Learning when your partner is Chinese

[xiaotao]

Go get a male tutor. Whenever I work with one person, it's hard not to get too close. It may be uncomfortable after a while. When you are asked to practice conversation, it's hard to not talk about your life, your wife, what makes you tick. Even for kids, it's usually better to get tutors or teachers that are of the same sex. You don't know how long the tutoring relationship will last. It's not a big decision that needs 2 adults.

[gato]

Your wife shouldn't get jealous if your tutor is grandma's age. Mom's age might be a gray area. Haha.

[Neil_H]

The teacher I met looked 60+, I am 32. Even if she was 25 it would make no difference to myself or my wife. Your comments are just ridiculous. Hopefully just a joke.

As the course has been cancelled I won't be attending the course with her.

I have looked into the same sort of course at another college but it seems that they are struggling for students and don't even know who the teacher will be. The course is due to start in 2 weeks so it does not look very positive.

[muyongshi]

I'm gonna reiterate a point: there may not be sexual conflict but there may be a battle of the "tutors" if you will. What your tutor things you should do may be totally not what your wife thinks. They even may disagree on word meaning, pronunciation and the like. STILL a possibility for big fighting to happen. I still recommend solely on this NOT to bring the tutor to your home. Go to a coffee shop- let what she teaches have nothing to do with your wife. I think you'll learn better then.

[xianhua]

Whatever you decide about the tutor, just try and make sure that they have some experience of teaching Chinese as a foreign language. I attended a College course for one week (similarly to yours it was cancelled due to lack of demand). The 'teacher' had very little experience, especially teaching to an intermediate level, and couldn't really answer any of my questions about grammar. I got the impression that my local college just went "wow your English is good, and you can speak Chinese, you'll do nicely".

Actually, your issue is ringing a bell with me. I would like to try and find a language partner from our local university, where there are quite a few Chinese studying Masters' (as there are everywhere in the UK as you know). My wife has insisted that I can only find a male partner though. Obviously, her trust in my fidelity runs deep..

[Scoobyqueen]

My wife has insisted that I can only find a male partner though. Obviously, her trust in my fidelity runs deep..

If your wife is Chinese and from what I can work out she is, it sounds more like she understands the mindset of female Chinese and possible second agendas

[Scoobyqueen]

Neil - why dont you book some skype lessons with a Chinese tutor based in China. You can book at around 10-15 euros an hour and this is one to one. The advantage is you are at home and your wife could even listen in if she wants to.

I take skype lessons with a Chinese-based teacher and it works really well. Currently I am doing Saturdays from 8 - 10 am. My teacher hasnt got a camera so it is just like speaking on the phone which really doesnt make a difference anyway.

[Neil_H]

The post made by Xian Hua sounds a good one. This was very much why I wanted to meet the teacher before attending the course. This was going to be the first time she was going to teach teach the Intermediate course there so like you who knows what the training would have been like.

With the other course I am trying to find out information from, I have also tried to speak directly with the teacher although they say they are yet to decide who will take the course?!?

One gets the impression the teachers they use for this are Chinese people in England who maybe teach another subject and because they speak Mandarin the College asks them to do this as well.

[xianhua]

One gets the impression the teachers they use for this are Chinese people in England who maybe teach another subject and because they speak Mandarin the College asks them to do this as well.

I think it safe to say that many institutions here believe that speaking Chinese equates with an ability to teach it. However, the reality couldn't be more different as was pointed out earlier on this thread. I guess an ideal teacher would be someone who'd mastered the language as a second language themselves. However, back in the real world...

[imron]

I think it safe to say that many institutions here believe that speaking Chinese equates with an ability to teach it. However, the reality couldn't be more different as was pointed out earlier on this thread.

Not just many institutions, many husbands too

[Meng Lelan]

I take skype lessons with a Chinese-based teacher and it works really well. Currently I am doing Saturdays from 8 - 10 am. My teacher hasnt got a camera so it is just like speaking on the phone which really doesnt make a difference anyway.

Scoobyqueen has given excellent advice for this kind of situation. That was exactly the solution I turned to when I had no other options.

[giraffe]

I'm also doing a once-a-week Skype class with a tutor in Beijing and loving it. The quality of instruction has been very good and I really like the convenience of doing the class at home. Mostly the sound quality on Skype has been amazing but there have a couple of classes where the call was getting dropped every few minutes.

[Neil_H]

I have spoken to the other college and they have nobody booked on the course so I can’t add myself to that one either. My efforts to enrol have not gone unnoticed by my wife and she has started to take my training more seriously. We have gone back to basics with Pimsleur and the Chinese course book I have. We have been practicing speaking to each other over and over again to build up speed of speech, being able to understand what is being said and correcting grammar as we go along.

Our conversations in the evening now last for about an hour every day. I continue in my lunch break at work to go through the Pimsleur lessons practicing speech over and over again to build up the speed and avoid having to think too much when speaking.

One the above is completed I can go back to bulding more vocabulary into my training.

[DrZero]

I'm sure it varies by person and by couple. But I have a Chinese partner, and in my experience, spouses can't really teach each other much of anything with regard to language (or anything else).

Of course, different people are going to have different levels of natural teaching ability. My wife simply does not have the patience or interest to teach me Chinese. She doesn't really have the time, either. And any lesson we attempt would only erupt into a fight. Even asking her about specific words or grammar points is pretty futile.

That said, I do learn from her. When she talks to her friends, I listen to what they say. I study vocabulary on my own, and then later, when I hear the same words come up in conversation, that really makes them stick in my head. I also listen to what she says to our kids, and that helps.

No one can really teach you a language, anyway. You have to teach yourself. Even if you are at university studying a language as your major, you're still teaching yourself. The professors are your guides, giving you structure, offering practice opportunities, testing you and so on. But the person sitting at home on Tuesday nights and memorizing words is still you.

[Neil_H]

Thanks to our 6 month old daughter now going to sleep by 9pm we have been able to do an hour of Mandarin every day of the week. We have been enjoying the chance to sit down together and talk in peace.

I am still on the hunt to locate a good Mandarin tutor for the future to add structure and check my learning material is correct.

I have just contacted one tutor but found out he is Chinese native speaker rather than a proper Mandarin tutor.

[Neil_H]

I just thought I would mention that I went to see a private tutor last night who listened to my mandarin and I responded to his. He rated my speaking and listening as being much better than students who had been with him for years but when it came to writing or reading characters I could not do any of them as I have not studied writing/reading except in pinyin.

Just as others have advised in the post it seems it is time I need to start work on characters, flashcards, reading etc.

I have the Anki software and have just bought some simplified character books. For the last month my wife and I have been practicing conversation and listening for an hour every night. We are going to split this to 30 minutes for characters and 30 for conversation.

I am still continuing with the Pimsleur CD's in the car at lunchtime. Now on CD 2.

I have not learnt that many new words from these but have gained in my ability to speak faster, listen better and be more confident in speaking thanks to the repetition.

[giraffe]

I'm surprised that you still find value in Pimsleur when you're already conversing in Chinese. I did the complete set last year and thought it was a good start for a newbie, but looking back I also realize it was like an "introduction to starting your first taste of getting familiar with some really simple Chinese phrases". Exactly what I needed at the time, as it does give you a sense that Chinese is doable.

But I really was starting from zero and you sound like you might be ready for something more challenging.

I've recently started doing the second book of Assimil's Chinese with Ease using a modification of the Alexander Arguelle technique. Even though it's supposed to be a 'beginner' course, the content is vastly denser and richer than Pimsleur. Most importantly for me, the audio portion is 100% Chinese. The lessons are quite short - only a couple of minutes (I've removed the dead spaces as per Arguelle's suggestion) so it's easy to absorb the meaning of the dialogue from the book and then just listen to the audio over and over.

There's something to be said for going slow and really learning things well, but Pimsleur would seem to lag behind where you're at (especially now that you've got a tutor as well)