Help me learn Mandarin Chinese

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

I did have a look at Chinesepod a long time ago, way back before I was any good at listening, so yeah, probably time to give it another go. btw Pasden wrote a new supplement to that article just last week: http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2012/07/31/how-i-learned-chinese-part-3

Last night I got 83%/88% in an HSK 2 practice test, despite not understanding the point of a whole section.

i haven't posted in a while, but the final for my first mandarin course is monday! so far, i excel (relatively) at remembering characters and recognizing and properly pronouncing tones, and i am completely fucking awful at recalling basic vocabulary on the fly.

was just thinking it would be dope if itunes had chinese language podcasts (i.e. recordings of chinese shows rather than just podcasts aimed at chinese language learners)

thinking of doubling on mandarin in add to japanese next semester for my asian studies undergrad is this madness y/n

What level of Japanese are you at? I wouldn't do that unless I were at least fludly conversant in one, but that's just the way I approach language tbh.

i am completely fucking awful at recalling basic vocabulary on the fly.

That's harder than recalling individual characters imo, so don't beat yourself up about that. Best of luck for your exam btw, even though it sounds like you'll absolutely shit it in.

depends on what your goals are, i think. if it's to fulfill a language requirement (2 langs for undergrad asian studies degree mostly right?), it's easy enough to grind thru a 100 level mandarin course. you'll prob come out with a vague basic knowledge of mandarin that will fade quickly and some valuable knowledge of written chinese that might help in approaching japanese texts (you're mainly interested in japan, right? modern japan?). i find students that approach chinese after studying japanese (like, those with some fluency or good intermediate skill at least) have FUCKED UP pronunciation issues (and always want to tell me how oh this kanji means something TOTALLY different in japanese isn't that interesting) (and most aren't interested in fixing their pronunciation issues because they aren't interested in the vast treasure trove of sinophone culture and literature and just want to get back to their comic books goddamnit DESPITE THE FACT THAT it's common knowledge that the japanese were illiterate fishermen until given the gift of the chinese writing system btw).

in the middle of doing a degree in chinese lit, i knew i had to get another asian language credit and chose korean. i did one semester of an intro korean class, a class on korean linguistics, and one or two modern korean lit classes taught in english (by bruce fulton #1 boss of modern korean->english translation but actually kind of a jerkoff).

it seemed interesting to me at the time that korean, japanese, and chinese attract totally different students. even if they were mostly getting a generic asian studies degree. it was a totally different crew focused on each language.

i think the advanced chinesepod podcasts are good because it's legit useful 口语 and presented at normal speed or whatever and they're usually halfway interesting but if you need it, you've got vocab notes to refer to after and a space to pose questions about word usage and whatnot.

chinese telenovelas on tudou or youtube are good for learners, more than podcasts which can be hard to follow without two things that the telenovelas have: visual clues and subtitles. it's cool to be able to use the visual clues to guess at vocab in context, and the subtitles are a good way to learn characters because you're associating the sounds with the words. you're constantly listening superhard to what's being said and simultaneously raking your eyes over the subtitles to figure out what's being said. and thank god for china being a nation of mutual unintelligible dialects because so much chinese tv is subtitled----- so the min speaker in fuzhou can understand a beijing beamed news broadcast the 话 that's not absolutely 普通.

and just wanna say mad respect to yall, aut al and zS, for sticking with this shit. in my experience with mandarin as a foreign language learners, it's fucking hard uphill slogging to learn chinese without an immersive language environment.

haha thanks dylannn. It's certainly tricky, but I've got two classes a week, two speaking groups a week (that I miss frequently but they're always there) and a load of music, web sites etc. around, so there's always stimulus. None of that compares with proper immersion of course.

re your point about Japanese students learning Chinese and arsing the pronunciation: a bloke in my class grew up in Malaysia, learning Cantonese by watching local telly + subtitles, and his 普通 is corrupt even to my ears (e.g. 'sh' comes out as 'ss'). He also rips through dialogue really quickly, so it's always a struggle when I'm paired with him.

I have some 简体-subtitled Chinese TV shows that I'm still too intimidated to watch. I tried again just this week and couldn't keep up. Having said that, though, it's weird how you can be sitting at a table with a load of people speaking naturalistic 普通话, picking up maybe 30% of the words, and then suddenly (after say half an hour) the whole conversation is crystal clear, like the babel fish in your ear has suddenly righted itself.

十四是十四，四十是四十，但是十四不是四十

whoops

四是四，十是十，十四是十四，四十是四十

http://v.ku6.com/show/mn6TsS2nS-Dz6uHmBAeqhw...html?loc=youce_tuijian

xps to dylannnnn i'm pretty interested in east asian languages in general, i just happened to start with japanese. my plan is to do a transfer program after i get my undergrad and work in japan, mb even using as a hub for further studies (it'd be easier to fly to/from china/korean and japan than from the us, right?). my focus might end up being studying the linguistics of the various sinitic/altaic language groups, but it's too soon to tell really

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

― undermikey: bidness (Autumn Almanac), Tuesday, 24 July 2012 19:01 (1 month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

think i fucked this

I practised my arse off for this thing (9 practice exams, passed them all comfortably), get in the room and for a whole block of questions it was like the audio was in lingala or something. maybe I was too nervous, really not sure at this point. if I pass the first half it'll be a miracle. devastated.

I have a gut feeling you'll be fine.

hmm cheers. there's always hope.

http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/10/making-mandarin-mandatory-in-u-s-kindergartens/

1) come on
2) a financially gutted school district grasping at straws
3) if you're just going to look at probable success rates and the utility of the language, spanish wins in this part of the world (southern united states, article mentions growing hispanic population) + a good esl program
4) if it has to be stated again: mandarin is not the future language of international business. give me a break, guys.
5) and most importantly, confucius institutes creep me the fuck out

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/05/us/critics-worry-about-influence-of-chinese-institutes-on-us-campuses.html

i hate confucius, i hate his institutes

http://www.epochtimes.com/i6/608120040071017.gif

sorry, i know this thread is "help me learn mandarin chinese," not "discourage rural georgian kindergarteners from learning mandarin chinese"

Yeah, seems so much more important to learn Spanish.

However, my second 10-week session of Mandarin begins tonight!

I have studied exactly ZERO words/phrases in the interim between sessions, so tonight is likely to be brutal.

ahaha oh no

p sure I failed another exam tonight btw

i am starting to learn vietnamese. 'starting' means i got a pimsleur language lesson and hated it, learned how to say six words, and couldn't hear differences in intonation and forgot them all, and can now count to ten, sometimes. whyyyyyyyy vietnamese?

it's haaard

I practised my arse off for this thing (9 practice exams, passed them all comfortably), get in the room and for a whole block of questions it was like the audio was in lingala or something. maybe I was too nervous, really not sure at this point. if I pass the first half it'll be a miracle. devastated.

― * The "no hands" rule can be compared to socialist tax policies (Autumn Almanac), Saturday, 8 September 2012 11:45 (1 month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

more than six weeks later and no results released, for ANYONE doing ANY exam at that facility on that day. from a given range of reasons that would explain the delay in releasing the results, i choose to go with the one that describes them as fucking spanners.

right now i'm awfully glad i just about killed myself studying for this thing

ugh sorry

np

can someone translate?

http://www.theonion.com/images/18/18499/original/450.jpg

I believe that's a translation of romney's remarks about China from the last debate

"Chinese leaders, I promise you, when I am President, I will make sure that China respects international trade rules. Your country has long manipulated currency to benefit your manufacturing industry, so that it has harmed American manufacturing. This is not fair! My administration will not accept this from China. The first day I enter the White House, I will label China as a currency manipulator. This is a warning."

take THAT china

and yeah, that must be from the last debate

hahah

http://www.theonion.com/articles/romney-delivers-stern-warning-to-china-speaking-di,30053/

but that was taken pretty much word for word from the last debate wasnt it?

*sheds wistful tear for jon huntsman*

more than six weeks later and no results released, for ANYONE doing ANY exam at that facility on that day. from a given range of reasons that would explain the delay in releasing the results, i choose to go with the one that describes them as fucking spanners.

― turn left onto bisexual woman (Autumn Almanac), Tuesday, 23 October 2012 19:13 (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

two months today, still nothing. they're ignoring my emails. someone else who sat exactly the same exam has got his results. utter utter UTTER fucking incompetence. rarely have i been this angry with anyone ever.

clearly i should not have killed myself studying for that fucking piece of shit exam

mannnn. that's fucked. i remember you saying the people running the course were decent, though. no word from them? call them up and cuss them out in the foulest chinese slang you can learn in the next half hour.

I tried them today. no word yet, but they're clearly my best hope given hanban is apparently incapable of scratching its arse

sorry to be all donnie downer, just absolutely ragged

听力 99 阅读 99 总分 198 合格

whether or not i ~trust~ that response is another issue, as I've yet to receive anything official (and tbh thought i had completely flubbed the first half)

I had to reload the software onto my iPhone after a crash and now Skritter is only showing new words. It's forgotten about all the ones I spent months learning before and never shows them. Anyone know what I'm meant to do?

oh god, someone on app.net is about to give me old 'so why are you learning chinese?'

i can feel it building

just say for the broads/future international language of business lol leave it at that

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3402/5702554422_2c98d56bd5.jpg

haha yes, native chinese speakers love it when you say you want to get rich off the language.

btw the above didn't transpire, but app.net seems to be a great way to hook up with chinese speakers. my crap language skills have been taxed to the limit today.