Self Studying Roll Call

Language Learning Chinese
1

I would be interested to hear from other self studiers (sp?) of Mandarin on the forum.

Due to full-time work commitments I am unable to attend a university course. The only options I have at the moment are to purchase the materials myself and work through them at home. In the future I will also be adding a Language Exchange and hopefully a private tutor.

Surely there must be other people in the same situation. If you are please say hi :slight_smile:

On a related note will I be able to achieve a decent level of proficiency in the language through self study only? Or will I hit a plateau that will require university attendance?

Any input is appreciated.

Thanks

:sunglasses:

2

I also self study, I personally believe self study in a non chinese speaking country is a fairly futile exercise. I believe it can be done, albiet very slowly.

I have moved myself to taiwan and continue to self study, and already I am noticing the difference after only a few weeks. ie Today some kids came up to me to talk to me because they were curious about the white guy. You cant pay to get that sort of speaking practice in your home country.

3

[quote=“Milkybar_Kid”]I would be interested to hear from other self studiers (sp?) of Mandarin on the forum.

Due to full-time work commitments I am unable to attend a university course. The only options I have at the moment are to purchase the materials myself and work through them at home. In the future I will also be adding a Language Exchange and hopefully a private tutor.

Surely there must be other people in the same situation. If you are please say hi :slight_smile:

On a related note will I be able to achieve a decent level of proficiency in the language through self study only? Or will I hit a plateau that will require university attendance?

Any input is appreciated.

Thanks

Hi, Milky.

For the several years while I was studying Mandarin Chinese, I alternated between in-class studying and self-studying depending on where I lived (in Taipei vs. in Taoyuan; in Tianjin, China vs. in Taiwan). Which method I chose also depended on the quality of teachers available at the time.

I think you can achieve very good results from self-studying so long as you get good feedback on a regular basis and push yourself to advance. You already live in Taiwan, so you have the immersion that is necessary IMHO to learn the language well over time. You didn’t mention this, but if I read between the lines correctly, you are a beginner, no? If this is the case, I urge you to hire a language coach to either come to your home or to meet with you in a location where you can concentrate (not in McDonalds!) I recommend meeting with you coach twice each week. Demand correction of pronunciation and grammar mistakes since you will be investing your money during these meetings. Without consistent feedback, how can you possibly know whether your pronunciation or choice of vocabulary is excellent, mediocre, or hideously flawed?

Once you achieve a survival level of proficiency, go out at every opportunity to use what you’ve learned. Don’t worry about making mistakes in that context as long as people are able to understand you. Get your corrections from your language coach. Have fun with your learning.

Most foreigners are happy to learn to speak the language, but never learn to read more than a couple dozen characters. You didn’t mention your intention, but I’d like to encourage you to learn how to read and write (or type on a computer). Having literacy so enriches the language learning experience that I can’t imagine learning a language without also learning the written form.

Time to get off my soap box.

BOL!

4

There is no need to ever go to university classes to learn Chinese, though that can hasten your progress. As stated above, unless you have amazing skills of mimicry and watch a lot of TV, a decent tutor will help your tones and pronunciation immensely. If you do not master the tones, Taiwanese will not understand what you’re saying, regardless of how good your grammar is. That’s the hardest thing to overcome in the beginning for a speaker of a non-tonal language, I think. If you don’t have someone to practice with and to correct your tones, you won’t be able to say them properly. And if you don’t say them properly, no one is going to want to speak to you, or will only speak to you in English.

Unless you are extraordinarily outgoing and fearless (or a missionary), you won’t get much natural speaking practice and exposure in Taiwan. But as long as you don’t assume that you’ll just “pick it up” by being here and keep studying and practicing every day, you can absolutely get to a very high level on your own - I think this is true even in a non-Chinese speaking country, it’s just easier to stay motivated here. Just get someone to help with your pronunciation and tones once or twice a week - unless you are very fortunate, your friends will not be able to provide the kind of feedback you need.

5

[quote=“odysseyandoracle”]There is no need to ever go to university classes to learn Chinese, though that can hasten your progress. As stated above, unless you have amazing skills of mimicry and watch a lot of TV, a decent tutor will help your tones and pronunciation immensely. If you do not master the tones, Taiwanese will not understand what you’re saying, regardless of how good your grammar is. That’s the hardest thing to overcome in the beginning for a speaker of a non-tonal language, I think. If you don’t have someone to practice with and to correct your tones, you won’t be able to say them properly. And if you don’t say them properly, no one is going to want to speak to you, or will only speak to you in English.

Unless you are extraordinarily outgoing and fearless (or a missionary), you won’t get much natural speaking practice and exposure in Taiwan. But as long as you don’t assume that you’ll just “pick it up” by being here and keep studying and practicing every day, you can absolutely get to a very high level on your own - I think this is true even in a non-Chinese speaking country, it’s just easier to stay motivated here. Just get someone to help with your pronunciation and tones once or twice a week - unless you are very fortunate, your friends will not be able to provide the kind of feedback you need.[/quote]

Over the years here, I have known foreigners who spoke quickly with practically no tone differentiation yet had little or no trouble being understood. I’m not suggesting tones are unimportant. I am suggesting speed and fluency are important. I’m talking about multiple sentence conversations and not one character, mind you. When foreigners speak Chinese with bad or horrible tones, it sounds really comical, but it is still intelligible. I’m not recommending people not learn tones, okay?

I must be fearless because I never lack opportunities to practice my Chinese in the streets and alleys of Taiwan. That goes for 1987 when I stepped off the plane to this morning when I bought a snack.

I agree that it’s easy to stay motivated here and you’ll learn quickly if you make the whole process a fun game rather than a chore.

Peace.

6

Even in your case, you combined it with several years of study. It doesn’t happen through osmosis. That’s my point. You’d be hard pressed to find foreigners who have lived in Europe, South America, Africa, or even Southeast Asia for 5 or 10 years and have as little command of the local language as those in East Asia often do, and there are reasons for this that go beyond CJK being difficult. There is a reason every single forum for expats in East Asia, including this one, has at least one lengthy thread bitching about “language battles.”

I can’t comment on your other point, because the only foreigners I’ve met here who could speak Chinese quickly but with poor pronunciation and tones often get blank stares or an English response. This does not happen to me. But I haven’t been in Taiwan or China nearly as long as you have. Certainly one can adjust to Chinese with incorrect tones with a little exposure - I did it myself when I started taking classes. YMMV.

7

LIke pqkdzrwt, I moved to Taiwan (almost 17 years ago) to continue my self study. It’s great to be immersed in the language so you get both plenty of opportunities to practice what you’ve just learned, and plenty of motivation to keep studying. I find that it’s best to have multiple LE partners who can give you feedback on your tones, grammar, usage etc. so that you don’t simply accumulate a load of bad habits. (I am not currently actively studying, btw, as I no longer have the eyesight and energy to handle that in addition to everything else I’ve got going on.)

1 Like
8

Tones are only important if you speak slower than 200 words per minute, I say that in jest tones are obviously very important!

But seriously, the speed at which you say things affects the ability for the native speaker to pick out bad tones, speaking really fast can cover all mannar of tonal mistakes.

9

Obviously, when Chinese is spoken quickly, the tones can change categories, be reduced and even (partially) deleted . Many different patterns have been recognized, although in actuality there is a lot of variance. (See chapter 4 and 9 of “The Sounds of Chinese” by Yen-Hwei Lin.) A commonly cited example is when tone 2 sometimes becomes tone 1 when between tone 2s:

hái méi wán > hái mēi wán
還沒完

There is a lot of variance from speaker to speaker, though, with some idiolects being completely different from the norm. But even so, tone-less Chinese still won’t really be understood.

10

Me, too. I study on my own. I do it mainly to maintain the level I have achieved in class because I don’t think I can achieve a lot of progress on my own, not being exposed to the language anymore. So I’m going to take another class in September.

It’s true that simply being exposed to Chinese speakers won’t do the trick. One has to make an effort to take advantage of that situation. I didn’t when I had the chance and now I have to do it the hard way (and more expensive).

11

I’m sorry, but that is complete crap.

12

I’m sorry, but that is complete crap.[/quote]

exactly. What can cover a tonal mistake is speaking in context in colloquial chinese and getting the majority of words correct. Ive often seen people do a double take on a certain word because i got the tone wrong but then i see the recognition quickly hit them as its obvious what i was saying. If we are on a mountain and I use the second tone with Shan no one is going to be confused.

I get the broader point but if one is capable of speaking fast then one is at a fairly high level and the number of tonal mistakes will be small.