Hi,
As a native Chinese speaker, a lot of my friends asked me to help them with Chinese learning. To better understand the problem and develop my method of teaching them, I want to know: what is your biggest problem when learning Chinese?
Cheer!
Jieqiong Xu
I am now very highly fluent in Chinese, but the biggest obstacle to getting here was undoubtedly figuring out Chinese essay structure. My teachers focused on sentences, which was of course necessary, but they left out paragraphs â for example, in many English essays, we start with a topic sentence, but in Chinese essays often the main point is built to slowly and doesnât come until the end. Because of this, for a long time, I was able to make fluent sentences in Chinese but could not make a convincing argument; nobody really understood what my point was. I had to teach this difference between Chinese and English argumentation logic to myself by reading a lot of different material over several years.
Thanks so much for your detailed example. This is also true when I am learning English that I need to argue in the eassy directly to the points, what is more I need to revolve around the topic to explain my logic behind. However, in Chinese, when I am writing, it is more likely that the points come out at the end and I need some examples to slowly guide me to my points.
How about Chinese characters? Is it difficult for you to learn in the beginning?
I tried to teach Chinese to several people, not anything serious, but some of them wanted to be able to sing along to some Chiese music. I taught them in Pinyin, by showing them the whole lyrics in Pinyin, and try to go through the song with them line by line. They had a difficult time with matching Pinyin to what they are hearing. For many of them, their initial impression of how they think it should be read seems to be stuck in their head.
So I think itâs better to get the beginners to not learn how to write, or even Pinyin, until theyâve learned how to some something. For example, teach them to say Nihao and Xiexie first, and only show them how itâs spelt in Pinyin afterwards. If you show them Pinyin first, then teach them how itâs supposed to sound like, the adjustment period is going to be considerably longer.
writing. I can speak fluently and read pretty well, but I can barely write.
Like Hokwongwei, I am highly fluent in Chinese. Although my vocabulary is still an area Iâm working on, the words that I do know flow freely and are usually understood by native speakers. I could also improve my writing.
My biggest problem with learning Chinese is finding people to speak with. For some reason, they seem to lose interest after a minute or two and walk away. Sometimes they try to speak to me in English, but, NO WAY . . . I know that would just impede my progress, and anyway, this is Taiwan.
Iâm self taught, and although Iâm quite busy with other things, I always learn a new word every month. I remember when I first started out . . . I only knew how to say âgoodâ, and I felt it was hard to communicate with anyone. That was a frustrating month. :neutral:
Fortunately, in the second month I learned how to say âyouâ and things really took off. Learning âno/notâ in month 3 added a whole new level to my discourse. Still, for some reason, few people want to hang with me and chat. 
Thatâs because you smell funky.
Thatâs because you smell funky.[/quote]
But I bathe regularly? Hope this isnât taking things too far off topic, but how often should I wash? The stream is a ways away. I wouldnât want bathing to cut into my Chinese study time.
I spent 15 years learning Chinese and the main problem is everyone talks shite, just like English speakers.
Which language should I learn next?
[quote=âErmintrudeâ]I spent 15 years learning Chinese and the main problem is everyone talks shite, just like English speakers.
Which language should I learn next?[/quote]
Thatâs because you smell funky.[/quote]
But I bathe regularly? Hope this isnât taking things too far off topic, but how often should I wash? The stream is a ways away. I wouldnât want bathing to cut into my Chinese study time.[/quote]
I think you can work on another English dialect :discodance:
In one word: Chinese.
How can I study and learn something that is written in a way that has nothing to do with its sound? How can I learn something with strange sounds that are so close one to each other? and those âtonesâ! (why do we even call them tones?).
I feel so retarded every time I see a foreigner speaking Chinese⌠
No. Characters have never been a problem for me, though my stroke order is really bad. (Iâm a millennial, so I went through school typing more than writing both for English and Chinese.) What helped was a radicals-based approached from my teachers. Most westerners hear that there are â10s of thousands of charactersâ and get scared, but when you see that nearly all characters are made up of smaller radicals, itâs much easier to commit them to memory.
FYI, I studied four years of Chinese in college and was only conversational and could read/write simple things. Working in Taiwan for two years and then doing three years of grad school there brought me up to complete fluency.
[quote=âjesus80â]In one word: Chinese.
How can I study and learn something that is written in a way that has nothing to do with its sound? How can I learn something with strange sounds that are so close one to each other? and those âtonesâ! (why do we even call them tones?).
I feel so retarded every time I see a foreigner speaking Chinese⌠[/quote]
To succeed in learning Chinese, for most people, I think a gradual approach is necessary. Think of Chinese like baseball. If I hand you a bat and just push you onto home plate, you have no idea what youâre doing and itâs all very overwhelming. But if I start with the basics of swinging the bat, and then tell you about home runs and moving to the next base, you gain a gradual understanding. You need to start small, and if youâre just suddenly thrust into this entirely Chinese-speaking environment that is essentially impossible to do.
I would say: if itâs a formal classroom setting or a tutor, start with phonemes/pronunciation and simple vocabulary. If youâd rather go the holistic/natural route, just copy everything that everyone says as closely as you can. Youâll think you sound like an idiot, but itâs a really good way to improve. Turn on a soap opera on ĺ ŹčŚ and just mimic everything.
[quote=âjesus80â]In one word: Chinese.
How can I study and learn something that is written in a way that has nothing to do with its sound? How can I learn something with strange sounds that are so close one to each other? and those âtonesâ! (why do we even call them tones?).
I feel so retarded every time I see a foreigner speaking Chinese⌠[/quote]
I feel the same way about other things that other people can do easily but that I failed to do. I have had lesson and practiced a lot but am still not the brilliant guitarist I wanted to be. Friends who are just say âDo it every day and just keep goingâ.
I tell you, a lot of the kids I teach would love to have your English ability so you are clearly good at this language stuff.
The thing with learning Chinese is that itâs really boring until you can read and watch films, and it takes a while to get there. But if you want to, you just have to start and keep moving. You need to get over feeling stupid. I sound totally stupid whenever I speak Chinese. Donât care. I sound stupid in English, so I have no pride about it. 
The mimic thing is useful. I used to mimic TV ads. Itâs great, living with me.
Ermitrude speaking well of my EnglishâŚ
What frustrates me is that:
I have the typical waiguoren accent
I am using the same words and grammar structures over and over again (like within 1 minute)
not being able to understand what a Taiwanese person is saying the first time.
O yeah, there is another thing, but not really related.
Whenever I go eat in a shopping mall and ask âcan I sit hereâ or âDoes the have or not have a personâ I always get a reply in body language language which I fail to understand. :s
You still use it to talk shite. 
You still use it to talk shite. [/quote]
Itâs the same in Spanish⌠I canât help it.
My problem is you have to sound like an idiot to truly speak chinese locally: actually ĺ śĺŻŚćâŚand ććŻčźprefer and hold ä˝ and all that other childish bullshit
I wouldnât call it childish, more like desperate to appear sophisticated and international. All of the stuff that Taiwanese people like to say in English can most certainly be communicated in real Chinese, and I choose to do that instead of say things like âĺžlowâ⌠why not just ĺžä˝äż?