Chinese, Class next semester Options

[EvilSpork]

Yeah, this is English, bugger off

Anyway, I'm taking Chinese this coming semester and was wondering if anybody knows any? Sub-language being Mandarin. (Yeah, I know, I'm insane for taking it) I was hoping maybe somebody on here knew a decent amount in case I get stumped in the class, or so I could practice on the forums here.

[Daria]

I'm afraid the only person I know who knows Chinese, is currently studying it at uni and she is so frustrated with it all! (she's also studying French at the same time o_0). Yeah I'm of no use. Bite me.

[EvilSpork]

I'm afraid the only person I know who knows Chinese, is currently studying it at uni and she is so frustrated with it all! (she's also studying French at the same time o_0). Yeah I'm of no use. Bite me.

/spam

*chomp*

/spam

[Mata]

My top tip for all languages these days is to find a downloadable source for language tapes. For European languages there's a great guy called Michel Thomas - if I'd had those when I was doing my GCSEs I suspect my French would have been considerably better. I don't know about who does the best Mandarin ones, but I've seen them on sites.

[selina]

i'm chinese, but im didn't grew up in china, so my mandarin is flawed, but i can read, speak and write basic chinese, so i'll gladly help you out if you want.

like what mata said, think those downloadable tapes will help a lot.

[Mata]

Mandarin is alleged to be one of the hardest languages for a westerner to try to learn. Your position is slightly unusual because you have basic knowledge of it as well as speaking English. Do you think that it is hard? For example, do you think it would it be difficult for you increase your knowledge of the language further?

[selina]

Mandarin is alleged to be one of the hardest languages for a westerner to try to learn. Your position is slightly unusual because you have basic knowledge of it as well as speaking English. Do you think that it is hard?

well... i started learning chinese about the same time i started learning english so i dont really know how hard it is for pure beginners (one who speaks 0 chinese) to learn it. Mandarin, i guess, is one of the hardest languages for westerners to learn 1st because the chinese use characters instead of alphabets, and you can't pronounce (or read) the characters like the alphabet. most western writing are phonetic, i mean, one letter corresponds to one kind of sound . Chinese characters however, have assigned sounds to different characters and so learning the language would mean memorizing a lot of characters/words and its proper pronunciation and usage(and context for that matter, like how "read" become "read (red)" when used in past tense). how to pronounce each one and the way you pronounce it is also crucial. and there's many other reasons.

do you think it would it be difficult for you increase your knowledge of the language further?

Even though i know the basics, i still find it hard to learn chinese so i guess the answer to this is yes. For one, the basic rules, like all other languages, have many exceptions. and then there's the matter of exposure since i live outside china, i dont use chinese often, and the times when i am forced to speak in pure mandarin is rare too.

i guess once you've learnt the basics, the difficulty all lies in and practice. I mean, the reason why english comes easy to you is because you live in an english speaking country where you get to apply your english all the time. furthering your knowledge in a particular language would naturally follow if you constantly read and apply it in your daily life.

PS. i think about 15 years ago china has created pinyin(拼音）system which adopted the english alphabet in "spelling" out how to pronounce a certain word/character so i think it would be a tad easier for westerners to grasp the pronunciation and its probably what they'll first teach you if you enroll in a mandarin class.

[Mata]

If I were to learn basic Mandarin I would stick to learning the spoken version first. I don't really have need to learn to read it, but I've found that a bit of spoken language is often useful in odd situations.

[selina]

If I were to learn basic Mandarin I would stick to learning the spoken version first. I don't really have need to learn to read it, but I've found that a bit of spoken language is often useful in odd situations.

yeah. spoken versions are more useful and if not for personal reasons, i dont think you'll need or even want to learn too much about it unless u plan to live in chinese-speaking countries or do serious business with them.