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blackr00t | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Members profiles |  | |
| blackr00t Diglot Groupie United States Joined 7012 days ago 40 posts - 41 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Russian, French | Message 1 of 4 08 March 2005 at 6:21pm | IP Logged |
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Hey everyone,
I too just joined this forum, which I think was a great idea to make. I'm only 15 years old, and I live in the United States. My native language, then, is English, and while I've taken spanish in school for a few years now, I am not close to fluency. Recently, I've decided to attempt reading newspapers and such to aid this. Anyhow, I've decided to try and teach myself Mandarin, which I began 7 or 8 months ago, and seems to be going pretty successful. - Jeremy 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| administrator Hexaglot Forum Admin Switzerland FXcuisine.com Joined 7186 days ago 3094 posts - 2987 votes  12 sounds Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 4 09 March 2005 at 12:17am | IP Logged |
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Blackr00t, welcome to the forum!
What level did you already reach in Mandarin? How many characters are you familiar with (reading)? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| blackr00t Diglot Groupie United States Joined 7012 days ago 40 posts - 41 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Russian, French | Message 3 of 4 09 March 2005 at 8:44pm | IP Logged |
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Francois,
As of now I'm just finishing up Pimsleur's mandarin III. I did level I as well as II. As for character building (excuse the pun), I bought the book 250 Essential Chinese Characters, which I found rather helpful. Because of the high recommendations for flashcard use, I experimented with Flashcards 888. Beyond that there hasn't been much else. I've attempted to listen to radio transmissions (Radio Canada International), and can only understand a few words now and then (they speak fast!  )
I would estimate that I know around 150-200 characters. By now, I suppose I should know more, however schoolwork often prevents me from maintaining a continuous study. By the way, has anyone tried Living Language Mandarin or the separate modules sold at multilingual books ? Edited by blackr00t on 09 March 2005 at 9:38pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Malcolm Triglot Retired Moderator Senior Member Korea, South Joined 7125 days ago 500 posts - 515 votes 5 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Korean Studies: Mandarin, Japanese, Latin | Message 4 of 4 12 March 2005 at 12:04am | IP Logged |
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blackr00t:
I've used Living Language "Ultimate" Mandarin (the one with 8 CD's) and it's quite good. You should be able to get a lot out of it after finishing Mandarin III. However, one of the speakers on the recordings has a really terrible "non-standard" accent. You'll be able to recognize him easily. Unfortunately, they keep using his voice on the majority of the recordings. The rest of the speakers speak perfect Mandarin. Overall, I think it's a worthwhile beginner-intermediate level course. I also have Module 9 of Standard Chinese, which I ordered from the NTIS. I've tried it out and it's quite impressive. The dialogs are at regular speed and the grammar/vocabulary is probably at the intermediate level. The only problem I have with this course is that it's on cassettes (I don't have a portable cassette player). However, I plan on converting it to mp3 format soon to make it more portable. The 888 Chinese Flashcards that you're using are really excellent and rewarding, but there's another older deck with 1375 cards designed to accompany a set of books called Elementary Chinese Readers. However, it has more useless vocabulary than the 888 deck. As for Radio Canada International, I'm not sure which program you're listening to, but you should try this one instead of the news: http://www.rcinet.ca/rci/ch/cours.shtml This is a course in Mandarin for learning English, and it's really easy to understand. I really doubt it's effective for learning English, but it's an excellent way to practice your passive Mandarin skills! BTW, this course is available in several other languages. Edited by Malcolm on 12 March 2005 at 12:07am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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