Transitioning (日>中)

[牛juice]

大家好！I am currently a senior high school student who has been taking running start classes for a while. I have been studying Japanese for three years and I can generally read (汉字) 2000ish characters. I have taken a high school Japanese class then moved to community colleges because of the simple diffciulty. (Sadly CC are not much better.) I started Chinese a few months ago by myself looking into the language and to see if I liked it. I love the language -- I actually prefer it over Japanese.

Because of my weird speech disorder speaking English/Japanese is a bit hard for me but it's non existant in Chinese because of single-syllable system. (I have a meter/pacing problem where sometimes I just rush and speak jibberish 3 times my normal speed...it's quite annoying) but my interest in Chinese is actually not the topic of this thread.

I want to put as much Chinese into my schedule so I can transition into a college with a Chinese/Japanese double major. Chinese characters are not that difficult as I can allready reconise 2000 汉字 stolen from China. In a near community college they offer Chinese 1, 2, and 3 on a quarter system. Based on the Japanese class I took there they will probably be slow. (aAll three levels of Japanese were worth one half a year. XD) I can take only two of those classes so I am planning on skipping the first class. Most of the colleges I have looked into use "New Practical Chinese Reader". I am assuming the community college does as well.

So I am thinking buying New Practical Chinese Reader Textbooks 1-3 skipping the workbooks and CDs. I heard that the workbooks were mainly focused 汉字 and weren't that great and I allready bought "Remembering the Hanzi" by Heisig which I think is exactly what I need since I need help with writing the Chinese form the characters. I'm not sure how far the first three books cover? 1000 汉字？Does is cover all the elementary Chinese? I would like some advice in studying Chinese, especially from someone who has studied Japanese. Do American colleges know/care about the HSK? I'm still quite new to this langauge and I would greatly appreciate any advice! 谢谢你们！

~牛juice

(I know Japanese and Chinese culture are conflicting and I'm sorry if writing about Japanese was a bit offending.)

[kayro]

@juice: i cant answer any of your questions directly, I am in a somewhat similar position, and think your biggest task (in addition to learning Chinese) would be transitioning your knowledge of Chinese characters gained from learning Japanese into learning Chinese will be distinguishing simplified and traditional characters, although there is some resemblance and I think it is a matter of seeing the simplified characters repeated enough so that you associate it with the traditional characters (learned from Japanese) that you already know. At least that has been my experience in the last couple weeks as I have tried to "passively" read / browse / skim through written content in Chinese.

Although my experience is still very limited, i've been wondering something similar for the last couple of months as well - would be glad if anyone else can shed any insight.

here's some background on myself: i am a heritage speaker of Cantonese, born and grew up in the U.S. As a kid, also went to Saturday morning Chinese classes as a kid, at a school run by Taiwanese teachers teaching mandarin with traditional Chinese characters (6-7 years). After graduating school in the U.S., I spent some years going to school and working in Japan and can now read/understand 95% of most newspapers / legal contracts I come across. However, my mandarin and my Chinese-reading level has disintegrated - probably at beginner junior high school level now. I cant express myself as well as I used to be able to when I chat in Cantonese, sometimes expressions dont come out and I have to rely on using the hanzi I know from Japanese in order to find the right words (half the time the listener understands, but the Chinese is just weird-sounding).

1. Anyone else have similar experiences to share?

2. I am contemplating heading over to China for 6 months and studying Mandarin full-time intensively. Would it be realistic to expect to be able to read newspapers and/or participate in university level Chinese classes by end of 6 months? end of 12 months?

[renzhe]

Because of my weird speech disorder speaking English/Japanese is a bit hard for me but it's non existant in Chinese because of single-syllable system.

This is a common misunderstanding. Classical Chinese was mostly based on single-character words, but modern spoken (and written) dialects generally aren't. Standard Mandarin (which is likely what you'll be learning) is highly polysyllabic, with most words consisting of two syllables (though verbs tend to be monosyllabic).

The major difference is that it is a ("fully") tonal language. English is a stress-based language, putting emphasis on one syllable of a word, and Japanese is pitch-accent-based, which additionally adds a tonal contour to the whole word. But both tend to stress one part of a word, which might be related to your pronunciation issues.

Chinese dialects differ in this respect. Shanghainese is pitch-accented (many people think that it sounds a bit like Japanese), but most dialects are "fully" tonal, and each syllable has a tonal contour. Mandarin is relatively simple with its 4 canonical tones (other dialects have 7, 9 or more), but there is also (unmarked!) stress in modern spoken Mandarin, and its application varies. The Taiwanese standard tends to be more even, with each syllable getting roughly the same stress, but the Mainland standard (and particularly the northern variations of the same) tend to use lots of neutral tones and stress, combined with quite complex sentence prosody.

I don't know how helpful this will be in terms of speaking. Many people find tones to be one of the trickier aspects of Chinese, but even poor tones will get you understood.

In terms of writing, you have a wonderful head start. The writing system is commonly cited as the most difficult part of learning both Chinese and Japanese, and you've covered most of it already. You will need more characters for Chinese than for Japanese, but after you've passed the 2,000 mark, you have a good basis and learning new ones is not really such a big deal.

New Practical Chinese Reader is good, I finished it and liked it. I didn't do the workbook, but this is due to my studying style -- I hate exercises. It might be worth getting the audio CDs if you expect pronunciation to be a problem. They come with slow speed, and you can try chorusing (speaking along) to nail the proper pronunciation. This is really important in the beginning, the fewer bad habits you gain early, the fewer years you'll need to iron them out later.

(I know Japanese and Chinese culture are conflicting and I'm sorry if writing about Japanese was a bit offending.)

Most people on this forum do not think like this and there are a number of people studying both Japanese and Chinese. Welcome aboard.

2. I am contemplating heading over to China for 6 months and studying Mandarin full-time intensively. Would it be realistic to expect to be able to read newspapers and/or participate in university level Chinese classes by end of 6 months? end of 12 months?

How good was your Mandarin while growing up? How good is it now? Can you follow very basic conversations? Could you converse at a decent level before?

If your Mandarin and Cantonese have simply deteriorated, but a basis is still there, I would expect you to pick Mandarin up relatively quickly if immersed in it for a few months. If your Mandarin is really non-existent, it will likely be more difficult. Easier than a total beginner, though, due to the knowledge of characters and Cantonese.

[Glenn]

In addition to lots of exposure to Chinese in its written and spoken forms, this book may be helpful: Why?にこたえるはじめての中国語の文法書. I haven't gotten too far into it, but it's got some nice explanations with cartoons and drawings to illustrate the points, and there's also some humor thrown in. I wouldn't worry about the different forms of the characters -- you can probably pick them up just through exposure. If not, I would imagine devoting half a minute to problem ones would be sufficient. Probably the hardest ones will be the ones that are simplified differently in Japanese and Chinese, like 龍/竜/龙 for instance, (although 龍 is used in Japanese too).

Helpful dictionary sites:

教育部重編國語辭典修訂本 (Taiwanese, traditional)

百度词典 (simplified)

[knadolny]

this book may be helpful: Why?にこたえるはじめての中国語の文法書

Good idea Glenn. I should have thought about this myself to help my learning of Japanese (with the Chinese background).

2000 汉字 stolen from China

I would rephrase.

sometimes expressions dont come out and I have to rely on using the hanzi I know from Japanese in order to find the right words (half the time the listener understands, but the Chinese is just weird-sounding).

Yeah my Chinese is holding up as I am studying Japanese, but it is hard. I think my Chinese and English skills are both taking a hit right now.

6 months in China studying full time will get you pretty far. In 12 months I think you shouldn't have much trouble reading newspapers and going to university classes. Just my hunch based on what you wrote.