Help me learn Mandarin Chinese

http://boxun.com/news/images/2011/08/201108191146yuanqing1.jpg

Wooo! I'm learnding via Skritter. Only problem is it seems to be adding words and vocab a little bit fast for me. I'd only just got used to the first 5-6 characters and now it's added something like 10 more without really revisiting the old ones. Also, some characters look literally identical to me, and yet mean different things. Also, I'm sure 'rén' (meaning man) was written differently to how it was written yesterday... what gives?

人入？

i never tried the flashcard/electroflashcard thing because i found the best way to put chinese characters in my head was the boring way my chinese teachers told me to put chinese characters in my head: writing them over and over again, copying out chinese texts etc

i don't like the idea of learning the spoken language then trying to figure out characters either. just grind thru learning tohose fucking characters while learning the spoken language at at some point things will joint up together. i found out i could learn a lot by watching subtitled chinese tv just tpfilling in my knowledge of characters by being able to match up sound to shape.

if you do this at a certain point u will be able to sing ktv songs and impress everyone EVEN IF you have have no idea what you'er singing

Rot In Hell, Chinese Communist Party Fuck Chinese Communist Party btw

download weixin for your phone too dawg

Okay, cool. Have you tried Skritter yet dylann? It's actually very good (although I'm aware it's no replacement for lessons, or being in the country). It's actually very good at teaching writing, pronunciation, definitions and reading all in one.

i tried it when they first released their iphone app. i have pleco on my android phone.

i communicate in chinese everyday but since needing to write university shit, i rarely have to write it. even when i lived in china, i was typing/texting and memory of a character wasn't important. it's weird: you can type a charaqcter everyda and sort of SEE IT IN YOUR HEAD but fuck if you can write it by hand. so frustrating when it coems time sto wtire ea short note or njot down somebody's name.

Only problem is it seems to be adding words and vocab a little bit fast for me. I'd only just got used to the first 5-6 characters and now it's added something like 10 more without really revisiting the old ones.

I agree, the default setting seems to assume that the user is Rain Man! But luckily it can be adjusted.

You can go into Settings, then the Vocab tab, and switch "Add Frequency" to Manual Only. Then you can add new characters into the stream at your own pace, one at a time, by clicking on the + button at the top of the screen when you're studying.

ah nice one. how you finding it Z S?

Great! And actually I just signed up for 6 months more ($39.99), because I'm certain I'll be using it a lot.

I went to my first Mandarin class on Monday, and I could really feel the difference. Everyone was writing wǒ really slowly and laboriously, and I was busting it out with ease, without even having to think about it! Plus I knew the characters well enough that I noticed errors in my teacher's writing on the whiteboard (although he may just be a really sloppy writer)! /braggin

Can I remember wǒ, given I've been using Skritter for just two days? I'm guessing it means 'mouth' and is drawn a bit like a small square? Probably not...

我口

Another thing about skritter that I didn't realize at first is that you can swipe up on characters to erase them and start over again, which is useful for learning new characters when you just want to write them 20 times in a row.

chinese script doesn't show up on this pc.

oh i was wrong. I shoulda known - wǒ bi shi etc..

你鄙视我？我更鄙视你！

Why are there more than one characters for xin (heart, mind rad.61)? That's been confusing me somewhat

i think there's only one form, isn't there? 心, except for the two forms it appears in when used as a radical, in which case it looks like 忄 or (used in the 慕 in 羡慕 or in the 恭 in 恭喜发财 KUNG HAY FAT CHOY).

lots of similar looking characters to get it mixed up with, though.

必？ 小？ 伈？

卵 is a cool character

soz, lots to respond to

http://sinoglot.com/blog/2012/06/back-up/

found this interesting re mandarin pronunciation made me rethink some
tongue positioning issues pronunciation issues even after 6?? years of speaking the lang

― dylannn, Thursday, 28 June 2012 19:38 (3 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i never tried the flashcard/electroflashcard thing because i found the best way to put chinese characters in my head was the boring way my chinese teachers told me to put chinese characters in my head: writing them over and over again, copying out chinese texts etc

― dylannn, Thursday, 5 July 2012 19:34 (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i don't like the idea of learning the spoken language then trying to figure out characters either. just grind thru learning tohose fucking characters while learning the spoken language at at some point things will joint up together. i found out i could learn a lot by watching subtitled chinese tv just tpfilling in my knowledge of characters by being able to match up sound to shape.

― dylannn, Thursday, 5 July 2012 19:36 (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

btw I applied for HSK level 2 and now I'm shitting my pants.

that's cool. did we talk about the hsk on this thread before? have we talked about hanban before?

there's no composition thing for hsk level 2 is there? composition is the killer.

re skritter/writing characters: i do 60-70% of my daily communication in chinese and sometimes i doubt i could reproduce close to half of it with a pen and paper. it's all typed, spoken.... there was a point where i was writing thousands of characters off the dome (with hardcore studying beforehand). but now if i have to write something by hand, it usually comes back to me very very slowly and only because i have the building blocks stuck in my head. but a lot of it has evaporated. let this be a warning to you.

First lesson lunchtime today! Woop!

How was it?

dylannn: Yeah, we've talked about the HSK before. I don't really know what's in it yet, apart from the word list, which I'm reasonably comfortable with.

Well, it was pretty straightforward. Although the other girl in the class turns out to have a lot more experience than me, but that's not really a bad thing. I have to practice at least 3 hrs a week. Learning this is using parts of my brain I didn't know I had.

It's really great when you discover that you're behind in one aspect of the language but ahead in another.

http://phonemica.net/

possibly not really a great learning tool or anything but the recordings on phonemica are fun

i love lianyungang dialect, which is wildly different from non-coastal jiangsu dialects and sounds great.

http://phonemica.net/entry.php?id=13

far out, completely forgot how to write 喜 tonight

drink more 7-up
or get married

have more chinese new years

wikipedia thinks composition only for level VI

Good. I returned to Skritter after three weeks, 2500 item backlog and I'm so out of touch that I actually feel stupid, so composition can gf

learning chinese is like marrying a junkie, i swear

everything is going beautifully and you feel on top of the world, then one day you come home and all your cash has gone and there's shit on the walls

Every time I see the wdyll July thread title I think "baba"

区_区

just hit 1,000 written characters in skritter (93.2% retention) ^_______^

hooray!

i'm wondering about my Mandarin lessons. I've had two so far and my third is this lunchtime. Thing is, they're very useful but also very expensive for me and I find I never get round to doing the homework whereas if I were to subscribe to Skritter, it would be a lot cheaper and I find I have lots of time I can spend just using that, rather than digging out loads of paper and making notes etc.

have you considered dropping the classes, hitting skritter for, say, six months, plugging in pre-packaged lists (e.g. the HSK set) and joining a speaking group?

ime unless there's a very clear goal at the end of classes, there's not a huge incentive to keep it up (mine costs au$1,750/yr but results in accreditations with a reputable university)

it might be an idea. I'd not heard of HSK before. I'm thinking Skritter is more practical for my needs, especially since I doubt I can afford the class + Skritter. Only good thing about the class is I can ask questions if I get stuck. Otherwise, attending a class makes it feel more like school (homework etc), whereas Skritter makes it feel more like an educational game.

If you find a good casual speaking group that meets regularly, you can ask questions there. The one I go to has a good balance of en-native and zh-native speakers, and is always hugely worthwhile.

i think i've discussed it elsewhere on this thread but. i find a lot of chinese classes are taught by people with a real minimal idea of teaching chinese to foreign learners. if you're paying for a class, you better be happy with the teacher and have a clear idea of the goals of the class (ie. based on hsk, whatever).

skritter + chinesepod (best online mandarin learning program/community) + commitment is prob good enough until you have an idea what you really want to do.

i think i've discussed it elsewhere on this thread but. i find a lot of chinese classes are taught by people with a real minimal idea of teaching chinese to foreign learners. if you're paying for a class, you better be happy with the teacher and have a clear idea of the goals of the class (ie. based on hsk, whatever).

Yep. I'm lucky in that all three of my teachers are excellent, and the course coordinator is cluey and genuinely invested.

i have likely mocked chinesepod other places (i'm not sure i have and i don't know why i need to put that disclaimer in as if somebody who closely follows my online postings is going to gotcha me by digging up an instance of me saying chinesepod is shite) and i do have a few minor problems with it but check it out, dl. the beginner lessons are engaging and useful.

aa, you might want to check it out, too, because it does quite well at intermediate material, especially for building your listening and comprehension.

the team that puts it together includes a lot of people (like john pasden) who are experts on language acquisition and know what they're doing.

john pasden overview of chinese learning career

http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2007/05/06/how-i-learned-chinese-part-1