hokusai77 Triglot Senior Member Italy Joined 6911 days ago 212 posts - 217 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Italian*, FrenchB1, EnglishC1 Studies: GermanB1, Japanese
| Message 1 of 26 08 July 2005 at 2:56am | IP Logged |
Hello to everybody. Please help me to solve this Hamletic question! I've been thinking of taking up Mandarin Chinese for the last six months. I'm at an advanced level in both English and French, which I currently use for my job, and I am now focusing on Japanese, placing myself at an intermediate level and studying it every day for at least one hour. My main objective is to get fluent in the "Rising Sun" language. But, to tell the truth, I'm now fascinated by Chinese, even though to a lesser extent than the other oriental language. I'd be interested in learning the basics, just to hold some simple conversation with possible future Chinese business partners (eventually switching to English or using an interpreter for more complex interaction). Do you think it is a good idea, or should I completely stick to Japanese until I am fluent? I could devote 20-30 minutes daily to Chinese, along with my daily hour of Japanese.
Thank you for any advice.
Ciao!
Yari
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czech Senior Member United States Joined 6953 days ago 395 posts - 378 votes Studies: English*
| Message 2 of 26 08 July 2005 at 12:22pm | IP Logged |
I would've never known you were Italian from how you write English. It's all the time you can devote, with a good method, it is said you can speak MAndarin fluently in 200 hours, so calculate that.
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victor Tetraglot Moderator United States Joined 7077 days ago 1098 posts - 1056 votes 6 sounds Speaks: Cantonese*, English, FrenchC1, Mandarin Studies: Spanish Personal Language Map
| Message 3 of 26 08 July 2005 at 1:09pm | IP Logged |
Learning Japanese fluently will also be an asset to your business. From what I can tell so far, you only need a small "taste" of Chinese and your major target is still Japanese.
I think it's better to be fluent in one than not fluent in either.
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hokusai77 Triglot Senior Member Italy Joined 6911 days ago 212 posts - 217 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Italian*, FrenchB1, EnglishC1 Studies: GermanB1, Japanese
| Message 4 of 26 09 July 2005 at 5:25am | IP Logged |
czech wrote:
I would've never known you were Italian from how you write English. It's all the time you can devote, with a good method, it is said you can speak MAndarin fluently in 200 hours, so calculate that. |
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Thank you for your advice!
Ciao
Yari
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hokusai77 Triglot Senior Member Italy Joined 6911 days ago 212 posts - 217 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Italian*, FrenchB1, EnglishC1 Studies: GermanB1, Japanese
| Message 5 of 26 09 July 2005 at 5:28am | IP Logged |
victor wrote:
Learning Japanese fluently will also be an asset to your business. From what I can tell so far, you only need a small "taste" of Chinese and your major target is still Japanese.
I think it's better to be fluent in one than not fluent in either. |
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So, you think it would be better to give up this idea and devoting the additional 20-30 minutes to learning more Japanese (in addition to my usual schedule)?
Edited by hokusai77 on 09 July 2005 at 5:29am
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tlevine Triglot Senior Member United States thomaslevine.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6860 days ago 127 posts - 130 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, Mandarin, French
| Message 6 of 26 09 July 2005 at 8:57am | IP Logged |
I'm assuming that you're already using audio materials for learning Japanese, but if have a time when you can listen to Pimsleur Mandarin Chinese (meaning you have some point while you're eating a meal, exercising or traveling somewhere), you could just do the Pimsleur Mandarin Chinese for half an hour every day while still focusing mostly on Japanese.
I'd still say that you should use the additional 20-30 minutes for learning Japanese, though.
I'm assuming you won't be learning Hanzi. Are you learning Kanji?
Edited by tlevine on 09 July 2005 at 8:59am
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hokusai77 Triglot Senior Member Italy Joined 6911 days ago 212 posts - 217 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Italian*, FrenchB1, EnglishC1 Studies: GermanB1, Japanese
| Message 7 of 26 09 July 2005 at 1:00pm | IP Logged |
tlevine wrote:
I'm assuming that you're already using audio materials for learning Japanese, but if have a time when you can listen to Pimsleur Mandarin Chinese (meaning you have some point while you're eating a meal, exercising or traveling somewhere), you could just do the Pimsleur Mandarin Chinese for half an hour every day while still focusing mostly on Japanese.
I'd still say that you should use the additional 20-30 minutes for learning Japanese, though.
I'm assuming you won't be learning Hanzi. Are you learning Kanji? |
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Yes, I've been learning kanji since I began Japanese. I can read and write about 1,000 characters.
Thank you for your advice.
Yari
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czech Senior Member United States Joined 6953 days ago 395 posts - 378 votes Studies: English*
| Message 8 of 26 09 July 2005 at 1:08pm | IP Logged |
Let me correct myself, 2000 hours, that's what the FOreign Service Institute says.
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