How To Improve My Chinese?

[HedgePig]

Help!

My Mandarin is very basic - probably at the "advanced beginner" level at best - but I really want to to improve. While I'd like to get better at all aspects, I think my biggest problem is speaking. When I want to say something, I find that I am more than lost for words - I simply don't know how to begin. It's more than a case of not knowing the vocabulary: I just don't know how to form a grammatically correct sentence. (However, I don't have nearly the same problems understanding spoken Mandarin.)

Now for the shameful confessions. I am living in Shanghai and work at a company where 90% of the people are Chinese. Worse still, my wife's home language is Mandarin. Unfortunately my wife and my colleagues speak far better English than I do Mandarin, so English is what we use if we want to commincate. Realistically, my wife doesn't have the time to teach me and neither do my colleagues.

So what should I do? My free time is also limited. I probably could spend an hour a day but seldom all at one stretch. Various options I've thought of are:

(1) Get a tutor (once a week, over the weekend)

(2) Get a teaching book and go through it in a disciplined manner.

(3) Both of the above

Any suggestions, helpful ideas, etc. are appreciated

Yours tongue-and-tone-tired

HedgePig

[Danmairen]

I hear you loud and clear, you understand the questions, you know what you wanna answer, you know the words and think you know the sentence, but nothing comes out:(

I feel the exact same way. All I can say is practice, practice, practice. I don’t know if you have learned any other language previously, but that’s how it goes. After twenty years of learning English I still feel like I school kid, when I speak to native speakers.

As you probably work from 9-7 every day, schools and tutors seems like an optimistic solution.

I would ask my wife to only speak mandarin when at home, and then listen to ChinesePod, or something like that, whenever I had the time, in the car, bus, subway or when working out etc.

If you are into grammar and stuff like that, buying a book about how to construct sentences in mandarin and study them until you know them in your sleep, could be the way to go, it never worked for me though. I’m more into learning by doing. And it’s my impression that if one didn’t understand what an optative verb or conjunction was in school, one never will:roll:

I know people who gave up, and although they have Chinese wives and girlfriends never learned the language. And walk around feeling like illiterate idiots, once out of the known expat scene.

Hang in there:D

Regards

Rune

[Lu]

The problem here is that Chinese sentences are constructed very different from English, and I assume Danish, ones. So even when you know the words it's sometimes hard to put them together in the right way.

Two things I think you can do:

- Like you already said, hire a tutor who can help you with this. Or study the sentence patterns on your own.

- Even if you don't know how to say it the right way, give it a try anyway. Try and try again, and ask the person you're talking to (colleagues, wife) what you're doing wrong and how it should be said. Don't do this all the time, sometimes people don't have time to teach you something, and sometimes it's more important to just get the point across. But your wife, and your colleagues if they're nice, can help you here and there. Practice is the key.

Good luck!

[yersi]

I know I tend to sound like a broken record on this, but you should definitely check out an SRS system like Anki. It is a very time-efficient way to learn vocabulary and easy to incorporate into a daily routine.

As for the rest, if you have limited time to practice Chinese, work primarily on improving your systematic understanding of the language. Routledge's grammar books help immensely with this. Once you have a solid foundation in Chinese grammar, you will have a far easier time making sentences of your own and absorbing new material.

[HedgePig]

Hello Everyone - thanks for the replies.

Lu said:

So even when you know the words it's sometimes hard to put them together in the right way.

This is exactly my problem! (Except replace "sometimes" with almost all the time!) Of course, at my level, everything is a problem - vocabulary, grammar, tones, etc. - but speaking is the area where I fell I need the most improvement. I'm simply not at the stage where I can just say something without thinking very carefully about how to say it (and even then it's 50/50 as to whether I'll get it right.) While I find reading a grammar book is very helpful in understanding how something should be said, it doesn't really fix it in my mind. Casual conversation also doesn't help much (although I am at least speaking) because I'm not being corrected. And if I am being corrected, then it's no longer casual conversation but something painfully slow. So perhaps I should I go the tutor route.

I actually enjoy learning Chinese but I am frustrated at my very slow progress.

Once again, thanks for the suggestions

HedgePig

[abcdefg]

You might try Pimsleur. Their approach is less robust than others when it comes to vocabulary building, but it’s relatively painless and does help you get started speaking in simple sentences using material you have learned only by ear. Just race through the early lessons that you already can do easily and slow down when you find them getting more challenging. In other words, Use Pimsleur partialy as a review and partially as a way to mobilize what you already know so you can use it conversationally.

Then quit your job, divorce your wife, move to a small town where nobody speaks English and start over from square one. (Only joking.)

Edited February 23, 2009 at 02:34 AM by abcdefg
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[roddy]

Get yourself a repertoire of small talk, practice it with a tutor or your charming wife (c'mon, she can spare you thirty minutes ;-) ) until you're reasonably confident with it, and then try it out on the unsuspecting. Ask strangers in the lift what floor they live / work on; ask colleagues what they're having for lunch; mutter to fellow public-transport takers about the crowds; ask taxi-drivers how business is; ask the old guy sitting at the corner where the nearest bank is*; take a long-cut through the park and ask the chess players who's winning. Etc.

You need opportunities to speak Chinese, and if your day-to-day environment isn't giving them, you need to create them. There can be a massive confidence boost from just having something you say in Chinese understood, and this'll give you a few basic sentence structures you're familiar with and can start substituting other vocabulary into. Sure. you'll likely crash and burn plenty of times when you can't understand the response, but take your time and make you sure have coping mechanisms such as requests for slower speech you can pull out so you maintain some kind of control and don't just stand there feeling daft. And start off with a slow, clear nǐhǎo to let people know that they're about to hear something Chinese.

Some kind of structured course is indispensable though - book, audio, whatever.

*so what if you're not going to the bank . . .

[renzhe]

You say that your listening is far ahead of your speaking. How about your written language? You don't need a HUGE vocabulary to chat fluently, but you do need to have a good grasp of the basic vocabulary, and this can only come from using it.

Everybody has a gap between passive and active knowledge, and the best way to get that corrected is to talk a lot. I'm in the same boat. I can understand well, especially written stuff, so I concentrate on speaking. Exercise really helps. Make it regular, and keep trying to keep the conversation going. You don't necessarily need a teacher, just someone who will chat for half an hour and correct you when you say something wrong, or rephrase something you've said. Not detailed grammar explanations, just a quick correction and then continue talking. Your wife is an ideal partner here. You can probably get a colleague or two to go for a drink and chat for half an hour, and do this with different friends at different times.

Also, listening. Like our First Episode Project. If you hear something often enough, you'll be able to say it too. Lots of listening until things get burnt into your memory really helps. You'll get used to the Chinese sentence structure and many phrases that will come in very handy in trying to express yourself.

[amandawoo]

hello,I saw your post here and I felt it was very similar to some of my students. I have some suggestions for you...by the way, i am a Chinese teacher working in Shanghai..

01-enlarge your vocabulary, not just nouns for something,but verbs for your actions. Start from learning the verbs describing your daily actions, for example, get up, wash face, brush tooth, get taxt, order food,..you can practise when you do these actions. no need to rush..everyday, let say, five verbs, and by five days.Use your weekend to review 25 verbs you learned during one week...

02-to learn some sentence structures, 3 stuctures for a week. some people will think that these grammar things might be very boring and difficult to learn..but i acturally Chinese grammar is not difficult compared to English or other language and it is very practical.I suggest you might learn in this way..

-how to ask questions : shenme, zenme, na'er,shui...

-how to describe something is at some place

-how to describe the feathers of something

these just some examples...

03-to some corelative words or some phrase..

yinwei(because)....suoyi(so)....

ruguo(if)....

....de shihou(when)

these acturally are very easy to learn and grasp, of course you have a lot of chance to practise them in your work...

just some suggestions for this stage of learning..

[trevelyan]

I'm not a disinterested party, but my suggestion is to listen to podcasts like the ones we are doing at popupchinese.com and start going over them during your routine workout/commute, etc.. The effort involved is basically adding an RSS feed to your mp3 player, and then remembering to take it with you.

Be sure to vocalize what you are learning too (talk to yourself). Don't worry about people thinking you're crazy. They won't - in fact they're more likely to strike up conversation with you once they realize you're trying to practice spoken Chinese.

You want to exposure yourself to the podcasts at your level, but also the ones slightly above it. Get good at saying a few complex sentences with different grammar structures. You will pick that up naturally from the different podcasts you pick. What you are really doing is building a framework for language acquisition and use. In short order you'll find yourself able to swap words into and out of the structures that you feel comfortable with and won't find yourself tongue-tied as you try to think of some way - any way - to express what you mean..

[HedgePig]

Once again, thanks to everyone for all the replies and suggestions.

I just looked at some of the Pimsleur transcripts and based on on what I saw there, I'm probably looking for something a little more advanced. I'm happy enough saying, "It's hot today" or "I like mooncake" but I start breaking down where things get more complicated, e.g.

"It's hot today but I think it'll be cooler tomorrow after it has rained." or

"If you don't give me your mooncakes, I'll take them from you and then make you eat the wrapping."

I suppose much of my problem is my reluctance to actually talk at all. (My profession has a reputation of making accountants look like wild extroverts and I'm afraid I'm fairly stereotypical.) But even when I do talk I don't think I learn new things very well from a casual conversation - especially new sentence patterns. I think, as Roddy suggested, I do need something structured, perhaps supplemented by a tutor where the emphasis is on talking. My reading and writing is relatively OK (at least i'm happy with it!) as I have tried to learn to read and write the words I've learned. This is also certainly where I have spent my most effort as it's easy to do in small stretches. But I'm definitely nowhere near ready for an all-Chinese textbook without any English explanations.

One more question:is there any use in simply learning dialogues as a way of becoming more familiar and comfortable with longer sentences? I haven't tried this much at all but I do find I get a little frustrated in wanting to know whether one couldn't also phrase it this way or that way, instead of actually becoming familiar with the given dialogue.

I think amandawoo's diagnosis is quite accurate and I need to find a way of improving these aspects (particularly the sentence patterns) that is effective for me.

Anyhow, thanks again for all your suggestions. Much appreciated.

Regards

HedgePig

[simonlaing]

You need opportunities to speak Chinese, and if your day-to-day environment isn't giving them, you need to create them.

I agree with Roddy that the best way of getting over this hump is to put yourself out there. If you're shy then perhaps the tutor way is good, have her help you do certain tasks like order at the restaurant in asking how things are cooked. Also I found putting yourself in major Chinese situation helps, like long train rides or playing the chinese Mafia game (Sharen youxi.) There are bars that play it. Even going on a tour with all Chinese people was ok. The first 2 days you head might congested, but it will adjust and you can make friends and play games while you go on the tour.

Chinesepod can help as long as you actually try to use what you learn. Sometimes what helps me is retelling in Chinese what happened in the day to my wife and substituting an english word when I hit a vocab word that I forget. My wife or tutor teaches me that word and the sentence structure in a meaningful way as you are talking about something that you did.

When I was in this situation back in the day, (not that long ago) I would watch dramas usually love stories (as they were the slowest) and mouth the words. This helped stretch my mouth to pronounce sounds, be able to speak faster and improve listening.

Everyone has something that works for them, you can try some of these.

Good Luck

Simon

[imron]

One more question:is there any use in simply learning dialogues as a way of becoming more familiar and comfortable with longer sentences?

Yes! I was always reluctant to do this sort of thing and didn't think it would be of much use, but when I eventually started doing it, I found it very useful as it helps you to internalize various sentence structures (although I wasn't doing it with dialogues but rather with passages of text). Don't worry about the fact that you're memorizing fixed sentences. Once you become comfortable using them, then you can start to adjust them to suit your needs.

[bchew]

The important thing to do if you're learning simple dialogues is to make sure you actually use them. If you can use some of the sentences very quickly after learning them, you will internalize them much faster. If you hear coworkers consistently talking about a certain topic that you'd like to join in on, that'd be a great opportunity for you to learn a related, simple dialogue so you can easily participate the next time. It could be something as simple as where should we go for lunch?

[carlo]

IMHO being in a relationship with a Chinese speaker by itself doesn't help much one way or the other. In the end it all depends on how motivated you are.

There's a lot you can do with just a laptop computer and/or mp3 player. You can listen to radio programmes or watch Chinese TV shows and literally take them apart one vowel at a time.

I'm not sure if I understand your situation, but nobody can speak Chinese faster than they can think in Chinese. *Thinking* in a language (subvocalize, talk to yourself, etc) is a very good strategy to turn passive knowledge into active knowledge.

Don't worry too much if you're talking to yourself with a 3-word vocabulary or wrong grammar, at first. Just getting into the habit will condition your brain, and you'll start listening to other people in a different way. You'll begin picking things up without even noticing it.

Another suggestion I'd add to the above is choose a favourite hobby (anything goes, from origami to rock climbing), and find monolingual Chinese friends to share it with.

No matter what happens, don't give up. I've been working full time since the first day I came to China, have spent less than a month in a classroom setting all together, and after six-seven years (I'm beginning to lose count LOL) I speak only Chinese almost all the time, at work, home or with friends, and nobody ever complains.

[anonymoose]

I suggest you work through the grammar books (by Yip-po Ching and Don Rimmington, published by Routledge - I think someone mentioned these in an earlier post), and do the written exercises. If you can't handle characters, then do it in pinyin. These books have both, and answers are given in the back.

You said you understand reading grammar books, but you can't get the stuff to stick. Well, if you take the time to think, construct sentences carefully, write them out and check them, then I'm fairly certain the grammar will stick, or at least more so than if you only read the book. At first if may be a slow process, and then making the transition from writing out sentences to speaking them out may be a challenge, but at least this way you will have a very solid foundation.

Learning a language is a step by step process. Start from the basic, and gradually build up.