Tips for learning Chinese (Part I)

Language Learning Chinese
21

Idid the daily grind of writing characters over and over again when I first started. Useful, but not necessarily efficient. Ah… but I remember the days before using Chinese on the computer… I could write everything I wanted without hesitation… (pine, pine…)

Also, I think writing a lot (whether or not its repetitive practice) is the only way to improve handwriting, and have your characters not look like a six-year olds… :frowning:

Anyways, my suggestion wuold be to learn a few songs from artists you might like. I did this early on, and it was really good. I learned a lot of new vocab, and you remember it easier since you’ve heard the song so many times. Plus, KTV gives you a relaxed environment to practice.

22

I don’t write characters at all anymore (for practice). I’ll write a new charcter about five times and that’s it. This might not be the same for everyone though. I do recommend writing a lot of charcters in the beginning. A when you do write charcters ALWAYS follow the correct stroke order and ALWAYS be mindful about what your doing (making sure it’s balanced properly and so on).

I think the seriousness I had about writing charcters when I took Mandarin in the University is what has allowed me to get out of practicing so hard now. I can now write almost any charcter I can recognisze reasonably well (now well over 1200) and I haven’t practiced writing charcters in over 5 months.

I know it’s been said already but it needs to be repeated:
Study EVERY day

Here’s something else I also try to do. When your taking notes, scribbling down something or what ever, do as much as you can in Mandarin. That really trains your writing because you’re doing it on the fly, not as a drill.

Find people to chat with online in Mandarin.
Start reading kids books as soon as you can and move up in a step by step fashion (crawl, walk then run).

Here’s an idea I had that might be good for some people. If your working part time and going to school part time, why not work fulltime (in an all Mandarin environment) and not pay for school (study a few hours at home). You’ll progress 10 times faster and probably save more money.

If you do sign up for a class, go into one that is a lot higher then your current level (not to high though). It’ll be painful, but it will shave time off in the long run (and force you to study harder at home).

That’s all for today.

23

I agree with miltownkid, it is important to practice your strokes when you first star. Writing everyday, although can become increasingly mind numbing. My teachers now have me do creative writing and I feel that this helps a lot for learning how to write new characters.

Also one of my fav ways to practice my reading is KTV. It can also help with your fluency as you get used to singing whole lines instead of looking at one or two words.

24

[quote=“miltownkid”]Find people to chat with online in Mandarin.
Start reading kids books as soon as you can and move up in a step by step fashion (crawl, walk then run).

Here’s an idea I had that might be good for some people. If your working part time and going to school part time, why not work fulltime (in an all Mandarin environment) and not pay for school (study a few hours at home). You’ll progress 10 times faster and probably save more money.

If you do sign up for a class, go into one that is a lot higher then your current level (not to high though). It’ll be painful, but it will shave time off in the long run (and force you to study harder at home).[/quote]

Well, I don’t want to ruffle any feathers, but I pretty much disagree with all of the above.

Kids books, as has been pointed out before (yeah, probably by me) are not appropriate for second-language learners until they have a fairly good level of the language (which, practically, means the ability to know words, not isolated characters, to be able to make the sound-grapheme match.) In Chinese, the problem is that such books do not exist (that is, there are darn few written for foreign learners that are interesting enough to keep anyone awake more than 5 minutes.) You can use 'em, but you will be decoding, which is NOT conducive to acquiring a language. Free reading should be done with no more than 10% unknown words. Otherwise you are not reading (which is the process of identifying symbols to remind you of a language you already have in your head), you are laboriously decoding a text, which is just about what our Taiwanese friends have to do in their English classes. And just look what kind of proficiency THAT gets most of them! :wink:

A Mandarin-speaking work environment might be OK in theory, but unless you are fairly advanced and/or able to communicate when you start, much of the interaction will be in English where possible. And you will not be exposed to the variety of language and topics you want to broaden your horizons. Well, maybe if you go out with the medical examiner or something, you might get more variety. But a trading company or similar…not likely. Even if you get a 100% Mandarin-speaking environment, I strongly oppose the idea that the average person will achieve 10 times faster progress. There are a few people who can just “pick up” languages in this kind of situation, but 95% of students cannot, and it just causes frustration. Sure, you’ll learn something, and it’s always better to be paid than to pay, but as a means specifically to learn Mandarin at the beginning stages, I wouldn’t recommend it.

And for the love of doujiang DON’T go into a class that is too hard for you. This is more decoding. Your brain does not learn language that it cannot understand, and it will not help what little pedagogical process is going on to have you, a confused person in over your head, in the class. Language schools test your level to put you with people of a similar level, because it is more efficient for everyone. Again, this is one of those situations where a minority of people find this effective, but the majority will not, and will only become frustrated, waste their money, and engender negative feelings with the language school staff. We have had one very spectacular case of this at Fujen’s language center this semester, and it is cause for endless amusement. The guy is actually running out of teachers willing to take him, and that’s going some.

You acquire (not “learn about”) a language by hearing or reading things you can understand. Reading in Chinese is a tough nut because it doesn’t usually follow speech, so it is of less use to beginners wishing to improve their Chinese (that is, to build syntax and morphology and stores of vocabulary in your head, which is what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to instill an automatic response in your brain, which means creating neural networks. A bit different from memorizing the Periodic Table or similar.) The second key is repetition. Going slower rather than faster will net you more proficiency and facility with the language, as you will be able to thoroughly dominate and truly use the words you have learned. “Bravely forging ahead” without fully assimilating what has been ‘covered’ will not do this, unless you are one of the minority. There ARE students who can learn with no help whatsoever. Unfortunately, most of these become language teachers, and keep the myth that “anyone can learn that way” alive.

25

so ironlady, any tips? :smiley:

26

[soapbox rant]
Well, my main point is, keep at it and don’t get frusterated. I spoke with one guy that said he learned by “reading” books (articles or something) by translating every character/word on the page. He said in the begining it took him weeks to do, now it takes him seconds.

The main thing I see lacking from most peoples Mandarin diet is everyday practice, if it’s painful or not won’t matter in the end (does it end?).

And I’ll go a head and disagree with the kids book thing. There are some VERY VERY simple kids books out there. They are a bit duanting at first, but after character recognition is higher it’s ok. Look at the stuff the kindertgarden kids use with no charcters at all (I know they already speak, but hey). Every person has their own way of doing things. I know for a fact that some people liek doing things the hard way. Look at all the people in XYZ school, paying XYZ dollars to do something that a computer can and will one day do (mark my words).

I’ll make another point while I’m at it. Anyone serious about learning this language (or anything for that matter) can do it and do it relatively easily. I think that with a change in one’s life style for a few weeks while cramming basic grammar/vocab, one could make big progress really quickly. I’m just saying that anyone with enough leisure time to read this post has enough time to learn Mandarin.

The class I had (and stopped) was very much over my level, but it was just the kind of kick in the pants I needed to get me to move up a notch. I stopped it after 2 months, but don’t regret signing up for it in the first place. I’m just trying to do my best to help people find a way that works for them.

I did all of my studying while working full time, posting here like a mad man, and eating/sleep/etc. I will admit that I may have some sort of edge on other people (age, motivation, sexy looks, etc.) but I don’t think that changes the fact that anyone can learn (and learn quickly).

My logical mind says that anyone having trouble just needs a different way to look at things (hence giving tips) or just can’t do it an should give up.
[/soapbox rant]

27

Just what I said above.

Get the right level of class, choosing among existing alternatives.
Get the right level of reading materals, insofar as you can.
Learn in this order: understanding, speaking, reading, writing.
Consider your personal goals when planning your learning program. No one else will.
Etc. etc.

I could go on for days.

I’m not trying to blast down Miltownkid, but I’m worried that Miltown’s case is kind of special. Most students, broadly speaking, will likely get better results concentrating on acquiring a reasonable degree of speaking and listening comprehension before worrying about characters, and maybe even considering reading in Pinyin for a time, for vocab/grammar acquisition purposes. Miltownkid may be one of those 4%-ers, as we call them, who can learn language even if you locked them up in a packing container in the middle of a desert with only a copy of a magazine about K-TV and 7-11 food to eat. :smiley:

28

get the book “reading and writing chinese” at caves. writing rows and rows of characters helped me a lot, even if not miltownkid. don’t look at it as a huge impossible to learn mass, a few characters a day will start to add up.

29

I think what I’d like to say about class (that I think applies to everyone) is that with a proper outline and serious study (of course) one on one classes are more efficient. The problem with my class was the level of speaking was far beyond me, but my reading was moving faster then their’s was. The moral of the story is, I thinks it’s near impossible to find a class that will be better then a one on one. And if you’re worried about the cost of a one on one just schedule it fewer times per week. My 2 day per week one on one is only a little more expensive then my 3 day per week class was, but a lot more productive. More productive will = cheaper in the long run of things.

30

Nobody bothered to write in but I couldn’t resist. Milltownkid,you must be incredible at languages because I can’t understand what Scooby says ,even when watching the English version…

31

How long does it take someone to learn chinese from scratch in Taiwan? Does anybody have any methods on how to learn chinese as fast as possible? I tried taking classes but I feel I still don’t really know how to speak mandarin. Does anyone has any tips?

32

put yourself into a chinese only speaking environment and you’ll learn fast

33

Five weeks I think.

Listen to Mandarin as much as possible first.

Then try to speak.

Forget pinyin and tones stuff and let your brainpower figure it out by itself.

One of my students without any prior experience has done so.

34

Five weeks? Bull. The generally accepted figure I’ve heard, and had confirmed by first-hand experience and watching others have the same, is about 6 months to being totally conversational. That not only fits near perfectly with what I’ve seen, but makes sense given foreign language accquisition theories like the “silent period” hypothesised by Krashen.

35

I think it takes a couple of years if you live in Taiwan and actively work at by going to class, doing language exchanges, chatting with coworkers, and getting involved in the community.

Please don’t listen to Shengmar. You really need to know your tones and pinyin.

36

6 months is about right. From nothing to having enough Chinese to fit in with my wifes family, yup, about 6 months.

37

Here’s how I did it. For the first five years or so I smoked a lot of pot and said “Ni hao” to everybody that I saw who looked Asian. Sometimes they would say “Ni hao” back and sometimes they would say “Konichiwa” or “Anyohasayo” and sometimes they would say “huh?” Whatever. Anyway after that I moved to Taiwan and discovered that “Ni hao” was actually not nearly enough vocabulary to get by on. Still if someone asked I would say “Sure I speak Chinese everyday…” Having come to the late realization that “Ni hao” was actually a pretty small vocabulary I made an attempt to expand upon the range of common phrases and expresions at my disposal. It wasn’t long before I was saying xie xie and jie guo all over the place. Fortified by my success at this I decided to go at vocabulary study full on and started making lists of things that I might want to say and translated those lists into pinyin when I got a chance. This was about three years ago. I put vocabulary and sentence lists up all over my house and reviewed them whenever I had the time. I think this list is up to around 2 thousand words, phrases and sentences. I try to focus on the stuff that I will actually use. This means that I am getting fairly good at talking about grammar and engaging in light chit chat with excitable young women. If someone asked me for the wrench we used last week to fix the timing mechanism on the automatic bean sorter however I think I would be stumped as would most of the other contributors to this forum I suspect. If you are looking for a way to become reasonably fluent in day to day life I would say review the shit out of the common vocab and patterns and then try to use that stuff as much as possible. Ask someone to correct your grammar and pronunciation. Continue with this approach only with more and more advanced material for the rest of your life and if you are lucky you might scratch the surface. P.S. PinYin is a godsend. The secrets to language learning are in context listening practice, vocabulary study and attempts at communication regarding things that are actually of some interest to you.

38

To be conversational is a long way ahead.

As a matter of fact, I am very interested in “foreign language accquisition theories like the “silent period””

And I am trying to use it.

So I ask my student to speak much later after listening a lot.

39

[quote=“Feiren”]I think it takes a couple of years if you live in Taiwan and actively work at by going to class, doing language exchanges, chatting with coworkers, and getting involved in the community.

Please don’t listen to Shengmar. You really need to know your tones and pinyin.[/quote]

itself is more productive than that from studying the pinyin and tones on the textbooks.

I suggest studying the textbook for pinyin and tones a little time later.

Also, learning a language is a long way ahead.

Plus the learner are professional and always have so many things to do.

40

No!

Once you’ve picked up wrong tones and wrong pinyin, it’s almost impossible to reverse that