If you have a tip you’d like to share here’s your place to do it. I see so many people with so many questions about the best way to do this or that, but what they fail to see is each person has an individual learning style. The key is to take all of the things that work for you and do them in the most efficient way possible. Now, on to the tips.
-Study everyday (even if for it’s for only 15 minutes)
-Make very clear language learning goals. I don’t think it’s a good idea to just tackle all of Chinese. Find out what it is you want to do with it. Are you studying to show off to other foreigners, talk to girls, do business presentations, read books, watch TV. I think it’s really important to answer the question “Why do you want to learn Chinese”
-Order food at Mc Donalds (or wherever you go) in Chinese. Ask you’re friends how.
-Learn pinyin and zhuyin. Pinyin is the romanized one. Zhuyin (Joo EEN) is the one with all the funny looking symbols and goes, bu pu mu fuh.
-Don’t get frustrated
-Have fun
-Sign up for a language class. I have a feeling that classes are better then one on ones. Besides, it’s really easy to have a class an a 1 on 1.
-Speak Chinese with your animals, to the TV, to your plants, etc. Get comfortable with how messed up you sound, it make it’s easier when you really have to use it.
-I’ve made a few threads that talk about the different electronic things availible to learn characters. I will again recommend buying and Palm OS handheld, installing Palm Dragon and setting up supermemo (The total price will be under 2 months of language class and you’ll get more bang for your buck). It allows you to study during your daily down time (that most people should have) on the MRT, lunch, or whenever. It only takes about 15-30 minutes a day to use and you’ll be able to memorize many vocabulary words and characters per day.
-Practice with kids because they won’t laugh (and if they do it usually doesn’t hurt your feelings ).
-Speak with confidence.
-Find out what you like. Maybe just start out with reading (just pinyin if characters scare you) and self study at first to build confidence. Learn a bunch of vocabulary and randomly test it on people to see if they understand you.
I think I felt a need to start this thread after reading the longtimers who blah blah… I’m not trying to tell anyone they need to learn, but for those of you who do want to learn and feel they can’t there are easier and better ways then what you knwo now. You can bring your level up with just 30min a day of self study (I believe). Make sure you keep it fun. This aint a race, and there is no pot of gold at the end of the Chinese rainbow.
I always read everything I see. Signs in the elevator, Road signs, advertisements, newspaper headlines, anything. At first I was happy when I could recognize a character, then a few characters in a sentence. Now sometimes I actually get the gist of a sentence.
I also find listening to the radio is great. They talk a lot on the radio here, and it’s at a slower speed than the news. It’s also very conversational stuff, you’ll hear a lot of what you’re trying to learn or practice.
Speak whenever you get a chance. Don’t be overly concerned about tones. I don’t mean ignore them, but don’t be obsessed with them either. So many foreigners think tones, tones, tones, when they talk and they end up sounding like they’re killing a cat!
Watch movies with Chinese subtitles. Or better still, watch Chinese movies with Chinese subtitles. If they have English subtitles too, watch the movie with English subtitles first, so you know what it is about, and then watch it again, reading the Chinese subtitles.
Buy simple books and try to read them. If you know BPMF, buy childrens books with BPMF next to the text. Or buy some of the stuff that’s so popular right now, Jimi books and the like, or comics, anything with not too much text on one page. I usually give up after five sentences, when the characters I don’t understand get more and more. Being able to make a couple of pages is a big motivation for me. Don’t buy translations, they’re usually boring, so you won’t be able to make it through the text. I used to think I’d start with translated books because there, I might know the story and that would make it easier. It didn’t :?
Do something where you are forced to speak Chinese. I learned my Chinese in a group of friends (not all Chinese) where we had to speak Chinese because some couldn’t speak English (btw, speaking a foreign language to other foreigners often makes it easier because you’re not as intimidated as if you speak to a native speaker). Sing up for something where the main language is Chinese, like bird-watching tours with a local association, Taiwanese classes at a Chinese university …
I often make up Chinese sentences in my mind. Like, when I catch myself thinking about something, I’ll try to say the same in Chinese (or rather Taiwanese at the moment Or Taiwanese and Chinese).
I agree. I was a bit stuck after learning the basics, because I never really had to use Mandarin. Since I started kung fu classes I’ve learned a lot more, especially since it’s very physical. It’s like having your own special TPR class! And nobody speaks a word of English so it’s perfect for learning.
Another thing that has helped me is to take the one new vocab a day approach. I used to sit down with my textbook and try to memorise stuff, but got so overwhelmed by the size of the thing that I just gave up.
One night in Spin the barman gave me this little promotional book with a pen attached to it. I opened it and drew a dinosaur and for some reason he said the Chinese and I wrote it down, also asked him to say it in Taiwanese. Since then it’s become a habit. I add a word every time I go there, and the funny thing is that they don’t seem in the least bit bored with the process. You’ll be surprised how eager your friends are to help you if it doesn’t take up a whole chunk of their time.
I’ve also got a little book at home and at work now, and most of the time I don’t even have to go search for the words again. I just remember them.
Now I just need to do something about my Japanese and French!
Learn what you’re interested in. If you’re into music, learn how to say different genres; if you’re into sports, learn how to say the equipment.
Learn collocations. Before I came to Taiwan, I knew how to say “borrow” and “I” and “you” and “pencil,” but I’d never learned to say “Can I borrow a pencil from you?”
Learn practical, everyday stuff. When I came to Taiwan, I knew how to say “economic equality,” but I didn’t know how to say “scissors.” When you see something on the street – a ladder, a sidewalk tile, a shop sign – ask yourself if you know how to say it and, if you don’t but want to, learn it.
Use flashcards. Characters and hanyupinyin or zhuyinfuhao on one side, English on the other. Go through the cards in small groups – 4-7 – in rapid succession. Much better, in my experience, than just writing words out over and over.
Whichever phonetic transciption you use, learn it well. Learn the difference between l
I’m not sure which kind of learner this works best for, but this method is doing wonders for me.
NEVER PRACTICE WRITING CHARACTERS!
Really, I never sit down and just crank out one character over and over again. Any wrinting I do outside of class is for fun (ie. relaxation, showing off, etc.). I never sit down and write a bunch of characters. Now I’m not saying this is the best method for everyone, but I think there are a lot of people that could benifit by not writing characters all day long (you can use that study time for something more productive). Plus, when you do have tests, you make intersting mistakes like this one:
I make a lot of mistakes like this, but it feels really interesting scraping my brain to try to remember what the character looks like and then writing it. Usually only one or two mistakes like this are necessary for the correct form of the character to get asimilated.
Use the KTV experience
I enjoyed myself everytime I’ve been to KTV, but this most recent (after maybe 4 months of not going) was very nice. There were A LOT more characters and words I recognized. Song made a lot more sense, plus, sitting in the KTV room is the perfect time to practice your general conversation stuff on a wide variety of topics (people that suck at work, stupid English songs, etc.)
I know watching TV has been said already, but for you beginners (me included) the cartoon channels ROCK! Simple vocabulary everyone needs to need. Simple grammer. If you like cartoons, bonus to you. Plus, the cartoon channels have something on 24 hours a day that’s at a lower level (then say the news). I was shocked last night, I understood what scooby (shubi?) was talking about.
Miltown- Now I know you’re making progress. I still remember the day I suddenly realized I could watch cartoons with the rest of the kids. sniff (stifled tear). Just wait until you grow up into daytime soap operas
Would you still recommend getting a palm if I don’t have a computer? How long would it take to make 20 flashcards on the palm? It would be nice to not have to deal with the tons of little flashcards that I have lying around, but I’m afraid making the flashcards on the palm would be pretty time-consuming.
I already sent you a PM, but for everyone else, yes, I would recommend getting a PDA if you don’t have a computer. I’d recommend a sony (that allows for back up on the memory stick) and then you would only need to access a computer to install new programs.
20 flash cards on the palm would take about 20-40 mintues (or so depending on the ammount of information you want to enter). Plus you’d get all the of benifits of having a Palm and there a lot of databases that have already been made. Also, you can make flashcards in word then convert them into a useable palm format.
[CLICK HERE]
Here’s the supermemo thread. I have screen shots posted in there (that seemed to take a while to load this time).
I agree with Miltownkid comletely on the benefitsof a Palm for studying Chinese. I bought one back in March and use it now everyday on the MRT. I get in at least half of hour a day of character and vocabulary review without any real effort.
Supermemo is a great program. My teachers (I study everday in the morning) are always amazed that I can remember so much (90%) of the vocabulary from old lessons.
As for characters, I only study them casually but have still picked up around 300 in the last 4 -5 months.
I use a word processing program to make sheets of characters to study, usually about 10 characters per sheet. I include copious notes about the characters to help me remember them. Usually etymological stuff gleaned from books and web sites. A good web site for such stuff would be http://www.zhongwen.com/
Sometimes I just make up something about a character to use as a mnemonic to remember how it
I’m going to post my first message here. Yeah! I use Macromedia Flash to make Flash movies for my Pocket PC. I’ve got a Casio Cassiopeia E-125, and I installed the flash player. If I had my druthers I would buy the newer HP ipaq pda 'cause it runs Windows 2002 and Flash Player 6. Mine’s only flash player 5. I scan the TLI textbook voacbulary in, then cut and paste using the “magic wand” tool and make little flash movies. I should say I stopped using a mouse long ago, and use a wacom graphire with a pen instead. The reason PDA’s are so cool is that you can record your vocabulary into MP3 files and load it onto flash memory cards and play along with the movies, then even record yourself by pushing a button. Then erase what you recorded. The recording quality is suprizingly good, 14,4 khz 16 bit. Also I gotta say watch xiao gou cartoon on cartoon channel and recently I’ve been leaving the TV on what here in ShihLin is channel 21, Hong Kong movies all dubbed in Mandarin. Just watching and listening to them all the time, it’s amazing how all the different actors speaking mandarin help. Anyway, thats my post and I’m sticking by it.
[ul][li]Get a real pinyin dictionary (as opposed to a character-based one in pinyin order – though this kind is also necessary) so you can more quickly and easily look up words you hear[/li]
[li]Don’t get in the bad habit of using “Chinese” when you mean “Mandarin.” The practice can lead to confusion about the nature of the various Chinese languages. [/li]
[li]Don’t waste a lot of time trying to puzzle out if there is a profound meaning behind some names, esp. those of companies. Sometimes they’re just names that sound good. (Think, for example, of the kinds of names given to apartment complexes in the United States. They generally have no connection to reality.)[/li]
[li]Make friends with people who don’t speak more than a few words of English. [/li]
[li]Read The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy to help disabuse yourself of the myths about characters. [/li]
[li]Don’t try to learn all your Mandarin in the West. Come to Taiwan or go to China. Living in the culture of the second language is always useful, but especially so for Mandarin. [/li][/ul]
Master the art of using zheyangde and zheyangzi (I’'m not at a computer that allows to enter Chinese now, sorry , I’ll fix it later ). This is a technique I picked up from the kindy kids and found that it will instantly double you’ll level of fluency (seriously). Here’s how it works:
Anytime you don’t know a vocabulary word when your talking with someone, just random flap your arms and hands in the air going “zheyangzi, zheyangzi” and who ever you’re talking to will go “Oh, I know what you talking about.”
More seriously, zheyangzi means “like this” (at least that’s what a kid from school told me) so you can use it to describe things you don’t know how to say with your hands. You’ll have to spend some time observing others use it until you become a zheyang master . You should also pick up some new vocabulary after the person tells what it is you described to them.
).
Or Taiwanese and Chinese).
, I’ll fix it later