New to Mandarin - Help with basic introduction

[Euphoria]

Hi, i've had two hour lessons of mandarin and would like to know if this makes any sense

你好. 我叫莎拉并我十七岁. 我喜欢巧克力 (sh) 谢谢并再见.

[Lu]

并 means 'and also' rather than just 'and', so it's a bit too strong to use the way you use it.

I also suggest you pick a different Chinese name, 沙拉 sounds like 'salad'.

For the rest it's fine, keep it up!

[amego]

Hi 莎拉, good effort here!

你好. 我叫莎拉并我十七岁. 我喜欢巧克力 谢谢并再见.

I supposed its direct translation from English

"Hi, my name is Sarah(?) AND I'm seventeen years old. I like chocolates. Thank you AND goodbye"

Hmmm unfortunately the "ands" here don't translate well in Chinese.

Perhaps a better translation would be:

大家好， 我叫莎拉,，今年十七岁。我喜欢吃巧克力。 谢谢再会。

Anyway i feel that 莎拉 is okay =) Here salad is known as 沙律 so its not so bad...haha

[Euphoria]

Thanks so much for your help i wasn't sure about the 'and's either I guess i've learnt something! 谢谢

[anonymoose]

That's quite good for two hour lessons. I reckon by the time you've completed your tenth lesson, you'll be ready for the advanced HSK.

[Hero Doug]

One tip I have for you being a new student to Mandarin (not sure about any other languages) is to never think in English when learning Mandarin.

As an example, when learning a new word such as 你好 a lot of people will review the word over and over again, saying 你好 hello, 你好 hello, 你好 hello, etc. Or maybe think 'hello' as they write it over and over. Kind of like linking the words together.

I believe doing this associates the word 你好 with the English word hello; and I think this is incredibly detrimental to language learning (I know it sounds stupid, but hear me out).

When I learn new words I ALWAYS repeat the Chinese word. I learn through writing the character; so when I learnt 你好 I would think nǐhǎo as i wrote it, and not hello (and not "ni third tone, hao third tone", always nǐhǎo (the sounds that need to be made, not the rules to make them)).

I wouldn't worry too much if you just learn the word and don't know the meaning. I often come read an article and come to a word I know how to write and pronounce properly but don't know the meaning of. Just a quick look in a dictionary and I get the meaning and I usually don't forget it after that; especially when using a good vocab review program like JVLT.

Anyways, the moral of the rant is when learning Mandarin I highly suggest thinking in Chinese right from the start, otherwise you'll be learning to use Chinese to think in English. It's a horrible habit that will destroy your fluency like you wouldn't believe.

It's much quicker (and easier) to just say 你好 rather than hello,,, that's "你好".

Good luck with it, I look forward to seeing more of your postings.