Are Chinese learning resources hard to come by?

[Kelby]

I've been doing some poking around the older posts in the forums and found a trend that has peaked my curiosity. Seems like pretty frequently there are inquiries about resources. Resources for beginners, for intermediate reading, people asking for good graded readers, for comics, for good listening practice, for the best textbook for self-study... and the list goes on.

Even in my last post asking about what people struggle with in reading, a number of the replies (maybe skewed by my response to my own question) found finding resources to study with a struggle.

So what's the deal? Are resources actually really that hard to come by or do most people not know where to look for them? If I recall correctly, I've seen posts where resources for study have been collected together for later reference, so are the occasional inquiry posts just people not doing a thorough enough search of the archives?

Is it hard to find resources because there actually aren't that many or is it just hard for us as Chinese learners to get our hands on them for some reason?

What do you folks think?

[Touchstone57]

If you asked are Chinese materials hard to come by, I would say, is the Pope a Muslim?

 

I think it is a mixture of some things – some people are just lazy, and are unwilling to use the search function in the forums to look through the thousands of posts for good advice. We must get a couple of posts (or more) a week with beginner folks asking for advice and where to start.

Other people perhaps would like something specifically tailored for them, and also like interaction with other people and to hear their opinions. I don’t mind it though – it is good to hear about the different resources people use and their opinions, but it tends to follow a cycle so you may hear the same stuff again and again.

 

These days the learning Chinese market is saturated with different software, courses, materials, specialist services, lifestyle blogs, as well as free resources, so I imagine it is quite hard to avoid if you have even a passing interest. For example, targeted advertising tends to spam you based on your search preferences and cookies…

 

In addition, in the beginning, some people really have no idea where to start (including me), but I’m sure a quick Google search of “Best Chinese Study Resources” or “How to learn Chinese” could be the start of your journey. All roads lead to Rome.

 

For me, Chinese Forums itself is an excellent resource. I feel I could be occupied for the next several years going through all the recommended films, tv shows, books, songs, articles on this forum alone. Some very generous people have given their time to contribute transcripts, episode translations, vocabulary lists etc. In addition, I use things like the Chinese Grammar Wiki, Pleco and Anki software, graded reader books, useful sites like Hacking Chinese, just to give you an idea. Overtime you build up your set of learning resources.

 

I feel if I wanted to learn German for example, it would be very easy to start by looking things up on the net and getting directed to the right places.

[anonymoose]

The resources are there, but some people are looking for a magic bullet that will get them to fluency without having to put the effort in.

[icebear]

The resources are there, but some people are looking for a magic bullet that will get them to fluency without having to put the effort in.

 

 

This. It's easier to gripe about resource availability on-line than simply hunker down and study/read/absorb for hour a day. There is no magic bullet.

[OneEye]

There's tons of great stuff out there. I live in Taiwan and feel spoiled for choice, and I know those using mainland-focused resources are even more so. I think it is simply a matter of 1) Wanting others to do the work for you, and 2) Obsessing too much about finding the perfect textbook, rather than just getting started with one that's good enough. The latter is particularly easy to succumb to (I've done it with Chinese, and I'm currently trying to stave it off with Japanese), and I think it's due to the overwhelming number of resources out there.

[Kelby]

I know everything I've studied has been the result of going out and looking for it. Well, I had one resource come through google ads as well so I think what everyone said is all on point from my perspective too. We all know that there's no magic bullet, no matter how well regarded a study system, be it a NPCR, Hacking Chinese, Pimsler, or any of the other resources that have become a fixture.

However, is the search for the perfect resource really just due to laziness and stalling or is there more at work?

Is there something that is actually missing from this well saturated Chinese learning market?

I agree you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a resource for Chinese learners, but is all we're missing a blog post that tells us to just knuckle down and do the work?

[Guest realmayo]

is all we're missing a blog post that tells us to just knuckle down and do the work? 

No excuse for missing that post: http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/22456-fluency-proficiency-etcsome-insight-please/#comment-182682 

[Kelby]

No excuse for missing that post: http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/22456-fluency-proficiency-etcsome-insight-please/#comment-182682

Is there an Imron's wisdom highlights thread yet? If not, I feel like someone needs to get on that, lol.

[Ania]

As someone who has been studying Chinese on my own for a little over a year I have to say that there is a bunch great Chinese learning resources online, but sometimes for some reason you just miss a website or two. I'm still discovering resources I never knew existed even though I've been posting on the forum for a while. Sometimes a website is mentioned in one thread, but never added to the index threads and is relatively more difficult to find. 

 

Also, I think that people often want to find out what works best when learning a language, which is a very subjective thing really. There are things that work for some people, but don't for others, which is why people are going to need different types or resources. I don't think there is some magic method that everybody can agree is the best for everyone.

[querido]

Here is the link I called "Master Imron Post": http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/34107-what-level-of-chinese-can-you-achieve-outside-of-china/page-4#comment-255527

[Guest realmayo]

Hehe you're right that's the daddy! Weapons-grade enriched Imron. If I leave it open in a browser window for too long my monitor starts to melt.....

[Ruben von Zwack]

 

I suspect a lot of these questions are by people who are straight from school and don't have too much experience in any sort of independent work/study/knowledge acquisition yet.

 

There are also a lot of questions like: if I do this-and-that, to which level of proficiency exactly will I get in 6 months/one year?

I mean, the question just shows you haven't done much independent study yet.

[Lu]

I think it's part just not knowing where to look (if you don't know graded readers exist, you won't find them) and part looking for the perfect resource instead of sitting down with a decent one. Personally I can't believe that people really think there is a lack of resources. Of course there will always be something that would have been so very useful if you had found it a year ago, and knowing that there is so much out there can set one on a chase for the Holy Grail of the One Perfect Thing for me to read/listen to/watch at this particular point in my studies. Whereas if you were just locked in a room with a 兩會 report and its official French translation, you would eventually come out of that room with fluent Chinese with socialist characteristics and also excellent French.

 

I don't remember ever suffering from lack of resources (although I suppose I have been lucky in some respects, learning at a university and being in the country itself fairly regularly). Lack of 努力 is (for me at least) a much bigger problem. Even for Taiwanese, which has infinitely less learning resources, I didn't progress far enough for that to become an issue.

[Ania]

There are also a lot of questions like: if I do this-and-that, to which level of proficiency exactly will I get in 6 months/one year?

To me it's kind of like asking "If I drive a Toyota, how far will I go?" There are so many factors in play that it's impossible to say. I don't think anybody can answer a question like that. People can help you choose material, offer some advice etc., but nobody can tell you how fast you will be able to achieve a certain level. I myself am now studying Chinese strictly as a hobby and for now my philosophy is that whatever I learn and whatever level I achieve, nobody is going to take that away from me And sure, I would love to someday be fluent in Chinese or at least fairly communicative, but for now I'm just doing what I can on my own and see what happens. 

[Kelby]

I myself am now studying Chinese strictly as a hobby and for now my philosophy is that whatever I learn and whatever level I achieve, nobody is going to take that away from me And sure, I would love to someday be fluent in Chinese or at least fairly communicative, but for now I'm just doing what I can on my own and see what happens.

I think that's really what happens when you take the time constraits that school or a three month tourist visa place on you out of the equation. I'd be fit to wager that a lot of people looking for the silver bullet are only in an "optimal" Chinese learning environment for so long and want to know how they can fail safe become fluent or literate while the practice is easiest to get.

Can't really fault someone for wanting to capitalize on an in country opportunity, but it does completely neglect the fact that your level ebbs and flows with how much work you put it.

After coming back from my time in China during college, I forgot the better part of the stuff I packed while I was there because I assumed my level wouldn't need that much upkeep. You can bet when I was preparing to come back again I was looking for a silver bullet that could bring me back to where I was before I came over again.

The thing for me though, which Imron illustrates so perfectly in the tagged post, is that while of course there's no silver bullet, there's still a fail proof method for learning Chinese; regular practice over time.

Want to learn to do something? Then practice that thing until you don't suck at it, and then keep practicing.

[zhouhaochen]

Well, I asked which free resources people want here and there were a few, but not many replies. So we are currently working on a list of HSK words, with example sentences with audio and prepare a summary of all online resources we think are good as those were the only serious requests. Seems to me like there are no immediate needs for much - except maybe some new ideas.

 

I however still believe the best way to learn Mandarin is to get stay away from your computer, sing KTV and drink beer with a few Chinese guys who cant speak English.

[Ania]

Want to learn to do something? Then practice that thing until you don't suck at it, and then keep practicing.

 

I agree! I think it's very important not to stop just because you think you've achieved the level that you wanted. It's scary how fast foreign languages can escape you when you don't live in the country where the language is spoken (it happened to my French at which I used to be pretty good a few years ago, but now I can barely come up with a sentence). I plan to never let it happen to my Chinese, because I'm sure it would only take me a month to forget what I learned in a year. Learning a foreign language is hard work and I'm so grateful I like it

[roddy]

Nobody's going to argue with 'keep practicing', but it's also over-simplistic. How, as a beginner, do you practice a complex and difficult task? Throwing yourself at it again and again is as likely to produce frustration as a sudden Ah-ha moment. You need either graded, incremental approaches to the actual task (ok, lets try that a little faster) or someone to guide you through it (he mentions a destination and a price, see if you can pick those out). It's quite hard to do that on your own. 

I however still believe the best way to learn Mandarin is to get stay away from your computer, sing KTV and drink beer with a few Chinese guys who cant speak English.

Given you're running a school I'll assume that was a throw-away comment that you know wouldn't stand up to any scrutiny. Otherwise I look forward to the "LTL has closed and reopened as a karaoke parlour" post. 

[Ruben von Zwack]

 

How, as a beginner, do you practice a complex and difficult task? Throwing yourself at it again and again is as likely to produce frustration as a sudden Ah-ha moment.

 

That's why I get sour when I hear the occasional advice, "Open a newspaper, take a random article, and translate it word for word". You'll still be sitting there translating, while everyone else who started learning at the same time are already out there on the streets, ordering food in restaurants, negotiating prices, asking which bus goes to the Forbidden City (and get lost).

 

When I came here I was traumatised by the textbook we used at Uni ("Chinesisch für Deutsche"), and never wanted to open another again. But after a while I craved for some old school structure and asked about German textbooks. @Hackinger recommended me 会话 301 上+下, and I really enjoyed them (yes I thanked him in the topic ).

 

I also believe I am guilty of asking "which is the best book for the etymology of Hanzi?". But honestly, I searched the forums for "character + etymology" and read every single topic I found and took notes on authors and books, and I was still totally confused and clueless.

Some things are so obvious after a while - in this case, I think, that no such book exists, not for foreign learners - that it's hard to remember just how lost one was in the beginning.

[Kelby]

Okay, so a boneheaded approach of just throwing your head at the wall obviously won't work, but is that really what's implied by "if you want to read a newspaper, just read a newspaper?" There's more finesse than just that, but in general if you want to learn how to do something you need to actually do it. Support tasks such as studying grammar, characters, vocabulary, etc. are sort of a given in my mind. Of course, I don't have the 'beginner's eyes' of someone who might think they can learn to read Chinese by just directly translating the instructions to their VCR and memorizing what they come up with.