Need Advice About my Learning

[machinea]

Hi, I'm a 17 year old guy, born and raised in NY, and speak a multitude of languages (such as German, Spanish, and Hindi). Recently, I've been trying to learn Mandarin on my own. I have the discipline and motivation, and I'm willing to take 1-2 hours out of my sleep-time everyday to learn (since I'm a full time student in high school).

So in order to learn Chinese, I started using Pimsleur's Chinese audio tapes. I have no previous experience with the language. By listening to the tapes alone, I was about to decipher basic sentence structure, and basic words such as 'you' or 'I'. I also learned other words and greetings just by listening and repeating, and trying to imitate the differentiation in tones. This took me about 2 days.

Now for my questions.

1) I don't know how to write or read Chinese. Online, it says I should learn pinyin, but there's one MAJOR drawback for that. If I learn pinyin, I will get used to the Romanized alphabet. In order to become fluent, I must learn to think in Chinese, and I'm pretty sure using the Romanized alphabet wouldn't help me. If anything, it would be better to not learning to write at all than learning pinyin (in my opinion). Is it worth learning pinyin in your opinion?

2) If I shouldn't learn pinyin, should I attempt to learn Simplified writing or can I just learn to speak first (without writing to reading)? Honestly, just by listening to conversations and repeating them in Pimsleur, I feel like I have more verbal fluency that way. I can say basic things to my Chinese friends and they understand me well!

3) Is it absolutely necessary to learn writing at all when learning Chinese? Can't I keep using Pimsleur and learn how to speak without writing?

4) Are there any other tips you can give me?

Thanks! I would really like to be able to hold a basic conversation within a few months!

[大肚男]

The following is my personal opinion, and most could disagree with me (or not)

1) I believe that learning pinyin is necessary. Even if you decide to learn the characters at the beginning, imho pinyin is the best way to input Chinese characters on a computer.

2) speaking and reading Chinese go hand in hand, and I strongly advice that you dedicate time to both.

3) I believe that learning how to read Chinese is absolutely necessary, and it will make learning new words a lot easier.

4) I really liked Heisig's method for learning Chinese characters, but I would suggest that you add pronunciation to it. Also, do not get discouraged if you feel that you're not advancing as rapidly as you had in other languages that you learned.

Hope this will help and good luck

[AdamD]

Pinyin is like training wheels. Once you get to an advanced stage, you'll only ever use pinyin as an aid to saying new characters. But learning pinyin doesn't lessen your ability to learn characters.

[edelweis]

I'm willing to take 1-2 hours out of my sleep-time everyday to learn

Don't. When you're tired, you make mistakes, in your coursework, in your relationships with others, in driving, in crossing the street, etc.

When you're young, you often lack the experience to detect these mistakes, and when they're pointed out to you, you lack the experience to understand that they are due to lack of sleep.

If you care about your life and your parents, don't go to bed very late too often, and especially don't make a habit of sleeping short nights.

3) Is it absolutely necessary to learn writing at all when learning Chinese? Can't I keep using Pimsleur and learn how to speak without writing?

Yes you can, however what will happen after you've finished Pimsleur? It is a beginner resource. If you want to get your Chinese to an intermediate or advanced level, you will have to learn how to read at least.

Regarding pinyin: if you're really not interested in learning beyond Pimsleur, and not going to learn how to read and write, then you don't really need pinyin. After the beginner stage, pinyin is mainly useful when looking up new characters and words in the dictionary.

[creamyhorror]

1) I don't know how to write or read Chinese. Online, it says I should learn pinyin, but there's one MAJOR drawback for that. If I learn pinyin, I will get used to the Romanized alphabet. In order to become fluent, I must learn to think in Chinese, and I'm pretty sure using the Romanized alphabet wouldn't help me. If anything, it would be better to not learning to write at all than learning pinyin (in my opinion). Is it worth learning pinyin in your opinion?

You have a misapprehension of what pinyin is. Pinyin only tells you how to pronounce Chinese words, and nothing more. It's not a substitute for Chinese characters at all. You'll never need worry about "getting used to [Romanization]" because there's no significant source of text in pinyin beyond a certain level. Everything is about reading characters. (Vzzzbx said it already but I just wanted to reiterate.)

If anything, it would be better to not learning to write at all than learning pinyin (in my opinion)

It's more like this: if you want to learn to read Chinese (from mainland materials), learning pinyin is essentially a necessity. It tells you how to pronounce things. If you didn't learn it, how would you know how to pronounce characters?

[imron]

3) Is it absolutely necessary to learn writing at all when learning Chinese? Can't I keep using Pimsleur and learn how to speak without writing?

Pimsleur will get you to advanced beginner at most. Pimsleur + your own learning but focusing only on speaking, listening and pinyin will probably get you no further than lower intermediate - there simply aren't any textbooks or content at higher levels that don't use characters, and you can't do any self-learning from native materials without characters either.

In short, if you plan to learn Chinese to any degree of useful proficiency beyond ordering in Chinese restaurants and asking directions, you'll need to learn characters. Simplified or Traditional is up to you, though you should probably base it upon your intended usage. If you plan on interacting mostly with people and content from mainland China chose Simplified. If you plan mostly on interacting with people from Taiwan, HK or Chinese in overseas communities, choose Traditional. Despite what people might tell you, neither is really more difficult than the other, and once you've learnt one it will be relatively simple to pick up the other anyway (with the relative difficulty being about the same regardless of which one you learn first).

4) Are there any other tips you can give me?

The search bar at the top right of the page will answer many of your questions. Each of the questions you've asked has been discussed in multiple threads elsewhere in the forums (sorry, too lazy to hunt for specific links at the moment), as have many of your other questions that you've yet to ask

[laurenth]

Once you get to an advanced stage, you'll only ever use pinyin as an aid to saying new characters.

Or you'll use it everyday, from day 1 until forever, to type Chinese.

[imron]

Not if you learn 五笔

[laurenth]

Not if you learn 五笔

or 仓颉 (or many others). In fact, with the arrival of touchscreens, I've been increasingly using my finger as my main input method, even when I know the pinyin equivalent, if only because it's good practice. In China also, I've seen some people actually writing on their phone rather than typing pinyin. So admittedly, pinyin may become less important than it has been.

[milhaus]

Hello, I have lived in Taiwan for more than one year and I have much experience about learning Chinese.

I recommend you to learn pinyin. Pinyin exactly informs you how to pronounce a word. Chinese pronunciation is a little bit complicated and as a beginner you will not distinguish some subtle differences (for example "n" vs "ng" etc.) just by listening, ergo you will learn it incorrectly. Later when you speak with a Chinese language speaker he might not understand you.

I also recommend you learning Chinese characters. If you don't learn them and then go to a Chinese country you will feel like an analphabet. In lather phases it may be even necessary to be able to read Chinese, because some advanced textbooks don't use pinyin in other sections than the "new vocabulary" section.

So I recommend you:

1) buy a good textbook and don't only rely on some audio tapes

2) learn pinyin

3) learn Chinese characters (at least reading)

[OneEye]

The best thing Pimsleur will ever be is essentially a phrasebook on CD. You will not be able to "speak Chinese" when you've finished it, but you will be able to parrot some sentences and mix and match some parts. Nothing wrong with that, just know that you'll still have a long way to go.

Pinyin exactly informs you how to pronounce a word.

Well, it may tell you the "standard" pronunciation, but that generally has little to do with how native speakers actually pronounce it in real life. I'm sure you know what I mean, living in Taiwan. The only way to get that is by using your ears and trying to imitate precisely what you hear. But I don't mean listening to language tapes, which are inherently contrived and unnatural. I'm talking about listening to real native speakers, whether by using native media or (preferably) hanging out with them long enough for them to drop their inclination to speak slowly and clearly for the foreigner.

Of course, to get to that point, you first have to learn Chinese. And you won't do that with Pimsleur, or with any other method that doesn't require you to learn pinyin (or bopomofo if you prefer), reading, etc. I've not heard of anyone ever reaching any sort of functionality in Chinese without learning these things (unless they're living in a Chinese-speaking country, and even then it has only been basic functionality at best), so please don't try to fool yourself into believing you'll be the first.

This isn't to say that you shouldn't use audio recordings. You absolutely should. Use them until you're hearing them in your head while trying to fall asleep. Use them until your headphones wear out. Imitate them until you can spit out a sentence with the exact intonation and rhythm of the person on the recording, after not having heard it for weeks. Overlearning with audio recordings is a wonderful method. But then you'll still have to do the hard work of learning to sound natural, rather than like a language teacher sitting in front of a microphone. And you're still going to have to learn to read in the meantime. Sooner rather than later, trust me. And really, for me, the writing system is the coolest part of the language. Why wouldn't you want to learn it?

[machinea]

Lol sorry if these questions were asked before. I see what you guys mean.

And yes, it seems I've been mistaken about pinyin. I didn't want to become too heavily reliant upon it, so I guess the only other way would be to learn to read and write.

I'll keep using the tapes from time to time, but tomorrow's the weekend! I'll be looking around the forums for more tips.

Thanks for the help! :>