Studying Chinese in America

[shortyzshortie]

About me:

White American

School: A College in California

Age: 21

In China(From Beginning):

I bought a few Beginning Chinese Books and for about a month studied by myself, basically just memorizing pinyin and phrases. I realized I could not comprehend anything anyone was saying because of my learning style.. I got a private tutor and she helped me about 5-6 hours a week for about 2-3 months ( basically just using pinyin, I probably only learned about 80 characters)...

4 Months Later:

Now I just started a 6 week language course and I am half way done. Although I did put in a lot of time studying by myself and because of the environment I can speak way better Chinese than kids in the program who just came from the same California Colleges (who have taken Chinese for 1 year or more,they can read characters better than me but that is it).. This makes me very afraid to go back to the USA!

What to do:

I am leaving in 3 weeks and am very afraid to continue my studies in America... I have one more year left of college and I am not sure if I should

-Take the Chinese course at the college which would be 50 minutes everyday

-Find a private tutor and just meet a few times a week and study on my own...

-Other suggestions??? Programs, Online Classes?

I obviously have first hand experience that the best way to learn it is to use and hear it everyday but that is obviously not possible in America. By the way I think I plan on coming back to China in a year to continue studying/find a job/ both.

Please help me with some suggestions, I don't want all my time spent in China learning Chinese to go to a waste

Thankyou

[newyorkeric]

You could try to find a language exchange partner and talk via Skype. If you search this forum, you will find several addresses for webpages where you can find partners.

[WoAiJolinTsai]

You don't need a course, a tutor, or books... all are just ways for other people to make money.

Just listen and read. Go to thelinguist.blog.com and read his stuff, and also go to www.alljapaneseallthetime.com and read there

[kdavid]

You don't need a course, a tutor, or books... all are just ways for other people to make money.

I completely disagree. Listen to Steve Kaufmann talk. His pronunciation is horrible.

In order to really learn a language, you need to speak. A tutor (though state-side, if not difficult to find, maybe a bit expensive) would be a good investment.

[roddy]

Agree. Even if it might be possible without paying for courses, books, etc, good ones will save you huge amounts of time and money if you use them right. There's a reason they make people money.

[WoAiJolinTsai]

His pronunciation might not be the greatest, but he has 10 other languages he's busy with. I'm sure if he put more time into it, he'd be better. Anyway, I'm not saying his pronunciation is a good example... just his learning philosophy.

[kdavid]

Perhaps with learning another language in which pronunciation isn't so important I could agree to some degree. However, the idea of learning only through receptive skills (listening and reading) and not at all through productive skills (speaking and writing) sounds a bit off. I know Mr. Kaufmann speaks quite a few languages, and perhaps his method works for some, but I think that some is few and far between.

IMHO, if you want to learn Mandarin, and learn it properly, you need to pay meticulous attention to pronunciation and speaking practice. For those who say that tones aren't important, I completely disagree. Tones are very important, and during the initial stage of learning, many of us need constant harassment and correction before it finally clicks.

@shorty

Think hard about what type of learner you are and how well-disciplined you normally are. How are your tones now? Do they still need some work? How do the local Chinese where you are now respond to you in conversation? The answers to these questions should provide a good foundation for how you will need to approach further study once your back state-side.

[roddy]

There's a fairly long ongoing discussion on Mr K. here.

[heifeng]

Sorry, I don't really get what you are asking since half of California is Chinese....well maybe not exactly, but you definitely can find a FREE language exchange partner through a local Chinese student association or talk to old people standing around a 99 ranch any day of the week.

All my classmates from a certain school in the UC system had great Chinese...in fact they were not only fluent in Mandarin but could speak some other dialect too. You must have just ran into one of the slower students....I always felt super challenged since I was around heritage speakers all the time....loved those hongkongnese:mrgreen: though...they make your pronunciation sound quite good in comparison...

[Lu]

What to do: it depends.

If the uni offers a course at your level, it's not a bad idea to take it. As others have said, you really need someone to teach you for Chinese, you can't really learn it out of a book. A uni course would give you this, at no extra costs because you're paying for the uni anyway.

If there is no uni course at your level (too low/much too high/to slow/whatever), and you have the money, finding a tutor is a good idea.

In either case, find some Chinese friends or language partners, so you can practice. This helps a lot, as you would have noticed during your stay in China. Skype is ok, but face to face is even better, and surely there are some real Chinese at your college.

Good luck!

[simonlaing]

Hi Shortie,

As someone who left CHina for awhile after getting a good level of Chinese and then losing much of my tone speaking skills, I strongly recommend you take some sort of classes.

If you're like me you want a regular class to make you do the work. A College course or Chinese tutor could be good for that. On the college course if you have studied a bit here perhaps you can jump into a higher level course. At my old Uni 2 semesters in the US was equivalent to 1 semester here.

Tutors can work too but you must make them be strict with you and give you homework and Quizes. They will give you what you want from them. (If you're lazy, this can be a bad thing)

Online friends or tutors can be ok, but as with the normal tutors you have make it a regular committment and work hard at them.

Good Luck,

SImon:)

P.S. sometimes studying the US helps as your writing and reading level can go up faster than in China, weird huh?