What does it cost to start learning Chinese well

[Demonic_Duck]

@renzhe: I think it's a "deepity" (a word coined by Daniel Dennett to refer to Big Statements that are superficially and trivially true, yet on another reading seem to be stating something incredible that is in fact false).

 

Yes, over 99% of people who learn to a native level are... well, natives (and as such don't use textbooks). And yes, over 99% of people who start learning later in life (and thus use textbooks) will fail to reach native level. But this isn't even close to being an effective argument against using textbooks as a learner of CSL.

[lechuan]

Here's the advice I'd give to myself if I started learning from scratch again.

I'm a big fan of Zhang Peng Peng's approach to learning Chinese. Start by using pinyin only for conversation, in parallel start learning all the radicals, then characters. Keep character learning independent so that it doesn't slow down acquisition of conversation skills. Later on when you have a sufficient foundation of characters and conversation, start to go character only. Thus, I tend to steer away from textbooks in the early stages since textbooks tend to require you to learn to read/write what you're learning to speak; that and I find the student-life dialogs somewhat less relevant/interesting than the selection available in podcast dialogs.

BASICS

1) Refurbished iPad Mini 16GB Retina ($339) or an Android tablet, (for Pleco, Skritter, MP3 Player, Reading, etc.)

2) Pleco Pro Bundle ($99) Awesome dictionary. Definitely get the Tuttle Learner's dictionary if you're a beginner (either the paper or Pleco version).

3) Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar ($41). A great grammar reference that will serve you well through the elementary/intermediate level.

LEVEL 1

1) McGraw Hill's Chinese Pronunciation with CD-Rom ($13). Book is okay, but the CD-ROM is great. Lots of audio, sammy diagrams, and video of chinese people's mouths. Spend almost all initial effort to get pronunciation down as quickly as possible.

2) Chinese Learn Online Subscription ($20 per month, or per level download). I prefer CLO for beginners because it is progressive. Each lesson builds on the last, introducing a few new words per lesson, while continuing to use previously learned vocabulary. Pimsleur also very good, but much less "bang for the buck". Look up grammar in your grammar book.

3) The Most Common Chinese Radicals ($11), or similar. Learn your radicals!

4) Basic Patterns of Chinese Grammar ($9). A great grammar for beginners, includes the most useful and essential patterns

LEVEL 2

1) Chinesepod Basic ($15 per month). Switch to Chinesepod once you're done with CLO. Concentrate on listening and speaking Skills. Repeat/mimic dialogs. Look up grammar points

2) Remembering Simplified/Traditional Hanzi $26 (or similar). Start learning chinese characters. Goal of 1000+ characters. Don't let character acquisition slow down learning conversation; Continue to use pinyin for conversation.

3) Skritter ($15 per month). I chose Skritter because it's great for practicing writing characters, which helps to reinforce the components of a character. I found writing on a tablet transferred well to writing on paper when I needed to. I use Skritter only for practicing to identify/write individual characters. It's rather pricey for what is a very specific aspect of learning Chinese, but it's very good at what it does, and no real competitors so far.

LEVEL 3

1) OPTIONAL. Introduce a (character-only, or at least one that puts the pinyin separately from the characters) textbook now if you wish. I chose the Integrated Chinese series for iPad ($60 per level), mainly to practice reading and go over grammar points. It includes audio of dialogs/vocab, has character-only dialogs (with optional pop-up pinyin dialogs). I mainly wanted to see what I was missing by not going through a textbook.

2) Continue Chinesepod

3) Chinese Readers (Chinese Breeze, Mandarin Companion). $5-$15 per book. Reading will be your "real world SRS" for reviewing vocabulary.

4) Remembering Simplified/Traditional Hanzi 2 ($26) (if you like it). Otherwise just learn new characters as you encounter them. Goal of 3000 characters or so.

5) Continue reviewing with Skritter

LEVEL 4

I haven't got here yet, so don't know what to recommend. Probably more real-world listening, reading and mimicking. I'd probably discontinue Skritter at this point, maybe continue with upper-intermediate/advanced Chinesepod podcasts.

I'd probably go through more thorough grammar/pattern books, such as "Chinese, A comprehensive Grammar" ($70), 330 Common Chinese Patterns ($23), etc.

[Lu]

So... 99% of people who learn to native level don't start with a textbook for the first 5 years. 99+% of those who fail start with a textbook. Time to rethink your advice guys.

Over 99% of all drug abusers start out drinking milk. Don't feed your children milk!