Where to start Learning Chinese???

[Shijilal]

I want to learn chinese. But i am confused where to start.

What should i learn first???.

In english there are Alphabets(A,B,C....Z) where we start learing from.

In chinese is there any thing equivalent to the english alphabets.

Can any one please guide me how and where do i start learning???

[scott-chen]

You may start it from Pinyin. Actually, Pinyin is made of 26 alphabets, only have different pronunciations. When you have already learned all the Pinyin, you can read all the Chinese (not character). That is very basic.

Edited September 25, 2008 at 04:36 AM by imron
removed link.

[Hofmann]

Ehh...Well, if you're studying just to talk, then you could get away with just learning a romanization system (like Hanyu Pinyin, which is most popular by far, and this is assuming you want to learn Standard Mandarin). If you want to write, you should study some simple characters and some radicals of which more complex characters are built.

[Shijilal]

Actually i want to to read and write chinese.

Where to start then..

[Hedge]

Get some books, for learning characters, Learning Chinese Characters by Matthews will get you started. For vocab, grammar, etc check out the New Practical Chinese Reader series.

For listening and online material, check out ChinesePod.

[renzhe]

In any case, you should start with Hanyu Pinyin, because that's how you will learn pronunciation. Once you get the hang of that (and the four tones), you can start learning characters.

Learning from a good textbook is recommended, but there are also programs like anki, mnemosyne or supermemo, which make memorising characters easier.

In order to read and write Chinese, you'll need a lot of patience, a good textbook, a good flashcard program, and lots of practice.

[Lu]

/ what he said. For starters I'd recommend a good textbook and a good teacher.

[davidj]

With the characters, you will discover that they are not just random collections of lines, but are acutally made up of a relatively limited number of component parts. The most obvious aspect of this is that every character is considered to have a part that gives very rough idea of the meaning (the radical) and the rest of the character often hints at the pronunciation (e.g. characters with the same remaining part are often pronounced the same or pronounced in phonetically similar ways (e.g. PinYin j may become q)).

As you see more characters you will find that the remaining part is often made up from several simpler structures. Even these components are constrained by types of strokes that can be used.

At all levels, there can be quite a lot of licence in applying the rules.

It might be worth remembering that English words are made from several component sounds, and the individual sounds don't carry meaning.

[rezaf]

learn with a teacher. I don't think that self study is possible for beginners. It takes some time to get used to it.