Can someone offer recommendations for starting basic Mandarin?

[Nami]

I'm deeply interested in learning Mandarin, and have tried for three months to get my foot in the door to no avail.

I'm very persistent when I want to learn something, but finding good resources for basic Mandarin is becoming a daunting task.

The problem is that I'm having a lot of difficulty finding a system that works for me to get the basics down. I've tried Memrise for about 400 characters, ended up only being able to remember ~150 of those at any given time, and subsequently got stressed at how little I was learning and how little progress I felt like I was actually making.

Everything else I've tried is very much the same experience. I have a bar telling me I have down 400/1000 characters or something like that, but I feel like it's not helping me at all. There's no sort of reward, or any confirmation that I'm actually learning.

There are no texts to read to put my new vocabulary to use and further ingrain them into my mind, but rather my only option is to keep doing the same tests repetitively until I understand.

With the Memrise method I can pass tests fine, and I can study those all day, but when I try to look for characters I know in novice level Chinese writing I think to myself "I sure wish I had a list of 6 similar definitions to choose from."

The memrise method makes me feel like I'm only learning definitions for my short term memory even if I go over every character every day. They just pile up until I'm getting bored at seeing the ones I'm sure I know, and annoyed at how I keep missing the same ones and not getting the chance to see them again before I forget what they mean.

The podcast method I haven't tried as much as studying characters, pinyin, and definition, but from what I can tell it's definitely slower, and I'm not sure I can really get into it because of how slow they seem to be. I would definitely be willing to try a podcast, though, if someone has a recommendation.

I'm looking for any answer or help here at all. If you tell me that I just need to struggle through basic vocab, I can try, but it's going to be very difficult for me with the tools provided. I have a hard time paying attention to things that seem too slow,

In conclusion, I guess, I'm asking: What has worked for you? I know there have to be some people that have had problems sticking with vocab, and I want to know how to actually get past this block in my path.

[renzhe]

It sounds like you are just memorising word lists and characters. That's only a small part of a living language, though it tends to be the most frustrating one.

In order to learn Mandarin, you will have to work on a set of skills:

- characters

- vocabulary

- grammar

- reading comprehension

- listening comprehension

- speaking ability

It's best to use a combination of sources which, in their sum, address all these points. In other words, you will need:

- a good textbook

- a good SRS program (like Anki)

- some approachable beginner-level reading material (comics for kids are excellent for this)

- podcasts and elementary-level Chinese TV (you might want to wait a bit with the TV, it's humbling)

- a tutor or a Chinese friend who can correct your pronunciation and with whom you can practice

Even with all of this, it can feel unrewarding and never-ending at times. But with a variety of sources, learning is more fun, so you can push through plateaus more easily. Watching TV and reading comics is always fun, after all, and they also help your progress.

Search through the forum for many recommendations in terms of reading, textbooks, comics, podcasts, TV shows, etc. Good luck!

[grawrt]

I used memrise the first two weeks while getting back into studying Chinese, Honestly its really only good if you have another aid with your studies. What I normally did was cover a chapter in my text book and then went over the vocabulary words in Memrise. Kind of like reinforcement. After I got through them all I tested myself by reading the Dialogue in the book, First I'd go over it to see if I was spot on with knowing all the characters, then I went over it a second time to see if I understood the grammar. If I got anything wrong or didn't understand something I looked at the grammar points again/or vocab.

This was before Memrise changed their whole layout system (which now sucks). I miss it but since then I've gone to Anki and started to build my own vocabulary. Someone on this forum was nice enough to suggest that I focus on words not characters in isolation (unless they served as a word as well). This helped immensely.

I also like CCTV's Growing up with Chinese. It has a good balance of grammar and vocabulary and listening practice (and speaking if you repeat the dialogues back and stuff).

[stoney]

http://cctv.cntv.cn/.../01/index.shtml

http://www.slow-chinese.com/

http://chinese.rutge...u/content_e.htm

http://www.clavisinica.com/voices.html

http://ocw.mit.edu/c...nd-literatures/

http://collections.u..._beginning.html

[sthubbar]

Nami,

Are you interested in studying Chinese or learning Chinese?

In short my recommendation to learn Chinese it to do it the same way that a all native speakers around the world learn their native language, including the way you learned your native language. How was that? By being exposed to the sounds of the language with no, absolutely 0% exposure to anything called grammar, and especially for Chinese, avoid even trying to make any sense of characters until you have a high level of speaking and listening ability.

The best program for this is called Pimsleur.

For more details how you can follow this philosophy and also learn to read check out http://www.AllJapaneseAllTheTime.com.

[johnk]

Hi,

you summed it up nicely yourself:

I'm having a lot of difficulty finding a system that works for me

What works for you may not work for someone else.

What works for someone else may not work for you.

You may well get a hundred answers here and none of them may be the right answer for you.

For what it is worth, I started studying Chinese at night classes. I always did night classes and Chinese was just one more subject. The classes were aimed at basic tourist stuff, saying "ni hao" etc. There was no writing component. However I discovered mdbg.net and the character drawing applet there, so I started practising writing characters. At the time, my life was very stressful. I found writing characters to be very relaxing. Every evening after work I practised writing characters for one hour as a way of relaxing rather than as study. So I learned the basic characters without really studying. Many people claim flashcards are essential for learning characters but I have never used flashcards.

The other point I would like to make is that learning Chinese is a long term project. It can be very slow making visible progress. For me it is about doing things I enjoy (well things I don't hate) and doing them regularly.

For example, everyday at work at lunchtime, I do the character quiz at mdbg.net. It takes 2 minutes, it is not difficult. I started at level 1. When I was consistantly scoring 100% at HSK level 1, I moved to HSK level 2 and so on. At the moment I am consistantly scoring > 95% at HSK level 4. I should really move to HSK level 5.

I also do things like:

Follow a textbook.

Listen to Chinese audio CDs as I drive to work.

Read appropriate materials. The Chinese breeze series were an excellent start. The first one took me forever to read ( I was looking up every second word) but they got easier.

My study habits are relaxed. I don't really set goals, or I do but they are very softly defined and I don't beat myself up over them.

That what works for me. YMMV

[iMeng@Meng]

http://ocw.mit.edu/resources/res-21f-003-learning-chinese-a-foundation-course-in-mandarin-spring-2011/online-textbook/part-i-introduction-units-1-4-character-lessons-1-3/

same as stony just more of a direct link

[tomblack]

Yeah, I definitely have to agree with what everyone else said. The first thing I did when learning Chinese was to get the sounds down. If you have access to a native speaker that would be willing to go through all the sounds with you (using some sort of a pinyin chart) that would be ideal. After you get all the sounds down, I would start learning phrases that you can put into use right away. Memorize those phrases and listen to them over and over until it becomes more natural. That would be where I would start.