What would you do differently if you were starting to learn Chinese again?

[myann23]

Leosmith - I recently realized I should have learned Pinyin before doing Pimsleur, and I'm on unit 27, so I'll just finish the set before diving into Pinyin and possibly relearning some words.

How efficiently can you use what you've learned in Level 1? I don't think it's too much material for conversation, only brief simple topics with a few sentences, so I wouldn't say I'm efficient yet. Hopefully when I learn new words and sentence structures, I can employ the material better when it all connects.

Pimsleur does seem slow though...especially when I have other learning programs available. I'm going to be doing Assimil simultaneously with Pimsleur Level 2 starting at the end of the month. Some people on these boards said I should just ditch Pimsleur and go with FSI because Pimsleur is too slow... I don't doubt what they are saying, I just want to finish the damn thing for the sake of completion and accomplishment.

[leosmith]

I know the material well, but as you note, it's not nearly enough for normal converataion. When I finish with Pimsleur 3 I'll have enough grammar for basic conversation, excellent pronunciation, but only 500 vocab words.

Vocab needs to get up to 2500 or so for normal conversation. I'll get a tutor for conversation only, and study vocab lists using mnemonics and supermemo to reach 2500 in 3 months or so. After that it'll be time to work my way through a text book series.

Switch from Pimsleur to FSI? I dunno, I hear FSI is even longer than Pimsleur (can someone confirm?). Pimsleur is very intense for me; I don't think I could handle an even longer program.

I agree that you should be learning pinyin. But I think there's no need to stop Pimsleur to learn it. Maybe instead of studying Pimsleur 2 hrs per day, you could use 30-60 min a day on pinyin and 60 min on Pimsleur. You will probably be able to get through Pimsleur faster if you are studying the written words concurrently (but not during the lesson, of course). I do Pimsleur once per day, and study the vocab in lists form for 30 min per day. I finish a lesson every 3 days, like clockwork. So I only spend 1 hr per day on Mandarin right now (I spend 3 or 4 on Japanese). If you can devote 2 hrs per day, I'm sure you can finish a Pimsleur lesson every 2 days and learn pinyin at the same time.

To begin your pinyin studies, I recommend using this site

http://lost-theory.org/chinese/phonetics/

Just play all the syllables, and try to repeat them perfectly. You won't be able to get through the whole list in 30 min, so keep track of where you end up every day. After getting through all of them a couple times, try to anticipate what the sound will be before playing them.

When you feel maybe 80% good about it, check out this site

http://www.sinosplice.com/lang/pronunciation/04/

to make sure your mouth is doing the right thing.

Go back to the first site, and practice until you feel like your mouth 80% good. For this whole routine, 30-60 minutes per day for about 2 weeks should do it. Perfection will come later. Now you should switch your pinyin studies to the Pimsleur vocab list. You should be pretty good at being able to pronounce a pinyin word. And if you hear a word that seems a little unclear, the pinyin will now clear it up. After a couple weeks of following along with the pinyin lists, you should be nearly perfect.

[Josh-J]

and study vocab lists using mnemonics and supermemo to reach 2500 in 3 months or so.

2000 words in 3 months? That sounds an awful lot, you reckon its possible? I wanna learn that fast

[myann23]

Wow, I agree. Learn 2000 vocab words in 3 months? I wish I had that learning ability.

I've downloaded ZDT because it's free. Does Supermemo offer much more that that would make it worth paying for?

[leosmith]

2000 words in 3 months? That sounds an awful lot, you reckon its possible? I wanna learn that fast

I exaggerated a little. 20 words per day, 100 days. I can do this with Japanese, and that includes reading. But keep in mind what I'm talking about for Chinese is just learning the pronunciation (how do you say xxx in Chinese?), so it should be a piece of cake. My memory is not above average. It's all in the method.

Briefly, I learn 10 words in the morning, 10 in the afternoon, and review all of them in the evening. Days 2, 3 and 4 I review them twice again. Day 5 I put them into supermemo, which is simply the best long term review tool I'm aware of.

Some notes:

1.I learn them in a simple list, one column english, one pinyin, and cover the pinyin.

2.I normally use this mnemonic technique:

http://www.linkwordlanguages.com/mandarin.htm

It's just a trick to get me to remember the word for a day or two; it disappears as soon as I have the word down. It's not meant to give an exact pronunciation of the word; it's just an anchor to aid memory. It works great for me.

3.Recall never drops below 90%, not even on day 2, after I've slept the first time. This is because I've had 2 reviews, well seperated, on day 1. I normally hit 100% by the end of day 2, and never later than the end of day 3. Day 4 is ensurance.

4. 2 short reviews are much more efficient than one long review. When I first learn, I go down the list, back up, down again, up again, down (2.5 laps). Day 1 first review, and both day 2 reviews, 2 laps. Day 3 and 4 reviews, 1 lap.

5. Every day I learn 20 new words, but review the previous 3 days (60 words). I takes somewhere between 1 and 2 hrs.

Does Supermemo offer much more that that would make it worth paying for?

I'm not sure of all ZDT has to offer, but I recommend reading up on supermemo.

http://supermemo.com/

I like to build all my own flashcards, I like to import them from an excel spreadsheet that I use for a master database, and I love the supermemo algorithm. Supermemo is tough to learn how to use (took me 30 hrs), but after one figures it out it's great.

[Josh-J]

I'll probably try to emulate what you've said then to some degree, although I do want to learn the characters as well. Thanks for the advice

[Xiao Kui]

I've been studying on and off for 9 years . . .

what i'd do differently

1. I'd have studied in BJ or somewhere in NE China instead of Kunming and Chengdu. (more chances to overhear Putonghua in everyday conversation - helps to internalize it. In areas where people speak a dialect that's pretty different from Mandarin you can engage in a conversation in Mandarin but you don't often overhear it walking down the street, sitting in a restaurant,etc.

2. I'd have studied characters less and spent more time hanging out and chatting with Chinese

3. I'd have listened to more radio programs and other strictly audio resources. I've found the radio to be a lot more effective than the TV especially for helping my pronunciation, tones, and the rhythm of my speech. The greatest improvement I ever experienced in my pronunciation was after listening to an audiobook almost every day for abt 6 weeks. Though I was out of China at the time, when I returned to the mainland my Chinese friends were amazed at the improvement in my pronunciation.

4. I'd have applied more elbow grease from the get-go. I wish I'd realized the magnitude of the task I'd set before myself, and hadn't treated learning Chinese like learning any other language - If Chinese kids spend years learning to read and write their own language, you have your work cut out for you. Many criticize the Chinese educational system, and it definitely has its drawbacks, but you may want to adopt some of those rote drills to help yourself memorize the characters (ie. writing them many times each

5. would have learned the correct stroke order from the beginning instead of relying on my "artistic instincts" Because the day will come when you'll want to have correct stroke order, and it's a pain and time consuming to go back and fix once you've learned bad habits.

would have done the same

1. memorizing 500+ characters before arriving in China - this definitely made things easier for me and made my surroundings a lot less intimidating

2. stayed with a Chinese family 3 months abt a year into my Chinese studies. This definitely helped me with the language - I would do it again if I weren't so antisocial - it'll give your language study a boost no matter where you are in the process.

[zhongguotong]

If I was to start all over again, I would try to spend more time learning the 'proper' way to say things rather than using slang all the time.

From having known a lot of other people learn Chinese, I've seen a lot who think they can leave learning tones till later, or think they'll pick it up naturally, then never get round to actualy doing so. On the other hand, I also know people who *have* picked it up naturally.

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Replaced irrelevant plug with my own. Evil Admin.

[rose~]

I really regret not buying an electronic dictionary and laptop sooner.

I was totally poor as a University student, and had neither, so I used to pore over the Oxford Chinese Dictionary for hours, often not finding the right character at all (that dictionary does not include a lot of proper nouns and has several errors). I remeber one particular incident at the very beginning spending hours on a simple assignment all because I couldn't find “劉" in my dictionary.

And of course owning a computer means you can use sites such as newsinchinese.com, consult online dictionaries, post questions here when you are stuck, watch Chinese drama or listen to radio.

Even though I couldn't have afforded a lapop then, I could have bought a basic electronic dictionary that would have meant I would not have felt as frustrated at times. I just had this strange notion that a traditional paper dictionary was inherently better which I can see now was totally misguided.

Also, Xiao Kui mentions studying in Beijing. I agree that it's important to focus on having a standard accent. I started out with a good standard Beijing accent then lost it after living in Taiwan. Now I have found it very difficult to go back to forming the full "zhi, chi, shi" sounds again. I never thought it would matter until my boss really made a big issue out of it, and in a strange way I felt a Taiwanese accent was more cool, but it's something to consider if you think you may work on the Mainland at some point in the future. What I mean is your accent might become something more important to you than just a personal preference at some point.

[Hero Doug]

Things I'd of done differently.

The first thing is drop the flash cards. I don't use them at all now. While flash cards are an excellent way to remember vocab, knowing the vocab but not how to use the vocab is useless.

I now just have a dialogue or article, and translate it over and over until it's 100% memorized (where I can write it out with just glancing at the English). I've found this way that I not only learn the words and characters, I also pick up on grammar points and really understand how the words are used (one way to use them anyways).

One other thing I'd of done differently is not study the English equillivent of the Chinese word when studying. I know it sounds a bit far fetched, but I just study the character and pinyin. I do LOOK at the English meaning at first, but I avoid studying for hours memorizing flash cards such as "hello/ni hao" or "chuziche/taxi".

If I'm translating something (my main way of study right now) and forget the meaning, then I'll look to see what it is. Luckly for me I only need to look at the meaning of the words a few times before it sink's in, and I can better spend my time doing other things.

I'll explain myself a bit better so there's no confusion.

I'll write out the article by just copying the Chinese, and when I come to a character/word I don't know I'll see what it is; I do this quite a few times. I then look at the English and write the Chinese (as many times as it takes to reach 100% memorization). When I can't think of the correct word I'll find it and write it out.

I typically find that there are some words that refuse to sink in. So after most of the words/characters are memorized I just pick the stubborn ones, write them on paper (character, pinyin, English) and write them out as much as possible by looking at the English and writing the Chinese (like every 15 minutes if I don't have anything to do).

Once that's done I then go through the speaking portion. Since I already know it so well from writing everything I can really focus on pronunciation and fluency.

The other thing, as said by many others, is not being lazy. I think being lazy (about studying) is probably normal when first starting since you can't really string together a sentence. I found once I could start asking questions (and understanding answers) and being able to talk with people that my interest really started peaking, and I was no longer lazy with my studies. If I had this dedication from the start I'd be much further ahead then I am now.

Something I'm glad I did was have native speakers record all the Mandarin pronunciation points so I could listen to them and repeat them over and over. Now thanks to that big effort at the beginning, my pronunciation is good.

I suppose that's all.

Edit: Also, not trying to speak properly has helped my pronunciation a lot. I just say what I need to say as if I were speaking English. My logic is that the Chinese just say it, so why aren't I?

I'm sure we've all heard the people that overemphasize their

ni     I    h        o
 i   I       a     O
  i i          A  O
   i             A

instead of just saying it normally

n i h o
i   a

[renzhe]

BUMP!

I was going to start a thread like this one, perhaps we can get some fresh ideas. Here are some things I'd do differently:

-- I'd dedicate much more time and effort from the very beginning. I wouldn't wait 5 years before realising that you have to study every day in order to make good progress.

-- I'd learn all the radicals and phonetic components of characters first, before starting to learn characters en masse. I don't know where I could find such a list (for phonetic components, the radicals are obviously easy to find), but I'd memorise that first, because now, in retrospect, I think it would be far easier to retain characters this way.

-- I'd start reading comics much earlier. I've always tried to find material I could read, and failed, because most of the stuff I could find (other than textbooks) were beyond my level. The comics were a great find.

-- I wouldn't try to stick to a formal classroom environment as much as I did. While I'm really happy I got to know my teacher, and still have contact with her, I've found out that the majority of people learning Chinese are just doing it for fashion, and have no intention of really learning it. The result is a snail's pace and frustration. I actually had a bad experience trying to learn on my own, so I joined a Chinese class when given the opportunity, and it did wonders for my learning. But I should have taken far more initiative and switched over to self-study far earlier than I did.

Overall, though, I'm very happy with the way my learning has been going for the last 2 years.

[BrandeX]

I've found out that the majority of people learning Chinese are just doing it for fashion

So that's what all the cool kids are doing these days. Guess I'm getting too old for the latest fads and trends!

[fizzaro]

well no offence but if u wana write chinese, first dip an ant in ink and let that ant move on your paper. whatever the ant make shapes on paper would be a word of chinese

well it was a joke, i also like chinese and i have learnt a bit. wel tell me what mistakes i made in the following sentence. chinese friends help me out.

不涌出进攻，而是，如果u瓦奈写中文，首先浸洗在墨水的一只蚂蚁，并且让在您的纸的蚂蚁移动。 什么蚂蚁做在纸的形状是汉语的词

[DrWatson]

Hindsight really helps. As I've become fluent in another language (Chinese has always just been a hobby for me), I have come to understand my own learning process a lot better.

First I'd go back and throw the textbook at my first teacher who made me learn from that awful text "Integrated Chinese". It was such a waste of time! Cheng & Tsui must have been going around bribing all of the teachers to use it back in the 1990s.

I would focus on vocab over everything else. Like others have said I wouldn't bother with concentrated character study after I felt comfortable with the basic characters. I'd learn vocab and when I came across characters I didn't know in that vocab I'd then learn the character. To do this requires a lot of attention to grammar in the beginning so that you can parse passages, but it pays off later I believe.

I also wouldn't worry about the HSK test and trying to learn all of the vocab for it. I would have been better off reading and learning Chinese related to my career and future aspirations rather than a general standardized test. Studying would have certainly been much more interesting.

I wish I had worked harder on listening by actively trying to find a conversation partner when I was a student. Back then there were no iPods or pod casts. You have to give ChinesePod credit, they have a done a lot to bring Chinese listening practice to you anywhere in the world.