Best method for learning nouns

[sanufi]

Hi,

What's the quickest and easiest method for learning mandarin nouns? I'm only interested in speaking and listening for the moment so no characters.

Something like computer flashcards with English nouns which can pronounce mandarin nouns would be good. Any thing like this available?

[Strawberries513]

For nouns, what I find is the easiest (and funnest) way is to take slips of paper or flashcards and label everything in your house! My house is covered with labels. I have "máojīn" above my towel rack, "yàoshi" on my keychain, etc. Check out this site here for the names of things:

http://www.languageguide.org/mandarin/

have fun

[DrZero]

It's plain old rote memorization, you can use any technique you like but when it comes to memorizing nouns, the principle is the same. I have three bits of advice, though.

-I believe that flashcards, either electronic or old-fashioned paper, are the best tool for this task.

-Learn the measure words that go with the nouns. Don't just learn gou3 for dog. Learn "yi zhi1 gou3," meaning "a dog." It will be easier than going back and learning them later. (This is the voice of experience talking.)

-Make connections where you can, even if you don't learn the characters. Learn that the "dian4" that means electricity is the same "dian4" found in "dian4ying3," movie. It doesn't hurt to refer to the characters for each word and see if they look the same or different, even if you don't bother to memorize them.

[imcgraw]

In my signature you'll find a free electronic flashcard database particularly useful for nouns. It allows you to quickly connect pictures to any flashcards you create. You can then test yourself by showing a picture, and guessing the pinyin and pronunciation.

I think that in the coming months this site will become an increasingly powerful tool for helping you with exactly the problem you describe. We're planning on adding some speech recognition features as well which go well beyond the normal flashcard, but I can't talk too much about them now.

This is all funded for research... so it'll stay free! Good luck with your studies.