Mandarin Speaker need self study resources to learn to read and write

[Bison]

I grew up speaking mandarin. I never learned to read and write and would like to do so now.

Can yall recommend some resources or let me know if the following resources are the appropriate tools for my learning please?

I am considering the Wenlin or Wakan software.

I am also consider the "Learning Chinese The Easy Way: Read & Understand The Symbols of Chinese Culture" book.

Thanks for your help.

[feihong]

If you know how to speak you already have a significant advantage. You probably don't need to waste much time with pronunciation and grammar. Instead of getting a textbook, I would recommend you try ChinesePod and get Pleco for iOS (make sure to get the optional stroke diagram module).

I have used Wenlin for years and I think it's an amazing program. But it's very expensive and I feel that the newest version of Pleco has most of Wenlin's features, while being a fraction of the price.

[Chinadoog]

Just start memorizing new characters every day. You don't really need a textbook or program or anything like that. If you spend 30 minutes a day studying, you can easily conquer 10+ characters a day.

Here's a list of characters listed by how frequently they're used. Since you can speak Chinese and probably know how to use all of these words in speech, it might not be a bad idea just learning them in order.

http://lingua.mtsu.edu/chinese-computing/statistics/char/list.php?Which=MO

www.nciku.com is also really useful. For each character, it shows you the stroke order and direction which is useful to say the least.

[HerrPetersen]

I would love to see, how someone in your situation would do with a mnemonic system like

http://ezchinesey.com/

or like

http://www.amazon.com/Remembering-Simplified-Hanzi-Meaning-Characters/dp/0824833236/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1281859235&sr=8-1

I think you would do quiet well.

[Jane_PA]

I wonder, do you like to watch Chinese TV series or Chinese movies? In recent years, most Chinese TV series with Chinese subtitle. If you already understand listening, it might be very straightfoward for you pick up the subtitle, right? Because each Chinese character matches one Chinese syllable.

When I was a child, my Mom usually read the same children books for me again and again because we only had several children books. She didn't intend to teach me to read. But, naturally I learned how to read those Chinese characters after so many repeating.

For TV series, first, it is day-to-day Chinese and probablly a lot of repeating in dialoug. Second, with the scences and figures in a story, it should be easy to understand.

In China, there are lot of long TV series every year. From Gong Fu to romance, from history story to modern sitcom, from classics to comics, you should find one that you like.

[renzhe]

To be honest, I'd just cram the most common 3000 characters in by flashcarding half an hour a day for a year. You have the vocabulary, you have the grammar, you just need to map the characters to the words you already know. As you learn, get easy reading material and get some reading practice. Reading PRACTICE is extremely important, as just knowing the characters is not enough. You need to see them often in context and get used to fast reading, and that takes practice. Also, the TV show recommendation is really good -- it forces you to read fast, and you have the aural confirmation of what you're reading.

Keep in mind that many people in your situation tend to have limited vocabulary because they only use the language in a family setting (I don't know how it is with you), so you might need to pick up new vocabulary as you go along -- written language is sometimes slightly different from spoken language. But once you run into these problems, you should already be able to read everyday stuff, and will be in the situation of an advanced learner and all the standard recommendations will apply.

So, I would say:

- Anki or Mnemosyne with a list of the most common 3,000 characters (simplified or traditional ,depending on your preference)

- Good paper dictionary

- Easy reading material, such as comics, children's books or Chinese textbooks

Then practice every day. Chinese characters are actually all about persistence.

[xiaotao]

The weekend Chinese schools in my area (CA) typically use 2 kinds of text depending if you want to learn traditional or simplified. They are geared for kids but one can easily self study. Maybe you heard of the texts. One is called Wah Yu from Taiwan, the other is called Zhong Wen from China. Weekend schools are typically for Chinese Heritage learners.

[feihong]

One thing that I never see recommended is video games. Although totally inappropriate for a normal beginner, they might be OK for you. There are a lot of hacked ROMs that you can download. For example, you could play Legend of Zelda or Super Mario RPG in Chinese. I did this for several months as my main form of practice along with daily flashcard repetitions (using Anki) and learned about 2000 characters in a year.

[jbradfor]

For writing, I'm pretty shocked no one has mentioned skritter.com . I really wish it existed when I was learning to write!

@feihong

I would recommend you try ChinesePod

May I ask your reason for recommending this? While I like CP a lot, I feel it is aimed at improving listening comprehension, not reading and writing.

[Bison]

Wow you guys have given me a some great recommendations. I have never heard of most of the programs or resources out there and have no way to know to determine the quality of help that I would receive from them. I really appreciate yall's input.

While straight memorization seems like it would be the sensible method, I don't think that in the long term it would not be as efficient in the long run. Because the language systematically creates words by putting together basic characters I believe learning the pen-strokes and the basic characters will help me learn the language more thoroughly. Also writing it with the proper pen-strokes will help memorization.

I would like to find a way to watch chinese news and read chinese news via the internet. Can anybody post any links to chinese yahoo or chinese news please?

I have considered watching news with subtitles in Chinese, but realize that the timing of subtitles are usually off in English and are probably off in Chinese as well. And really I need a base of knowledge before I could start reading subtitles.

I love the video game recommendation. It really is very smart. Unfortunately I don't have enough of a base in regards to reading to be able to do that yet.

My goal is that I would like to be proficient enough one day to work as a translator.

[Jane_PA]

www.sian.com.cn is a popular website for Chinese news among Chinese.

[renzhe]

There's a typo there, it should be "sina", not "sian".

Also, any major news outlet will have a Chinese version, you can usually find it by looking for the 中文 link. For example BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/zhongwen/simp/

[roddy]

And really I need a base of knowledge before I could start reading subtitles.

If you can understand what's being said, and can pay a bit of attention to the subtitles, you'll soon notice characters that come up often. It's not a full learning-to-read solution, but it's a decent way to practice and see how much you're learning.

[Hofmann]

For a quick and dirty start, learn some common characters and some radicals. Then find some reading material like this and read it. I recommend using the Firefox add-on Perapera-kun.

This is a YouTube playlist that goes into detail on how to write some common characters, in case you want some more detail.

[rivercao]

China's 4 biggest news sites:

www.sina.com

www.sohu.com

www.163.com

www.qq.com

Search Engine:

www.baidu.com

online dictionary:

http://dict.baidu.com

Video sites:

www.tudou.com

www.ku6.com

www.youku.com

I think it's fairly enough.

[Bison]

Thanks yall. I will start checking out some of these links.

[feihong]

@jbradford

May I ask your reason for recommending this? While I like CP a lot, I feel it is aimed at improving listening comprehension, not reading and writing.

ChinesePod is great for reading practice, depending on how you study the materials. I always read the transcript first. Then I listen to the audio to hear Jenny et al's explanations of the more obscure words and phrases. Finally, I read the PDF to make sure I didn't miss anything on the first two passes. My focus is definitely on reading right now, and I feel that ChinesePod has definitely helped.

[hwangmic]

I grew up speaking Mandarin as well, but was never really strong at reading and writing. The Text Reader and the Vocabulary List Builder from www.clavisinica.com was helpful in that aspect. Basically, I just wanted to learn a lot of characters so I can finally start applying the skill in my everyday life. The Vocabulary List Builder helps me review the characters I have previously learned so I wouldn't waste all the efforts I have already used. Retention is so important when it comes to learning characters.