What would you do differently if you were starting to learn Chinese again?

[Rrina]

For those who have been learning Chinese for many months, or years: I'm curious about what would you do differently if starting to learn again.

I've studied other languages, and for example I regret not paying way more attention to vocabulary at the very beginning when I was learning French.

But Chinese is so complex and there is so much to learn. Since I'm a newbie I'd love to get some more suggestions about what to do and what not to do.

I love this forum, btw

[gougou]

Check out this thread: Some advice for beginners. Wushijiao has been studying for quite a while already, so I guess he incorporated everything he'd do differently.

[novemberfog]

Vocabulary, hands down. I focused too much on reading and writing, always trying to improve my grammar and writing skills. As a result, I can read and write and get by...but my speaking is terrible because I never bothered to learn vocabulary. I suppose if there was a course or text that taught real vocabulary (and not classroom vocab) I might have tried harder. But at the time I didn't see the point in learning how to say blackboard and homework and sociology and physics.

I still find the state of Chinese learning textbooks to be rather pitifiul. They have a long way to go in catching up to textbooks for learning French.

[atitarev]

Wushijiao's thread is good.

I just want to add that I would really had to review the way I learned Chinese - originally I spent too much time looking up characters, trying to decipher hieroglyphic texts without having the basics under my belt. It was really wasteful.

What was effcient when I had 3 things available:

1) Chinese character text.

2) Pinyin text.

3) Vocabulary list or translation into the language you use for learning (e.g. English)

Optional:

4) On early stages also important: audio recordings

5) Grammar and word usage comments.

There is a number of textbooks, which provide all these things these days. If you use a lot of them you can achieve ability to read and understand. The skill to speak is best learned in class or with a partner.

[wushijiao]

That particular post was kind of came out of the post below, which may be too weak on specifics to help Rrina, but...anyway.

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/510-phoenix-tv7&highlight=recent+studying+methods

I agree with Atitrarev's comments about audio. So many times teaching English in China did I wish that the students would have had their first introduction to new words aurally, rather than learning how to say words based on its phonemic rendering. In other words, I think if you really concentrate on listening at the start, hopefully.

I think it might be helpful to think of what the situation is like for Chinese toddlers. A three-year-old can speak and listen, but he/she can’t read or write. In the same way, I think foreigners should start with listening and speaking, then move on to pinyin, then characters. It doesn’t seem to make any sense to me to introduce a heavy load of character recognition (and even writing!) in the first few months, which is what some colleges do. Your brainpower and time could better be spent elsewhere, I think.

Anyway, I agree with novemberfog about vocabulary.

Also, you might want to consider coming to China to learn Chinese. The plane ticket is expensive, of course, but living and studying might be cheaper than you’d expect.

[leosmith]

I made the mistake of trying to break into conversation right after finishing Pimsleur when I studied Japanese. Pimsleur only had 500 words, so it wasn't nearly enough. My tutor and I both suffered until I built up more vocabulary.

I want to avoid this with Chinese. I'm doing Pimsleur again, but I also want to learn 2000 vocabulary words really fast. Are the lists for the proficiency tests the best ones to use for this?

[onebir]

I'd use the FSI course - which you can get for free now, but cost 000s when I started - instead of the random mismash of material I ended up using...

And lots of pronounciation material. If I'd used it just maybe people would have actually been able understand me when I got to China...

[Lugubert]

1. Tones. Not that I had much opportunities for interactive practicing, but anyway.

2. More reading time each day.

3. Actually writing each new character several times, not just being content with recognizing them.

[Strawberries513]

PRACTICE SPEAKING MORE!! And I would have read everything outloud.

also, I would have practiced/prepared my ass off for when I visited China, and while I was there I would have used Chinese instead of English.

I also would have learned all my vocab more in-depth, and reviewed more often

[lau]

Don't remember who said it, but recording yourself read/speak would be a good idea (if you are not terrified of the dreadful sound of your own voice on tape) then you can really hear how you sound and that might help with pronounciation.

What i'd do different now? I'd use audio courses/tapes/whatever, as much as possible, as early as possible. characters tend to fade away, but what i've learnt by listening stays, even though i'm a typical visual learner. or maybe because of it.

[flameproof]

what I would do differently as a casual learner:

Starting with characters from day 1 (instead of saying "impossible to learn")

[roddy]

I'd either take a much more balanced approach and not just 'pick it up as I go along' as I did - ie work through a comprehensive textbook series, rather than dipping in and out of whatever happens to look interesting / not too difficult at the time; or perhaps drop the self-study idea for at least a year and enroll at a university somewhere to give myself a bit of discipline.

I'd also invent some kind of software / hardware set-up which would allow me to practice pronunciation by speaking into the microphone and getting a harsh electric shock to sensitive bits of anatomy if I got it wrong. Actually, I might do that this afternoon.

[Rrina]

Quote

That particular post was kind of came out of the post below, which may be too weak on specifics to help Rrina, but...anyway.

 

Wow, thanks... I'd read the sticky thread but not this one. Both are great.

I plan to follow Flameproof's advice even though my teacher says we risk becoming overwhelmed if we try to do too much. I find it impossible to ignore the characters.

About recording my own voice... I dunno. I'm afraid of that, I don't really like the sound of it. Yup, 'terrified' is the word.

[atitarev]

I'd also invent some kind of software / hardware set-up which would allow me to practice pronunciation by speaking into the microphone and getting a harsh electric shock to sensitive bits of anatomy if I got it wrong. Actually, I might do that this afternoon.

That would hurt

[imron]

About recording my own voice... I dunno. I'm afraid of that, I don't really like the sound of it. Yup, 'terrified' is the word.

It's a humbling experience that's for sure, but it also works really well, especially if you have a recording of a native speaker saying the same thing.

Check out Audacity for a nice easy way to make recordings on your computer.

[hunxueer]

i just joined these forums, so i'm not too clear on what most people's situations are, but i came to live in china (initially planned on a year) without knowing anything beyond 你好,谢谢,不客气 and a few phrases in cantonese from my mother that have similar-sounding counterparts in mandarin. i lived with chinese roommates for a year and was the only foreigner for quite a few months at my job, so i learned a bit that way, and then started studying (still independently) a little more seriously the following year. this is my third year here, and i enrolled in university last year for formal study but wasn't particularly satisfied with the experience (though it did teach me how to study more effectively on my own) so plan to study on my own with the help of a tutor and another friend for the remainder of the year.

things i would do differently:

-studied at least pimsleur or some "getting by" mandarin prior to my arrival here

-started studying at university soon after my arrival, rather than waiting two years (i didn't realize it at the time, but i definitely could have managed to pay tuition and living costs while working part- or even full-time. well--then again, with the stress of culture shock and moving and whatnot, that kind of load could have been overwhelming. ok, maybe saved up for a year and then enrolled). or at least made a better effort to dedicate an hour or two or three each day to study, instead of just here and there. in short, pushed myself harder.

-read up more about how to study languages in general (learning styles, etc.) and mandarin in particular so i'd have an idea of what i was doing during self-study--also things like tones--they used to be pretty tough for me until i read something likening the tones in mandarin to english intonation, and from then on they've been pretty much no problem

-not taken a full two years to get over my shyness and self-consciousness when talking to other people (ok, still not fully over with, but much better than before)

things i would do the same:

-i think i got a really solid foundation of pinyin early on because my roommates generously went out and bought me some books for chinese kids to learn pinyin--and then they went over the pronunciations with me night after night until i had them down pretty solid. this book first had b, p, m, f, d, t, n ... then the combinations, and then syllables with the tones. i can usually write the pinyin upon hearing a word one time, and my (chinese) coworkers often remark that my pinyin (and even ability to hear tones sometimes) is better than theirs.

-made my own opportunities to practice chinese in a comfortable environment (i.e., NOT on the street or with shopkeepers, particularly in sichuan, where if you look like you're foreign, the fact that you might be speaking chinese often doesn't register and you get blank stares and 听不懂s all too frequently, at least for my comfort). these included a weekly chinese corner i set up with some friends who also had interest in studying chinese but were working and not enrolled in university programs. now i'm in a management position here, and all but one of my staff don't speak english, so there's lots of opportunities for me to practice. my chinese is still definitely not professional, but we manage to communicate because we have to. it also works because they often have a far bigger english vocabulary than i do in chinese (thanks to their compulsory six years of english studying) but no fluency whatsoever. so i can string sentences together and every now and then when i don't know a word i can just say it in english and they'll often know what i'm talking about.

-once i realized i should start studying characters (about a year after i arrived)--this epiphany came about as the result of realizing i pretty much learned a lot of my native language, english, through reading rather than speaking so knowing characters would obviously greatly accelerate my language study as well as making acquaintance with somebody who was fairly fluent in reading and speaking japanese and would thus often communicate in china by writing rather than speaking--i put in a lot of time with a book called something like "easy way to learn how to write chinese characters." i taught myself how to write several hundred characters with this book, but most importantly it taught me correct stroke order for most of the components. so when i finally enrolled in university i impressed all my 西方同学 with my ability to write, since it seems there are lower expectations for them compared to the korean classmates in that respect. which kind of annoyed me, frankly.

[myann23]

I'd agree with the previous poster. I've been learning Mandarin since November, so I'm still in the very early stages, but I would learn Pinyin first and foremost. I'm near the end of Pimsleur Level 1 Mandarin. Sometimes when I hear words on the cd, I'm not really sure how they are saying it - so if I could look up the word and see its pinyin, that would have been really helpful. I'm on level 27 right now, so I'm just going to finish this set and then learn pinyin before moving on to level 2

[Koneko]

Sometimes when I hear words on the cd, I'm not really sure how they are saying it

Well, regional accents of Chinese speakers can be very different.

Does your Chinese teacher use standard Chinese accent or Beijing accent?

K.

[myann23]

Actually...I'm doing self study now. Just started in November, per my previous post, so didn't even get a formal introduction to pinyin. That's why it's a bit difficult to really hear the sounds of Pimsleur sometimes. Will start to learn pinyin next week. I will do more formal study when I go to China in 6 months.

Mike

[leosmith]

That's why it's a bit difficult to really hear the sounds of Pimsleur sometimes. Will start to learn pinyin next week.

Hey myann23, I just started lesson 30 yesterday. Why not study the vocabulary in pinyin between lessons? That's what I do. I got a vocab list, and a partial transcript in pinyin. Otherwise, I'm like you; I have a hard time distinguishing the sounds.