What Level Would You Describe Yourself?

[muyongshi]

Simple question...probably not with a simple answer....How would you describe your Chinese level?

And for the sake of a few others who might be interested:

How do you learn it? (Could you briefly describe? Like going to a university in China? Following a Chinese tutor? Self-learning? etc.)

How many years you have spent on learning Mandarin?

Thanks for your responses!

[muyongshi]

Sorry everyone I made a mistake and clicked make results public rather than leaving them anonymous. I have asked the admins to fix it so if you don't want to vote before then just be patient....

[liuzhou]

While waiting for the anonymous voting, I can probably sum up. On Monday mornings and at other random times like when someone asks me a really important question, then I am pre-beginner. At other times, like when no one is listening or I am drunk or dreaming, I am native speaker level. The rest of the time somewhere in between.

So, that describes my English.

Now. Chinese...

[muyongshi]

笑死我了！

[chenpv]

On Monday mornings and at other random times like when someone asks me a really important question, then I am pre-beginner.

This is master. Masters make things simple.

At other times, like when no one is listening or I am drunk or dreaming, I am native speaker level.

This is pre-beginner. Beginners complicate everything.

I see the philosophy of some Chinese who only 'Hello'ed laowais in total delight and excitement.

[muyongshi]

The amazing admin team has fixed the poll! Feel free to vote! Thanks!

[Jenny311]

I'm a native Chinese, maybe this question is not for me. But I'm interested to know, too!

Can I combine my questions with yours, please, muyongshi?

In addition, I want to ask:

How do you learn it? (Could you briefly describe? Like going to a university in China? Following a Chinese tutor? Self-learning? etc.)

How many years you have spent on learning Mandarin?

[thph2006]

My answer to Jenny's question is I'm doing self-study. I've tried several methods and here are my comments on each:

FSI Mandarin Chinese Course (obtained free on-line): FSI is my favorite course. It's a bit outdated and some of the exercises can be boring but it's very comprehensive for learning SPOKEN mandarin (it doesn't teach characters at all.). The more I use it, the more I appreciate it. For me, as a self-learner, it's by far my favorite course.

Integrated Chinese (I purchased the books and CDs): The strength of this course is it covers speaking, reading, writing, and grammar in a very formal structured way which helps to keep you focused. The downside is it's oriented toward 16-20 year old students in the US. I'm 53! I mainly use it to learn reading and writing now.

ChinesePod (free podcasts): I found this one to be the most entertaining course when I first started. The podcasts are fun to listen to, but I eventually got really frustrated with the lack of structure or connection between lessons. I tried the paid premium features and they were still to unstructured to be useful for me. I don't use it anymore.

Rosetta Stone Chinese (expensive CD-based course): I bought this course and had no success with it. I think their method doesn't work for teaching Mandarin to English speakers, but I did find an interesting use for the material. I copied the 8,400 mp3 audio phrases into iTunes and then added the corresponding pictures as album covers. Now I can play them using iTunes Coverflow like a giant multimedia flashcard list.

If anyone has any other suggestions for me I'd love to hear them!

[owshawng]

I'm doing self-study. My current sources are Chinesepod and Pleco. I started Chinesepod last month and Pleco this weekend.

I've completed all 3 Pimsleur Mandarin courses (I think the last 40 lessons were not worth the effort) and am on lesson 60 of Assimil Chinese with Ease. I think my speaking is somewhere between Advanced Beginner and Lower Intermediate, with listening ability higher then speaking. Chinesepod's listening test claims I'm intermediate, but the intermediate lessons are pretty challenging for me, but the Elemntary ones are too simple.I can read about 300 simplified characters, but am switching to Traditional.

My wife is a native speaker but she tends to talk too fast and uses lots of vocabulary I don't know (yet). I actually practice more on the phone with my sister-in-law. I speak Mandarin to her and she uses English.

[imron]

Advanced with gaps. I've been learning for about 7 years now, and the second year of that was the CSL language course at Beida. The rest has all been self-study, hence the gaps

A large part of my speaking and listening was learnt from regularly hanging out with people with no interest in learning English, and also watching TV shows/films. Going through CRI broadcasts was also a good way to improve listening as well as reading.

[gato]

See this earlier poll on the same topic:

http://www.chinese-forums.com/showthread.php?p=63536#post63536

What is your Chinese proficiency? (and how long have you studied, please post)

[ipsi()]

I would have to say I'm probably lower-intermediate. Studied a year and a half at University (111,112, 211 essentially), and am now doing self study as best I can, as I've graduated from Uni (Chinese was a small interest on top of my two degrees).

Mostly using NPCR for study, along with Pleco. I don't feel I have the vocab and (more importantly) grammer to read newspapers yet, especially as the local ones are all in Traditional... I'm not too focused on listening and speaking - mostly picking up vocab and grammer. I seem to be able to speak Qingdaohua without much problem, so I'm not too worried there . Just need to practice my Putonghua...

My main beef at the moment is that there doesn't seem to be a good, structured way to acquire computer-related vocab, of which I have a lot in English but nearly none in Chinese.

[Guest yangbin]

I voted High Intermediate, still struggling to enter into Advanced level...so hard!

[muyongshi]

See this earlier poll on the same topic:

http://www.chinese-forums.com/showth...3536#post63536

What is your Chinese proficiency? (and how long have you studied, please post)

I did search I promise....it's just that mind would not have thought to use the word proficiency. That and the fact that a reliable person said they couldn't remember any off hand....sorry if it is too much of a repeat but hopefully levels change!

[gato]

I did search I promise....it's just that mind would not have thought to use the word proficiency. That and the fact that a reliable person said they couldn't remember any off hand....sorry if it is too much of a repeat but hopefully levels change!

I actually pointed to the earlier thread to point to how fuzzy "intermediate" is, but I guess it's not too much of a problem. It's interesting that intermediate Chinese (maybe just in terms of reading and writing) seems to be at a lower standard than it is European languages.

When I was studying Spanish in school, I already started reading the newspaper during my first semester, though I would have still called myself a beginner. Speaking and listening came slower, however.

[muyongshi]

Yeah I know what you mean in terms of all that. The lines are never clear and I personally find that the HSK intermediate is not that good of a gauge (at least the old version).

There is a highly developed standardization tool that canada uses to display English level (12 levels total with most native speakers only being on the 11). The descriptions though work across the board and give a better idea for judging language levels. I am trying to find it and as soon as I do I will post it.

[Lu]

Advanced with gaps, I think that's a good description for me too. In everyday life, I can easily fool myself and others into believing I'm fluent, no problem, etc etc. But then I make two tone mistakes in the process of ordering a sub, stumble over some less formal phrase in the newspaper, and forget how to write some second-year character, and then I realise: my Chinese really is 還差的遠.

[yonglin]

I chose intermediate. Not quite HSK-intermediate (I'd say level 7 for that), but I noticed that there were no "elementary" options, so supposedly muyongshi never tried to mimic the hsk system.

I suppose I've been studying for 1.5 years now. Two summers in China: the first summer (absolute beginner) was undoubtedly very helpful, the second one a little less so (maybe my own fault, though). Last year, I took a one-year university course at 200-level in Canada, which was splendid - I really learnt a lot. This year, I'm back in England and the Chinese teaching at my university is quite crappy: despite doing the 300-level course, I'm not really learning a whole lot. I wish I would have had more time for self-study, since I've got plenty of books to read and dvds to watch, but for some odd reason, I made the final year of my degree a whole lot more exhausting than it should have been, and find myself busy with other academic work more often than not.

[renzhe]

Lower intermediate, according to my girlfriend.

I'm finishing NPCR 3, know about 2000 characters passively and probably a couple of thousand words.

I started about 7 years ago, but I was never really serious. Exactly a year ago, I was somewhere in the middle of NPCR 1, and knew about 200 characters, that's when I decided to give gas. So about a year of real studying.

I studied in class for a while, then with a tutor in a small group, then I became too advanced for all of that (most Chinese learners in Europe are beginners who drop out after a semester, virtually no advanced courses).

Now I'm studying on my own, using NPCR, Chinesepod, TV-series and Mnemosyne with the HSK database. At least an hour a day, sometimes up to 5. Having a motivated Chinese girlfriend helps a lot.

[wrbt]

I'm not sure where I am. I went in this order:

3 Pimsleurs (got me interested)

1 year college

Self Study thru textbooks with much listening to the audio components:

- David and Helen

- Making Connections

- NPCR 3,4

- Shifting Tides

- Across the Straits

- Beyond the Basics

That's a couple 2nd year college level books and a few 3rd year ones. I'm about to start China Scene which I think is a 4th year text, and have my eye on the Short Chinese TV Plays since there is a DVD available for it now. Also have gone thru most of the Chinese Voices Project essays and a lot of Chinese Pod. For some reason I stopped Chinese Pod.

I'm trying to make that final leap to where using authentic materials is worth the time spent absorbing them, just can't seem to break out of structured stuff. I just keep thinking that if I keep working with materials that have transcript I'll eventually turn the corner.