Zhuyin and pinyin are both based on the same fundamental sound components, just presented in a different way. There are conversion charts available online which show the zhuyin-pinyin equivalents.
For English speakers, sure there are different ways of pronouncing some characters and combinations, but that’s the same with any non-English language (e.g. French, which kids learn from a young age too - at least that used to be the case in the UK…not sure if it’s still a compulsory lesson). Children from multi-lingual households don’t seem to have much problem dealing with different language contexts - they are generally better at this than most adults in my experience.
Apart from being much easier to learn and read for people coming from “alphabetic language” backgrounds, the huge benefit is that pinyin can be used anywhere you have a regular keyboard and doesn’t need a special font. It’s also much faster to type. Compared to my Taiwanese friends, I usually can type a lot faster in pinyin than they can in zhuyin - and I’m not a particularly fast typist.
You need to learn pinyin in Taiwan anyway, because road signs and other places use it (or a version of it), so you can still read place names etc even if you don’t recognise the chinese characters.
Or you fail epically to pronounce the Taiwanese spelling of names and end up sounding like an idiot trying to read Korean because there’s no real widely accepted way of phonetically spelling out Chinese here. As much as I don’t want to promote CCP anything, pinyin is a concrete and phonetic system that uses the most widely used writing system on earth (the “roman” alphabet), while zhuyin is a separately invented system that works only in Taiwan.
Also, typing Chinese using pinyin on a QWERTY keyboard is waaaayyyyy faster than trying to type zhuyin on a…yeah there’s only one type of keyboard for zhuyin and that’s in “bopomofo order”
Hi there,
I have not found a school (university or independent) that has small group classes that focus only on conversation. I can read and write quite a bit of pinyin but zero characters. My conversation level is possibly low intermediate. This is a problem if I want to enrol in a group class. Either I will be ahead for conversation or behind for reading and writing. Neither is much fun. Of course, with one - one tutoring in independent schools you can study what you wish.
Once you give ICLP or MTC Your money, they have control and will treat you accordingly. Hire 1 person 1:1 and that person will receive all your pay so the teacher will be motivated; at any time you want someone else, you can switch instantly. Get a girlfriend or significant other to help. Group class is inefficient
For 2 institutions (not “any“, as you said), I said that once they have your money, they have control.
There’s a thread on the MTC. Caveat emptor.
If OP wants to improve his conversation skills, MTC and ICLP might not be the best route. Hiring someone 1:1, no institution involved, and a helpful girlfriend may be better.
MTC requires 4 hours daily, usually group class, teacher only getting a fraction of the tuition and then there’s the MTC administration to deal with
Major Ord is a good example. He had 5 hours Chinese conversation every day, 1:1.
Yes to this (not only because I teach Chinese online).
The language schools take way too big a cut, and the quality of a particular teacher is often a crapshoot despite their assurances of “training”.
I do speaking/listening-only classes for beginners and intermediates (as well as teaching reading and writing for those who want to learn it). Google “cold character reading”. I’m fairly well known in Chinese teaching circles.
I have a few teachers from Taiwan in my current training cohort but I’m not sure if any are doing one-on-one (or other) classes there or not at the moment. I could ask if the OP is interested.
Know any group classes for the decently advanced but needing a push? I’m at an almost C1 level and everything here seems to be approaching B2 tops. I need someone to force me to stop using circumlocution instead of just learning the words for things
Anyone have any experience with the 1:1 classes offered by basically every university and private language school in Taiwan? They all appear to be starting at NT$600/hour and going up to NT$1000+, but I’d like to know if those tutors are any good and if you get what you pay for?
Don’t bother paying for a private lesson through a language school.
Go to a university, or put the word out in a group of Chinese teachers. There are always people looking to take on private students. Much cheaper and it’s the same thing.
At your level, you really just need a sympathetic native speaker who will slow down when it’s needed and repeat when it’s needed. You don’t need someone’s “special method” or “amazing textbook”.
I treated myself to a “language vacation” in Taipei last October. I lined up two private tutors (one didn’t end up working out but the other was fantastic) ahead of time using Facebook group contacts. I think I paid NT$500 an hour – could have gotten someone cheaper if I’d just gone with a random student, but this was an older person who had had some training as an interpreter (which means she had some idea of why in the world I’d want to work on that kind of language; most people don’t). We met 2 hours a day, five days a week, and the prep time occupied most of the rest of my day. Three weeks. It was totally awesome. Content was me searching for videos about a topic I picked more or less at random (“makeup tips”, “impostor syndrome”, stuff like that – I was trying to force myself into “touchy-feely” topics where I lack vocabulary since I like technical stuff way better). I’d watch a couple of videos that came up with that keyword search (Chinese ones) beforehand, try to pick out relevant vocab, and then I’d get an English document or video and interpret it into Chinese during class, with the teacher told to take notes on and jump on every tiny error.
You could do it just discussing the content, of course. lol. Much more relaxing that way.
There’s so much information here about this question that is not reflected on a pull from a thread that is 10 years old.
Most all are similar teaching style.
TMC, TCA, TLI, HAN, Wanhua Jianguo, Shuohua, LTL, Shida even can follow your own plan and just learn the spoken part, other options.
I’ve been to 6 of these.
Pick one that matches your schedule, budget, feeling after visiting.
For purely speaking, personal tutor is a great option. It’s better because you don’t want to listen to all the other people in your class trying to speak Chinese and you don’t understand it and they all say it incorrectly. Better to work with a personal tutor who speaks it correctly every time and you hear it correctly every time.
Classes are great because you show up and you study and you look and listen and try to follow the teacher but still being confused by what everyone else in the class is trying to say incorrectly.
A huge problem with Chinese classes is everyone in the class except the teacher is pronouncing things incorrectly.
Sit in class and you listen to people try to speak something and they have different accents because they come from the UK, or from Germany, or from France, or from Vietnam, or from Indonesia, and then you try to speak it the way you hear it but you’ve been listening to five people before you saying it differently with a different accent so it can be difficult almost impossible to pick it up correctly.
And then you wander around trying to use it when you go out on the street and you occasionally get it correct but you really not even sure if it’s correct or not but maybe someone understands it
Input is the most important so watch lots of tv, programs, films and YouTube for listening first. Learn Pinyin well for accuracy in pronunciation and tones. Join Mandarin immersion camps. Try to live the language daily.
