Starting again.....

[Chester716]

Hey all,

This is my first post....

I just wanted to say.. I spent the last two years studying Japanese (my ex gf is Japanese) and I came a long way. After we broke up I stopped using it. And where I live there are very very very few Japanese speaking ppl so I dont really have too many to talk to. I talk to her online sometimes but not really much. So I noticed I'm losing a lot of my speed. I used to be able to think sometimes in it and now I have to stop and construct the sentence in my head then say it...i hate it.....when I was in Japan it was easy to talk.. tho difficult to understand since ppl talk so fast...

I've always wanted to learn Mandarin....one of my ex gf's is Chinese and I lived with her for 3 years and she tried to teach me but she was horrible at teaching and got frustrated way to easily so it never took off and I really regret it since growing up in mostly asian communities I'm really into Chinese and Japanese culture.

I was learning Japanese mostly with flash cards for words and once I had a large vocabulary, I started making flash cards with sentences..... this works pretty well except if you dont use it you definitely start losing it....

i have a Chinese/English dictionary and a buncha blank flash cards.... i started this week and so far it doesn't seem that difficult.. the tones im handling pretty well... tho I get tripped up some time.......there are a LOT of chinese speakers where I live so I'm excited to get conversational.. I wish I could trade my Japanese progress in for this now :/

I'm using mostly online resources... audio tapes dont work for me.. other than pronunciation....im much more visual...

Just wanted to say hi and share some thoughts... I dont give up easily and I learn very fast... im aiming to be able to communicate very basically within two months.. im not learning to write characters yet as I wouldnt see them enough to keep it up....

if anyone has any tips for a beginner.. I'm open to suggestions...

or if anyone is in GTA/Kitchener area of Ontario.... and wants to help/learn together..

say hey..

laters

[leeyah]

It can be done even without many study resources, especially if you're really enthusiastic about it.

I started learning Japanese without going to classes before I ever thought of learning Chinese, and I did it on the go, reaching a higher intermediate level just by learning from & communicating with the Japanese most of the time. Later at Uni I took both as majors, but I gave up on Japanese eventually & ended up with just MA in Sinology. And I never regretted it as Chinese is at the root of whatever has fascinated me about the Far east and it is what I like best

Briefly, my advice is: that there are a lot of native Chinese speakers around you is great and that's all you need, so, don't be shy, no matter how little you can say, just go up to people, show your interest, talk to anyone who wants to talk to you, and you should be able to pick up the language, then just keep it up by occasional self-study, or whatever method you can think of.

By the way, when talking to the Chinese make sure you don't tell them how you love Japanese culture so much

Edited July 8, 2009 at 01:40 PM by leeyah
conciseness...

[renzhe]

If you're serious about learning Mandarin, you should learn characters. At least to read them.

Without characters, you won't learn much unless you actually live in China.

Also, you'll have to learn them sooner or later anyway, so you'd just be delaying the problem. And in the meantime, you'd be missing out on over 95% of all good study material and thus hurting your progress.

Other than that, search the forum for beginner information and help. There are many threads with excellent tips.

[Chester716]

Hello...

thanks for the replies...

I've got about 4 solid hours in and so far i must say as stated, putting sentences together DOES seem to be easier than when I was learning japanese.... a lot easier actually.

the tones im picking up pretty well, tho I still get lazy if I haven;t used a word recently.... but i can distinguish between them quite easily... maybe cuz I've heard this language spoken a LOT around me)

I took renzhe's advice and started learnign to write as well... im a very visual person so its actually nto too difficult for me to memorize them... tho i get a bit messed up writing somthing like ta (she) and ta men the ta is slightly different at the beginning from what I remember....

anyways.. im excited to keep at it.. because it's becoming easier to say things. I find it weird that sometimes I can spit out a whole sentence with tones at converstion pace and then ten mins later have to say that very same sentence very slowly to get it right.... just need practice..

Oh and I checked out Pimsleur's Mandarin I .. the first few lessons I listend on the way to work (1 hour drive) and on the way home... very good to help with pronunciation and tones.. but it IS difficult on some words like "yidian" for little I remember hearing that on the recording and unless u know how to spell it you'd think they wre saying " yidiarrr "

unless thats some other way to say it lol... other than that tho.. good resource....

I'm making flash cards for senences and words and ill ust memorize and drill myself by writing lists.... then speak as much as I can in it...

I do have a major problem with using it with ppl I donno tho.... i got over this a bit in Japan.. cuz i had to.. but even now at japanese places where the staff are ACTUALLY japanese.. i find myself not letting on I can speak japanese .. jsut cus i feel 'weird' about it.. i donno why.. im not a shy person but i get shy in front of native speakers of a language im learning... gotta fix that...

anyways.. just thought I'd share so far... communities like this are good.. they help a lot.

[OneEye]

I'm guessing you're talking about 她 and 他們. The first tā is she, the second is he. So you can have 她們, and even 它們 (它 is "it").

Yes, they are saying yidiarrr. You'll find that especially in the north, they add an r to the end of a lot of words. In pinyin it's spelled yīdiǎnr. In writing, you'll see it either as 一點 or 一點兒 (一点 or 一点儿 in simplified), but many northerners will read it with the r sound whether it's written or not.

[renzhe]

I suggest delaying the judgement on how difficult the language is until you've studied it for at least 6 months. This is especially true for characters and tones -- the first few are always easy.

Congratulations on getting started again. Now keep chipping at it regularly and don't get discouraged.

[Chester716]

Thanks for clarification

oh and so does that mean "yidar" can be pronounced as "yidian" and still mean the same thing and be understood?

Also I didn't mean to say it was EASY. I meant to say im having an easier time with this then I did when I started japanese... I don't know if thats because its easier to learn if you've learned some of another one already.. or if it's just easier in general.

learning a new language is never EASY.. thankfully I find it fun an dI dont get frustrated with this stuff too easily.

[OneEye]

Yes, yīdiǎn and yīdiǎnr are interchangeable.

I've heard that Japanese is harder in the beginning and gets easier, and Chinese is easier in the beginning and gets harder. For what it's worth.