Student reads his own writing after about 6 hours of TPRS Chinese
It isn’t Shakespeare, but he did this without assistance, and he obviously knows what he’s writing, reading and saying.
Actually, it helped me a lot even with that.
I was always bored learning a classroom. What they taught was too easy – but I wasn’t getting any better. Strange Catch-22. That’s when I realized they weren’t really teaching me what I wanted to learn. (I’m sure it was useful for a lot of people, but it was uninteresting to me.)
When I first got to Taiwan, my Chinese was functional, but I had a lot of communication problems. It wasn’t about the language itself so much as the logic behind it. People could rarely follow my line of thought when we were discussing anything more in-depth than the weather and how school was going and how nice Taiwanese people are. It drove me nuts. And I knew the problem was 100% with me.
Through really, really anal analysis (hah) of my own translations and through back translation, I learned a lot about the “flow” of Chinese and how to build a logical line of argumentation or even just discussion. I had lots of communication issues with the mirses when we started dating five years ago – and it wasn’t because I didn’t know the right words or grammar, it’s because my sentences didn’t make a whole lot of sense when put together as a whole.
But of course, ymmv.[/quote]
I need to pull my finger out with Chinese. Been here nearly a year and I’ve got a bit better but not much. The thing is, I can do what I want without too many breakdowns so I’m just lazy with it. So many other things to be doing. Generally I’m fine with that because projects without enthusiasm are a waste of life, but I would like to be better.
Yes to the boring classes. I teach languages and I train teachers and blahblahblah so I find it actually painful to be in a language classroom. It’s like being trapped in a bad day at work, and I have to pay for it. So … no. I just sit there with this snarky tickertape behind my eyes saying ‘God, you’re stupid and lazy and don’t know what you’re doing and I’m bored.’ I did my time at Shida and also did a class at the Confucius Institute in the UK partly because I thought I would meet people and make friends in a new town but they put me in a class alone because there weren’t any other classes past beginners (so they can’t be that good at teaching).
Language classes … so many thoughts. Do I believe you can create a learning environment where people utilise the group dynamic to slipstream their language learning? Yes. Does that happen often in ll? Christ, no.
If you are an adult learner, you have the opportunity to say ‘No, I’m not attending this boring meeting about the Chinese language.’ Pity most English language learners in the world: they’re trapped because of school and visas and other rubbish. They’re told they MUST learn English but are taught using ridiculous methods, to keep them babysat for their parents or to get a student visa or to meet the requirements of their dumb middle-class finishing school (university). Most fail or underachieve.
ironlady: The link in your signature “Click here to finally learn Mandarin” doesn’t seem to be working.
Yeah, I know…I switched servers and haven’t gotten that domain working again yet. 
I’m still teaching, though.
I recommend the Chinese Pod lessons, especially at the intermediate and upper-intermediate level as they are entertaining enough you can listen to them repeatedly and the talks after the stories or dialogues usually help reinforce what you learned. Also I found that because their dialogues have relevant sound effects, and are written in context, it is much easier to remember. Who can forget yuanfen (fate) after a dialogue with a guy trying to pick up girls in a bar? I also found that repeated listening meant I was pronouncing better as I just knew how words were supposed to sound, especially phrases or strings of words.
I improved my comprehension and vocabulary level immensely over a year pretty much studying on my own. It got me to the point where I could just hire private teachers for one-on-one conversations where we covered stuff I wanted to learn and wanted to be able to talk to others about (sadly my health over the past two years, and of course the move to Malaysia has sent my level back down).
Perhaps after the beginning stages people should study on their own as they intermediate level is really tedious (as most of us don’t have a great teacher like IL). Once they get to a decent level with comprehension and vocabulary they can go back to the class.
I have a tutor one hour a day four days a week. I go into ‘class’ with a page or two of notes in English I’ve jotted down during the day of things I’ve needed to say/wanted to say but didn’t know how to say. The first thing we do though is I repeat what I learned from the previous “class”. Then she reads my latest notes and tells me in Mandarin how to say each sentence/phrase. I repeat, then riff on the pattern. Then we improvise. It’s like an oral jazz session. No spoken English allowed. I also have an electronic dictionary so when I forget how to say something in Mandarin I look it up before continuing. This method helps me a lot and isn’t boring. Also helps - a lot - to have a double shot of latte before class…
These are all good suggestions – for improving your existing Chinese.
The OP has no Chinese, based on her description. That’s a totally different thing. What’s more, she’s attempted to get “some Chinese” several times, using similar methods, and has not succeeded. Time to change in a very basic way.
I should emphasize that I only recommend full-on comprehensible input (usually TPRS) for beginners or low/mid intermediates, not thereafter. Once you’ve got most of the major structure of the language down, there are other, much more effective ways to make yourself fluent over a large amount of vocabulary and topics. This is when ChinesePod and other things become input that one can grapple with effectively. As a beginner, there are too many unknowns in that input to make it the most effective way to acquire.
What intensive comprehensible input does is to put the structures into your head fast, so you can go on to other things. My theoretical idea, but based on experience, would be about 100 to 150 hours of small-group or one-on-one TPRS and cold character reading, followed by “traditional” teaching to expand the vocabulary, teach collocations, idioms, and all that. All the major structure of the language is acquired solidly in those first hours, together with the highest-frequency vocabulary. It would be neat to get a forward-looking buxiban to try something like that out, but groupthink is very strong in Taiwanese educational circles. I even had one put me on their faculty list but explain that they wouldn’t be able to schedule me for any classes because no one in Taipei would want to study with a non-native speaker.
Read Mark Kitto’s article “You’ll never be Chinese” … Just Google it
i find this is a good way to make sense of the tones… for me anyway. the flat tone is quite easy, i always had that down. but the rising and lowering tones were just confusing. making them comparable to an english question rising tone like huh? and an emphatic NO! helped me a lot.
[quote=“tommy525”][quote=“LucyQ”]Yup - what the title says.
I have been in Taiwan for five years, spent around $200,000 TWD on courses, books, tutors and apps. I have met with three language exchanges. I have spent many hours studying and drawing those difficult characters.
After five years of paying and struggling and still barely able to string a sentence together, I am letting go.
Chinese and me just isn’t to be.
Anyone else empathize?[/quote]
I lived in Taiwan for dogs years. I still can not read or write ANYTHING. I can barely read “Taipei” , “Taichung” and “Kaohsiung” in chinese.
I am not proud of my lack of achievement. And quite jealous of those foreigners who can read and write. But long ago, I looked at those chinese characters and said NEVERMIND.
I speak it ok though. But I must admit I struggle now that iv been out of Taiwan for more then a decade. Yesterday ran into a couple guys from Taiwan and I had to revert back to english now and then as Id forgotten the Mando word for this and that.
All I know is that Mandarin fucks up your english ! And learning to read and write it is a lifetime endeavor.
You could just learn to speak and understand it when spoken to, wouldn’t that be enough?
Once i could understand the average news report I said to myself . OK Done.
And I am half Taiwanese !!
My mom should have sent me to a Taiwanese school until Middle school, then I would’ve learned this indecipherable script.
But hey, looks like arabic writing is even stranger.[/quote]
i recently bought this book amazon.co.uk/TRADITIONAL-CHI … 0982232438
and i gotta say it is genius. it is really easy to learn to read (in a way) chinese characters. i tried for a while to learn some characters myself. choosing a kind of memory system instead of rote practice. i surprised myself by how much easier it was to learn them this way, i learnt a few hundred odd characters! but the characters are fairly complicated and the same symbols are used again and again…my system was flawed. this guys system is great though, he breaks down all the individual symbols and creates an individual memory story for each character, you can kind of ‘read’ each one by identifying the different symbols that make up a character and the story with it… its really damn easy.
only thing its only for the meaning of the word, remembering the actual Chinese word and tone is not included in his system… maybe that will come later in time for me. anyway its fun to actually be starting to make sense of all the characters that just made zero sense to me for the longest time. highly recommend the book!
Haha, those mnemonic books drive me nuts. I just remember the shapes (stare at them until they ‘fix’): I just remember trying to recall the characters I’d done in the books thinking, OK, the character looks like this and there’s a bear on a motorcycle in the book and you pronounce it this way, but I’ve forgotten what it means.
thats kinda what happened when i memorised my own way, as i had no real system. for each one i was trying to remember something different and i just didn’t retain much at all… i was also trying to use the sound of the word as a way the help. which failed big time as there are so many of the same words being used over and over.
Well - I am back. Because - giving up on learning Chinese doesn’t work. I can get by - but I am so frustrated with not being able to express myself! I don’t want to ‘just get by’. I think the quality of my life in Taiwan would improve significantly if I knew some basic Chinese.
So - back to spending money. I have tried Pimselur (sorry about the spelling) but it was soooo boring. Chinese pod is too expensive.
So - I am thinking of Michel Thomas. Has anyone done it? I think Benny the Irish polyglot used it - kind of recommended it.
Thoughts?
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Hate them. They do not ‘stick’ in any way for me because I have the concentration span of an 8 year old.
Other people think they are great.
Why not try ironlady?
Because she only does Skype lessons and I have a bad connection at home…if only she had a twin located locally! Ermintrude - how did you learn? Sorry if that is a question you have already answered somewhere else on the forum.
And - does anyway just let their kids translate for them?
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I’m finding reading PTT and watching 康熙來了 to be the best method at the moment. It gives me more to talk about with Taiwanese people. Chinesepod is great, but some of the topics dont apply for Taiwan. Given up formal study for now.
The bookstores in China are just better as well. So many better Chinese study resources rather than the stodgy boring Taiwanese ones you find at the Lucky bookstore.
I’m using Glossika to relearn all those years of forgotten Spanish. I’ve found it’s only an effective system when you already have a basis in the language, but since it sounds like you have some foundation in Chinese, you could give it a try.
Disclaimer: I’m only on day 3 of Spanish.
[quote=“Hokwongwei”]I’m using Glossika to relearn all those years of forgotten Spanish. I’ve found it’s only an effective system when you already have a basis in the language, but since it sounds like you have some foundation in Chinese, you could give it a try.
Disclaimer: I’m only on day 3 of Spanish.[/quote]
Que bueno. De aqui al sabado podremos conversar!
I think you’re underestimating how hard that is for learners early on. People get the concept easily enough – there are four tones and a neutral one, simple. But lots of people have trouble differentiating when someone’s speaking. It takes a long time to internalize the tones as a meaningful unit.[/quote]
I wonder if people would get a hang of it quicker if tones are taught as relative musical notes…[/quote]
When I’ve transcribed Chinese names of places or people for family members, I’ve written the pronunciation out as “English” as possible and added notations as follows:
媽 maw (music note)
麻 maw?
馬 maw…
罵 maw!
It took a little bit of explaining but worked much better than I realistically expected it to (though, obviously, not terribly well)[/quote]
Dude where are you getting ‘maw’ from for ‘ma’?
[quote=“LucyQ”]Because she only does Skype lessons and I have a bad connection at home…if only she had a twin located locally! Ermintrude - how did you learn? Sorry if that is a question you have already answered somewhere else on the forum.
And - does anyway just let their kids translate for them?
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk[/quote]
Hi Lucy Q, sorry, I didn’t see this thread and missed your question.
I came to Taiwanin 2000 and realised fairly quickly that living in Panchiao in the pre-MRT days wasn’t going to be the most fulfilling experience unless I jumped into it with both feet. I went to a shitty school near the main station for three months and learned very little, but spent a lot of time in Doutors coffee which had cream cheese and smoked salmon bagels which was pretty amazing for pre-WTO Taiwan.
After I finished at my chain school, I got a job at Kangchiao who were total wankers so I walked out, and was in a ‘between visas’ situation so I got together all my cash and signed up at Shida. I did that for a few semesters. It was absolute crap on one hand, but at the same time, I wouldn’t have had the self discipline to have learned all those characters without the threat of getting low scores and jeopardising my student visa. Shida really focus on pronunciation. I made flashcards from index cards but I never really used them much. I just stare at the characters until I remember them.
Then I got a job and stopped doing Shida. Worked with a great teacher for a couple of years, twice a week, privately (she quit teaching, unfortunately). After that, I just taught myself.
Went back to the UK. Started ‘editing’ for a translation co in the UK, buy which I mean taking the Google translate shit they send and turning it into ENglish, with the source text as ‘reference’. Ahem. Got much better at reading through this, and also learned simplified characters.
Five years back in my home country, never speaking Chinese but reading a lot gave me weird Chinese. I passed HSK 5 easily but can’t get close on practise tests for 6. However, if you heard me speak, you’d be amazed that I have HSK five, although I’m told I have good pronunciation.
Back in Asia, in China, my speaking is improving a bit, but I rarely speak to anyone outside work, other than buying stuff. Need to pull my finger out! Just trying to tune into the local dialect, and the effect that that has on the local Mandarin pronunciation.
It’s difficult to advise people how to learn Chinese because I got mine through a combination of rote learning and grammar-translation which are not really how I teach English to my own students. ironlady’s ideas about CI are great, and I think I create that input for myself naturally. I read and listen to Chinese a lot, but that’s not easy before you are at the stage where you can use authentic stuff such as films and books. If you can’t fix something up with ironlady, think about how you can create your own environment with lots of input and repetition.
Don’t worry if your output is shit and noone understands you. They won’t for a while. Don’t get discouraged or stressed by it.
Another piece of advice: don’t obsess over the method. Just go and do something today. Learning one word right now is better than ordering a new book or booking another course.
Necessity is also the mother of invention. I can get emergency contraception, call a locksmith and get my visa extended in six different languages because I am a dozy bitch who really really needs to be able to take care of shit a lot.