Awesome Mandarin! Must listen!

[wannabeafreak]

.

[self-taught-mba]

Listened to the first 5 minutes.

Up thru his regrets of Pimsleur. Listen more later. . .maybe.

Now my opinion:

I know I'm going to get flamed really bad for this but here goes (I'm no stranger to controversy on the board anyway). I'm really not all that impressed. His pronunciation is pretty good, his intonation is fairly decent, but he still obviously has a foreign accent. I'm pretty busy and I must admit conversation is little boring and wasn't very complicated.

He's done what a lot of self-study people did: got some help with the beginning pronunciation, grabbed some tapes and watched some TV.

I think he discounts the benefit of Pimsleur although I have several major beefs with them also. (another thread in the planning)

In fact, he did a lot of what I've done and I think my level was comparable to his before coming to China. Am I bragging or trying to –no. I've mentioned elsewhere that I've met many self-taught people who were at a level that many would-be surprised at. Why do they make progess so quickly? part is motivation but a large part I proffer is do to the focus on needful things first.

I am impressed with his resolve to study on his own and the same with anyone, but not so much with the outcome which I've seen with other self-taught people. (I didn't listen to his English) I'm more impressed with him learning to speak three languages (at once?) and that says something (especially learning the mess that is English!).

I'm just saying that there's absolutely no reason why each and every single student of Chinese cannot reach that level in the same amount of time. I've met people who spent three years in college courses of Chinese and are not nearly at that level.

And then I meet the self-taught people who come here and just run circles around them. So not criticizing him by any means I'm just saying that this outcome is not special or extraordinary. Unfortunately, not everyone is able to self-study on their own. One has to weed through myriads of worthless information before you find useful tools and methods. In some people never do find the right way, and some of us get lucky. But you've also heard the rant about the current situation about teaching Chinese. I'm just saying there's absolute no excuse why students coming out of the new American college course shouldn't be at the same level or higher.

So yes, take this man is an example of what to do. Hopefully institutions will begin to copy it too. I'm not trying to bring him down or his accomplishment; I'm just trying to say that this accomplishment is well within reach for each and every one of us.

Don't think that it's not possible for the average person—it is. JIA1 YOU2!!

[geraldc]

I'm more impressed by the interviewer, but I guess if you're a diplomat you get paid to learn languages and talk to people

[wushijiao]

I think they are both pretty good, especially in light of the fact that they are learning outside of China. I agree with self-taught-mba that self-taught people are often more efficient at the beginning stages. But, most successful self-taught people, like these guys, are already multilingual, and thus know how to study languages. But many monolingual English speakers simply don’t know what they need to do, unfortunately.

[ange9s]

I would think taking classes is more efficient than self-study, since you don't always design your own curriculum around fundamentals. That doesn't mean someone in a university class will always learn the language better, though; when taking language classes in college, I wasn't usually too concerned about how well I learned the language as long as I got a good grade. His mandarin was okay, I think that's about the speaking level you should be aiming for after two years of study.

[Lugubert]

Max being a Swede, I'm not surprised. I'ts for example not at all unusual to find people around here who are sufficiently fluent in English and German. My youngest sister, who has had only 9 years of formal schooling, manages English, German, French, and Spanish.

Besides those languages, which I manage, I'm pretty fluent in Dutch, but have had only one year of Chinese and one semester plus of Hindi, so I can't express myself very well in those languages, and understand very little of them when spoken. Judging from my progress so far, if I were to concentrate on Chinese, and found a conversation partner, I would be able to keep up a simple conversation in a year or less. For several reasons, however, I'm going to concentrate on Hindi in the autumn, and don't doubt for a moment that I will be fairly proficient by next spring.

My major problem in learning is that by my advanced age, I've lost most of any in-born mechanisms, so I have to use what methods and experiences I might have acquired through studying lots of languages at elementary university levels. For example, when I in my 20's worked in Amsterdam, I picked up Dutch from scratch to a fair fluency in 1.5 months. When younger still, I couldn't even avoid learning foreign words. Having noticed them, they just stuck. Would that I had been more intent on learning other languages than those required in school in those days!

It's perhaps interesting, at least to me, that I have studied languages from widely different language families (Hindi, Chinese, Arabic...), and I work as a full-time translator (nowadays practically only medical texts from Germanic languages into Swedish), and I still don't understand how I work or what happens when I'm learning languages or translate.

[mind_wander]

I kinda self-study, almost the same way like max, he isn't that bad for a foreigner, very close and sounds like me. I have alittle chinese mandarin, then mix it with English at the same time.

[bomaci]

Ok I guess I should come out of the woodwoork. The person interviewed is me.

I know I'm going to get flamed really bad for this but here goes (I'm no stranger to controversy on the board anyway). I'm really not all that impressed. His pronunciation is pretty good, his intonation is fairly decent, but he still obviously has a foreign accent. I'm pretty busy and I must admit conversation is little boring and wasn't very complicated.

Yeah I know I missed some tones. But I'm confident that if I 继续努力 I should get them straightened out. 大山 is safe for the time being .

I think he discounts the benefit of Pimsleur although I have several major beefs with them also. (another thread in the planning)

Maybe I am discounting the benefits, but I think Pimsleur falls very short when it comes to vocabulary. At first I felt that it didn't matter as long as I got the tones and the grammar down. However I have now discovered that vocabulary is tremendously important in mandarin. For me it is the hardest part of the language, because it is a problem that will always be there. You will always have to learn new words so the sooner you get started the better. Pimsleur spends too much time to only teach you 500 words. Furthermore some people claim that having done Pimsleur you will have perfect pronounciation. Obviously this is not so. I can repeat all the Pimsleur sentences perfectly, but I am still not tone perfect in conversation.

In fact, he did a lot of what I've done and I think my level was comparable to his before coming to China. Am I bragging or trying to –no. I've mentioned elsewhere that I've met many self-taught people who were at a level that many would-be surprised at. Why do they make progess so quickly? part is motivation but a large part I proffer is do to the focus on needful things first.

I am absolutely sure there are people who have come a lot further than me in the same amount time. I work full time so can only study chinese in my spare time. I'm sure someone who studies fulltime and used efficient methods would come alot further than I have in the same amount of time.

[mind_wander]

bomaci,

When I listened to the interview, I heard alot of "na ge" alot. I just curious what kinds of chinese tv series do you watched when you were using it as a learn tool. I do the same!

[bomaci]

When I listened to the interview, I heard alot of "na ge" alot. I just curious what kinds of chinese tv series do you watched when you were using it as a learn tool. I do the same!

I think my overusage of "na ge" is more due to lack of vocabulary than anything else:(

Anyway the TV series I'm learning from is 我爱我家. From what I have heard it was the first sitcom ever aired in china.

[mind_wander]

hmm, interesting the type of chinese tv series: Return of the Condor Hero 83', Xiao ao Jiang Hu 01', Tian long ba bu 03', Shen Diao Ying Xiong Zhuang 02', Crouching tiger hidden dragon (series version), Pawnshop No.8 (reality sitcom), etc. Also, wuxia, but love the philosophy inputed in the storylines. Many old terms used, but I reused some of them analogies translating into modern used Chinese conversations.

[L-F-J]

I've recently watched the TV show "Sound of Colors". 地下铁 in Chinese. I thought it was a great story. By the end it should make you cry even if you're a dude. If not then I'm just a girlie man. But really, it was a good show and good practice as always. That's what I started watching it for- listening practice. It turned out pretty good. It's about a blind girl with a radio show and her new artist boyfriend and their story.

bomaci- How the heck do you improve your vocabulary?? I realize that's the biggest problem there is in Mandarin. Especially since there aren't too many different sounds to learn. You just have to learn the vocabulary compounds. Anyway, what do you find is the best way to increase vocabulary? I mean, watching movies is great and you can look some stuff up if you miss it. But you can't always do that. There must be a good study technique to nail down some good vocab. Your views are appreciated!

[mind_wander]

Actually, the most recent a chinese tv series make a cry was "Tian Long Ba Bu 03'.", I think alot of guys do agree on this scene when the hero realized that his act of revenge, in the end caused the hero to killed his lover Ah zhu. Ah Zhu's sacrifice was really big, it sux when the story kill of a good character, it sure make you cry and pissed at the same time.

[bomaci]

bomaci- How the heck do you improve your vocabulary?? I realize that's the biggest problem there is in Mandarin. Especially since there aren't too many different sounds to learn. You just have to learn the vocabulary compounds. Anyway, what do you find is the best way to increase vocabulary? I mean, watching movies is great and you can look some stuff up if you miss it. But you can't always do that. There must be a good study technique to nail down some good vocab. Your views are appreciated!

My basic technique is to use language learning material where I have access to both audio and e-text, be it audio books, movies with scripts or (for the time being) TV series with scripts. I will then take the audio and divide into segements of about 4 minutes each. Every day I study one of these segments by listening to the audio over and over and reading the corresponding text with the software dictionary Wenlin. In my view working with small segements is more efficient than watching an entire movie.

[L-F-J]

I agree. If I watch a whole movie I'll learn some new things but even if I watch it for listening practice, I end up getting into the movie anyway. So I guess it's better to go back after watching it once through and work with the vocab and sentence structure as you suggested. Actually, I've heard of others using the method but I've never done it myself. I shall start that! Thanks for your advice.

[L-F-J]

By the way, do you have links to what you study with online? I've found TV shows online before as well as some movies and they have the subtitles but it takes way too long to try and look up the words I don't know. Transcripts would be good, something easily copied on the computer. If you have any links you can share, post them on! Thanks.

[bomaci]

This site: www.3xia.com, is a goldmine for the TV series 我爱我家. It has all the scripts for the entire series and you can listen to the audio online.

[necroflux]

I have to disagree with self-taught-mba, whose very name implies a certain degree of pomposity (had to say it, I think that every time I read it lol), in saying that bomaci's speech for 2 years of study is pretty damn impressive. I've been learning for about the same amount of time and his grammar knowledge and sheer ability to speak the language is far above mine, especially considering his never having lived in China. Then again neither have I, but I do live with a Chinese speaker. I also would like to know if you had any language partners bomaci? How often did you speak with your Chinese coworker? If you have developed that speaking skill solely from self study I would be blown away.

[self-taught-mba]

when taking language classes in college, I wasn't usually too concerned about how well I learned the language as long as I got a good grade.

You allude to a situation in which there is not a strong correlation between the language learned and what is taught and tested. This is my problem with the system, and why I think self-study do best. Although you are definitely right is very difficult put together a self-study program, and it is not for everyone.

[self-taught-mba]

Yeah I know I missed some tones. But I'm confident that if I 继续努力 I should get them straightened out. 大山 is safe for the time being .

Don't worry I wasn't knocking you you aren't bad at all-I just want to encourage people that they can do the same thing. And thank you so much for sharing those resources.

Re: Pimsleur, I'll try to be brief because I have a half written post/article about it. Many people think Pimsleur is very good. I tend to agree. However I completely agree with your sentiments regarding vocabulary. However, I believe that vocabulary can be learned on one's own outside of the classroom/material and (in most cases). What Pimsleur is good at is helping people to get the word order and some of the grammatical things down in a way that they don't have to think about them. Secondly, it's very scientifically based. Graduated recall interval is a very effective method to get things into long-term memory quickly (I tried to build it into my own program). This way Pimsleur helps people build good habits early. Many people these Pimsleur with good success I think this is why. However I have many small problems that I will outline in the future in another post (I hope).

Furthermore some people claim that having done Pimsleur you will have perfect pronounciation. Obviously this is not so. I can repeat all the Pimsleur sentences perfectly, but I am still not tone perfect in conversation.

Many people like to differentiate between pronunciation and tones. I am one of them. your pronunciation is fairly good, and I think Pimsleur does a good job reinforcing that at the beginning before people pick up bad habits.

I am absolutely sure there are people who have come a lot further than me in the same amount time. I work full time so can only study chinese in my spare time.

Like I said, I'm not knocking your progress. In fact I like your last sentence:

I'm sure someone who studies fulltime and used efficient methods would come alot further than I have in the same amount of time.

I hope people take time to think about this. And realize that each and everyone of us should be able to do the same thing. Please continue to give some of your advice and resources about how you went about doing it; you are a success story that should be shared.