Is going to China needed to speak very fluent mandarin?

[li3wei1]

And I've found that it's often times counter productive to be in China while learning the language. It has helped immensely with my characters,, due to the constant exposure and self testing, but there's a huge amount of variability in the language as pronounced.

Speaking the language 'properly' with good grammar and the correct pronunciation is one definition of fluency (maybe fluency is the wrong word here, but 'being a good speaker of Chinese'), but being able to understand and make yourself understood with a wide variety of speakers (and even to recognise where their accents come from and imitate them) is another. Not just knowing the rules, but knowing how to break them.

[abcdefg]

However I didn't visit any English speaking country to get to this level. I put forth the premise that visiting the country of origin is no longer needed to speak or write any language fluently thanks to the abundance of resources available.

I think that fluency will happen faster if you add immersion to your other study resources. At least it seems that when I'm required to use new information over and over in everyday situations, those new things stick better in my memory.

[skylee]

However I didn't visit any English speaking country to get to this level. I put forth the premise that visiting the country of origin is no longer needed to speak or write any language fluently thanks to the abundance of resources available.

I think all universities and schools should consider this theory and abolish those "immersion" language programmes as soon as possible so that governments, parents and students no longer need to pay for such programmes. Why do they keep doing this? Just think about the savings!

[heifeng]

Please, for the love of G/god can the title of this thread be spell checked & corrected. I know I'm a habitual spelling offender but can someone find it in his/her heart to fix this one......(Just please put FLUENT, that's all I ask) ok, please continue discussion.

[imron]

Merry Christmas.

[Shelley]

I have to agree with heifeng. You can not get better than fluent. You don't need the "very". This jumped out at me and shouted non-native English speaker.

Merry Christmas to everyone

[heifeng]

Merry Christmas & Thanks Santa Imron (we are striving to be 'fulent' no more!)

[Guest realmayo]

Very Yulent!

[daofeishi]

What I wonder is the following. I am someone from Belgium, and without wanting to toot my own horn, I believe my English is extremely good as a non-native

You don't necessarily need to go to China, but you need to find a way of seriously engaging with the language. Otherwise you will never be able to progress from being good as a non-native speaker to being unqualifiedly good.

I learned much of my Chinese in China, but I'd never been able to improve much on that if I hadn't tutored classes and gotten involved with the community in the local Chinatown. I think most people here have similar experiences. Tooironic who brings up the same point attended a bilingual elementary school, if I remember correctly?

That being said, there is one thing that you'd get in China that can be difficult to get abroad, namely cultural immersion. Being a fluent speaker is also about understanding cultural references and knowing what is currently part of the general social discourse. If you're not inside China, it can be a challenge to keep track of what is going on.

[hedwards]

Speaking the language 'properly' with good grammar and the correct pronunciation is one definition of fluency (maybe fluency is the wrong word here, but 'being a good speaker of Chinese'), but being able to understand and make yourself understood with a wide variety of speakers (and even to recognise where their accents come from and imitate them) is another. Not just knowing the rules, but knowing how to break them.

Fluency is really a bad term in general because there doesn't seem to be much consensus on what it means. We can usually agree when somebody isn't fluent, but it's ambiguous when exactly somebody becomes fluent.

This is certainly debatable. You are completely correct that language variety has to be taken into account when learning a language. However, IMHO it's best to have at least some control over that in the early stages. It's not fun to get to where you're going only to learn that the cab driver expects to be paid 10 RMB rather than the 4 RMB you thought you were agreeing to when you got in the cab.

It also makes it harder to establish when you yourself are making mistakes and when it's a problem with the combinations of dialect.

But, when it comes to fluence, it's mostly about whether or not you're pausing to think and whether you have the correct stress patterns. If you're doing that, you're technically fluent, even if you're amount of vocabulary and grammar is tiny. Of course, that's my opinion, as I noted at the beginning, I don't think there's consensus about what fluency really means.

[mulans]

Thank you all for the replies.

I hope I didn't offend anyone making this topic, didn't want to upset anyone suggesting going to China isn't beneficial.

Please understand that my experience with English and other languages does not support the notion that going to the country of orgin could have substantially helped me to master a language me in any way. This is just my personal experience, I am not suggesting this is the norm. The world is very different from 20 years ago, I do not need to go anywhere to be exposed to a language any longer. I am willing to play with the idea that this is different with Chinese although the amount of content available for Chinese argues in favor of this.

I wouldn't have made the topic if I wans't undecided on the topic itself. On the one hand, it seem straightforward to me that in theory, being immersed in the local language and culture would be of great benfit, but that is not what I have personally seen in practice for me, in fact I would argue it hurt my ability at times since the locals don't always speak the language correctly to begin with. (again, I am not suggesting this is the norm or that my experience is representative of the avergae person who learns langauges).

I also wonder about the accents like someone mentioned. If you would like to learn Dutch, coming here to learn it would be the worst choice you could make, we have very heavy accents and trying to learn Dutch by listening to me would give you the accent of the region which would severely limit your abilitly to understand other people living here unless you were born here.

A large amount of time in our school was used to UNLEARN the regional accent so we could speak the language without the accent. Having the heavy accent suggests you didn't go to a proper school and never bothered to speak the language correctly or didn't get an education at all. There is a small stigma attached to having an accent that is very pronounced, it shouldn't but it does, having a very heavy accent limits your job opportunity.

It's just hard from my own experience to see the immediate benefits, that was all, didn't mean to upset anyone. Also sorry about the title saying 'fulent' instead of fluent, I hit the wrong key.

Given the chance I would love to spend a lot of time in China, to be immersed in the culture, but currently I am focusing on my language skill in Chinese and other languages, I have always appreciated when someone visits a country and spent some time learning the local language, I assume this is is not different in China.

[renzhe]

Please understand that my experience with English and other languages does not support the notion that going to the country of orgin could have substantially helped me to master a language me in any way. This is just my personal experience, I am not suggesting this is the norm.

Have you actually lived in an English-speaking country?

If not, then you don't have the personal experience. How do you know it would not have substantially helped you? Especially since you use the word "master". Perhaps it wouldn't have significantly helped you learn the basics, but it certainly would have helped you "master" it.

This is my experience: I was fluent in English before I went to live in an English-speaking country, and doing so has substantially helped me improve my English. Conversely, after moving out of an English-speaking country my English level has degraded, despite daily exposure.

I think that it's much more important with Chinese, though, because 1) listening is more difficult 2) it's very different (you know 90% of English just by speaking Dutch, you know 0% of Chinese) 3) tones 4) it is not omnipresent like English 5) there's lots of culture you need to learn in the process.

[mulans]

Have you actually lived in an English-speaking country?

If not, then you don't have the personal experience. How do you know it would not have substantially helped you? Especially since you use the word "master".

Thank you for replying.

To be fair, if I lived in England I would have attributed my knowledge of English to living in England. But your point is just as fair that not living in England doesn't allow me to appreciate how much benefit I could have gained from being surrounded by English speaking natives.

On the other hand, I have lived in Barcelona for months, continuously interracting with people, trying my best to pick up some Spanish, I didn't pick up the language in any way. I assume to pick up Spanish would have required spending more than 6 months there or it would have required substantial prior knowledge of the language. It also seems to suggest to me that you need an education to go along with the language if you want to pick up anything, which is why I again question how much benefit is attributable to the localisation and how much to studying the language, I assume it would be very hard to find someone who just goes to a country to learn the language but does so without using educational study aids. (many people don't speak English in Barcelona, to my surprise a bit, I was forced to phone up people at times to cross translate on the phone).

If one could find people who go to countries to learn a language but do so without educational aids, maybe it would be easier to make an assesment of the potential benefits of interracting with locals versus the use of study aids or taking classes, but it's rare that people go to a country to learn a langauge and abandon the study aids or classes. Then again, if localisation offered substantial benefits, children in China would not spend so much time trying to master the language, the amount of illiteracy, both spoken and written, is huge in China, even after simplified Chinse was implemented, it doesn't in any way suggest that it's not beneficial, but it does put it into perspective for me.

[abcdefg]

Immersion is not sufficient. It just helps some when combined with other learning approaches. Whether or not it helps enough to justify your spending Euros from your own pocket to do it is something nobody else can decide for you.

[renzhe]

On the other hand, I have lived in Barcelona for months, continuously interracting with people, trying my best to pick up some Spanish, I didn't pick up the language in any way.

I have lived with a violin player for many years, yet I haven't picked up playing the violin in any way.

If one could find people who go to countries to learn a language but do so without educational aids, maybe it would be easier to make an assesment of the potential benefits of interracting with locals versus the use of study aids or taking classes

That would be really silly. Why would you avoid educational aids?

The question is -- if you are actually studying a language properly, is being immersed in the language going to help or not?

I found that it helps immensely. It's still possible to learn a language without immersion, many people do it, but I find that immersion helps. Even moreso with Chinese.

[li3wei1]

I also wonder about the accents like someone mentioned. If you would like to learn Dutch, coming here to learn it would be the worst choice you could make, we have very heavy accents and trying to learn Dutch by listening to me would give you the accent of the region which would severely limit your abilitly to understand other people living here unless you were born here.

I won't argue with that. However, if two non-native Dutch speakers came to your region, and one could understand and converse with your heavily-accented neighbours and one could not, surely the first would be considered more fluent. I don't advocate learning your language entirely from a small group of people with a particular accent. But by relying on textbooks and professionally recorded material, you may be doing just that - learning exclusively from people who speak the 'standard' language with the 'correct' accent, and speaking it clearly as well. The advantage of going to the country (or however you choose to interact with native speakers) is exposure to a variety of accents, whether regional or indicative of social class or educational level, used in real-life situations. This gives you an understanding of the range of possible pronunciations and usages, which in Chinese is fairly wide.

[Tiana]

Ok, let me give mulans some support : I think spending time in the country whose language you're learning will help your progress to varying degrees (depending on many factors). However, in real life situations, you may not have the option of spending time in the country (many learners don't have this option) or for some reason don't want to do so, I guess that not spending time in the country doesn't stop you from making good propress by other means.

[renzhe]

I guess that not spending time in the country doesn't stop you from making good propress by other means.

I agree in principle.

But "very fluent Mandarin" is a rather high standard. I don't know of anyone who achieved this without spending time in a Chinese-speaking country.

[Meng Lelan]

Merry Christmas.

Aw come on, put a Santa hat on that one.

[Lu]

If the choice is between studying and using the intenet to learn OR spending time in the country, then of course you'll make more progress from studying. I don't think anyone disagrees with that. But if your goal was to learn the language, it would be silly to spend time in the country without studying at the same time, and then you will in all likelyhood gain more from studying in situ than back home. Incidentally I'm not sure why people think a language can be 'picked up', children can do it, but adults generally need to sit down with a grammar book and a vocabulary list before they can see any real progress. I don't think any language that's not secretly a dialect can be just 'picked up'.

As to the accent matter, I'm currently on holiday in Taiwan after two years in Beijing. I used to speak proper Guoyu. After two years, mainlanders can still tell I used to be in Taiwan, but Taiwanese take me for a mainlander on the phone. When I'm not careful I find myself pronouncing 这 as 'zer'. There is certainly value in learning your language mainly in one place.