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Should I study Mandarin? Advantages? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Cuperzingo23 Newbie United States Joined 4132 days ago 6 posts - 8 votes | Message 1 of 6 07 June 2013 at 5:55am | IP Logged | ||
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So should a person go about beginning to study Mandarin? I studied Spanish in middle school for a year
and Italian for 2 years in high school. I now just finished my freshman year of college. I'm not sure if 3 years of romance language study will do any good with Mandarin. What would be my first step in studying Mandarin? What are some advantages you personally seen from studying Mandarin? Edited by Fasulye on 28 June 2013 at 9:32am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| outcast Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member China Joined 4758 days ago 869 posts - 1364 votes  Speaks: Spanish*, English*, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Mandarin Studies: Korean | Message 2 of 6 07 June 2013 at 6:29am | IP Logged | ||
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Well in practical terms, no, Romance languages you studied will not help you at all
with Mandarin. Conceptually they COULD, but only if you understand some of the aspects of romance languages which you could apply to understanding Mandarin grammar, like I have (so far). However, this aspectual angle is rarely taught in schools, much less middle school. You have to develop that instinct by yourself. An example: you took two years of Italian. As you probably know, Italian has two verbs that can mean "to be" (essere/stare); this is called "copula". Italian's copula usage is very restricted, by far "essere" being the most used. Compare to Portuguese which has a more even usage of both verbs, and Spanish which has the most complicated copula usage (French has no "stare", like English and German is has only ONE copula verb). In Italian 'essere' is used in most situations, but 'stare' when you are talking about your current state, in other words, when you are "describing" yourself. In Mandarin, there is a vague parallel to this concept, because you do not use "to be" (MANDARIN: "shi") to say "I am well/sick/etc". You simply say "I well / I sick". However it is very common to insert the word "hen" which normally means "very" on its own. Thus "I very well / I very sick...", but when used with adjectives that describe you, "hen" loses its meaning of "very". If you think about it, "hen" has become almost like a copula such as "stare". If you know how to use "stare" in Italian for describing your current state, you can understand this concept in Mandarin. Chinese however has gone much further the other way, in restricting the use of "to be". So that many situations that in English, French, German, or Italian require "to be" ("I am tall/I am in Italy), do not use "to be" in Chinese at all. As far as studying Mandarin, I would start by learning the pronunciation and the tones well. That is what I did, and I am reaping the rewards now because I have gotten complements from three native Chinese teachers that my pronunciation is a pleasure to hear, compared to the vast majority of westerners. I put in a lot of time into it, plus I know the basics of phonology, IPA, and the anatomy of the mouth. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6248 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 3 of 6 07 June 2013 at 2:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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I second outcast's advice, and recommend wordbook for learning pronunciation. It's helped me a lot.
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| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4975 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 4 of 6 07 June 2013 at 6:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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outcast, what do you mean with Spanish having a more complicated usage copula than Portuguese?
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| Hertz Pro Member United States Joined 4322 days ago 47 posts - 63 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 6 14 June 2013 at 1:27am | IP Logged | ||
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Your Spanish and Italian will not directly help you. I came from 1 year of Spanish and 2 of German. Chinese
uses very few loan words (proper names like 西雅图 [xi ya tu, "Seattle"] and 咖啡 [ka fei, "coffee"] come to mind) and there are almost no cognates (words that are similar in both languages). There are some words of Chinese origin you will recognize (tofu, bok choy). Your best asset in tackling Chinese is knowing parts of speech and sentence building. Having studied two languages you should know nouns from pronouns, verbs from adverbs, and the function of prepositional phrases. My recommendations: 1. Practice your characters constantly. 2. Say the sounds aloud as you write. It aids your memory. 3. Learn a few of the radicals at a time and keep learning more. Many characters are composed of radicals and other characters; knowing what their names are can help you to remember them. For instance; grammar is 语法. The first character is yu, means language. it is made of 讠,五, and 口, or "speak five mouths." The second character is fa, 法 meaning law: 氵meaning water, 去 meaning "to go." Law, represented in characters, is "the way water goes," that is, always by the same rules of gravity and flow. Hence, "law." Put it together and you get grammar = "language rule." 讠 Appears commonly in words involving communication. 请 (to invite), 让 (to allow), 课 (lesson), 话 (talk), 说 (to speak). Knowing 讠 = speech will help remember the connection in those words. You will not absorb all 150+ radicals at once but you'll build a knowledge of them. I often remember words by recalling the names of their parts. Line = 线, which is 纟 + 戋 (silk + narrow). Spicy = 辣, which is 辛 + 束 (hot + bundle). 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| cheers100 Newbie China languageloverr.cnRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4005 days ago 7 posts - 7 votes Speaks: English | Message 6 of 6 24 June 2013 at 12:39am | IP Logged | ||
None. I am Chinese. Chinese is a complete different language with Roman languages from writing, speaking, grammar. Few loanwords from Roman languages too. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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