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Michel Thomas Mandarin Foundation Course | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| volapuk49 Tetraglot Groupie United States Joined 6076 days ago 73 posts - 86 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Yiddish, Modern Hebrew Studies: Esperanto | Message 9 of 70 19 November 2007 at 9:26pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks for this question.
Chinese verbs fall into different categories according to how they behave with respect to other words. The category of verb for words like hao3 and mang2 might be called adjective/verbs. There are complicated Western grammatical terms for the category but I just describe it in simple English as adjective/verbs. These are adjectives (in this case hao3 = good, mang2 = busy) which may also be used as verbs ( hao3 = to be good or OK, mang2= to be busy). When you use the word as an adjective you simply place it in front of the noun. An example would be: hao3 ren2 = a good person. If you want to say, He is a good person, that is when you would use the word shi4 that you menton. In that case you could say, Ta1 shi4 hao3 ren2. He+ to be+ good+ person. If you want to use any of these adjective/verbs as a verb then you have no need for shi4= to be since this is already included in the adjective/ verb. Now this is where what I call the two-syllable metre (meter for us Yanks) rule comes into play. These words, when used as verbs, must have a total of two words at least to sound OK to a Chinese ear. Go figure but that's the way it is. Listen, I didn't make up the language; I'm merely passing it on to you. So here's the deal. You have a few options. Let's create sentences with ta1 ( he, she, it) and mang2 ( busy). 1) Is he busy? Ta1 mang2 ma ? He busy question. 2) He is not busy. Ta1 bu4 mang2. He no busy. 3) He is very busy. Ta1 hen3 mang2. He very busy. BUT what do we do if we just want to say: He is busy. We must use hen3 as what I call a dummy word. 4)He is busy. Ta1 hen3 mang2. He very ( used here as filler or dummy word) busy. Study all of the examples above. You will notice that in each one of them mang2 either has a word in front of or following it. This works out fine when you want to express sentences 1 -3. However, in sentence 4 you might say, Well, since mang2 already means to be busy I'll just say, Ta1 mang2. If you do so, the Chinese listener will draw a blank. It just won't be processed. Like an error message on a computer. It won't compute. In English we say, Do you understand? The word do is a dummy or filler word. If I leave it out you would probably understand my meaning but in Chinese you can't get away with leaving out the dummy word in such a situation. So, in order to make sure that we have two words in this case we use hen3. For these adjective/verbs hen3 acts as the all-purpose dummy word to fulfill the two-syllable metre rule. You earlier posted a question about how to really say very when we use hen3. Maybe you want to say, He is very busy. It would be identical to sentences 3 and 4 above. The way you can emphasize the word very is by pronouncing it with more force. Then you will be understood as wanting to communicate: He is very busy vs. He is busy. There are many, many of these adjective/verbs and this is something which many students find confusing so we do bring it up early in the course and attempt to illustrate what I have described above. To address your specific examples: If you want to say ' I am a busy person' you are describing what kind of a person you are. So you would use busy as an adjective. Wo3 shi4 mang2 ren2. The sentence you posted is perfect colloquial Chinese. Your second example, Wo3 hen3 mang2 gong2, would not make sense to a Chinese speaker. However, if you said, Wo3 hen3 mang2. ( meaning either I am very busy or I am busy depending on context and emphasis in pronunciation) then this would be excellent Chinese and you would be readily understood. The English term busy work is expressed differently in Chinese than in English. My advice is to learn how they express things and use their way. Sometimes the words are very similar. Other times they are really different. Here is a fun example of how the languages express the same concept in different ways. The word computer in English is, of course, based on the verb to compute. The Chinese word consists of two characters: dian4 nao3. The literal meaning is electrical brain. I actually get a kick out of the Chinese version. It's a fun language and I attempt to share this in the course. We have tried to anticipate your questions as well as many others in the course. Not only will my discussion often address these points but you may also notice that you are not alone in having such questions. The two students are going through the same learning process that you are. They, too, have questions and often express them. In additon, their answers to my questions often reveal that they are working on deeper understanding of these points. So you get to join them in their learning. We use their responses to go deeper in our learning. Again, thanks for an excellent question! Harold Edited by volapuk49 on 19 November 2007 at 10:18pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Kugel Senior Member United States Joined 6347 days ago 497 posts - 555 votes Speaks: English* | Message 10 of 70 20 November 2007 at 1:07pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks for the in-depth explanation! I hope that all of the narrators of the new Michel Thomas courses visit this forum, or just creators of language programs in general, more often.
Could you tell us what your students did after they completed the Mandarin course with you? And by this I mean what books, programs, classes they took after completing your introduction course. Edited by Kugel on 20 November 2007 at 1:08pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| kumori Newbie United States Joined 6636 days ago 9 posts - 9 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 11 of 70 20 November 2007 at 1:25pm | IP Logged |
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Thank you! That was a wonderful explanation of hen3, Volapuk49! You must be an excellent teacher.
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| volapuk49 Tetraglot Groupie United States Joined 6076 days ago 73 posts - 86 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Yiddish, Modern Hebrew Studies: Esperanto | Message 12 of 70 20 November 2007 at 2:27pm | IP Logged |
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I am delighted to answer questions regarding my teaching and related topics!
You know, much of this authorship and teaching has been accomplished in relative isolation so it gives me great pleasure to reach out and be part of a larger, informed community of learners. You ask what my students did regarding further learning after they completed the Mandarin course with me. I shall give you a bit of background before I specifically address your question. Two trials were held. Each consisted of two people. None of them had any prior experience with Chinese. They were volunteers who answered a public announcement. After they completed the Foundation trial I inteviewed them and had them answer a series of questions regarding their experience to get feedback. This feedback was used to make the Hodder Foundation course even more effective. I also had them agree to be available for the Advanced course trials. They all agreed to this. Two trial members, a mother and daughter, were very enthusiastic about their experience. The daughter called it a "miracle". She has studied a few languages ( including Georgian ) but told me that she never had such a quick and satisfying response to her studies before. The mother was a very nervous student who continually said that she didn't think that she could do it. Ironically, she did quite well which shocked her. You know that I use a system of finger gestures which are co-ordinated with the tones. This insures that the student recalls the tones correctly. Tones have traditionally been an enormous stumbling block for many learners. What I found fascinating was that even when the mom blocked her recall of the actual word ( to use the phrase that Michel Thomas taught me) she would automatically make the right finger gesture on command! I was blown away. Here we have a student who was so anxious that she was freezing up and yet she was perfectly coming up with the correct tonal gestures almost 100% of the time. With a little patience and support she was able to speak quite well. When I recently approached the mom for the Advanced trial she said that family commitments would make this impossible. So I cannot provide more information on these students. The other two students were a man in his 70's and a younger woman. The man has spent much of his life teaching Russian on the university level and is an accomplished linguist. This actually worked against him as he had so much to unlearn. Michel Thomas told me many times that these students were the most difficult to work with. He said that language teachers were the worst since they had very fixed ideas and beliefs regarding learning. This man ended up doing so well that he has asked me to work with him to develop a teaching project for an unrelated language. He got the result (ability to communicate) but was frustrated that 'it just doesn't make any sense how you teach.' However, he is delighted with his new ability to speak in Chinese. Go figure. The other student is a woman in her late 40's who has been studying German for much of her adult life and still can't speak or comfortably communicate in it. She did quite well, too. I am hoping that these last two, should their schedules permit, will join in the Advanced trials. Finally, let's get to the meat of your question. I asked all of the participants to please refrain from any outside related language study until they have finished the Advanced. Michel Thomas used to emphasize this advice with me over and over again. It is natural for the student to want to practise what he has learned, to learn more, to supplement one's studies and so on. However, based on my training with Mr. Thomas and my own limited work with this method I can assure you that this is really counter- productive. In the final part of the Thomas -training students would be given texts to read and supported in this. Though this does not apply to Chinese because of the lack of an alphabet I intend to mention some post-course activities which the Chinese-language learner may find useful for furthering your knowledge of spoken Chinese. In addition, Mr. Thomas would have a separate course where he presented the material that Hodder has presented in its Foundation and Advanced courses. This course consisted of meetings with the student and a variety of native speakers so that the student could practise what they learned in the first part. I hope to address this in passing at the conclusion of the Advanced. He would personally teach the first course and have others teach the second half. Both courses were included as one unit of language study in his school. I would strongly suggest that you wait until you complete the Advanced and, ideally, the Vocabulary courses before you start getting involved with other instructional approaches. If nothing else, working with outside approaches and materials sends a message to the subconscious that you need reinforcement, that what you have gotten is insufficient. It reinforces the underlying belief that you really haven't learned enough to speak. The fact is that you will be speaking colloquial Chinese with these courses. I promise you that, as far as I know, there is no other approach that can get you up and running with such dependable results in such a short time. You will have the rest of your life to amplify what you have learned here. Stay with us as we guide you through the foundation for your Chinese and you should do quite well when you venture forth. Take care. Harold 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| volapuk49 Tetraglot Groupie United States Joined 6076 days ago 73 posts - 86 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Yiddish, Modern Hebrew Studies: Esperanto | Message 13 of 70 20 November 2007 at 2:31pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks Kumori!
I love what I am doing and am really happy when others get juiced with Chinese! It is a great language and culture. I want to turn as many people on to it as possible. It is partly out of my own frustrating experiences in attempting to learn languages that I got involved in all of this so I really get a kick when others have a good experience! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Jee Senior Member Australia Joined 6118 days ago 105 posts - 105 votes Studies: English | Message 14 of 70 20 November 2007 at 8:32pm | IP Logged |
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[QUOTE=volapuk49]
The category of verb for words like hao3 and mang2 might be called adjective/verbs. There are complicated Western grammatical terms for the category but I just describe it in simple English as adjective/verbs. These are adjectives (in this case hao3 = good, mang2 = busy) which may also be used as verbs ( hao3 = to be good or OK, mang2= to be busy). . Nice.You are really good at Mandarian grammar.As a native speaker ,I'm glad to see you guys are interested in Mandarian. Welcome May I leave some tips here! Actually,in the case "好忙 hao3 mang2" 好hao3 is an adverb meaning "very,so,". it's not an adjectiv at all here ,although it's in most time It's just like some English words, such as "loud", it can be adjective,adverb also 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| AlexL Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6893 days ago 197 posts - 277 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 15 of 70 21 November 2007 at 10:32am | IP Logged |
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Mr. Goodman,
I've studied Mandarin with Pimsleur I, and have done a little bit using other methods, too. I realize you probably have not used Pimsleur Mandarin, but basically I am still at the low beginner stage. I've looked through the "curriculum" listed on the Hodder website and I think I do know most if not all of the stuff covered. Would I still benefit from the Mandarin course? How far does it take the learner? Will I learn how to say "more than" or "less than"? How well ingrained will word order be if I want to create longer sentences? Is the program recommended for those who are not complete beginners? Thanks! Alex 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Kugel Senior Member United States Joined 6347 days ago 497 posts - 555 votes Speaks: English* | Message 16 of 70 21 November 2007 at 1:51pm | IP Logged |
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Why isn't xiang4zai4 using the "trampoline" effect? Is it because it's considered one word?
1 person has voted this message useful |
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