding too much. Children who's native language is French, German, English always make grammar 'mistakes' but usually they are understood (and then corrected). Anyway, Oral Chinese Mandarin is of course very manageable the trick is to just keep at it every day. If I was you though, I would start with a course like Assimil where you have no pressure to speak for a while. You just need to improve your listening and then later you'll learn to speak. Internalising first the sounds of a language especially Mandarin, I believe, is really important. Assimil then, I think, is a more natural way than say Pimsleur and you'll have a larger passive vocabulary. Also, with Assimil there's a book and so it will introduce you to pinyin which Pimsleur won't. I just wish Assimil Chinese existed when I started learning Mandarin. I only had Pimsleur, which was OK then because I was immersed. Though, if you demand instant gratification and want to learn to say a sentence or two instantly then go with Pimsleur. I think Pimsleur is a great course for those that need to speak instantly. Of course there's FSI too which has no characters, will drill you to speak and presents a lot of grammar too. Though, lots of people say this method is boring. However, FSI is free to download and works if you can battle through the boredom (so I'm told). Chinese is a great language to learn and has a real 'wow' factor. At only 18 with good decisions and hard graft you could master the language in a few years before you have even started your career in the working world. It will open up and give you access to a huge country and a huge number of people with a rich and diverse culture. Good luck,whatever path you go down whether it's starting Chinese through speaking or listening, as long as you enjoy your study you'll make progress and eventually probably want to learn those dreaded characters too. Keith p.s. I would put my relatively fast improvement in oral Chinese down to environment. The fact that my first year in China was spent in the countryside in a 'political correction' camp that had been transformed into a law school . I had no contact with other foreigners for at least the first 6 months. I was singing Chinese communist songs with the other teachers, I can still remember some of them. When I describe the place I was in to Chinese from more modern cities they're often shocked that I was in such a place. When I was there five years ago (outskirts of Shijiazhuang 石家庄) people were still walking around wearing the standard army uniforms (1970's style). I was even wearing the big green 'peoples' green winter overcoat to get me through the minus ten (inside and out). I was really lonely at times the culture was completely different。 Had I been in a large city like Beijing or Shanghai I probably would have been drawn to other Westerners and the Western lifestyle. Environment can really help, if you don't want to have that culture shock you could sign up at a Chinese university to learn Chinese. It's actually very cheap for most Westerners and you'll have pretty good oral Chinese after a year or so. Oh, I made some great friends in Shijiazhuang, I was recently asked to come back to the school to work for a year. Of course my answer was 'no way'... So, a good character building experience but I'm not going to repeat that again. Well, maybe if I go to Tibet I will have to endure a 'tougher' life, but at least I will be up in the clean mountains. 7 persons have voted this message useful | |
| delectric Diglot Senior Member China Joined 6992 days ago 608 posts - 733 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: German | Message 5 of 8 01 April 2010 at 7:51am | IP Logged |
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The Blaz,
Yeah you would definitely need pinyin to record your vocabulary down. FSI is all in pinyin. No characters at all. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| The Blaz Senior Member Canada theblazblog.blogspotRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5411 days ago 120 posts - 176 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Swahili, French, Sign Language, Esperanto | Message 6 of 8 01 April 2010 at 8:19am | IP Logged |
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Keith that's amazing, and it makes me want to learn Mandarin (in good time). Thanks for
the info. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| delectric Diglot Senior Member China Joined 6992 days ago 608 posts - 733 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: German | Message 7 of 8 01 April 2010 at 11:33am | IP Logged |
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Blaz, it seems you have a good language background with all those languages behind you.
You'll no doubt make good progress, much faster than myself. I was told to learn an easier language first before Mandarin. I didn't listen to them and so learning Mandarin has been not just a process of learning the language but learning how to learn a language. I remember being stuck but just continuing no matter what the trouble might be. I always set my goals and so far have achieved them. When I started I had no intention of learning Chinese characters that soon changed after a year and a half. I had no intention of learning perfect pronunciation but that has changed too. I now at least have better Mandarin than many Chinese whose second language is Mandarin. However, I really want my pronunciation to be as good as the famous Canadian 'Da Shan'. I don't see why this isn't possible and who knows if I'm still addicted when I reach that goal perhaps I'll want to better him. When I started learning pinyin I had no self discipline for language studying and like many English people considered it impossible to learn a second language never-mind Mandarin. If I can learn Chinese than actually anyone can. Also I'm restarting French now and it just seems like a breeze. It's almost too much fun knowing that I can acquire French so quickly that it's taking away a little from my Chinese study. Learning Mandarin, I think is perhaps easier than many languages because in many ways it's way more comfortable for a foreigner to live here in China than most countries. The society is also extremely safe. Honestly, I shudder when I think about going back to the grind of British society. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| versuss Pentaglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5185 days ago 20 posts - 25 votes Speaks: Taiwanese, Cantonese, Mandarin*, English, Malay Studies: French, Japanese, Esperanto | Message 8 of 8 01 April 2010 at 4:15pm | IP Logged |
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If you're going to compare the difficulties between spoken and written mandarin,
then it's definetely thousand times easier. Chinese can be considered as a language of "no grammar" since it hasn't got any verb conjugation, tenses, agreement, genders or even the easiest forms of the verbs. Means that if you know a verb like go, it would be he go, she go, it has go, it was go, it hasn't been go. And with this simplicity, speaking mandarin is really much more attainable. Good luck! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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