Frankhuang92 Posted June 18, 2012 at 08:03 PM Report Share Posted June 18, 2012 at 08:03 PM Hi, My name is Frank Huang and I currently work for a company based in the United States that frequently makes calls to the Asia-Pacific region. I am fluent in spoken Mandarin as I have learned it growing up. However, my Mandarin skills have diminshed over the years and my business Mandarin is even more poor. I want to re-establish my Madarin fluency and develop stronger skills particulary in business Mandarin. Can you reccomend any textbooks, audio programs, websites, and other resources that would suit my purposes? I would like to get started as soon as possible! Your help and reference is greatly appreciated. Cheers, Frank Huang Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imron Posted June 19, 2012 at 12:11 AM Report Share Posted June 19, 2012 at 12:11 AM What is your ability to read Chinese like? Probably one of the best ways to learn this material would be to start reading Chinese business news online. If your general reading skills are not at a high enough level, my suggestion would be to first concentrate on getting your reading up to par with your speaking, which considering you already speak the language should be relatively fast with correct and regular drilling using an SRS program or the like. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frankhuang92 Posted June 19, 2012 at 12:42 AM Author Report Share Posted June 19, 2012 at 12:42 AM I cannot read Chinese. I grew up speaking Mandarin with my parents but never too any formal lessons, so I cannot read nor write. I was hoping to bypass reading and writing in Chinese as the only forms of correspondence I will be undertaking is communications verbally over the telephone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imron Posted June 19, 2012 at 12:51 AM Report Share Posted June 19, 2012 at 12:51 AM Bypassing writing is not much of an issue, but bypassing reading will severely hinder you. The fact is, you just won't find adequate learning materials for the stuff you want to learn that doesn't use characters, and you can't just learn the business related ones, because they'll all be intermixed with normal characters. Have a read of the following threads, and especially the comments and advice given by gato, who came from a similar background: http://www.chinese-f...er/#comment-270559 http://www.chinese-f...ime/#comment-71842 http://www.chinese-f...ritage-learner/ http://www.chinese-f...itage-students/ http://www.chinese-f...ritage-speaker/ Several months of hard work and drilling should be enough to get you up to basic literacy, and if you want to develop stronger language skills in business or in other areas it will be difficult to do it without basic literacy, even if your main actual purpose will only involve telephone conversation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterlkj Posted June 19, 2012 at 01:10 AM Report Share Posted June 19, 2012 at 01:10 AM I would highly recommend taking some online classes via Skype, with whichever school you think suits you best. Although I must agree with Imron about the benefits of reading, I think that if you give the tutor sufficient information about the scenarios you need to cover, you could at least do role play etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roddy Posted June 19, 2012 at 09:29 AM Report Share Posted June 19, 2012 at 09:29 AM 'Business' is kind of a wide topic - are we talking international shipping, sourcing products, arranging conferences? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gato Posted June 19, 2012 at 11:52 AM Report Share Posted June 19, 2012 at 11:52 AM I agree with imron. It's hard to improve your vocabulary to a reasonably educated adult level if you can't read. If you already speak Mandarin, it shouldn't take too long to learn the basics, as long as you are motivated enough to put in some work. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SLA Posted June 19, 2012 at 05:11 PM Report Share Posted June 19, 2012 at 05:11 PM When I was in China I bought "Easy Business Chinese", Part of the Chinese Treasury Series. It features dialogues and basic vocabulary on dealing with office work, making business calls, basic communication, business negotiation, conducting meetings, etc. http://www.purpleculture.net/chinese-treasury-series-easy-business-chinese-with-1-mp3-p-7655/ I think it could provide a good basis for you as it uses pinyin along with Chinese characters and has MP3. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frankhuang92 Posted June 19, 2012 at 05:56 PM Author Report Share Posted June 19, 2012 at 05:56 PM The reason I want to bypass reading is because I have to start making international calls right away. I do not have the time to develop skills in reading as well as speech. I can read pingyin, would that be suitable? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frankhuang92 Posted June 19, 2012 at 06:00 PM Author Report Share Posted June 19, 2012 at 06:00 PM The type of communications I will be undertaking is with educational professionals, regarding English Language certification tests, business operations, industry standardization. The reason that I feel that I am not adequate enough is because I do not know a lot of Mandarin business terminology. For example, I would need to ask many people "Does your company require employees to take any form of language certification test?" I do not know the Mandarin word for "require", "employee", "certification" or the difference between "company", "business", or "institution. Perhaps I should just purchase a reference book with pingyin and piece together a script before I engage in phone conversations? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
li3wei1 Posted June 20, 2012 at 07:30 AM Report Share Posted June 20, 2012 at 07:30 AM Then, as long as the people you're talking to follow the script, you'll be fine. I suspect that a few of them will want to engage in further communication by email, in which case you'll need to learn some reading. In the short term, it sounds like you need some intensive 1-on-1 with a tutor to go over all the related vocab, put together a script, and run through it with a as many different responses as your tutor can think of. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imron Posted June 20, 2012 at 08:03 AM Report Share Posted June 20, 2012 at 08:03 AM For the immediate short-term something like a Skype tutor (find them on italki) will probably get you over the initial hurdles you're going to face. Medium to long-term however you should really consider learning to read. It's something you should start now, even if you won't find it paying much in the way of dividends until several months down the track. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jkhsu Posted June 20, 2012 at 05:41 PM Report Share Posted June 20, 2012 at 05:41 PM If you need to make calls right away, I suggest following li3wei1's post #11 and put together a script. Then have a native speaker go over it with you. Customer service reps have to learn scripts with new industry specific vocab (not necessarily in another language) all the time. But since you already speak Chinese and understand pinyin, this is certainly doable. The other assumption is that you don't need to come across as a native speaker or speak with proper grammar / sentence construction. If that's the case, you can have an online dictionary handy (or smartphone, tablet, etc.) and just tell the other side, that your Mandarin is not that good and to "wait while you find the word you want to say". Keep in mind that this should really be for corner cases / specific vocab and not for you to construct entire sentences. And make sure that you've chosen the correct word by confirming with additional descriptions. A bigger concern is understanding what your customers are saying to you. Based on the words that you don't know (from your post), I'd be most concerned about this part. Can you understand Chinese TV dramas? (I'm not even going to mention the news because if you can understand that, you wouldn't have posted this particular question.) The reason I ask is because I've met heritage speakers in my Chinese classes who say they're fluent and can speak with parents fine but when it comes to vocab, they're more in the beginner / intermediate level (and I'm talking about listening / speaking, not character recognition / writing). At the same time, I know a Cantonese speaker friend who has no problem running a business in HK without knowning how to read or write Chinese (speaking Cantonese not English of course). If you fall in the first category, then you might have a lot more to learn than you think. Something to think about. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frankhuang92 Posted June 28, 2012 at 06:17 PM Author Report Share Posted June 28, 2012 at 06:17 PM Hi, Thank you all for your advice! Every post was insightful and helpful. I purchased the book linked in post #8 recommended by SLA. I have also consulted my friend who is a native Mandarin speaker to have him tutor me in speech as suggested by a few of you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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