Beginner - what is the best way to learn chinese?

[AlexanderH]

Hey guys --

So I'm a total novice, but I'm moving to Beijing next summer. Most likely for several years.

Anyway, what do you think is the most cost effective way to learn Mandarin?

E.g. Attend a local community college course (probably about $500 for 1/2 year, meets 2 hours a week), and put in self-study time.

Or buy one of those audio tapes series, and then do self-study time? Obviously there would be around a ~$400 price difference, but let's say that money doesn't matter.

Should I take the community college intro to Mandarin, then just do some self-study materials also? I can mostly likely put in 1-2 hours a day outside of class.

Thank you!

[oskar]

Taking Chinese lessons only 2h per week is a waste of time - at least it is for me.

Progress is extremely slow and you end up forgetting more than you learn. You will most probably only be discouraged by the non-progress and then drop the whole thing.

Since life is short, do as much, as fast as you can. For instance 3h every morning, 5 days a week. My personal daily limit is about 3h.

Do that for about 3 months and then take a short break. Then continue.

The objective of the above is to, as fast as possible, get out of a "helpless" state so that one can start using the little Chinese one knows in one's daily life. At that point one will start to have some successes that will encourage to continue studying.

Also, use as many sources/opportunities for learning as possible. Get a electronic dictionary that you can carry with you. Either Pleco for your palm/wm mobile, or one of those things that you can buy in almost any department store in china.

Use flashcards and practice with them daily. Set up a scheme so that you get repetitions based on how well you know a certain card (pleco2 is pretty good at this)

Make a habit of looking at road signs, posters, adverts trying to figure out what the text says.

If you will be hiring an Ayi, consider trying one who does not speak a word of English. It will definitely be a challenge, but you will learn a lot of practical words and phrases in the process.

One of the biggest hurdle in studying Chinese is that there is no "feedback loop" between the characters, pronounciation, and meaning. (in other languages you will at least know the pronounciation of a word even if you do not know what it means. and often you can then figure out the meaning from the context. this dimension is completely missing when learning Chinese as a foreigner).

In the beginning one is struggling with learning both characters and spoken Chinese somewhat i parallel. The faster you can start closing the gap between characters and pronounciation, the faster you will enter into a state where you can pick up, at least some, words and phrases by just watching tv or looking around on the street.

At some point you might consider looking into writing a couple of characters. Not for the sake of actually writing, but because only by writing will you realize how the characters are made up of components and compounds. At least my ability to recognize and learn characters skyrocketed after i tried to write a little bit.

Hope that helps a bit.

Oskar

[SunDaYu]

My personal recommendation: Chinesepod with ANKI or another flashcard based system as a supplement. Maybe a decent textbook if you really want to learn grammar.

Don't worry about writing and don't stress too much over characters. If you are going to live in Beijing for a while then you need to understand and respond. So my advice is: listen, listen, speak, listen, listen, read a little.

[Erbse]

Take the class. You will learn proper pronounciation there and You can always ask questions that come up during Your private studies. The exercise You do during class are a bonus.

I don't know how much Chinese You will need during Your time in Beijing, but if You plan to interact a lot with the Chinese people, throw in some study at home additional to the class.

[renzhe]

I strongly feel that there is no "best" way to learn Chinese.

It will also depend on what you want to achieve. If you will live in Beijing for a few years, you'll probably want a well-rounded set of skills, including reading, writing, conversation and listening comprehension.

Personally, I recommend a combination of different media. Textbook with good grammar explanations, podcasts for listening, easy reading material, TV-shows, flashcards for vocabulary, etc. It keeps things interesting and exposes you to a wide range of input, and it also adds some redundancy that will help you remember better. As you progress, you'll find the combination that works best for you.

Classes are really helpful in the beginning, but the progress is often slow (unless you're getting a degree in Chinese). Personally, I find that language tapes and podcasts are excellent supplementary material, but they won't teach you a language on their own.

Whatever you do, consistency is the key. If you put in the 1-2 hours every day for a year, you could make good progress that will prepare you for the real learning in Beijing.

[leeyah]

@ renzhe: 赞！

Renzhe's advice is by far the best I've ever read from anyone here & it matches my own experience from the day started learning Chinese to the last three years of revision based on self-study & finally - study/live in China. Go for it and you can't go wrong.

Good luck!

[rezaf]

when you go to china watch korean tv series. all dvd shops in china have got them in chinese. they are all different versions of cinderella's story but at least they are watchable and entertaining.

[rezaf]

or maybe you can find them online:roll: since you are not in china

[AlexanderH]

Sorry - I meant to say the class time is 2 hours per week, and then I will be studying an additional 1.5 hours a night on my own study time.

So obviously I will have plenty of time to review.

And my goal isn't just to get by with Chinese. I am moving to China long-term and plan on becoming fluent, however long that may take

[imron]

A long time

As David Moser once said:

Someone once said that learning Chinese is "a five-year lesson in humility". I used to think this meant that at the end of five years you will have mastered Chinese and learned humility along the way. However, now having studied Chinese for over six years, I have concluded that actually the phrase means that after five years your Chinese will still be abysmal, but at least you will have thoroughly learned humility.

[AlexanderH]

Imron,

Haha, I like it I'll do as much as I can in terms of foundational work, conversational work, vocab etc. before I go. Then if I have the foundation set I suspect (hope) that being immersed in Chinese 24/7 will really help my proficiency sky rocket. Naturally I'll try my best to make local friends too.