I'm Getting Desperate Trying To Learn Mandarin

[lostguy06]

hello,

I am writing this post because right now i am quite frustrated and I am hoping to get some help.

I have been studying chinese on my own for two years and a half now (no teacher, just various methods on the internet and watching chinese tv) and i must say that after all the time i have spent trying to learn it, I am almost ready to give up.

So far i think i have reached a basic speaking/reading level but what frustrate me the most is that after 2 and a a half years of studying it i can barely understand a sentence that might be said in a dialogue in any chinese tv show, I know that progress isn't supposed to come overnight but this is starting to feel pointless....

do anybody have a good personal methodology that they developed to learn chinese that worked for them ? at this point i would take any tip to help me out

thank you

[roddy]

You might want to have a read of Some Advice for Beginners and Advice for the new and independent student. I know you aren't strictly speaking beginning, but it sounds like you've failed to lay some foundations. Plus the Aims and Objectives topic will show you what other people are doing. Oh, and don't forget the First Episode Project where you might find some easier TV shows, wordlists, transcripts and support.

Developing listening skills may also be useful.

To be honest it sounds to me like you've stumbled about for two years doing stuff that you found easy or interesting, but have ended up - as often happens - with an unbalanced set of skills and a feeling of frustration at having to go back and learn stuff that now seems to be below your level. The solution is, unfortunately, to go back and learn that stuff that seems to be below your level.

[Shelley]

I have been studying chinese mostly by myself for about 25 years, but i also took some private lessons and a university evening class. I think the only thing that helps with listening and understanding is to do lots of listening. I have just discovered Slow chinese, the link has been posted, it has the written characters and it is read slowly so you have a chance of hearing the seperate words. I think it is helpful. I also sometimes just have CCTV9 or CCTV4 on and immerse myself it the sounds and rythm of the language. With CCTV9 there is english too so you can get a clue about the subject and it helps with understanding. I find that afer awhile my ear seems to tune in better. I think that the best way is total immersion but going to China is not always an option for everybody, so I try to surround myself with as much Chinese as I can. I hope this helps.

Shelley

[renzhe]

I spent about 5 years doing exactly the same thing you did, with exactly the same results.

You need to set up a good study curriculum and follow it for a number of years. You need to follow (and finish) a good textbook and systematically work on your vocabulary and characters and listening. I only started learning the language properly after I started doing all this.

Roddy has already pointed out many useful resources, time to reorganise your studying and start making some real progress.

[Shi Tong]

I think you're getting stuck between the divide of spoken and written Mandarin and poetic TV style Mandarin and normal spoken street language. One thing I would say is that if you're watching "normal" TV, it's also not a given that the language they use is really all that "normal" in a lot of cases. A lot of soaps, films etc use some classic Chinese paradoxical phrasiology (like using 不 in isolation for example), and therefore I wouldn't think that Chinese from the TV will always give you a totally balanced view of how people speak in real life.

What I find strange myself is that I can have a reasonable conversation with someone in the street and we'll understand everything we say to each other, but as soon as they present me with a letter, I might not understand anything. Similarly with a newspaper, where I find if someone simply tells me what is in the article, (obviously using Mandarin), I understand everything, but looking at the way it's written, I really dont understand it.

This divide is a common and normal problem between spoken Mandarin and written Mandarin.

What I suggest is getting some simple Mandarin learning books which "strictly" teach conversational Mandarin. Ignore the TV and try to speak to some normal people. This should give you an idea about how to speak to people you meet in real life- and not how to speak to someone who is in a soap or on TV.

[renzhe]

This will depend on what you are watching.

Today there are many TV shows with very colloquial language. It's an excellent source of listening practice.

[calibre2001]

Most books that teach 'conversational' Mandarin unfortunately can't teach a learner enough, certainly not enough to understand an episode of 康熙來了. I find Taiwanese people in these talk shows use a very high level technical mandarin in their speech that is also colloquail at the same time though.

One needs to be immersed in the right environment to reap real benefits.

[lostguy06]

thank you everybody ! i am completely blown away by the number of answers and advices you people just gave me !!

judging by what you just said, I think i should definitely try to regularly get in conversations with Chinese speakers and renzhe's advices are really good too, I will try those things

i think that my problem is also that when ever I listen to someone speaking chinese, I am way too concentrated on every single word they say, so i miss big parts of a whole sentence, I feel like i should definitely let my comprehension "flow" and let the inner translation process be an unconscious one (whatever i might mean :rolleyes: )

again thank you all for your advices !!

[renzhe]

i think that my problem is also that when ever I listen to someone speaking chinese, I am way too concentrated on every single word they say, so i miss big parts of a whole sentence, I feel like i should definitely let my comprehension "flow" and let the inner translation process be an unconscious one (whatever i might mean :rolleyes: )

This is VERY typical for spoken Chinese. It's hard to figure out on the fly and translate word-for-word. It's one of the tricks of learning it. You'll need to wait until your vocabulary and comprehension is at a level where you understand much of it automatically, so you can concentrate on the missing parts. This takes lots of listening and conversations. No shortcuts, unfortunately.

TV shows and podcasts at lower levels can really help you here. Try to find something suitable here.

[Shi Tong]

Interesting,

Sounds like you're getting distracted with the bits you dont understand.

What I always do is try to remember the phrase/ word I didn't catch and listen to the jist of the sentence, then ask what the part I didn't understand was.

A lot of the time it can actually contain immaterial stuff which, to be frank, you can ignore.

Also, Renzhe commented on how TV shows can vary (and they do dramatically!), so in one case you'll watch a Taiwanese TV show which is one of those 爆笑 types with silly interviews and chats with people who have funny stories. Most of these will contain lots of colloquial oddeties which are "cool to know and say". They'll also contain spats of Taiwanese language (fu-jian hua), which of course, you will not be able to understand at all.

Then you have the soaps, and the language in these varies from that of the 爆笑 style shows. These can be attempting to be more poetic and literal.

I even think the news is very different from these two types above too.

If you're watching both (or all three) types of these shows, it's no wonder that you're having trouble. Lots of these shows will contain language which will not usually be said on the streets or to your friends (especially the news). I've been learning to speak Mandarin for 9 years now and can hold a hearty conversation, but still have trouble with any of the above. Speaking with someone about every day stuff and what interests you (and them) may actually bolster your confidence, you may know more about how to talk to people than you think.

[Daan]

A lot of soaps, films etc use some classic Chinese paradoxical phrasiology (like using 不 in isolation for example)

Hmm, what do you mean by "不 in isolation"? I don't think that's formal or otherwise archaic at all, unless there's something I'm missing?

[Shi Tong]

Well, as far as I'm concerned, nobody in real life says 不 on it's own. It's always combined with a second word (不要,不用,不是,不会).

To have 不 alone is what you hear on the TV, in films etc.

[roddy]

It's entirely plausible to hear 不 in isolation - it'd come across as a bit curt, in the same way answering 'no' rather 'no, I can't' or something might in English, but it's hardly impossible - much less paradoxical phrasiology, whatever that is.

Off-topic anyway :rolleyes:

[Shi Tong]

Hello Roddy, yeah-- well, I've not heard that ever in my experience, and was told that it was something people said on TV.. that could be the fact it's a Taiwanese *cough* regional thing