Learning Mandarin

[One Finger Zen]

What's this business about staying away from Chou Doufu?? I love the stuff! It smells pretty bad ( a kind of horse manure type smell) before its cooked but its great afterwards, especially accompanied by its good friend, Pao Cai (Kim Chee) .

Anyway, Bohitree, I've seen you on zhongwen.com plenty of times and I'm sure I know you (vaguely).

Also, a good way to learn a language faster, is to watch TV completely in that language! It works wonders! Except for HBO etc etc all the channels here in Taipei are in chinese or taiwanese or hakka (with the odd one or two being in japanese with chinese subs). I find that it really builds up the vocabulary! The great thing is, they're pretty fond of old gongfu movies here! So most of the time you can find the good old wuda pian on 'Dianying Tai' or Film Channel. Zhou Xing Chi (Stephen Chow) also has a lot of movies here and I find that sometimes if you switch channels, about 3 different Stephen Chow films are on 3 different channels!

So, anyone have any good methods for learning chinese/characters?

Peace

One Finger Zen

[bodhitree]

ni zai zhongwen.com yong shen me mingzi? Wo yong shangban, jin, haishi scott.

[One Finger Zen]

Wo jiao hen duo bu tong de mingzi, yinwei zai nali changchang you ren maochong bie ren. zhen de hen mafan. Zuijin wo mei you shang zhongwen.com

Anyway, anyone had any other sucessful methods except the previously mentioned?

Peace and Love

OFZ

[Justaguy]

Wo jiao hen duo bu tong de mingzi, yinwei zai nali changchang you ren maochong bie ren. zhen de hen mafan. Zuijin wo mei you shang zhongwen.com

Anyway, anyone had any other sucessful methods except the previously mentioned?

Peace and Love

OFZ

Flash cards. I go through them on the subway on my way to work, on the elevator, whenever I have a minute to run through vocab.

[One Finger Zen]

Nice, I'm liking the sounds of that (stolen!)

I think when I get home, although I do know the names of most appliances in the home, I think I'm gonna start using post it notes and stickin 'em on all of the stuff I don't know the name of. Then, when it comes to using that certain thing, I'll see the note and read it out loud.

Peace and Love

OFZ

[cjurakpt]

I attended the Chan Tai San school of Chinese languge immersion: it involves an irrate 70-something year-old sifu calling you up at 2 AM and yelling something incoherent in toisanwa until you manage to convince him that you understand what he wants...

there are other graduates of this remarkable program on the forum as well...

this book was, at times, a lifesaver...a real gem, IMHO: I've worn through about 3 layers of scotch tape on the cover/spine by now...
http://www.amazon.com/Read-Write-Chi.../dp/0941340112

[bodhitree]

www.learnezchinese.com


a good place for a community of those interested in learning.

[GeneChing]

www.sexymandarin.com

[rett]

For Mandarin I believe Pimsleur is extremely good at first for your pronunciation and for drilling some basic grammar patterns into habit. However all three levels still won't actually get you very far.

The best online resource I know of is http://chinesepod.com/
This focuses on the current spoken language of mainland China. Very up to date and idiomatic.

[wenshu]

Textbooks like Pimsluer are horrible; might as well not study anything in the first place.

Chinese Pod isn't very good either, not enough content because too much of the podcast is wasted with banter between the hosts and oftentimes the topics and vocabulary are just irrelevant and not very useful (common).

http://www.fluentu.com/

http://lingomi.com/blog/2011/03/prac...chinese-tones/

[Orion Paximus]

www.sexymandarin.com

lol wow.

Here is what I used and recommend.

http://www.speakmandarin.com/

[ghostexorcist]

I learned Mandarin at university for roughly 3 years. I got A's in all of my classes, but I still felt my skills were not that great. I wrote and read much better than I spoke. I think my teachers were just humoring me when they said I spoke good. I never got much speaking practice because I lived so far from campus (45 minutes) and didn't have access to any large Chinese communities. I applied for several overseas scholarships in order to study in China, but I didn't win any of them. I knew my skills would never progress to a level needed for grad school, so I changed my major. I may use some of these programs to keep my skills up since I'm still interested in the language.

[rett]

Textbooks like Pimsluer are horrible; might as well not study anything in the first place.

Chinese Pod isn't very good either, not enough content because too much of the podcast is wasted with banter between the hosts and oftentimes the topics and vocabulary are just irrelevant and not very useful (common).

Pimsleur isn't a "textbook" it's a series of 30 minute audio file lessons.

It is extremely useful for learning the tones and learning basic vocab and grammar patterns. The Pimsleur method makes stuff stick. It is known for really getting people over a basic hurdle with speaking ability.

Chinese pod is about much more than just the podcasts. The dialogue sections and expansion sentences are an excellent resource for learning realistic spoken chinese. You can also use them for learning the characters, even if written language is not the focus of the site. CP also has a friendly and helpful community. You can get answers to pretty much any language question quickly.

As for the topics and vocabulary being "irrelevant" that is a rather silly comment. I'm mean sure, they're a bit caught up in the whole modern Shanghai trip, and seem to pretend rural China and older cultural values don't exist. But they do provide a very good foundation for realistic communication. Chinese pod is focussed on very up to date spoken mandarin. Many other courses give outdated phrases and expressions. For example it could be embarrassing if you call a waitress or other young woman 小姐, even though this is taught in most courses.

The "banter" is very good, especially at intermediate lessons and above. You hear the Chinese host discuss language issues and talk about the day’s lesson in Chinese and it's echoed in English by John. It is extremely stimulating.

In any case if you are living at a kung fu school where they don't know English you need above all ordinary day-to-day communication. You don't need deep Taoist philosophical vocabulary or stuff like that. Chinese pod helps a lot with the language of everday interaction.

If you already have a handle on day-to-day communication then you can pick up the special Kung Fu vocabulary easily from your coaches and teacher.

[wenshu]

The "banter" is very good, especially at intermediate lessons and above. You hear the Chinese host discuss language issues and talk about the day’s lesson in Chinese and it's echoed in English by John.

The banter between the hosts, which takes up half of the podcast, would be fine if it was in Mandarin and not English. It's not called English Pod.

It is extremely stimulating.

We all already knew that you are too easily stimulated.

In any case if you are living at a kung fu school where they don't know English you need above all ordinary day-to-day communication. You don't need deep Taoist philosophical vocabulary or stuff like that. Chinese pod helps a lot with the language of everday interaction.

If you already have a handle on day-to-day communication then you can pick up the special Kung Fu vocabulary easily from your coaches and teacher.

What does that have to do with my argument against Chinese Pod, other than that I think Chinese Pod does a piss poor job of teaching ordinary day to day communication in the first place.

I stand by my criticism of Chinese Pod. It's highly overrated and not very useful for intermediate language acquisition at all.

[ShaolinDiva]

I think Wenshu 's Chinese is pretty good and he ain't even Chinese. His mandarin is better than mine and i'm chinese. but i speak Canto and my tones are all jacked up .