10 replies to this topic

[ThatYellowFever]

Hey guys I'm planning on trying my hand at developing my Mandarin beyond the barely literate caveman standard I currently make do with. How do you all (if any) go about trying to learn a new language? Any tips or resources you could point me to?

 

Cheers in advance

Edited by ThatYellowFever, 18 May 2016 - 09:50 PM.

[Akumetsu]

A friend of mine used Rosetta Stone. It's software to learn a language, and pretty decent supposedly. It's quite pricey though, so you might look for alternative ways of acquiring it.

Besides that you could watch tv with subtitles, maybe kids shows to start. 

 

[ThatYellowFever]

Yeah I've heard about Rosetta Stone, from what I have been told it's a waste of money and isn't an effective learning tool. Yeah I watch quite a lot of Chinese TV and Movies already but it's getting the tones down which is the problem, it's fine when you can say the syllables but without the tones it could be anything else completely. I managed to find a book for it with audio resources so hopefully that should be useful.

[Akumetsu]

Ah I see, I wish I could help you there, but no idea what you could do to get the tones down. I reckon there are at least some people on batoto who can help with that. Good luck!

[shelly]

If there are any libraries near you, you might find some useful things there.

I've found books, CD's and computer programs for learning languages, free to borrow at the library.

A lot of them were outdated though.

So, my advice, check the library and sift through whats there.

 

Otherwise, there are always online resources.

I've tried learning tiny bits of Mandarin (I havent gotten anywhere though. .... I keep putting it off)

But because of the fact that I'm at least planning to learn some eventually, I bookmarked a bunch of websites that I saw other people recommending in forums and chatboxes whenever I came across it.

Because I haven't really used any of these resources yet, I don't know how useful they are, and because I was mainly on the lookout for the very basics, it may or may not be useful to you, depending on how advanced you are.

Anyway, here are the random bookmarks I have:

• http://ocw.mit.edu/resources/res-21f-003-learning-chinese-a-foundation-course-in-mandarin-spring-2011/ (online course. I think it asks you to buy a textbook, but the exercises and lessons are probably free. Probably. I really don't know.)
• http://www.quickmandarin.com/chinesepinyintable/ (table of sounds)
• http://www.learnchineseeveryday.com/ (learning the characters)
• http://www.learnchineseez.com/characters/learn-to-write-chinese/ (writing the characters)
• http://www.chinese4.eu/chinese-for-you/ (basic things like hello, goodbye, etc)
• http://yupnet.org/languages/wheatley/ (textbook)
• http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php (dictionary)

[ThatYellowFever]

Thank you for all these! I'll be sure to have a good look through them, it seems like they should be useful, especially the written Chinese stuff, as its definitely not my strongest area.

 

I've been learning mandarin on and off for a while as well but I was focusing on Cantonese first and then thought about trying to learn Hakka. Though in terms of usefullness Hakka is worse than Latin so I may as well get round to getting fluent in Mandarin

 

Again cheers for these!

[OzzieP]

I am learning Japanese through a weekly class and a few online websites, but what is really helping is the class. Local community colleges might have language classes or there might be smaller classes you can find in local community pages. At least for me it is the weekly talking and reading in the class that is helping me learn the language quicker than just online programs

[SystematicChaos]

I've found the immersion method to be the most effective way of learning a new language. But if you can't afford to pack your bags and move to China, you'll at least want to find people that you can have a conversation in Mandarin with. This will help improve your speaking ability, and you will have someone that can correct any mistakes as you make them. I don't know if they do language exchanges where you are, but it would be worth looking into.

[Supreme_Lurker_Primo]

Thank you for all these! I'll be sure to have a good look through them, it seems like they should be useful, especially the written Chinese stuff, as its definitely not my strongest area.

 

I've been learning mandarin on and off for a while as well but I was focusing on Cantonese first and then thought about trying to learn Hakka. Though in terms of usefullness Hakka is worse than Latin so I may as well get round to getting fluent in Mandarin

 

Again cheers for these!

Hakka wa, Cantonese, and Mandarin are all dialect my family speaks.  Hakka is mostly spoken in the country area, but yeah outside of Gudong providence it pretty much not spoken.  Mandarin and Cantonese is the way to go.  Though, I am sure you figure out Mandarin is best learn since not many actually speaks Cantonese though in NY chinatown all the resturants speaks it. 

 

As for how to improve, found a partner to teach pronunciation and getting the tone down is good as well as how convesation is different from text book between causal and formal speech.

[ThatYellowFever]

Hakka wa, Cantonese, and Mandarin are all dialect my family speaks.  Hakka is mostly spoken in the country area, but yeah outside of Gudong providence it pretty much not spoken.  Mandarin and Cantonese is the way to go.  Though, I am sure you figure out Mandarin is best learn since not many actually speaks Cantonese though in NY chinatown all the resturants speaks it. 

 

As for how to improve, found a partner to teach pronunciation and getting the tone down is good as well as how convesation is different from text book between causal and formal speech.

 

My a Mah and a Yeh are from the new territories and my dad grew up in Kowloon so I'm the same with regards to Hakka and Cantonese. To be honest the only reason I considered learning Hakka was to surprise my A Mah because she prefers to speak it over Cantonese and I'd rather perfect my Cantonese over learning Mandarin but for work Mandarin is essential even if I were to move to Hong Kong. But yeah even here in the UK and Ireland there are many more Mandarin speakers than there used to be, in my home city the chinese community were mostly from Hong Kong and now there are a lot of people from Dongbei and Fujian so there are quite a few more Mandarin and Min speakers who don't speak Cantonese while the Cantonese speakers all seem to speak Mandarin.

 

I'm quite lucky that my dad is pretty fluent in Mandarin, apparently for a Hong Kong Chinese his Mandarin is very good, but it's a struggle to get him to speak it, I'm probably going to go to Taiwan and teach English to learn.

 

 

I've found the immersion method to be the most effective way of learning a new language. But if you can't afford to pack your bags and move to China, you'll at least want to find people that you can have a conversation in Mandarin with. This will help improve your speaking ability, and you will have someone that can correct any mistakes as you make them. I don't know if they do language exchanges where you are, but it would be worth looking into.

 

That's what I'll probably end up doing, I wouldn't mind moving to Taiwan to teach English to be honest, either that or find a Mandarin girlfriend! 

 

I am learning Japanese through a weekly class and a few online websites, but what is really helping is the class. Local community colleges might have language classes or there might be smaller classes you can find in local community pages. At least for me it is the weekly talking and reading in the class that is helping me learn the language quicker than just online programs

 

Cheers, I've actually enrolled in a Mandarin class for now, it should provide a good launchpad I hope! 

Edited by ThatYellowFever, 07 September 2016 - 07:05 PM.

[Jinsus]

You can use language apps like hello talk. That is where you can exchange your native language say English with a native say from China. You both help each other learn the language . And people can help correct your spelling and grammar if you make a post.

Edited by Jinsus, 16 September 2016 - 08:06 AM.