spoken chinese

[buanryoh]

I was wondering if anyone could give me some tips on improving my spoken chinese, not tones, conversational (i already know around 3000 characters and I'm not sure how many words) without actually have anyone to respond to what I saw. Basically, I want to improve my Chinese without having anyone to respond, as I don't currently live in China. Any ideas?

Thanks!

Buanryoh

[Koneko]

I think, language acquisition requires interactive involvements.

Of course, you can improve your Chinese without having anyone to respond by verbal repetition, practising yourself in front of a mirror, etc. But you could progress much quicker if you have the right environment, say studying in China, having Chinese-speaking friends etc.

K.

[OneEye]

Find someone that speaks Chinese and make a point of meeting up every once in a while to practice. It doesn't have to be a real tutor per se, just a friend or someone willing to help. Once I know enough to actually converse, there's a guy that owns a Chinese restaurant down the street from me that is willing to talk to me for a few minutes a few times per week. There's also a Chinese book/DVD/CD store a couple towns away and the owner teaches me something new every time I go in. I work in a restaurant, and there are a few Chinese families that request my section when they come in because I make an effort to say a few phrases to them in their language. They tip quite well for it, too.

The point is to find someone that doesn't mind helping. It should be do-able.

[randall_flagg]

try thinking in chinese. when you walk to the subway, brush your teeth, wait for your toast to pop out of the toaster, try to actively think in chinese. try it, you'll be suprised!

[flameproof]

Read a lot (for fun, not learning material)

Listen a lot (i.e. the Antiwave podcasts)

Watch some Chinese TV, maybe "Pink Lady / 粉红女郎" (Sex & The City, Shanghai style)

Chat online (use QQ, it's also great for voice chat, 99.9% of users are Chinese)

Do whatever you like to do, but in Chinese

[ange9s]

You'd be surprised at how many Chinese people in your area would be willing to speak with you in Chinese if you help them with English as well. Try putting up a note on any local university bulletin boards, I'll bet you'll get responses.

[buanryoh]

Thanks for the help, must of the mentioned methods I am already carrying out, but it just seems like I am not improving as fast as I want. I found 粉红女郎 on PPstream, so I'm watching that at the moment!

Marc

[Hero Doug]

If you want to work on fluency take a couple pieces of A4 and divide them into equal pieces (something like a business card).

Write a word on each piece, put them together and shuffel them up. Make sure each work is face up read to be read (so you can just flip through them).

Look at the first word and start talking (in Chinese of course), include that word in whatever you're saying as quickly as possible and go on to the second word and include that as possible. Just get through as many words as you can as quickly as you can and create the story as you go.

The idea is to learn how to recall the words quickly and speed up fluency.