Learning only how to speak Chinese (vs write or read it)

[arkilok]

Hello everybody,

I'm thinking of learning Chinese during the spring semester next year. However, I'd prefer to learn quickly how to speak Chinese rather than to learn how to write or read it. Do u know some universities or institutions in Beijing where I can learn Chinese in pinyin? (because universities usually give speaking "and" reading lessons)

Thanks for your advice!

[xianu]

I have heard peple talking about getting some service voice over internet thingy (Isn't that what these things are called?) like Skype and then randomly meeting friends from different places. You could try that. One of my students plays weiqi online and chats with Chinese friends over that, and another met her czech friend using Skype and chats with her in German and English.

[Xiao Kui]

The 1 month Chinese school teaches reading but not writing, so not completely what you're looking for, but halfway there. Also they use Chinese Made Easier, a textbook that slowly eases in characters to get you used to them, and gradually phases out the pinyin only after you've been exposed to a character 10 times. There are some threads and posts abt this school in Chinese forums, and I think member self-taught mba is one of the people who runs the school, so you might want to PM him for more info.

http://www.1monthchinese.com/Why_CLIB.html

BTW, i think it would be difficult to teach completely in pinyin because one pinyin can stand for 30+ different characters/words in some cases.

Of course you can learn completely in pinyin, but I don't think the best courses would be taught that way, maybe a short week-long crash course for travelers or sth like that.

[kdavid]

And in addition to what Xiao Kui said, only learning pinyin will drastically limit your ability to read and understand intermediate + textbooks.

The New Practical Chinese Reader, for example, phases out pinyin after the very first volume (6 in total) except when defining vocabulary. From the second volume on, all exercises and reading are in characters only. Also, the first volume only introduces around 400 - 450 words. So, at least with this series of textbook (which I swear by) you still need to learn characters in order to progress.

In my experience, most good textbooks are like this. So, you may want to invest time into reading characters if you'd like to get past the Elementary level (without having everything broken down and explained in pinyin by a third party).

[flameproof]

arkilok

Seems you have set your mind already to "characters are impossible to learn". I made that error too. If you look a little closer at character you will see that it's not THAT difficult. You can learn a few 100 in a month easily.

In fact, I wonder about people that study Chinese full time in China and manage to learn just 1000 in a year.

I believe that reading and writing are quite different tasks. Just reading will be fine. Nowadays we use computer and writing becomes MUCH easier. I can now even can figure out how to do the chinese input on my cell phone, just by learning about stroke orders for 5 Minutes.

Learning characters will actually INCREASE your learning speed. Because words "stick" better in the brain. Also, soon you can read other simple stuff then just dead boring learning material

I think for maximum speed you should learn by yourself, a school will just slow you down and let you go through lots of BS you don't need or want.

[kudra]

try www.fsi-language-courses.com for an extensive pinyin only chinese course.

[yonitabonita]

The Bridge School are very proud of the fact that they place more emphasis on speaking than reading. That said, there is still some reading. No mention of writing though.

Their website is:

http://www.bridgeschoolchina.com

I've never been there myself, but a friend of mine went there and gave it a good report.

good luck

y

[roddy]

The 1 month Chinese school teaches reading but not writing, so not completely what you're looking for, but halfway there. Also they use Chinese Made Easier, a textbook that slowly eases in characters to get you used to them . . .

Is that 1monthmandarin or 1on1mandarin you're thinking of? 1on1mandarin definitely use Chinese Made Easier, 1monthmandarin might, but I haven't seen them say specifically that they do.

Anyway, your best bet is, as you've figured out, probably to avoid a university, as they tend to have a bit of an 'of course you shall learn characters. Just because you are the customer doesn't mean you can choose what you pay for' mentality. Look at the private schools like the two mentioned above, Diqiucun (pick and choose your courses and you could be doing oral Chinese from morning till night), maybe consider working with a tutor.

[arkilok]

Hello everybody,

Thank you to all of u for your advice. I'll think about it, and see what I'll choose. Please don't hesitate to let me know if you have other suggestions.

Best,

Alima

[atitarev]

We don't have to know Chinese characters in our conversational class here in Melbourne, all examples, texts and dialogues have both characters and pinyin. If you have both you have a choice. If you want to learn characters, you can and it's easy, because you don't have tolook them up (time consuming) and you can always check yourself by covering the pinyin.

IMHO, you learn to speak faster, if you have a lot of material that gives you both pinyin and characters.

Also, "Teach Yourself Beginner's Chinese" has excellent audio, good pace of learning. The big drawback is it doesn't have characters but you, Arkilok, are not interested in them, anyway.

Eventually, you will have to learn characters as won't be able to go beyond basics.

[Crivens200]

I hate to dis a school and contradict a previous poster, but Bridge school is not for serious chinese learners - it's for ex-pat wives with nothing better to do with their time. I made the mistake of when first arriving in Beijing of believing their ads in CityWeekend and That's BJ and signed up for a month . . . . . left after 2 weeks when I realised that no-one was actually there to learn chinese and joined a proper school.

As for the original poster, I had that same attitude when I started - that I was only going to learn to speak and would ignore the characters, but then after a while realised that knowing the characters was a vital part in the learning process and helped the spoken chinese.

[raincoat]

Just a little suggestion for arkilok, maybe you would want to learn the character as well, you'll be surprised of how much wonderful beautiful things you may discover in this language. Give it a try ;)

[-葛亚辉-]

yeah....learning characters seems hard at first but gets easier and easier the more you know, and it DEFINITELY helps you remember words and definitions...i would highly recommend you just learn to write, its a little more of a time committment but 1) you'll have WAY more and better schools to choose from and 2) a small increase in time commitment yeilds a large number of advatanges...

just my $0.02.

(if someone knows a good 成语 for "just my two cents" btw, PM it to me....)

[simonlaing]

Hi all,

I know I am joining a chorus of voices. But as one who wasted 2 years of Tutoring learning just pinyin and basic reading, If you really are serious about learning Chinese you should learn to read and write characters at the same time as you learn Pinyin and speaking.

I found in the 3 year of study when I started studying full time and had to learn to write the characters. I had to re-learn 80% of the words that I knew in Pinyin form.

I would only recommend your strategy if you plan on solely being a visiting business man who doesn't spend more than a few weeks in China a year. If you are staying long term I think investing in learning to read and write is worth it.

I espicially endorse the learning radiacals of characters before learning the characters method. (Learning characters then becomes like learning to spell in English) A nu zi 女pang with an er zi子 pang makes hao 好.

Also no Chinese person writes in purely pinyin.

The other poster's comment on Computer aiding the writing process is true. But I think to learn the characters long term you should also be able to write them on paper. (I found I forgot how to accurately write the characters using this method though I'd often get the outline some what right.)

Good luck,

Simon Laing