Some question about learning Mandarin (and Pimsleur)

[Toeng-tsoi]

Hey all,

Im new here, just started studying Mandarin a few ago.

I'm mainly learning through pimsleur atm, for some basics... But I also look around on sites for information etc.. and I after Ive gone through a lesson I also learn the pinyin of all the new words mentioned in that lesson. I find this really helps me to remind them better, and also works good for my pronunciation in some way..

I also want to learn to read and write characters.. I've already got some good resources where I could learn from..

What do you guys suggest?

I was thinking of going through Pimsleur 1 first and then learn the characters of those words. and then go on with pimsleur 2 etc.

Or should I just do it together? Or is it a bad idea and should I put learning characters later in the proces when Ive got some better basics?

Ive also got a few questions about some things that weren't very clear to me in the pimsleur lessons, some words that Im unsure of what the pinyin is, couldnt find them.

Let's say = ba4? - is that correct? (unit 11)

Here you are = no4? or na4? this is first mentioned in unit 13.. some wordlists/transcripts have "no4" others have "na4" , though I also heard it as no4, Im doubting because I also cant find it in online dictionary's.

Had some more, but cleared those up already

Thanks in advance for any help and advice

Lorenzo

[furrball]

it's probably best to at least see the characters as you learn the words, even without concentrating on them too much. this way, you'll already have some basis when you get to character learning more seriously

[Toeng-tsoi]

hmm that sounds like an idea, Ill try that thnx

[kudra]

I also find that knowing the pinyin is an aid to "hearing" more clearly.

"no" is not a legal pinyin sylable, which is probably why you can't find it.

As for ba, as a final particle meaning roughly "let's say", usually it's a neutral tone, like the interrogative ma. This neutral tone is sometimes written with a 5.

As for learning to write, depending on how fast you want to go, it may be of interest that some texts, from an earlier era(I'm just not familiar with the current crop of intro books), like the series by DeFrancis, or the series by Huang and Stimpson, had separate texts one for speaking//listenting and one for reading/writing, because they recognized that one could absorb vocabulary faster for the purpose of listening and speaking, than one could for reading and writing. Presumably this was the case for adult(college level) learners in a non-immersion setting. But in the end you have to do what feels right for you.

[Toeng-tsoi]

Sorry for the late reply..

Anyways, thanks for clearing that up for me

Thanks for the info, that sounds interesting.

I found that I don't have much trouble picking up and memorizing the characters while learning to speak. But that might be because it's still very basic now with Pimsleur .

So I guess that I'll keep it up like this for now, just going through pimleur while also making sure that I remember the pinyin and slowly gettting the characters too.

Not so sure about writing yet, but reading shouldn't be too hard for now.

I'll see if I can find some more info about the books you mentioned.