What is the absolute best Chinese learning Software I can
buy to learn Chinese ? Can you actually learn chinese just using software ?
Would you say goling to chinese Classes are the best way to learn., and if you
really wanted to learn chinese quickly with fair fluency would this be the best way to go ?
Thanks. The reason: I want to learn chinese so I can talk with my wife and her family and friends, to better understand the culture, and to benefit from the opportunities of learning chinese. ric
What is the absolute best Chinese learning Software I can
buy to learn Chinese ? Can you actually learn Chinese just using software ?
Would you say goling to Chinese Classes are the best way to learn., and if you
really wanted to learn Chinese quickly with fair fluency would this be the best way to go ?
Thanks. The reason: I want to learn Chinese so I can talk with my wife and her family and friends, to better understand the culture, and to benefit from the opportunities of learning Chinese. ric[/quote]
You could do worse than getting started with Rosetta Stone (there’s a free demo on that site somewhere). I used that for a year and it helped me quite a bit.
Obviously having a real teacher is best, and it also helps hugely if you’re hanging out with Chinese speakers quite often.
But you need to be realistic. For native speakers of English, Chinese takes about three times longer to learn than Spanish or Dutch. To reach some degree of comfort in regular conversations, I’d say you need to study full time for two years. And of course part-time study takes much longer. But if you think you could enjoy the kind of small successes along the way as you gradually understand more of what you hear, and become able to express yourself, then sure, why not get started now?
Mod note: I suggest we discuss the software recommendations here in this thread (into which I’ve merged your post); for tips on learning Chinese in general, please have a look at [url=http://tw.forumosa.com/t/tips-for-learning-chinese-part-ii/12616/1 Tips for Learning Chinese (Part II) thread[/url] and post any relevant questions there; and for other topics on learning Chinese, from kinds of phonetic transcription to simplified vs. traditional characters, tones, books, dictionaries and so on, please do have a look at our Directory of popular Learning Chinese forum posts, and select the appropriate thread in which to post specific questions. Thanks, and good luck with your studies!
Hi. I’m just starting out learning to speak Chinese, with a good private teacher but only two lessons a week. At this early point I need practice with basic pronunciation [of Chinese word typed in the phonetic system] both learning the new sounds as well as tones.
What I’m looking for is software or a web site that displays words of varied pronunciation and tone, and has a recorded voice reading those words properly. I have a good ear and can tell if I’m matching the voice, so I feel this will be a good way to practice in between lessons. I don’t mind paying for software although I don’t really need full teaching software but just the pronunciation practice.
I am also trying to learn Chinese but am using the Nintendo DS game “My Chinese Coach”. I think it is pretty basic, but it does have a section that focuses on tones. It has a pretty neat feature that allows you to record yourself speaking and compare it with the program. It also has a neat game that teaches how to write some characters.
Has anyone else used this game? What are your opinions?
I’m wondering if anyone has recommendations for a good Mandarin language software/CDs program. I’m looking for something fairly comprehensive.
Thanks!
Amber
Rosetta Stone seems pretty comprehensive. I haven’t been satisfied with how it does writing(really typing), though. If you pay for it, it’s kind of expensive.
I’ve never used another program, so I don’t have much basis for comparison, though.
Rosetta Stone? They’re on the right track, but their mistaken belief that a quick translation into a known language is language-acquisition poison really lowers the worth of their product. I was trialling a copy in Mohawk this summer and the re-use of photos and lack of specificity made it impossible to figure out what they were saying. In the end I had to download an English transcript and hope the utterances were equivalent.
Rosetta Stone also insists on a grammar-ordered presentation which is not always the best suited for languages that bear less resemblance to English. Given those issues, IMHO it’s not really immersion, it’s linguistic waterboarding.
Agreed - it really falls down on non Euro and not Roman alphabet language. It’s also a fairly unnatural SLA framework. Fiddled around with it, but wasn’t impressed.
I think Rosetta Stone is a great tool. It’s not a comprehensive learning system, of course, but it’s great for efficient effective acquisition of vocabulary and sentence patterns.
IF by some miracle you are certain of what the foreign language sentence means. You cannot acquire language that you do not understand.[/quote]
When I used Rosetta Stone, I had absolutely no problem understanding the sentences. If you start from lesson one and don’t skip, it’s always very obvious. I guess I had about 1 sentence in a hundred, that I didn’t know EXACTLY what the sentence meant, but had a rough idea.
Yeah, same here. I started knowing a little Chinese, so that helped. Some of the early lessons were too easy, but I didn’t want to miss any grammar or vocab, so I still did them. Occasionally, there was a part of a sentence that I still didn’t understand after the idea was introduced, but most of the time, I came to understand it later. And, if I only understand 99% of the software, I’ve still learned a lot of Chinese when I finish.
Unfortunately, I’ve almost finished the three CDs.
I’d also like to find something to help with reading and writing. Maybe I can try Rosetta Stone again using characters, for the reading. But, the program was too rough for writing. Get one wrong tone, and the sentence was wrong. I rarely got a sentence right(in the later lessons), so I never got a good enough score to go on. Also, using the mouse to type took FOREVER. So much easier to use numbers for tones.
IF by some miracle you are certain of what the foreign language sentence means. You cannot acquire language that you do not understand.[/quote]
When I used Rosetta Stone, I had absolutely no problem understanding the sentences. If you start from lesson one and don’t skip, it’s always very obvious. I guess I had about 1 sentence in a hundred, that I didn’t know EXACTLY what the sentence meant, but had a rough idea.[/quote]
I started from the beginning and did not skip. It was NOT obvious. They showed the same picture of a serious older woman without glasses who was sitting down, and a smiling younger woman with glasses who was standing up. The Mohawk phrase turned out to be “she is wearing glasses” (that is one word in Mohawk, of course). There was no way in the world you could tell what they were supposedly contrasting between the two, because the only difference was the negative. It could have been “She is not smiling”, “She is not sitting” or whatever. The verb roots in Mohawk change a lot when they recombine (at least to the eye of a beginner) so there really is no way to guess what a new item might be.
Anyway, as I have said, you cannot acquire language you do not understand. And for the price of Rosetta Stone packages, I expect to understand every bloody word.
I found Rosetta Stone very helpful for learning Mandarin. I did use a dictionary to check meanings sometimes, though. The vocab learning research I’ve read suggests that it’s good to guess at the meaning of a new word first, based on the context, but then to look the word up straight away to check you understood it correctly.
Those two stages seem equally important. If you jump straight to the dictionary you don’t seem to remember as well as if you’d guessed at the meaning first. But if you don’t check the correct meaning straight away an initial wrong guess may stick in your mind and become hard to replace with the correct meaning.
I still believe, though, that guessing belongs to a separate category of language use. It’s crucial to train students in how to guess and how to use context, that’s for sure, but I wouldn’t say it is hugely useful for actual acquisition of language. In fact, IMHO anything other than a certain understanding of what something means is completely useless for language acquisition (or, perhaps better stated, anything less than the best available understanding of what something means…because if you’re acquiring out in a natural language environment a perfect understanding might be elusive at the moment. But over time, you either have to confirm the meaning or accept your guess as “the” meaning, which still means as far as your brain is concerned you have a “complete” understanding, whether it’s completely correct or not.)
Gosh this stuff gets philosophical, doesn’t it??
One other side note – the Rosetta Stone people used different photos on the Mohawk program, I believe, as they show native people and activities at least in part. It’s possible that the photos were limited and maybe not as “obvious” as those used in other languages. I haven’t trialed the program in any other language so can’t say for sure.
I do still say that adding a “check the meaning in English” button to each utterance would greatly improve the value of the product as a tool for acquisition.
Well, after some consideration, I believe I’ll probably buy Rosetta Stone.
Factors weighing against are (1) the cost of course (US$439 on Amazon.com), (2) fear that the vocab will be too general, offtopic or irrelevant for me, (3) fear that it will be geared toward PRC Chinese, not Taiwan de, (4) although it receives very good reviews from amazon customers, one wrote detailed criticism of the program, (5) ironlady and buttercup weren’t enamored by the program (though I don’t believe either of them used the Mandarin program very much), and (6) fear that, despite my present good intentions, I won’t use it sufficiently and will have wasted a lot of money on just one more “magic bullet” that will end up gathering dust beside pimsleur and the rest.
On the other hand, joesax and Bu Lai En both spoke fairly highly of the program, as did another forumosan I know, and I tried the online demo and it seems reasonable. Heck, if I’m able to commit myself so I must spend at least 1/2 hour or an hour per day and work through the whole first 3 units, it seems likely I’ll almost certainly make good progress.
Meanwhile, I’ll continue with my tutor once a week, focusing on business/legal language relevant to my work/career. Still don’t have the wife’s definite approval to shell out the $439, but I’ve been dropping hints and there’s been no strenuous opposition yet, so I’m confident I’ll be able to overcome the toughest challenge – making the purchase.
(And, ironlady, I’ve been extremely busy with the holiday’s and whatnot, but I’ll contact you shortly. Thanks.)
I’ve created my own podcast course here in Taiwan here that I obviously stand behind. The course starts with lesson one for absolute beginners. Each lesson then continues from there and becomes progressively harder. Early lessons are taught entirely in English, while later lessons slowly replace the English with Chinese (that has been previously taught). This way you’re constantly forced to recall Chinese that was taught in the past.
There are currently 420 lessons, with the latest ones taught almost entirely in Chinese. I’d say it’s at an intermediate level at the moment. Some of the advantages of this format include:
a. Most emphasis on listening skills, followed by reading, writing and then speaking. As you’re in Taiwan, you can practice what you learn with your tutor or others around you.
b. Created in Taiwan, so all the speakers, vocabulary and pronunciation have a Taiwanese edge.
c. On average, each lesson’s difficulty only goes up slightly, which is the key. I believe one of the keys to learning any language is constantly giving your brain input that is only slightly harder than what you already know. That is what we’ve been able to create here.
The lessons on the site are free, while the online tools (review audio, exercises, flashcards etc.) require a subscription, starting off at around $650 NT per month. I recommend you try out the free lessons first to see if they interest you.
Feel free to post any feedback here, or PM me for more info.
