Mandarin study plan?

[Cats]

Hello people! : )

I'm new here so I might have not posted this topic in the right category, so please excuse me!

I've had a love for Asia (East and Southeast) since I was five or six. Time passes and that interest has gotten even stronger. I'm totally in love with the culture of China and Japan - language, history, cuisine, martial arts, philosophy, poetry, architecture and just everything about those two countries!

I've decided to learn either Chinese or Japanese. I first decided to give Japanese a go, but I just started thinking... China is growing rapidly, China is most likely to become the next world "empire", Chinese culture is richer than the Japanese one (personal opinion, no offence), there are many more people who speak Chinese, Chinese would be a great headstart for many more Asian languages, including Japanese. And I'm damn 14, I have a lot of time to learn many languages till it's time to work full-time (about 10 more years... : )) (and for some reason, I just love learning languages, but I haven't started seriously studying one. I'm from Bulgaria and English is NOT my mother tongue, but I just don't count it because I don't see English "foreign" anymore)

And here I am now, motivated to learn Mandarin. I know, I know, it won't be a walk in the park. Characters may be hard, but I don't believe in "impossible things" - my philosophy is that one can achieve anything if he/she tries really hard and puts a lot of time and effort in it. I don't believe in being "talented" in languages and things in general. People say I am talented. I just don't believe it, I think that everything I've achieved has happened because of my hard work.

My visual memory is very good. How do I know this? I learnt about 50 Japanese kanji a year ago or so and guess what? I remember at least 40 of them. The most amazing one is the kanji for "nothing", which I saw only ONCE and it looked like a burning house to me. Guess what again? I recognise that character and I can write it down (but it's highly possible that I get the stroke order wrong)

Hanzi don't scare me at all. In fact, Chinese characters are the reason for me wanting to learn Mandarin. Everybody else is studying Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese - European languages. For some reason, I don't find myself interested in any of those (well, maybe Spanish, but just for the CV - it's good to have two European languages there) because they are simply BORING. They might sound beautiful, they might be cool, but I just see them as: complicated grammar and a boring ~30 letter alphabet. Hanzi, Kanji are another story - I'm absolutely FASCINATED by them. I LOVE learning kanji just for the sake of it. I feel amazingly great when I recognise and write those mysterious symbols!

I hope I haven't tired you too much with all that writing. I just thought it would be good to write a short story about me and my "experience".

Could you please recommend me some material for studying Mandarin? I won't start right away, I'll be working on improving my English in the next 6-7 months at least, but after that, Chinese, wait for me! : )))

Please give me some advice for a beginner (link to another topic would do a great job too) and most of all, I don't know how to start. Should I pick a textbook or start with an audio-based programme like Pimsleur or ChinesePod?

I'd really appreciate it, if you could make a simple "plan" for learning Mandarin. For example:

1. Learn Pinyin

2. Pick up an audio programme (insert recommendation here and why)

3. Pick up a textbook (see above)

4. ......

You get the point, something like that : )

Sorry for the long post! Pardon my English mistakes too, I hope they don't annoy you, but I still have to work on my English.

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Could you please recommend me some material for studying Mandarin? I won't start right away, I'll be working on improving my English in the next 6-7 months at least, but after that, Chinese, wait for me! : )))

Probably best to return and seek specific advice closer to the time of your anticipated blazing conquest of the Chinese language. Meantime you can try reading the forums. All your questions have been asked and answered many, many times. Use the search funciton to locate topics of interest.