Any mtc alums or current students?

Taiwan Living in Taiwan
21

SuperS54: I don’t think you understood my point. Despite the fact that ‘night’ and ‘knight’ sound the same, native speakers don’t have any trouble distinguishing them in ordinary speech.

The broader point that I am making is that a literacy-driven approach to Chinese tends to produce people who can read Chinese at near-native levels but do not speak Chinese as well as they could. I think most long-term students of Chinese like myself (10+ years) will tell you that reading and writing Chinese is the easy part. Speaking Chinese fluently and accurately is much more difficult. I think this is because language-teaching programs emphasize reading and writing skills over speaking and listening. It’s easier to teach, and it’s what many of the most motivated students want to focus on when they start.

regan: I think that watching TV soaps is an excellent way to learn the contemporary Mandarin spoken in Taiwan ( Movies less so because most are dubbed by people with exaggerated accents). I find it very useful to see if I can repeat what the actors say. I think it improves listening comprehension, usage, and fluency. Of course you do have to put up with all the melodrama.

As for computer software, I hear that Wenlin (www.wenlin.com) is very good (especially for advanced users).

22
quote:
Originally posted by Feiren: I was responding to this questionable proposition:

You really need to learn written Chinese to properly realise the differences between words that sound the same but are actually adifferent character.

If this were true, then illiterate Chinese speakers would not be able distinguish between the qu4s in hui2qu4 and you3qu4 just as illiterate English speakers would be unable to distinguish between ‘knight’ and ‘night’.

You’ve got a point and I probably worded it too strongly saying ‘need to’. Let’s just say it helps a hell of a lot. Firstly, illiterate Chinese are generally native speakers, so it’s a bit easier for them. Think about Chinese learning English and how much easier they can understand when they see it written down. Secondly, Chinese has a hell of a lot more homonyms (shit have I got that right - words that sound the same but have different meanings) than English. Chinese has approximately 1200 different syllables and only about 400 if you ignore the tones (because as a learner you’re not too familiar with them), whereas English has about 8000. Add to that the confusion between unclear distinction between (pinyin) z/zh, en/eng etc and you’ve got a hell of a lot more scope for confusion. I’m not saying learning chracters clears up all of this onfusion, but it helps a lot.

Bri

23

ckvw: You provided a lot of useful, practical information for those who will be studying at the Shita MTC. I’d like to add a category though.

You should live in Taipei and study at the MTC for two or three years (at least) if you want to really learn Chinese well. But you have to go to class!

In my experience, people who are in a hurry to learn Chinese are always unhappy with lack of ‘intensiveness’ and ‘structure’ at the MTC. Unfortunately, there is no shortcut to learning Chinese. It just takes time–years of living in a Chinese society and a couple of hours with a book in Chinese open in front of you every day.

The MTC has (or used to have) another significant plus: advanced classes in literary Chinese. This is something that the smaller schools don’t offer.

24

On the homophone question:

Chinese does have a lot of homophones at the single-character level, which means lots of bother when you are writing (making sure you have chosen the correct character for that second-tone “fu” or whatever).

However, if you look at a list of Chinese words (that is, compounds of 2 characters or more) instead of single characters, you will find that there are darn few homophones! I was really amazed when this finally sank in (way too recently to admit just when…! ) What that means is that we foreign learners can’t cry “homophones”…we simply do not have the fine tonal discrimination and/or accurate memory of what tones go with the words.

Pick up a dictionary like Lanbridge’s excellent Pinyin dictionary (it’s arranged in total Pinyin order, without regard to tones or characters, so you can really see the near-homophones together) and you’ll see that this is so. There are very few instances where the tones and phonetic structure of the 2 syllables are really identical.

That dictionary is also great when you’re listening to something, because you can find the word without knowing which character to look under first.

As for MTC – I agree with the previous posters. I know people who have learned beautiful Chinese there, and lots of other people who have learned almost nothing. It depends a lot on your own personal level of motivation and/or discipline.

That being said, I would reiterate: why not go to a cheaper center? You won’t be missing out on much in terms of actual teaching content, the cost is lower, and that might mean that you won’t have to moonlight teaching English or would have less financial pressure, which would give you some extra cash to travel around the island.

Get OUT of Taipei once in awhile! It’s a great city and I love it, but there is more to Taiwan. Even going to another of Taiwan’s large cities (Taichong, Tainan, Kaohsiung) will show you a different face of Taiwan, and that’s not getting into going to the countryside!

Sorry to destroy everyone’s favorite excuse for why our collective Mandarin sucks…(well, I know mine still does)…

Terry

25
quote:
There are very few instances where the tones and phonetic structure of the 2 syllables are really identical.

Maybe. But consider that as students we’re still, perhaps, learning to distinguish between (pinyin) wu and yu, ch and q etc and we’re really not used to the tones yet. Then add the problem that we might be listening to heavily accented Taiwan Guoyu with all the zh/z, ch/c, sh/s, en/eng, an/ang etc all mixed up and there is still a hell of a lot of scope for confusion.

I’m not saying this is an ‘excuse’ for bad chinese, btu it explains a lot of the differences between Chinese and English and how we learn the languages and even things like why a phonetic system is more suited to English than Chiense.

Bri

Bri

26

QUOTE: But consider that as students we’re still, perhaps, learning to distinguish between (pinyin) wu and yu, ch and q etc and we’re really not used to the tones yet.

That’s what I just said. We don’t have sufficient perceptual control of tones to notice that they’re actually all different.

SO – what we need is for teachers of Chinese to give some serious thought to this. It is a cop-out for a teacher to say, “Memorize it!” It should be their responsibility to look at the research in language acquisition and figure out better ways to help you acquire these features of Chinese which are not present in your native language.

Arm yourself (because most Chinese teachers in language schools don’t have the education or the time – and aren’t paid nearly enough, to be honest – to spend time doing this. Learn about different methods you can use to help yourself with tones (tonal spelling methods, color coding, TPR/TPRS, and others.) You have to look at your Chinese class as a springboard where you can get accurate native-speaker input, but where you may not get the guidance or assistance you really need to master the language. (This is also true in Western language teaching, but generally speaking Western language teaching tends to be more up-to-date on methods. The Chinese teaching community is just tromping into the “communicative method”, which was already beginning to wane (although still popular today) in the late 80s.

All this is definitely “a hell of a lot of scope for confusion”, as you put it. I agree completely.

I don’ think, however, that this means that English is better suited to a phonetic system. If Chinese is represented with the tones, a native speaker or a proficient foreign speaker can easily understand the meaning of a passage rendered in Romanized form (phonetically). There would be very little scope for confusion. But those speakers can “fill in” a lot of information because they don’t have to decode as a beginning or intermediate student does.

Plus, of course, a passage of Romanization isn’t ever rendered with the speaker’s mouth full of betelnut juice or similar…

But seriously – if you’re studying Chinese, take the time to think carefully about what YOU need to succeed in acquiring the language, and then try your best to communciate these needs to your teacher. Most of them are quite willing to try new methods, but they are not very skilled in thinking of new methods or in introducing them on their own. You need to be more proactive to get the most out of a class in Taiwan. You might even have to shoulder some of the burden that would normally be the work of the teacher in another situation.

Terry

27

IMHO the best way to learn Chinese comprehensively is to start learning characters from the start. Your colloquial Chinese is best polished at work, or in the pub / other social contexts.

Having said that, I know one or two people who found the difficulty of the characters off-putting, and it turned them off the whole idea. It depends largely on your goal. Do you want to learn to converse, get by, and improve your quality of life in Taiwan, or do you have a real desire to conquer the entire language ? That I think is a decision you can make only if you give learning the script a fair chance.

I spent a year (postgraduate) at the MTC, and found the usefulness of it all depended entirely on your teacher. One advantage I suppose is that the MTC is held in high regard by locals (as is Zheng Da where I studied in '92) and both the formality of classes and the huge expense encourages you to do your homework. As you progress, you may find other ways of studying - but I do think starting at the MTC is a good way to go.

TB