Can I learn Oral Chinese without learning the characters?

[Jing Xi]

I am hoping I can find some sftware that only requires me to learn pin-yin and be able to speak semi-fluently within six months. Is this possible?

[GotJack]

I sort of did this. Your most likely going to get some nay-sayers who say its an in-proper way, and there will be some humps in the road when you do finally start with charachters, but I am glad i did it this way.  Also I've heard that this is the way Chinese children are taught, they gain a foundation in speaking/listening before attempting anything to do with characters (not sure if true though).

 

Anyhow Rosetta Stone is the easiest answer to your question, you can chose pinyin, pinyin + characters or just characters. In addition to this you could get a personal tutor, and just say what you want. Finally the majority of beginner text books have pinyin + characters and its quite easy just to ignore the hanzi.

 

As for semi fluency in 6 months, it depends how you define fluency, but I would suggest highly unlikely. 

[Geiko]

There's this online course called 8 belts ( http://www.8belts.com/ ) that claims you will speak Chinese in eight months. It doesn't teach characters at all. It's aimed at Spanish speakers, though.

I would recommend this approach only to people who don't want to learn Chinese but must reach a survival speaking level in a short amount of time. If you want to be fluent, or really learn the language, I wouldn't do it.

[LiMo]

Children everywhere learn to speak before they can read and write. I think with a lot of dedication it is definitely possible to reach limited conversational fluency in 6 months but I think only with a tutor and with many lessons a week. A native speaker is basically indispensable because you don't want to develop any bad habits in these early stages that will be very hard to overcome at a later date. At the very least look for a language partner, www.italki.com is a good place to look for a tutor and/or a language partner.

I agree with Geiko that if you are looking to master the language one day then learning characters from the start is probably a better idea, it helps in the long run and true mastery takes so long that 5-6 months of delay learning characters at the same time is negligible, however, if you aren't then I agree that there's no point learning them now. You may come across people telling you not to pay attention to the tones and just focus on speaking, in conversation this is basically good advice, in order to develop speaking you have to sacrifice tonal and grammatical accuracy a bit. BUT, in your private study and with tutors it is essential to remember that tones are, for lack of a better word, essential to Chinese. You can get by as a tourist by ignoring them but if you are aiming for something better then you simply cannot do without them.

 

My advice:

One-to-one tuition (gold standard)

language partner (silver, not bad but you have to be willing to share and share alike)

Rosetta stone and other software methods (bronze, still good and useful for quick practise in your spare time but not likely to reach your goal with these alone)

 

This all depends on the money you have to spare, a combination of methods is best. Remember that a little bit every day is better than a lot in one sitting. 

 

Good luck!

[aone]

If you have super memory

[Bad Cao Cao]

ok.. sick and tired of hearing "learning characters from the start is probably a better idea".

 

Seriously?

 

Just put your opinions aside for 1 second, and go and have a look at the actual studies.

 

No characters (just pinyin) for the first 6 months, is a *very* reasonable approach and very well supported by studies.

 

The biggest problem OP will face is that - asking the internet - will give a lot of opinions - but very little in the way of actual studies or facts.

 

Consider first, a word from Victor Mair, Professor of Chinese Language and Literature, in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, at the University of Pennsylvania: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=10554

 

"If I were the czar or god of Chinese and Japanese language pedagogy, I would not teach students a single Chinese character until they were relatively fluent — about two years. I've always said that we should learn languages the way babies do; they learn to speak long before they learn to write.

...Jerry Packard published a relevant study in 1990:

Jerome L. Packard, "Effects of Time Lag in the Introduction of Characters into the Chinese Language Curriculum," The Modern Language Journal, 74.2 (1990), 167-175.

 

Packard found that the time lag of delayed character introduction improved students' ability to discriminate Chinese sounds, and improved their fluency.

 

Also consider the largest study ever undertaken relevant to this question: John S. Rohsenow's, “The ‘Z.T.’ Experiment in the PRC,” Journal of the Chinese Language Teachers Association. 31, 3 (1996): 33-44).

 

“Under this innovative pedagogical program, Chinese children [and adult illiterates] are taught to read and write standard Mandarin Chinese using [the] Hanyu Pinyin [alphabet] in addition to Chinese characters for the *first two years* of their education. 

In contrast to the standard curriculum, under which [students] are only taught [the] Hanyu Pinyin [alphabet] for the first two *months* purely as a phonetic notational device for the pronunciation of Chinese characters, under the ``ZhuTi'' experimental curriculum, children [and other beginning learners] are encouraged to develop their reading and writing skills in standard Mandarin Chinese using [the] Hanyu Pinyin [alphabet] for the first two *years*. 

The [beginning learners] are thus not hampered in their reading and writing development by knowing only a limited number of Chinese characters; within a few weeks they are able to read and write (phonetically) anything that they can say. After more than [fifteen] years [and over 2 million students], results show that the majority of students taught using this [``Z.T.''] method learn to read and write *using Chinese characters* faster and at a higher level than most students who are taught by more traditional methods.”

 

Personally speaking, there is not much I can add that Victor Mair hasn't thought about over the last 50 years. However, I would make a somewhat controversial point: not only are characters (alone) a setback to early learning (and not really used by native speakers, in this manner, for the first 2-6 years) -- characters are not even necessary. The vast majority of all writing is done using pinyin input, and pinyin over hanzi electronic readers mean that characters for reading is not necessary. Even the tired arguments of how do you read street signs, or the newspaper, or menus, are now completely obsolete. OCR, e-maps, electronic news and the fact that even when you know all the characters in menus the dish is still not fully clear even to native speakers, means: this tired fallacy is now well and truly dead. Books? I've read more Chinese books than you can poke a stick at, all electronic. 

 

Don't get me wrong - learning the characters has benefits, and if you learn with methods like pinyin over hanzi, you will learn lots of characters - quicker and better than any other method studied. It is just that the "traditional" methods of learning Chinese, particularly for non-natives...well... they don't work so well (and not even native speakers learn characters straight off the bat).

 

The science, studies and results of millions of learners points to a much better approach.

 

So what should a beginner do?

 

Get massive input. 20,000 sentences, in dialogue form. Listen a lot. Like an insane amount of listening. All Chinese natives learn this way. After a while, read what you are listening to using pinyin over hanzi, but focus mostly on the pinyin. After a few months learn correct pronunciation. Then go completely nuts and listen to other random advice. If you really do this you will be far ahead of semi-fluent by 6 months. 

[renzhe]

That's the oldest question in the book, and also the most controversial one in any Chinese-learning community (outside of political bickering).

My answer is: yes, it is possible to reach some sort of conversational level without learning characters, but fluency is an elusive concept. Some online polyglots got to a B1 level in about 5 months (minimal character learning), which is a reasonable achievement. If you are not really after a good, deep understanding of Chinese and are only after simple conversations (ordering food, basic chit-chat as a tourist and the like), then this might be the right thing to do.

It is also my opinion (and experience) that learning characters is a much faster method for learning Chinese if you are aiming for anything but the most basic skills. After you pick all the low-hanging fruit (and there isn't much of it), you will hit a wall and it will be near-impossible to navigate all the near-homophones and nuances using pinyin alone. By avoiding the characters, you are avoiding one difficult aspect of the language, but the price is an increased confusion in your brain, which will stop being efficient as soon as your vocabulary passes a few hundred words.

People will say: but children, but illiterate natives, but blind people, and all that. My answer to that is: in 15-odd years of exploring the Chinese language and culture, I have met hundreds of adults learning Chinese. Without exception: those who spoke good Chinese were avid readers with great knowledge of characters, and those who spent years with innovative learning methods on how to avoid characters had elementary Chinese at best and stopped progressing shortly after beginning.

The major reason, in my opinion, is that people who go where it hurts and do the unpleasant work tend to be more successful in general than people who look for shortcuts, and this is especially true for Chinese.

[Flickserve]

Yes. Agree you can learn semi conversational mandarin in six months. As said, just do an insane amount of listening, speaking and communicating

 

I listen to chinese radio for 30-60 minutes a day and lessons for six months. I was struggling a bit. After visiting China for 4 days and practically everything around was in Mandarin, my next lesson was a lot better and my fluency had improved much better. Funny thing was, during that trip I didn't actually speak that much but paid much more attention to use of the language around me. Didn't even pay much attention to the characters on the signs around me.

 

I am rather doubtful of whether a software package can actually provide that sort of environment to that goal. YMMV

[renzhe]

Just put your opinions aside for 1 second, and go and have a look at the actual studies.

I will believe it when I actually meet somebody who managed this.

I agree with you that you don't have to start characters in the first second of starting with Chinese. Pinyin, basic listening and tone drills are much much more important early on. But after a few months (6 if you wish), you should be thinking about learning characters. You'll have to do it sooner or later unless your goal is to be illiterate.

I try to be careful with general statements about language learning, because everyone learns differently, but I'm a reasonably successful language learner, and the "learning without characters", "talk to native speakers a lot", "pinyin is enough, characters and tones are not necessary" ideas took years of my life away, years I will never get back. The moment I started learning characters, my language skills started improved exponentially. Now, I look back at my pinyin scribbles from 15 years ago, and I wonder "what was I thinking?"

^ Upvoting Bad Cao Cao not because I necessarily agree with the conclusions, but because the studies are interesting and informative.

Yes, I did the same. Good sources are always welcome.

[Demonic_Duck]

^ Upvoting Bad Cao Cao not because I necessarily agree with the conclusions, but because the studies are interesting and informative.

 

I think what you have to bear in mind is that what may be true in an idealised world isn't necessarily going to be the case in practice. Yes, in an ideal world, (or at least ideal for the learner hoping for quick results,) there would be massive amounts of high-quality learning material available with only pinyin, and they would provide for learning up to a high level of spoken Chinese. Unfortunately, this isn't the case. Typically, learning materials above bare-bones survival level which will teach you via pinyin alone are very thin on the ground. So, if only for this reason and no other, pinyin is unlikely to get you very far beyond that bare-bones survival level (unless you also have a great tutor who is willing to help you out and spend lots of their time creating/adapting their own materials).

 

If anyone knows of counter-examples (i.e. good quality, high-level learning materials which only use pinyin), I'd be very interested to hear.

[Xiao Kui]

It is also my opinion (and experience) that learning characters is a much faster method for learning Chinese if you are aiming for anything but the most basic skills. After you pick all the low-hanging fruit (and there isn't much of it), you will hit a wall and it will be near-impossible to navigate all the near-homophones and nuances using pinyin alone. By avoiding the characters, you are avoiding one difficult aspect of the language, but the price is an increased confusion in your brain, which will stop being efficient as soon as your vocabulary passes a few hundred words.

 

I agree with this.  I have many friends who were conversational after living 1-2 years in China, but their Chinese plateaued early due to their illiteracy.  I would argue that illiteracy also limits one's understanding of Chinese culture, whereas literacy is a ticket to "eavesdrop" on what Chinese really think of themselves and the outside world. Written works tend to assume a Chinese audience, and Chinese share with each other what they would not share with Westerners. 

 

As far as homophones are concerned, just type "shi" or "ji" into an IME and see how many options you get!

[889]

I'd also vote for starting character study sooner not later.

 

Some reasons not mentioned above:

 

• Reading is an important and efficient way to broaden and reinforce your Chinese. Normal conversation only covers so much ground.

 

• It stokes your interest in Chinese and manifests your commitment to the language. Memorizing Pinyin lists of vocabulary can hold your attention only so long.

 

• Study Pinyin-only for two years and no matter how well you master characters later, you'll always "see" Pinyin when you speak.

 

• If you don't start learning characters when you're blush with initial enthusiasm for Chinese, you'll probably never do so. It'll become some well-intentioned goal you'll never quite get around to.

[Flickserve]

The OP only stated a six month objective. Why are people talking about two years?

[wushucrab20]

I studied Chinese for about six months before starting to learn any characters and everything worked out fine. It actually made it really easy to learn the Characters in dialogues and such because I already had knowledge of the grammar and words, I just needed to correlate them with a Chinese character. I used a book called, Basic Spoken Chinese. It is entirely in Pinyin and the dialogues are very fast and natural compared (there are slowed down versions and even break downs of each dialogue too) to any other beginner text I have ever encountered. They also introduce many different accents from the very beginning, so it is excellent for listening comprehension when starting out. I would highly recommend it.

[Shelley]

The simple answer to your question is Rosetta Stone and lots of practicing, the complex answer is what everyone has already said.

 

You (the OP) have not said why this is what you want to do. Are you going to need to speak semi-fluent Chinese in 6 months for a short amount of time ( eg: a few weeks) and then never use Chinese again or is this the start of learning Chinese long term.

 

if it is the former then go with Rosetta Stone and lots of listening and speaking.

 

If it is the latter then i would suggest characters from the start, the argument that Chinese children don't learn characters till they are 5 or 6 doesn't really apply because you are not a Chinese child. You are an adult with the learning ability to take on characters from the start. Learning characters helps differentiate the homophones and can be a good aide de memoir.

 

 

 

 

 

[Angelina]

I agree with this.  I have many friends who were conversational after living 1-2 years in China, but their Chinese plateaued early due to their illiteracy. 

 

Definitely. 

 

You should focus on the spoken language and pinyin, I completely agree with what Bad Cao Cao said. However, unfortunately, the largest percentage of written Chinese is written down in Chinese characters. If you don't learn any characters, you will be illiterate and your vocabulary will be limited. 

 

You have six months, learn spoken Chinese, learn how to read and write Chinese using pinyin, learn how to recognize basic characters without spending that much time on it, and learn how to type using a pinyin-based input method. Don't forget the tones! 

[roddy]

How come no suggestions of Pimsleur? I know it's limited, but for someone starting from scratch and wanting to avoid characters it's a useful addition, no?

[querido]

If Pimsleur then Glossika to continue. Edit: Cram as much as you can in six months. The vocabulary is very practical.

[renzhe]

Yeah, Glossika is another good option. Pimsleur is OK as an introduction and pronunciation practice, but really really basic.

[Altair]

This thread presents a number of distinct issues that are perhaps best treated distinctly:

 

1.  Is semi-fluency possible with 6 months of learning?

 

2.  Does ignoring characters give the highest chance of success at that goal?

 

3.  Would ignoring characters significantly harm the chances of going beyond semi-fluency?

 

4.  Is delaying character learning the best or at least an acceptable method of mastering a generally functional level of Chinese?

 

My answers are:

 

1.  Is semi-fluency possible with 6 months of learning?

 

Different people would have widely different definitions of "semi-fluency."  Getting to a minimal conversational level within 6 months is unlikely for most learners, but not impossible.  The chances of success depend heavily on motivation, previous language background, method of study, and intensity of study.  If all these are highly favorable, then the chances, in my view, would change to likely success, but still not guaranteed.

 

2.  Would ignoring characters give the highest chance of success at that goal?

 

I believe this is clearly true.  In the short run, learning characters will definitely slow anyone down a lot.  Reservations I would have about expressing that opinion would be around whether the price of such a strategy would be worth it in the long run.  The correct answer would depend on the OP's precise goals for learning Chinese in 6 months and any goals he or she would have for Chinese thereafter.  It is a simple tradeoff.

 

Ignoring characters is a distinct advantage at the beginning level, but becomes an even more distinct disadvantage starting at least by the advanced intermediate level.

 

The advantages stem from not being overwhelmed with too many things to learn all at once.  The primary disadvantages stem from limitations on good sources of learning materials and the eventual blow to your motivation in having to relearn how to read and write after feeling you have already learned to do this using pinyin.

 

Ignoring characters for a distinct period may also help you to internalize the false impression that pinyin is in wide use among Chinese speakers for general purposes and that using it will be readily accepted outside the limited sphere of language instruction and/or computer and cellphone input.  Even where it is used, it is often used incorrectly, without tones or proper word-spacing, or with various shortcuts.  It will also help internalize the false impression that learning characters is somehow a uniquely difficult aspect of language learning and a nearly impossible hill to climb for non-Chinese.

 

Note that even on this very learning site, pinyin use is not discouraged, but is nonetheless not commonly used to write anything beyond the level of phrases or in answer to questions from beginners.  Even then, most posters add characters or quickly replace the pinyin with characters.  There are workarounds to dealing with characters, but too much effort in that direction is better directed at simply learning to write Chinese in the way that all serious users of the language write it.  Imagine an English-language site in which everyone frequently wrote English in a phonetic alphabet, or used a foreign scrip to avoid dealing with all those pesky English spelling conventions and punctuation.

 

English-speaking learners of Chinese used to frequently ask this question in reverse.  Scholars wanted to learn to read Chinese, but did not want to bother learning all those seemingly impossible tones.  There used to be foreign scholars in Chinese who just couldn't get up the motivation to learning how to speak or even pronounce it, once they had mastered the basics of the written language.

 

3.  Would ignoring characters for six months significantly harm the chances of going beyond semi-fluency?

 

I believe the answer to this is no.  Six months would probably not make a big difference one way or the other, unless, perversely, you actually happen to be successful in reaching a practical level of fluency.  At that point, your motivation to go back to basics and learn characters will probably be very low and limit your further progress.  If you had never learned to spell in English, but had reached a level of minimal oral mastery, would you easily be able to return to all the minutiae of the crazy spelling rules English has?  Or would you simply avoid having to write grocery lists, sending emails, reading business cards, accessing train schedules, or doing anything that involved even minimal precision on the internet.

 

4.  Is delaying character learning the best or at least an acceptable method of mastering a generally functional level of Chinese?

 

By "generally functional level of Chinese," I mean a level that allows you to function with native speakers in the general areas of social life relevant to your situation without a lot of blank stares.

 

The big question is how much of a delay in character learning is acceptable or recommendable?  I am of the view that character learning should be delayed until after basic mastery of pronunciation fundamentals, but before mastery of grammar fundamentals: that is, probably some time after learning at least about 30 words of vocabulary, but sometime before learning about 300.  Where exactly you should be in that range depends on the learning method and the specifics of the material.  For me, it is a question of knowing when to bite the bullet and begin learning.  If you wait until you clearly feel the need to read and write characters, it is already probably somewhat late to begin.

 

As others have stated, characters eventually provide important help in acquiring and maintaining vocabulary and in giving access to a variety of learning materials and native content.  I find analogies to how children or Chinese children learn to be quite misleading and rarely appropriate for adult foreign language learners.