Right Brain thinker / learning tools?

[SirDude]

Hi,

I have been reading / searching the forum and other websites for some time now to see all the different way people are studying. I have noticed that there has only been a few people who pointed out that they need visual aids to help study, not just reviewing / retaining. I am very much a right-brain thinker, I never did well with learning anything I could not see or touch, at least see in my mind's eye, so I am looking for the best visual aids to add to programs like Pimsleur or if there is a program that has a good visual start for basic Mandarin?

I don't want to turn this thread into a Rosetta Stone / Pimsleur debate, but would like to hear what people are doing to help study visually? Do flash-cards work well to learn, or just use a review?

This is what I have tried in the past-

I have tried Pimsleur's Japanese, but stopped because I think I will need Chinese more in the near future. (I wanted to learn both Japanese and Chinese, but decided against taking on both at same time) I did find myself getting bored very easily, but at least the CD's I put on my iPOD had real life responses to the words / questions they were teaching. (i.e; question: Do you like fish? answer: Yes, I do like fish) I found with cheap tapes, they teach you how to ask a question, but don't prepare you for the answer.

I have also tried Rosette Stone's demo, I did like the idea of how RS uses images like you would see when you are a child, not knowing what words are, someone points to a cake and says "cake", you learn very quick you like "cake", etc etc, that seems to fit into my right-brain thinking. But it's pretty clear by viewing the "tags" on this forum that Pimsleur out ranks RS by at least 2 to 1, if not more. So that has to mean something, and neither are cheap, and neither seem to be totally right for my learning style. So I am looking for the few that need to learn like me.

Thanks you for your thoughts,

SirDude

[Gharial]

Have you seen the Mandarin Chinese-English Visual Bilingual Dictionary from Dorling-Kindersley? It would seem a bargain at $10, and eminently usable if you've mastered Pinyin (i.e. it would then be YOU providing the "audio" for this book:mrgreen:).

One thing I sometimes do to transform quite plain materials is to take key dialogic phrases/exchanges/short skits and illustrate them myself with a little picture or comic strip and/or I'd act them out using my hands as characters. Just little things like that to make things come alive a bit more.

[querido]

That picture dictionary is beautiful.

Those same pictures, already flashcarded, would be nice for the OP. Doesn't one of the commercial outlets offer flashcards with images?

For making your own flashcards, it would be easy to get images from google images. It works extremely well. Ever tried it? Then (I think) you wouldn't be free to distribute your deck for copyright reasons (I think), which might be why we don't see a lot of free picture decks online.

But it's pretty clear by viewing the "tags" on this forum that Pimsleur out ranks RS

Just ignore that! It's like a poll, and if you're different, as you say, your opinion will justly differ. If Rosetta Stone is like picture flashcards, then maybe that's for you! In addition, please don't be too proud to consider materials prepared for children, like real textbooks. This is actually the route I chose and often preach about. (see studychineseculture.com, China Sprout, and others.)

Videos are plentiful. But, *in this specific regard* most are less helpful than they could be. Mostly useless, actually, even the best ones. A video-ized form of the above dictionary would *not* feature natural scenes, but would be adapted like this:

In one of the earliest lessons in NPCR, they order coffee, but unless you already know what that is, that *that* is what they're ordering, it isn't helpful in the sense of this thread. Better would be the guy's hand pointing to a cup of coffee as he says it! And that other guy saying "Yeah, me too": Why not gesture toward himself as he says that, and then pointing at the coffee? The guy ordering could hold up two fingers too, as he says er4. Etc. This is why I'm not necessarily suggesting videos, which would otherwise be a great tool for you.

By the way, while you're thinking about the ideal thing to study, don't forget to actually study *something*.

Good luck.

Edited January 13, 2010 at 01:13 PM by querido

[SirDude]

Thanks for the information.

I am trying to learn something, as slow as it's going, but as I asked on a different post, I trying to figure out if I need to learn Mandarin or Cantonese, so in the meantime, I am reseaching better ways to study.

I signed up for Livemocha.com last night, and even though it's free, I closed it about two hours later. The sound was bad, I could not hear the words clearly, and had NO idea what the word meant. It's sad, because they seem to have a cross between Rosetta Stone and Pimsleur, with a little Anki (http://ichi2.net/anki/) mixed in. I might go back in the future and try it again after I understan some of the language, because I saw they had writing skills along with listening and speaking skills. Good concept, but not for me.

As for flashcards, I Bookmarked Anki (http://ichi2.net/anki/) last night, I think that site will be useful after learning some words.

If you already had or could find pictures of stuff to label, I would think you could just use something like Flickr or some other photo sharing website to store the photos, and just label them with whatever you wanted to remember. Then if you wanted to share them with anyone online, just make your photos public or give your friends a password or invite, depending on the photo site.

I would think that if you knew how to type the word in Mandarin, you would be able to search for most things online, and then just add them to your account, as long as they're public photos.

One of the quick down-sides I see to searching vs. making your own, is if you searched for something like a Mustang, you are going to get a lot of cars when you meant the horse. But with all the stock photos online these days, I would think you can find pictures of most basic daily items. Door, toilet, clock, etc etc. So this might work!

Thank again,

SirDude