Why Chinese?

[Woodford]

On 2/11/2022 at 3:25 PM, TaxiAsh said:

Do you find the level grading system similar to Mandarin companion? If so I will look at level 3 again.

 

I think they are all graded similarly, but each has its own pros and cons. Some of them come with their own audio CDs or downloadable audio files, so you can practice listening. Some books had an entire English translation in the back, which was awesome. One thing I liked about Mandarin Companion (which other graded readers lacked) was that it thoroughly explained grammar points. One thing I remember about the SinoLingua series (simply called "Chinese Graded Reader 500/1000/1500/2000/2500/3000") is that the earlier books were shockingly difficult. And it includes interlinear pinyin, which is useful for some people, but really distracting for those of us who are trying to learn how to read the characters. Those books come with a special "blinder" tool that you can hold over the page to hide the pinyin (or hide the characters), but it feels really awkward. But those books were indeed helpful, and I don't regret using those ones, too.

 

On 2/11/2022 at 2:12 PM, alantin said:

pleco has a bunch of graded readers of various levels as a plugin too.

I just looked, and WOW, that's a lot of available readers. If that had been available back when I started studying Chinese, I would have probably purchased those. 

[lordsuso]

What drew me to Chinese is the language itself (as a European it's pretty much the most alien language out there because of logograms + tones), and the culture/history (as the world's oldest continuous civilization). Also, one of my best friends happens to be Chinese, and I remember being fascinated by his culture as a kid. More pragmatically, it's a huge country and pretty cheap for European tourists. I've been lucky to visit on three different occasions, maybe I'll write about it some time.

 

So my journey began when I had to choose an extra language to learn at my university. I didn't really consider any other language. However, since I didn't have a reason to keep using Chinese after I graduated I simply dropped it (I was ~HSK3 level). There are two reasons why I decided to pick up the language again after a 3-year gap:

 

The main one is reading. I am ashamed to admit that I "discovered" books as a 24 year-old, and it turns out they're great, who would have thought. I prefer to avoid translations, and since I also like comics, at the time I thought that reading manga in Chinese would get me closer to the original Japanese version (my ignorant self thought that the Japanese > Chinese translation was straightforward because of the shared characters).

 

The second reason is that I got "hooked" on flashcards. I made a flashcard app as a side project during my university years in order to learn Java, but I never quite finished it, so around the same time I started to read I also decided to finish it. I had to use the app to test it for bugs and improvements, and I quickly became addicted to the progress I was making (much faster than before, the 3-year gap probably helped to settle in the basics I had learnt).

 

Anyways I am very happy that I gave it a second chance, it really is a fascinating language. I love martial arts so wuxia is slowly becoming one of my favorite book genres, and I'm looking forward to reading many other stories and discovering other genres for years to come. 

[abcdefg]

On 12/12/2023 at 9:28 AM, lordsuso said:

The second reason is that I got "hooked" on flashcards.

 

That's a new one! Don't think I've ever seen that reason for learning Chinese before. Good luck.

[Woodford]

On 12/12/2023 at 9:28 AM, lordsuso said:

I am ashamed to admit that I "discovered" books as a 24 year-old, and it turns out they're great, who would have thought.

 

I had the same exact experience. I had always been a high-performing student, and I went to a good "college preparatory" high school (as we call them here in the US), but I seldom, if ever, put any good-faith effort into reading a book. In my English literature classes, I would skim through a novel and fish out the relevant passages so that I could cobble together a research paper, and then because I happened to be a good writer, I would get a good grade (even though I hadn't technically read the book!). Then in college, I majored in Electrical/Computer Engineering, which, even though it required insane amounts of work and studying, did not involve a lot of reading. Then when I was out of college and 23 years old, I started reading fiercely. Not exactly as much as some people in this forum (who work through 100+ books in a year), but I'm always reading multiple books at once about different topics. I think the ability to read well and read widely can greatly improve the quality of a person's life, though I can't exactly quantify it or say precisely why. It's just really fun to think that you can get a cheap knowledge transfer from any expert in any topic in the world, enter into the experiences of anybody in the world, broaden your horizons, etc.

[Tomsima]

On 12/12/2023 at 4:02 PM, abcdefg said:

That's a new one! Don't think I've ever seen that reason for learning Chinese before. Good luck.

 

I'm definitely one, too - I missed doing flashcards for Chinese so much that I started learning Mongolian, a language I had wanted to study for interest but had no good reason to...then I just wanted the fun of daily flashcards so much I started making a deck from scratch. I'm a good 1000 words in and have a respectable low level ability in Mongolian now!

[Flickserve]

On 12/13/2023 at 8:04 AM, Tomsima said:

I missed doing flashcards for Chinese so much that I started learning Mongolian,

Were you doing Cantonese for a while?

[Tomsima]

On 12/13/2023 at 3:03 AM, Flickserve said:

Were you doing Cantonese for a while?

 

You're right, I have studied Cantonese seriously for the last two years or so. Sadly I have found it really affects my Mandarin, which I use professionally on a daily basis, particularly affecting pronunciation and speech speed. As Cantonese is interest-guided and I have almost no opportunity to use it (yet, at least) Ive been forced put it on the back burner.

 

Mongolian is totally separate from Mandarin, so it is difficult to confuse words, pronunciation etc. whereas Cantonese is so much more closely connected in these respects, my brain really struggles to keep the two apart when I'm speaking in front of audiences. I know you speak both, so Im guessing it is possible to compartmentalize the two, but that would presumably come with exposure and application of both languages on a daily basis (something I sadly don't have with Canto)

[Guest realmayo]

On 12/12/2023 at 4:04 PM, Tomsima said:

I missed doing flashcards for Chinese so much that I started learning Mongolian

I have a non-entirely jokey theory that if daily language flashcards have been part of your life for a few years, they can leave a hard-to-fill hole once you quit....

[Flickserve]

On 12/13/2023 at 5:03 PM, Tomsima said:

whereas Cantonese is so much more closely connected in these respects, my brain really struggles to keep the two apart when I'm speaking in front of audiences.

Yes. It is very difficult to keep them apart if both are second languages. Cantonese tones creep into my mandarin very strongly especially as I don’t often interact with native mandarin speakers. If I don’t know the word in Mandarin, I will make a guess with the Cantonese word (without a clue of the correct tone). Fortunately, native mandarin speakers can understand that quite easily.