beginner recommendations...

[doug86]

hey everyone, i just started learning to speak mandarian and my only resource so far is this website and a series called "Learn Chinese in your Car" which is 9 cds of lessons. Does anyone know any more good books or texts for me to be studying in order to advance my skills as quickly as possible?

[thph2006]

These aren't books but are pretty good sources of free materials.

The FSI Language Chinese Course is about 30 years old but is very complete, 100% free and I think very good. It has literally hundreds of recordings and a lot of written material. There is no support at all for learning characters but there are hundreds of pages of scanned text with pinyin and English translations of the recordings. A very small percentage of the words and phrases they use is from the old Mao days of the 1970s but don't let that bother you. It's very minimal. The pronunciation lessons are excellent and the rest of the course is organized into very useful sections. Here's the link:

http://fsi-language-courses.com/Chinese.aspx

The ChinesePod website is one some people like a lot. I'm not a fan of ChinesePod as a stand-alone course but I think the podcasts are very good as a supplement. They're both entertaining and free.

http://chinesepod.com/

I'm sure you'll get lots of other good suggestions as well.

Good luck on your new journey!

[doug86]

thank you, those sites seem very helpful, ill be sure to use them in combination as much as i can. What is the ideal amount of time i should be devoting to practice in a day? As well, besides just listening and repeating the lessons i hear is it helpful to also write them as im doing it? im trying to figure out the best ways to assimilate the language into my memory.

[thph2006]

I don't think I'm the best person to advise you but personally I spend a couple hours a day and as far as study strategy goes if I had it all to do over again I'd probably find one complete course and stick to it all the way through. I made the mistake of trying bits and pieces of practically every course, podcast and website I could find and for a long time I learned nothing. I only started really learning when I picked one comprehensive course and went through it carefully and thoroughly step by step.

For me the FSI course was most helpful in that respect. Another comprehensive course you might want to consider is the Integrated Chinese course by Cheng and Tsui. http://www.cheng-tsui.com/store/products/integrated_chinese . It's used by quite a few American universities, has a lot of audio material, goes through the learning process very methodically and includes text books, workbooks and character writing workbooks. There's also a great deal of supplemental material on the web for the course. The only downside of the course in my opinion is it's not free.

Cheers!

[shibole]

What skills are you interested in developing? It sounds like you're only interested in speaking and listening comprehension if your primary learning method is in CD form.

The ChinesePod podcasts are really good. I think you can always get their podcasts for free and you only pay if you want access to their other tools, but honestly I think the podcast audio is 90% of the value they have to offer. But from what I can tell so far, yea they are probably not that great as a sole source of learning materials, but you can search their podcasts and download audio on subjects that you're interested in but aren't covered in your lessons.

For reading and writing I find that Anki is the best study tool that I've ever used.

http://repose.cx/anki/

Even if you're not planning to learn to read and write Chinese just yet, I'd still use Anki. Just create "facts" with sentences typed up in pinyin or attach audio files if you want to be fancy. Anki solves the problem of when to review "old" material by use of a SRS algorithm. I'm finding it to be extremely useful and vastly superior to normal flashcards.

Another great tool for learning to speak: http://www.speakgoodchinese.org/

It actually does voice recognition to help you learn to pronounce tones properly.

(I also basically just started... have only been seriously studying Mandarin for about a month now and am using the Cheng and Tsui Integrated Chinese books but I'm not enrolled in a course.)

[sthubbar]

Pimsleur. That's all you need to know. It is by far the best program for a beginner to learn to speak Chinese. It is what I used and I still feel like 70% of my vocabulary came from that program. The only drawbacks I have heard about them are 1) expensive and 2) small list of words. 1) You get what you pay for. 2) Would you rather know a small list of words that you can readily use and understand or have a large list of words that you might not be able to use?

www.lingoshop.com has them inexpensive and will buy them back when you are done.

[renzhe]

First of all, I'll mention something that nobody has mentioned, and something I find to be the single most important tip on learning Chinese:

You will need dedication. It's not an easy language to learn, and it takes perseverance. But the payoff is huge.

You will need to be absolutely determined to study for several hours a day, every day, for a few years, without giving up. If you do this, and follow a good program and a sound learning plan, you will succeed. If you don't have this discipline, you will most likely fail after dabbling around for a year or two and learning very little. This is not meant to discourage you, but to give you motivation to get serious about learning, because learning Chinese is a wonderful thing if you put in the effort.

I would personally recommend spending 1-3 hours a day, and more on weekends. You should attack it from several fronts:

- Vocabulary / Reading / Writing -- The second most difficult part of Chinese

- Listening comprehension -- The most difficult part of Chinese

- Grammar

- Speaking

For characters and vocabulary, you should use a flashcard program with spaced repetition, it really helps to memorise characters. You can try mnemosyne, Anki, jmemorize, KVocTrain, Supermemo, or any other popular flashcard program, many are for free. For many of them, you can also download complete Chinese databases with common characters and words. You should go through them daily.

For Listening, many people find it useful to download TV shows and soap operas and watch them daily. They often have subtitles, which helps your reading and listening. But it will take a while before you can understand any of that, so you can try with lessons from chinesepod.com, which are excellent. Get used to listening to some Chinese everyday, because your ear has to get used to the speed and tones of Chinese. I don't recommend Pimsleur, as I found it excruciatingly boring and contrived, but you could give it a try.

For grammar, you should follow a good textbook. This will also provide plenty of vocabulary and listening exercises, but they are NOT ENOUGH, which is why you should supplement with the stuff above. Learning a language like Spanish following a textbook for two-three years can get you to a high intermediate level of just studying twice a week. Doing the same with Chinese will get you somewhere below advanced beginner stage. You need to supplement. Good coursebooks are either "Integrated Chinese", which is recommended by many, or "New Practical Chinese Reader", which is my recommendation, and which is one of the best language books out there, possibly the best one for Chinese. Either one should be fine. Go through lessons, learn the new grammar, do the exercises. I try to finish one lesson per week, if you're dedicated, it's possible. You may want to take a bit more time in the beginning, though.

for speaking, you'll need a buddy to talk to from time to time. A girlfriend is the best, IMHO, because she can keep up with your progress and stick to the vocabulary/grammar you know, and thus help you talk freely and understand without overwhelming you. A dedicated tandem partner should also work.

sounds like a lot of work, and it is, but once it becomes a habit, you can't get enough of it. I take my laptop to business trips so I can continue doing the flashcards in the hotel. The key to learning Chinese is practice, repetition, and not getting discouraged. If you have the determination to go through with it, you'll love it. If you don't, you may consider another language.

[doug86]

Ok so ill be using Anki and practical chinese reader (as soon as i can get them ordered). For listening i think ill be using many of my kung fu movies and i will just set the audio up to mandarin with english subtitles. Thanx again everyone for your help and input, i look forward to talking with you in chinese soon:D

edit: if i could find a chinese girlfriend i most definately would, its not that easy here in canada:help

[renzhe]

Make sure to get the "NEW Practical Chinese Reader", not the old version.

[Charmelenge]

The best way to learn speaking and listening is

a) watch videos on youtube every day and night.

I did this for around 2 months and went from not really speaking it to I'd say fluent.

Writing... bit more of a struggle. You really need to make the effort. I basically read stories and newspapers on the net and everytime I didn't get a word, I'd copy and paste the word into a translator. I'm alright at reading now but did take a bit longer. Can easily do newspapers and stuff. Tookm maybe 4 months or so.

[renzhe]

Wait, you went from not speaking to speaking and understanding spoken language in 2 months and from not being able to read to reading newspapers in 4 months?

I find this very hard to believe. you must have been at an intermediate level when you started, I've never heard of anyone managing this.

[Charmelenge]

O sorry I had am a Chinese born overseas with a fluent cantonese background, but never spoke putonghua , or at least on a conversational basis. Also never read Chinese. But yea... admittedly I knew a bit about putonghua and could read a bit of traditional chinese.

I was surprised with the speed with which it could be picked up. Before I made an effort, I could barely hold an interesting conversation. And I was never sure if people even knew what I was talking about. But yea, now putonghua's like a mother tongue.

[renzhe]

OK thanks, that explains a lot. I've met native Cantonese speakers who picked up Mandarin quite quickly. A Vietnamese friend of mine also picked it up far faster than any Westerner I've ever seen.

Still, impressive achievement!

[Charmelenge]

O yea sorry for the confusion.

I basically spent those 3 months (summer break) doing nothing except watching putonghua films and speaking putonghua at home (everyone spoke it except me at that time )

[m.fardream]

CSLPOD presents two elementary episodes per week. hope you can find some useful material from it

http://www.cslpod.com/English/allelementary.aspx