I want to learn to speak mandarin NOT read it - one year in China - Help!

[marcusat]

HI!

Thanks for reading this, I've been looking through many of the posts here and most refer to universities and doing an academic course. I am in essence a total beginner and have allocated a year starting Summer 2008 to learn some mandarin. I was wondering if anybody had been successful in starting to learn to only speak mandarin in China and if so how they went about it. (maybe I am stupid to try and learn to speak mandarin without learning to read or write - if anyone has any thoughts please let me know)

Where are the best places to go for this? I am totally open to suggestions, I think it is likely that I could get a job in Shanghai through a contact (I am a recent graduate) yet my worry is I will be working with westerners and also will not have the necessity to learn. Also I believe that Shanghai has its own dialect so the chinese spoken on the street would be useless to me.

The flip side of the argument I suppose is to go rural, yet might I get too bored there?

Just a bit of information about me - I am caucasian but I don't necessarily require to be around other westerners, I've lived in Singapore before and was able to travel to China quite a bit so there is little culture shock to be expected. Western food is not an issue. I do however love a social life and don't know how I would cope in a very quiet town.

I presume there will be sacrifices to make here, but any thoughts from people with better info would be greatly appreciated! thanks!!!

[muyongshi]

I think the best advice then would be to find a GOOD tutor and meet with them more than just once a week and work on speaking. I don't think that it would be a bad thing for you to go out of a book like Chinese Made Easier and atleast be open to looking at the characters. But if you use that book and a tutor I think you could really push it towards your speaking ability... In terms of the other things like social life...I can't be of much help but there is a ton of that in Shanghai...

[atitarev]

I didn't try it but I know people who get by knowing SOME spoken Mandarin without being able to read. You need at least to master Pinyin and use some Pinyin textbooks to get started. You pick up when in China.

If you ask for resources - Teach Yourself Beginner's Chinese textbook is a good starting point.

If you have textbooks that have both characters AND Pinyin, it's even better, you are exposed to characters, you learn to recognise them. (Teach Yourself Chinese).

I am not advocating this type of learning and you probably won't achieve real fluency without reading.

You can use other books, as long as they have audio.

[imcgraw]

I know westerners who are very fluent speakers of Mandarin, but who can't read at all. The trick is to really just cut yourself off from English as much as you can. Get Chinese friends. Get a job that requires you to speak Chinese (or just don't get a job ). Take a "language pledge". Etc. Some of these might be pretty hard for a pure beginner.

I also agree with the bit about the tutor... but unless this tutor is going to be with you 8-10 hours a day for the whole year, it's only going to get you so far.

Otherwise, books are a good source of Chinese input. Comics in particular seem to be good for acquiring skills relevant to spoken Chinese. Doraemon is a great little comic that can be read after about 6th months of character study with the aid of a handwriting recognition dictionary.

If you really want to avoid characters and just learn to speak... immersion is the way to go. Even in China it's harder than one might think to escape English.

[Robert14]

You may want to consider TLI (Taipei Language Institute). In spite of the name, they have branches in Beijing, Shanghai, and several other mainland cities. They're a little pricey, about 100 rmb/hour for private classes, but you can join a small group class for less. Their teaching materials and methods are excellent for working on speaking, and they avoid using characters until after reaching intermediate level. I did 3.5 weeks at TLI/Dalian last August, and my Chinese friends were impressed with the improvement in my speaking ability. They push you pretty hard, so 2-3 hours/day of 1-on-1 is about maximum that anyone can absorb. Disadvantage is that you don't have the nice socializing opportunities that a university campus offers.

[Phantim3dx]

roberst has a good point. i never went that route. i did the uni thing.

get lots of chinese friends around you and dont be afraid to make mistakes in speaking. once you are in china speaking it will get much easier than trying to learn in fro your country.

most of my chinese friends are from the northeast of china(dongbei) so i pick up some dongbeihua from them.

best advice is make friends, cut yourself off fromt he english speaking world(not completely) BUT THIS IS EASIER SAID THAN DONE. and i dont even follow it.

[extrapages]

honestly. unless you are blind... i think you should DEFINITELY learn to read and write - even if you choose to divide your energies to 90% oral and 10% written. why CHOOSE to be illiterate? you have an opportunity to learn how to read/write... and its a privilege that many people (even in china) never have a chance to enjoy.. and you want to throw it away?

so many more doors open if you are someone who can speak the language.. but also, at least, know some BASIC characters. and i personally believe that its easier to learn the grammar and remember the words when you have the characters to work with.

and as muyongshi said.. if you're really set on being illiterate - just find a REALLY GOOD TUTOR. i would recommend finding someone who is either a professional chinese tutor... or in a graduate program for teaching chinese for foreignerrs at an institution like beijing normal university - where the nation's future top teachers/professors are educated.

and imcgraw touched upon the language pledge - i heard that makes a HUGE DIFFERENCE.

[yingxiong]

I've found that this is a pretty common objective for westerners coming to China. Why waste time memorizing characters when you could be spending time learning to speak about more things? It also is sometimes the most effective approach for a westerner who could potentially get overwhelmed by characters.

The key is to find the right school and the right curriculum. The Chinese Made Easier is probably the best curriculum for your objectives. You can go through the first 4 books and end up being able to speak pretty much about all daily life situations with minimal characters. I do not think any other major book series is design similarly.

Not a lot of schools will accommodate this approach, so make sure you ask when you talk to the school. I've found that many Chinese teachers will be appalled by this objective. I do feel in the long-run if you want to progress to the intermediate level, you'll find eventually that you'll have to play catchup on the characters. All the same, our school: 1on1 Mandarin has a lot of students who fall into your mold. Check us out online at http://www.1on1mandarin.com. If you sign up by January 31st, we have a 99 RMB special for our customized 1on1 classes, which allows for maximum personalization in your Chinese learning.