Newbie pre-study tips.

[Guest realmayo]

Hehe, I'll give a couple of green votes on those posts to take the heat off you Yersi!

Of course no one can argue with admins indulging their splittist tendencies, but, well, my sense that it's not a great idea for a complete beginner to teach himself/herself Chinese pronunciation in the two months ahead of starting formal lessons stands.

[murrayjames]

I agree with Yersi. Students can trust their own ears. What Yersi is recommending is listening repeatedly, and intently, to native speakers saying things in Chinese. What could possibly be wrong with this?

The foreigners I meet in China with bad accents are almost always uncritical about their pronunciation. They may have a strong understanding of grammar, or a large vocabulary, but they don't record themselves or compare themselves with native speakers. And because of this, they repeat the same errors and fall into self-imitation. The reason to record is to keep yourself honest.

I also don't think most Chinese speakers are up to the task of correcting a student's faulty speech. Producing correct speech in their mother tongue, yes. Noticing when tones are mispronounced, yes. Diagnosing where individual words are mispronounced and how to fix them, no way.

[Guest realmayo]

What Yersi is recommending is listening repeatedly, and intently, to native speakers saying things in Chinese. What could possibly be wrong with this?

Nothing at all. It's the bit about speaking we were talking about.

[murrayjames]

It's the bit about speaking we were talking about.

I agree with Yersi there, too. If a student listens intently to recordings of native speakers, and compares those recordings to her own, her ears will find their way. It takes time, but it will happen.

I disagree with the idea (suggested by WestTexas, above) that it's dangerous for language students to trust their own ears. "Fossilization" will not hurt students who (1) listen tons, and (2) are critical of their own speech habits.

This is because speaking is less about speaking than ear training. Learning pronunciation is an aural skill. If we can distinguish the sounds and hear them, our mouths can learn to make them.

[Guest realmayo]

You're not saying anything new that hasn't been said by myself, and by Yersi, about the importance of listening.

It takes time, but it will happen

I think you've lost sight of the fact that the OP is asking about what he or she could do in the next two months, before formal classes in China begin.

[renzhe]

Listening to native materials is always good and will not hurt. Most people don't do enough of it.

That said, of course untrained ears will not catch all the nuances, and learners new to a language are notorious for mispronouncing things and not even noticing. After all, yersi himself points at bad habits people gain by vigilante self-teaching, and this includes pronunciation. Sometimes you will pronounce a sound in a non-standard way and get it "close enough", and it will work most of the time, but will sound wrong in certain combinations, leading to an accent. This also affects native speakers who often have trouble pronouncing certain sounds and need professional help to correct it. Professionals who provide detailed explanations of where to put the tongue and jaw and how to articulate phonemes.

But even with all of this in mind, two or three months of learning pronunciation on your own will not hurt, and that is what the OP i interested in. It can only help. It will give him a head start, and give his teachers in Tianjin a much better basis to work with, leading to better pronunciation. Insisting on learning pronunciation on your own for years will hurt your pronunciation in the long run, IMHO, but nobody is advocating that here.

[jkhsu]

Any tips/suggestions on what I could be doing prior to getting there to assist in my language learning?

If I had two months before going to China to study hard, I'd relax, take it easy and do some traveling.

But, if you really want to prepare, I would recommend just reading up on the Chinese language instead of doing actual learning. I mean, you are already planning to invest the time to learn Chinese in China in a couple of months, why "attempt" self-learning now?

Anytime you learn Chinese from a particular place (e.g. mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, etc.), you're going to get the view of Chinese from that place. My suggestion is to first get a "world" view of how the Chinese language is used and keep an open mind that regional differences exist.

I think there were some good books recommended but here are some links from wikipedia that I would read:

Chinese Language:

http://en.wikipedia....hinese_language

Varieties of Chinese

http://en.wikipedia....ties_of_Chinese

Traditional Chinese characters

http://en.wikipedia....nese_characters

Simplified Chinese characters

http://en.wikipedia....nese_characters

Classical Chinese

http://en.wikipedia....assical_Chinese

Four Great Classical Novels

http://en.wikipedia....lassical_Novels

Written vernacular Chinese

http://en.wikipedia....nacular_Chinese

Chengyu

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengyu

Three Character Classic

http://en.wikipedia....aracter_Classic

Some additional points to keep in mind. I am sure there are many more but these are just a few I can think of:

1. In China, you're pretty much going to just see simplified characters but when you go to Hong Kong, Taiwan or overseas Chinese communities in the USA for example, you're going to see traditional characters. Avoid the debate and try to learn both in the long term, especially if don't plan to live in China forever.

2. Many characters, while pronounced the same way, may have multiple meanings.

3. Some characters can be pronunced multiple ways. See link below: You don't need to remember them, just know they exist:

http://wenku.baidu.c...0c8447efbe.html

4. When characters are combined together to form a word, the meaning of the world can sometimes be completely different from the characters themselves.

5. Factoring in both simplified and traditional forms, don't be surprised if you see some characters written in more than two ways. A couple of them here:

里, 裡, 裏

烟, 煙, 菸

6. Different words can describe the same thing. This is often (though not always) a result of regional differences. See this link:

http://www.chinese-f...ifferent-names/

7. Just be aware that many native Chinese may not pronounce Mandarin the same way because they usually have a regional dialect that can affect their pronunciation.

In general, be open to Chinese media such as music and movies. Many have suggested just listening to Mandarin being spoken or in songs to get a feel of the sounds. When you get over to China, make some native friends and join them if they ask you to go singing.

Also, if you haven't already, get an iPhone or Android with Pleco OCR. It will come in handy.

[Saxondale]

pleco <3