How to start reading (self-study)

[patko]

Hi

I have a few questions regarding the chronology of learning if you will:

1) Should I start attempting to read now (130 chars) or should I only commence reading at a certain amount of known characters (for example 1000)?

2) How have you 'self-study people' handled the reading and listening part of learning the language? At this moment I rarely understand anything being said in a movie except the basic wo men, wo shi etc etc...

3) Can you tell me your learning chronology and how you handled the matter?

4) Is it possible that in conversation chinese people do not pronounce their words right? How do I know how to pronounce a word right if 3 different chinese people have 3 different interpretations of the word? In memrise.com you can often listen to 3 people say a word and it often is quite different, this obviously confuses me and I feel as though the pronounciation although hailed by most Is perhaps not that important as I have been led to believe?

I hope I'm not saying anything sacrilegious here, I just wish to know what the deal is with all of this.

xiexie in advance lol

[imron]

It will be very difficult to read much at this level. You are probably better off spending a bit more time going through a text book to increase your vocab and knowledge of grammar. Then you can start to look at things like graded readers (e.g. the Chinese Breeze series) and also comic books (search the forums for info on both).

[renzhe]

I agree with imron. There are no hard numbers, but something upwards of 1000 characters and 2000-3000 words is more likely to get you through a comic book than 130 characters. That said, it's never too early to start, it's just that it might not be enjoyable if you have to look up every single character. So keep trying (there are many comic book threads on here) and once it starts being more enjoyable than it is annoying, you're ready.

As for listening, it takes time. At this stage, it is too early, so you should use your textbook's audio or video materials for practice. After a while, you can start working your way through a TV show (I like these better than movies when it comes to learning a language). Again, there are many threads over in TV forum, and once again, you should keep trying the easy shows until they stop being too frustrating. With Chinese, it's a long process, and you need to attack it with lots of listening practice.

At this point, it's probably best to stick to your textbook until you have a foundation, and to keep trying easy comic books and TV shows regularly to see if you're ready.

[jbradfor]

Is it possible that in conversation chinese people do not pronounce their words right?

Don't you think it's a bit cheeky to say Chinese people (I assume you mean native Chinese speakers) are pronouncing their own language wrong?

Yes, there are various accents in Chinese -- isn't there in English as well?

[patko]

Okay thanks, I have another question regarding self-study. I have just read the pdf book "Mastering Mandarin in Months How to Learn Chinese in Months Not Years" which was posted by a user on this forum. It made me pesimistic as to wether I could by self-study gain any valuable skills in Mandarin. I started of optimistic but the more I read the less I am convinced that I can make sufficient progress by self-study.

Is there anyone that can tell me their succes stories on self-study and how you managed to do it? I need some perspective. Also both of you recommend textbooks, I have not been studying with textbooks yet as I have heard alot of negative reactions to them. Is it a crucial tool to progress or not?

[renzhe]

Well, people often pronounce words in ways that is divergent from the standard that is taught in textbooks. Sometimes it's actually wrong, but most of the time it's a matter of an accent, or simply fast colloquial speech (codas get swallowed, retroflex is droppes, initials turn into something else, etc.) Yes, this is an issue when you are first starting. The best thing to do IMHO is to follow the standard (most textbooks are very good about this), and get used to the variations through listening to native materials.

[patko]

Okay thank you renzhe, I will follow a textbook for some structure on my journey. See you on the other side!

[character]

WRT reading, just reading the material in textbooks can be quite boring. You can get the Chinese Breeze 300 character-level books and The Lady in the Painting, also at the 300-character level. While learning, pay attention to how Chinese sentences can be structured and what words are what parts of speech. This will take a lot of guesswork out of reading.

If you have a supported iPad/Android tablet and Pleco, you can scan in the material and use OCR on it, so you can read each page on screen and tap on unrecognized characters to look them up. It's not perfect, but it can help a lot.

There are a few websites like this http://www.chinesestoriesplatform.com/index.php with beginner-level material available.

[Silent]

I agree with imron. There are no hard numbers, but something upwards of 1000 characters and 2000-3000 words is more likely to get you through a comic book than 130 characters.

This is absolutely true. Nevertheless I started 'real' reading at just over 1000 characters studied. I started out with Chinese Breeze and I felt is was easy enough vocabulary wise but had some issue's with the grammar. The lowest level comes it at about 300 words, at this level a few more characters. So with knowledge of 300-400 words you should be able to struggle through.

I recognise your issue with understanding speech. IMHO understanding is a lot harder then reading. A lot of words sound the same or are very similar so you get less info then when reading. At the same time reading can be done at your own pace, while speech has to be processed much faster (real time). A lot of listening helps but in my experience only very slow.

[imron]

Is there anyone that can tell me their succes stories on self-study and how you managed to do it?

I learnt my Chinese mostly through self-study, with the exception of one year at Beijing University in the second year that I was learning Chinese.

Mostly it was learnt through interacting regularly with people, and it helped that I was living in China. Once my level improved, large amounts of native input also started to help - radio, tv, books etc.

Basic Mandarin in months is certainly possible - buying things, asking for directions, simple conversations on familiar topics etc. To be able to really use the language to consume native materials and/or hold your own in conversations with native speakers on any given topic will take years - but don't let that put you off. It's a long journey but the rewards are worth it when you get there.

[imron]

Is it possible that in conversation chinese people do not pronounce their words right?

Yes, and this happens in every language e.g. in English a sentence like: Do you want to go for lunch? will be spoken as "d'ya wanna go fa lunch" (or similar). Rarely will you find people who clearly and accurately pronounce every single word of a sentence in the same way you would hear it in a textbook. Learning to understand words as they are spoken in normal speech is just another aspect of learning the language.

[abcdefg]

Is there anyone that can tell me their succes stories on self-study and how you managed to do it?

You need to go read the Benny "90 day" blog.

http://www.fluentin3...how-many-words/

[jkhsu]

I have not been studying with textbooks yet as I have heard alot of negative reactions to them. Is it a crucial tool to progress or not?

What are these negative reactions that you are hearing? I live by textbooks. They're especially helpful for beginners who are self studying because they gradually introduce you to vocab, grammar and reading. The problem with learning vocab alone is that you don't see them in context enough, especially before you can read native level text.

Check out my post on this topic.

[icebear]

Is there anyone that can tell me their succes stories on self-study and how you managed to do it? I need some perspective. Also both of you recommend textbooks, I have not been studying with textbooks yet as I have heard alot of negative reactions to them. Is it a crucial tool to progress or not?

I've been studying Chinese on and off for around 4-5 years, and except for a couple 1-2 month spurts of 1-on-1 tutoring that has been entirely self study. I didn't bother doing much research early one regarding effective study techniques, but through trial and error I've gotten to place that is both reasonably rewarding and feasible, given my own time and money constraints.

Where I am now in Chinese is reasonably conversational and "functionally" literate (I can read around 2500+ words, 1500+ characters), which is bare-bones functional - not getting much nuance out of articles or book chapters, but I can struggle through them. Conversation is reasonably good.

My view, after a few years at this, is that a good self-study routine should include:

1. A structured textbook series to follow - I'm currently working my way through NPCR Volume 1-4, not because it is teaching me new words, but rather because it is teaching me grammar points that I should have learned long ago but didn't because I never bothered with textbooks. They can be boring, but I think its probably worth completely at least one series. Try to nail a chapter each week or two if you can and you'll finish the series in a year or two.
   
2. Increasingly difficult audio content - I've been listening to ChinesePod podcasts at a rate of one per day for nearly 3-4 years, and I'm pretty sure that accounts for a large part of why my conversational Chinese is so much better than the rest - I'm just used to following spoken Chinese. It's easy to keep up with at only 20 minutes per day, also. Many free alternatives out there, a search on the forums will reveal it. Try to mix your listening between material at your level (understood fully on initial listen) and those a level above (understood, but with some nuance missed without multiple listens).
   
3. Character practice - I started late with character recognition, and even later with handwriting, but once I started last summer it made a huge difference in the pleasure I took from reading. I'd suggest start early, start now, with fairly modest daily targets. Had I learned 2-3 characters a day since starting (a trivial task if you use SRS for scheduling) I'd now know some 3000 characters. Start early and stick with feasible daily targets.
   
4. Media consumption - once you are in the 1,500+ word range start incorporating native content into your studying. Reading books, newspaper articles, watching TV shows, etc. You'll initially miss a lot of nuance, and perhaps for awhile on, but it will also enforce very basic vocabulary and grammar patterns and its nice to realize that while you're missing 40% of the material you are understanding 60% of what's going on, which hell, ain't too bad in a foreign language early on.
   
5. Production - depending on where you are, you should try to interact in Chinese as much as possible. Skype helps for those outside of China, as does Lang-8 for those both inside and outside of China. I'm fairly new to Lang-8 but finding it a great place to do daily, small practices - a few hundred characters a day is a very modest composition, but the feedback comes in digestible doses that I think will add up over time.
   

Of course, none of this details how much time you should devote to each; I think they are roughly ranked by their importance in early stages, and reverse ranked by their importance in latter stages.

[renzhe]

You need to go read the Benny "90 day" blog.

Well, let's just wait and see whether that turns out a to be a success story first...

[Lu]

While selfstudy is certainly possible (although not for everyone, I myself couldn't do it), it might perhaps be a good idea to get a teacher in the early stages of learning. This way, you make sure you get a sound foundation in pronounciation, writing, grammar etc. If you misunderstand a point in the language early on and nobody corrects you, it makes it very hard to correct it later. This especially goes for pronunciation (tones!).

I think at 130 characters, you're only barely coming out of the phase where you can read the name of the local restaurant (which feels great), a bit too early for reading a whole book. What you can do is just pick up any Chinese text you see and find the characters you do recognize. If they form a sentence, so much the better; if not, at least you see your progress. Then with a couple hundred more characters (and even more importantly, words) under your belt you can start reading learners' books. (My first book was The Lady in the Painting. I didn't even finish it.)

For the rest, just keep at it! Good luck!

[abcdefg]

Well, let's just wait and see whether that turns out a to be a success story first...

Don't worry. He has pre-defined success in such a way that he cannot fail. If, after three months, he goes out on the street and says "knee how" and a local person smiles or laughs, that will convince him of his victory.

[imron]

I agree with a lot of the advice that Benny is saying in that blog, and see many parallels with the way I went about learning Chinese, but where we differ is in what we each consider fluency to be, and how long it will take to get there.

Get out and use the language, focus on things that are relevant to you, the real 'test' of how well you know something is successful interaction with someone for a given task and even if you fail you'll still learn something - that's all useful stuff to realise.

[jkhsu]

Benny also said himself that, "reading is a low priority for me over speaking, so I’ll be very far from this." If the OP wants to know when to start reading, Benny is not the best example to follow IMHO.

[imron]

But the same logic applies - focus on stuff that is relevant to you, the real proof of reading ability is not how many cards are in your SRS deck but whether you can read a newspaper/novel etc.