Need to be conversational in Mandarin FAST

[Shandongren]

BTW, how do you experts handle when a flashcard has 10-15 meanings for one word? For example, this is one of my flashcards:

Jiù

1. 
   verb - undertake, move towards, approach, enter
   
2. 
   adverb - then, with regard, already, only, at once, right away, right off
   
3. preposition - on, concerning
   
4. conjunction - that, as soon as, as early as
   

It seems strange to memorize all meanings, esp. since I don't have a sentence to put this in context and they are not very related (eg. 'move towards', and 'as soon as'). Should I focus on one part of speech only (i.e. just worry about 'Jiù' as a verb) then move on to other meanings later? Should I just memorize sentences and the meaning of the words in them as they are in the sentence?

There has to be a method here! Thank you all for your help and opinions, they are invaluable.

[elliott50]

I just wanted to support jkhsu, WestTexas and wedge as regards business negotiation.

If I were having any conversation where significant amounts of my or my company's money were at stake, I would use a professional interpreter. Otherwise, a simple misunderstanding could turn into a very expensive mistake.

That is not to say that learning Chinese is not helpful, even beyond business small talk.

Many Chinese business people with pretty good English will still use an interpreter, both to give them extra thinking time before they say anything important and also to allow them to get the gist of the English speaking side's untranslated internal discussions.

There's no reason why we Mandarin learners cannot do the same....

[creamyhorror]

I just think it's a shame to tell someone who seems to want to learn Chinese that it's too hard and it might not be worthwhile

Why is it a shame to tell someone that learning Chinese might not be worthwhile? I enjoy learning Chinese, but it may very well be the case that it's not worth sacrificing my current prospects to go to China and find a job/do business.

The OP actually appears to have made rather inefficient progress and really needs to revise his methods and time allocation if he wants to get to "conversational" in a year or two (so obviously it's going to be difficult). "ASAP" really does not mean in 2+ years - Chinese is hardly a short-term game.

Chinese learning for its own sake is nice, but it's not a goal everyone should be encouraged towards blindly. What matters is what the individual can feasibly achieve given his motivation, resources and abilities.

[Shandongren]

Not to go off topic, esp. since I'm so new to the language, but aiming for perfection in Chinese (in all three ways - speaking/listening, writing and reading) does seem like a waste of time unless you are a linguophile. If I could speak Chinese like most Chinese company reps speak English, I'd be happy. I know I'm generalizing here, but I'm talking about factories, suppliers, folks you talk with on taobao or find on the net, or that go to conferences and meetings in a given industry. If you've ever received emails from such places, or met with such folks, you know what I'm talking about. Grammatical errors, limited vocabulary, misunderstandings sometimes, but at least you understand what they're talking about and get enough to buy/sell their wares. That's pretty much all anyone needs to do business; if you believe you need more, then explain how the Chinese have accomplished so much with limited English ability? I think there's an argument that you don't need such high level ability to transact; and when it comes to contracts, you have time to look it over with an expert. Again, don't jump at my throat for generalizing, I know a lot of Chinese people in big cities speak perfect English and it all depends on which industry (lawyers speak better than factory reps) and what kind of company (multinational or chinese), but when you get to people who've never been abroad, only studied English in school with a non-native speaker, and have had limited time practicing conversational English with native speakers, I think comprehension rather than perfect grammar, or reading literature is the end goal. Please note I am not criticizing Chinese English abilities; in fact one of the reasons I want to learn Chinese is because I am embarassed everyone has to speak English to me (and most everyone speaks some sort of basic English, while I struggle with even the most basic Chinese). It's just that the opportunity cost of learning to read and write is very high, and perhaps not clearly needed at this point in my life.

I would love to read and write, but it is just not realistic at the moment. And just because I can't focus my energies on these two worthwhile tasks, doesn't mean I want to just throw my hands up and become one of the many expats here who find Chinese 'just too hard' to learn.

I will tweak my study methods, because what I've been doing is not really working; thanks for the advice. I'd better go study now, instead of writing about studying.

[icebear]

BTW, how do you experts handle when a flashcard has 10-15 meanings for one word? For example, this is one of my flashcards:

Jiù

• verb - undertake, move towards, approach, enter
  
• adverb - then, with regard, already, only, at once, right away, right off
  
• preposition - on, concerning
  
• conjunction - that, as soon as, as early as
  

Use a more concise dictionary, such as CCDICT. Also, this is a reason that everyone is urging you to simultaneously learn flash cards - you're going to be overwhelmed with homonyms very quickly.

Given your revised/clarified statements, I think you are best off going through the first 3 books of NPCR at a rate you are comfortable with, which should get you to a low-intermediate conversational level, and then you can tackle other material more suited to your area of interest. Keep in mind that these books require you to use characters, as do nearly any textbooks that take you beyond elementary level concepts/dialogues. I'm not aware of any advanced material which is in pinyin.

Edit: By "tackle them" I mean study on your own and with a tutor daily, drilling every line of every dialogue until they are committed to memory, along with how to use them in slightly different contexts. NPCR is good for this as it includes a lot of expansion phrases/sentences in each chapter after the first book.

[gato]

Not to go off topic, esp. since I'm so new to the language, but aiming for perfection in Chinese (in all three ways - speaking/listening, writing and reading) does seem like a waste of time unless you are a linguophile.

How much time have you been putting into the learning in the 4 months? I would also focus on words rather than individual characters (just follow the textbook you are using).

I see that you are trying to find a shortcut, but knowing the characters is immensely helpful in learning the language. It is not aiming for perfection, though you can scratch learning how to write. To even be able to talk about prices confidently would require an intermediate level of Chinese. Knowing how to read helps you learn Chinese as much as knowing how to read would help you to learn French, but since French uses an alphabet you already know, you don't feel the effort needed to learn to read French. But imagine if you had to learn French entirely by listening, without being able to understand the words on the page. Pinyin helps, but it's only a pronunciation guide. There are so many homonyms in Chinese, knowing the characters would provide much more help in learning the words.

This topic has been discussed here before. A few other members, such as flameproof, have said that they regretted not learning characters from the beginning.

http://www.chinese-f...ite-or-read-it/

Learning only how to speak Chinese (vs write or read it)

http://www.chinese-f...arn-characters/

How/When to Learn Characters

http://www.chinese-f...-chinese-again/

What would you do differently if you were starting to learn Chinese again?

[simplet]

Here is an example of what you'll be facing if you don't learn the characters : http://www.mdbg.net/...rst=0&wdqb=shi4. This is a list of all the characters for the pinyin "shi4", sorted by frequency. To be fluent, you'd probably need to learn them all the way until "恃"at least, and remember that most of those characters have several meanings too.

Of course then you have all the characters for "shi1", "shi2", "shi3", "she4", "she1" and so on so forth on top of that.

[neverending]

A couple of things.

On the correct use of flashcards

Jiù illustrates a specific problem

Jiù (就) belongs to a class of word I think of as a "grammar word", as opposed to a "dictionary word". What I mean by this, is that in Chinese there are certain words which simply cannot be learned from a dictionary, but must instead be learned as part of the language's grammar, and jiu is one of these. Like le, de, ne, ma, and other grammatical particles, jiu has multiple uses that need to be illustrated and explained. For such words, you simply can't use flashcards to learn them.

Unfortunately, it's difficult to tell whether a word is a "grammar word" until you encounter it in context. This is why I believe you should only flashcard words that you have encountered in context. Even for "dictionary words", you shouldn't list every meaning in a flashcard. You should only write down the meanings that you actually encounter in context, for several reasons:

• dictionaries don't usually indicate how common a specific meaning is, and you might waste your time learning archaic meanings
  
• it's easier to remember meanings that you've already seen in context
  
• You can include the context you encountered the word in as an example in your flashcard, to remind you of correct use
  

The exception is when you are flashcarding a small number of words because you *anticipate* using them in context (such as for the grand first episode project, which you can find on these forums). But once again, you should only ever be learning "dictionary words" like this.

More reasons to learn to read characters

I want to persuade you to read, cause I think you're shooting yourself in the foot here. Reading is not just for linguophiles. Even the fluentin3months.com guy, whose *only* goal is learning to converse sociably in Mandarin, ASAP, has learned to read characters. Let me explain why.

First off, you need to read, not write. Let me say that again for emphasis. You need to read, not write.

Why is the distinction important? In Chinese, learning to write a character takes about 10x longer than learning to read it, but knowing how to write a character is 10x less useful than knowing how to read it. When your colleague tells you how useless it was to learn to read/write, in comparison to the time it took him to learn it, I bet he was thinking of the hours wasted scrawling the same character over and over, when he only ever actually writes characters on forms. You don't need to do this.

Speaking from experience, I know it's possible learn to simply identify a character in less than a minute, and with effective use of flashcards, I can permanently memorise a character's appearance in around 2.5 minutes total. (If you're interested, I can expound on exactly how I do this.) Considering that there are 3000 characters you need to learn to be considered literate, that'd take you around 7500 minutes, or around 125 hours. That is a tiny, fraction of the time it takes to learn to speak Chinese. Of course, you still have to learn words made from combinations of those characters, but you'd have to learn those words to learn to speak Chinese anyway.

Secondly, and more importantly, it become hugely difficult to learn Chinese past a beginner's stage without learning to read. All of the non-character learning material simply dries up as you move into intermediate. Even though your goal is speaking, you will still need characters for, among other things:

• Audio transcripts (extremely useful for developing listening skills)
  
• Understanding examples in dictionaries/grammars
  
• Finding learning material
  
• Reading/understanding vocabulary lists (especially useful if you want to learn business words)
  
• To use subtitles to help you understand Chinese tv (I think Chinese shows+Chinese subtitles are invaluable when you're learning to understand a natural rhythm of speech)
  
• Distinguishing between homonyms
  

All that said, I think it's perhaps possible to reach business level language without characters. However, it will be so difficult, that learning characters will actually save you time!

[thechamp]

Grammatical errors, limited vocabulary, misunderstandings sometimes, but at least you understand what they're talking about and get enough to buy/sell their wares. That's pretty much all anyone needs to do business; if you believe you need more, then explain how the Chinese have accomplished so much with limited English ability?

Aye, there's the rub. You could certainly do that in a year, but like everyone else has written you absolutely must learn characters

Also, it's so weird that so many people seem adamant that a westerner can't work in Chinese without somehow risking his or his company's money! As a personal example, which might boost the OPs confidence:

When I first rented a flat in Beijing I had been living in BJ about 3 months and studying during that time after interning and at the weekends. I'd gone through book 1 of the NPCR. My chinese teacher came with me to look at some flats and I chose one. Landlady and teacher had a little chat and basically sorted everything. Teacher went off to a lesson and I went to get the deposit. Landlady shows me the contract then and asks me to sign. I quickly scan the contract looking for the characters 水电费 (which mean like utility bills) and then I see it in there next to a price. I say something inept like ‘我不要。。。这个水电费。。。不要给钱’. She crosses it out and I don't pay it. I've just negotiated a contract in Chinese without an interpreter. It's a simple example but I'd only been studying 3 months, and shuidianfei happens to be in the NPCR

[renzhe]

-ASAP means as soon as humanly possible; hopefully within one year to be at least basic conversational and know what's going on, give me 2-3 years to be relatively fluent; I guess timelines are irrelevant, but I need to be improving daily, which I don't feel I am

-I speak four languages already so this is my fifth; yet I am having an incredibly difficult time getting my hands around Mandarin. I just can't seem to find a good approach; I honestly thought it would be easier. Humbling and depressing, but I believe it can be done with the right approach; thank you for all of your suggestions.

In this case, I reverse my statement. This is completely doable and realistic if you put in hard work. With your language learning background and motivation, it's completely reasonable.

Since this is a regular time-frame, and not an extremely fast speed, I recommend reading all the threads on here about self-study, especially about studying every day, without a break. That's the most important part -- make a small improvement every day, it adds up.

I strongly suggest learning characters. They are hard, but a dedicated students will only need about 2 years to learn all the characters they need, and knowing characters actually makes everything else 10x easier. If you have a few years and are serious about reaching a decent level, it's best to start with characters now. Use SRS, read whenever you can, it takes 30 minutes or one hour per day for about two years, then you're done. The rest of the time can be spent doing other things -- speaking, listening, grammar, textbooks, everything else.

BTW, how do you experts handle when a flashcard has 10-15 meanings for one word?

While I was flashcarding characters, I would learn the most common meaning and pronunciation first (there is usually one, but with some characters there are two or more very common ones, in which case I made an exception). After you know a character, adding further meanings and pronunciations is much easier, and you can do it as you run into new usage while reading.

This might not be the best strategy, but it worked really well for me.

[Guest realmayo]

I quickly scan the contract looking for the characters 水电费 (which mean like utility bills) and then I see it in there next to a price.

So: you can get by on modest Chinese if the only important words in contracts you sign are words you already know. But ... what if there are some important words you don't know?

[icebear]

Also, it's so weird that so many people seem adamant that a westerner can't work in Chinese without somehow risking his or his company's money! As a personal example...

It's important not to mistake knowing a useful amount of Chinese for knowing a high-functioning level. No one is discouraging him from learning Chinese that would be useful in day-to-day conversation, including in the office. Many are trying to help control his expectations for just how functional he will be in standard business situations in the immediate future.

[thechamp]

Ok. Perhaps we all agree then. I don't think the OPs requirements are that high. Speaking Chinese like a factory rep speaks English is a fairly low level of Chinese. Also, he's willing to give that 1, 2, or 3 years!

His position reminds me of my old housemate who worked in property. He'd trained in Hong Kong and then got sent to the mainland by his company with six months after-work chinese (he couldn't read a single character though). His company paid for 3 months intensive Chinese between postings and then he started. After about a year in work he is pretty conversational and knows loads of vocab relevant to making buildings, architecture, design etc....he had lessons in the morning before work and in his lunchbreak. He doesn't use an interpreter at work but says he only understands around 50% of what's going on in a meeting. Unlike the OP he's not a linguist

[icebear]

He doesn't use an interpreter at work but says he only understands around 50% of what's going on in a meeting.

Again, just because someone knows a useful amount of Chinese doesn't mean they know a high-functioning level. I agree that his far more modest goals stated past the OP are feasible.

Grammatical errors, limited vocabulary, misunderstandings sometimes, but at least you understand what they're talking about and get enough to buy/sell their wares. That's pretty much all anyone needs to do business; if you believe you need more, then explain how the Chinese have accomplished so much with limited English ability?

This is a charged statement. There is a significant industry of professional translators in China as well as abroad. There are countless bilingual Chinese immigrants living in the US and Europe; not all, but some, working as agents for such trade. And, in some cases, foreign buyers are willing to accept some ambiguity/risk because of significant cost savings. There are also many stories of foreign buyers getting burned because of such ambiguities.

Failure means misery and unhappiness on the family and professional level.

I think you should pursue the goal you've stated, as it is attainable in the foreseeable future. Perhaps avoid such dire language the next time you solicit advice here, if you want to just get advice on methods to your goals as opposed to advice on the goals themselves.

[Erbse]

BTW, how do you experts handle when a flashcard has 10-15 meanings for one word? For example, this is one of my flashcards:

Jiù...

Well, this word has several meanings, but when you look at the place in a sentence where it is located you can narrow it down quickly.

Your timeframe 1 year to basic chit chat, 2 or 3 years to somewhat advanced sound reasonable to me.

I want to encourage you to learn characters, even if your aim is to talk. Once you get to the intermediate level, characters will support your study instead of slowing you down. You can skip writing characters, but you should learn to read them.

For example, if you hear a new word, you can search for it on the internet and quick understand in what ways it can be used in sentences.

There is no short cut to Chinese. There are numerous threads asking for shortcuts here on the forums. Just use the proven methods and spend time on learning. Results will come.

[jkhsu]

If I could speak Chinese like most Chinese company reps speak English, I'd be happy.

I've met quite a few Chinese people who speak broken English in China. But in just about every case, they can read English better than they can speak it. I'm not talking about factory workers who can just say some greetings and recite a few set expressions, I'm talking about people who can carry on a conversation with you in English but with grammar and pronunciation mistakes. As an experiment, the next time you talk to a company rep, ask them if they can read what they are saying. I would be surprised if they can't.

someone in my business (raw materials) who had spent 2 years studying Mandarin at a school told me the time he used learning characters, etc. was a complete waste of time, as he never uses it at his job, he can't read and write well anyway, and his listening/speaking skills are half of what they'd be if he just focused on verbal communication; I saw his point and I think he's right.

Don't discount the fact that he did spend two years learning characters. It probably helped him with comprehension. I know quite a few people who have stopped learning after reaching the intermediate level and are ok with basic, everyday conversation. They'll learn new words here and there but are not looking for fluency. I do think it's possible to get to his level without learning characters but the learning just gets progressively harder and harder on the learner as others have noted.

-ASAP means as soon as humanly possible; hopefully within one year to be at least basic conversational and know what's going on, give me 2-3 years to be relatively fluent; I guess timelines are irrelevant, but I need to be improving daily, which I don't feel I am

My goal is to be able to BS person to person with Chinese people, understand what is going on around me (without catching every single word), be able to discuss business concepts (not talking about technical specs but prices, shipment times, etc., not sophisticated stuff), and generally make a human connection and be part of the community here as much as possible.

I also agree with others that this goal is doable given enough effort. Actually, I urge everyone to at least get to this level if you plan on living in China. However, don't give up on learning to read characters while you are learning, even if you don't plan to become fluent. I think you can skip on how to write characters by hand though.

I am memorizing random words, and it seems useless without a grammatical framework to plug it into. I can say 'immediately' and 'to invite' and 'intersection' but I can't use them at all so I wonder if it is all for naught.

Others have already given you a lot of great advice. My suggestion is to work off of textbooks and use several if you can. Here's a link to a post I wrote up about textbooks and online resources.

[imron]

If you think you don't have the time to learn characters, given you are willing to spend 2-3 years on this, actually you probably do.

Just learn 3 new characters a day (use a flashcard program) and get them from your text book as you're progressing. You don't need to learn to write them, just put them in your flashcard program and make sure you can recognise them (it's best to put in words that use the characters, rather than individual characters themselves). 3 new characters probably shouldn't take more than about 10-15 minutes per day including revision of previous characters.

Then just make sure you do it *every* day. 3 characters * 365 days * 3 years = 3,285 characters which is a significant amount, especially if you've been supplementing it with other learning.

[jkhsu]

Speaking from experience, I know it's possible learn to simply identify a character in less than a minute, and with effective use of flashcards, I can permanently memorise a character's appearance in around 2.5 minutes total. (If you're interested, I can expound on exactly how I do this.)

@neverending: Can you share your experience of how you remember characters with us?

[imron]

Although probably different from neverending's method, here is what I do to achieve similar results (with further info here).

[Shandongren]

Thank you all for your help. I agree with all of your comments - esp. that trying to learn just speaking will not work in the long run. I think I will focus more on speaking now, though not neglecting the characters, and once I'm basically conversational, I will study both hand-in-hand. I intuitively agree that skipping characters will not help in the long run. My mistake has been trying to WRITE them as well, which has slowed me down significantly. Yes, even at 5 characters a day, I'm at about 1500 in a year, so that's almost half-literate. Thanks again, you Chinese study geniuses, I appreciate your wisdom.