Want to self teach chinese

[Kujinn]

Yo! so basically as the title says, I want to start self teaching myself Chinese xD I'm 17 years old and have just finished secondary school. I took Japanese in the last two years, and I'm further educating myself in the language. 

 

I have somekind of liking to learning other languages. I decided to try and teach myself Chinese.

 

But I don't know how to begin T_T

 

At the moment, all I know is that I want to study with Traditional Chinese Characters, for 2 reasons, I figure it might help me with learning Kanji for Japanese and I'm interested in going to Hong Kong or Taiwan sometime in the future. 

 

I really want to start asap, If anyone can give any advice on resources and how I should organised my learning that would be great!

 

Thanks!! XD

[MPhillips]

First off, teaching oneself Chinese is an admirable goal, however if at all possible, I think it best for you to find a least one native speaker to learn from. If there are more than a few people of Chinese descent in your area they might well run classes on the weekend to teach Chinese to the younger generation. They'd probably let you join the class for very little money--sounds like you want to go it alone but it would be a good idea to get some exposure to real live people speaking Chinese also. If you like my suggestion you could ask around at a local Chinese market or restaurant. If there's a university in the vicinity you might put up a sign to find a Chinese-speaking student(whether from Mainland China or Taiwan) who'd like to exchange languages, or perhaps you can find someone on-line(but please use caution if you do so--ask your parents' permission first). While I certainly didn't learn Chinese by myself it is how I learned Spanish--I basically used all my spare time for 3 years or so to watch Spanish-language tv--but then again for us English speakers Spanish is a breeze compared to Chinese. In any event, I think other forum members can direct you to the best & most up-to-date materials for self-study. Wishing you good luck!

[Johnchao222]

Hello,I'm john. If you would like to visit those two places, you need to learn mandarin for taiwan and cantonese for Hongkong

[MPhillips]

John definitely has a point, Mandarin won't work as well as Cantonese in Hong Kong and I doubt Cantonese would help you at all in Taiwan. Anyone from either Mainland China or Taiwan who isn't much older than you should be able to help with Mandarin even though they might have a strong regional accent. As far as the characters go, you're right that it would be somewhat easier to go from traditional Chinese to Kanji than it would be to do so from simplified, however if you do want to find someone to help it means you're pretty much limited to looking for someone from Taiwan or HK.

[roddy]

Welcome to the site, you're in the right place to get learning. 

 

There's a ton of information on here. I wrote up a getting started guide years back. There's plenty of good advice from people who've done this already, in Lechuan's topic on what would you do differently. And that's just a fraction of it. 

 

I'd suggest you read through those topics and come back with some more details. Do you want to plan the next three months, six months, a year? How much money are you willing and able to spend on this? How many hours a day? What resources do you have available - Chinese classes, tutors, Chinese-speaking friends, Chinese TV channels. Etc, etc. 

[Shelley]

Hello, all the advice given above is excellent, reading the links roddy gave is a good plan, lots of experienced people sharing their learning tactics.

 

If you are starting on your own, I found the text book series New Practical Chinese Reader is very popular. I use this in my self study. There text books, work books, answer books, audio recordings and video available on YouTube.

 

If you have a smart phone or tablet I would investigate Pleco, this is a very good all round app with dictionaries, flashcards, reader and more. The cost in my opinion is reasonable and worth it. There is free version which is worth downloading to see if its for you. As you are keen on characters I would highly recommend Skritter which is available for Chinese and Japanese.

 

And of course you have found this forum which I have found to be very friendly and a mine of useful information.

 

I know you want study traditional but these days they are only really used in Taiwan. In my experience learning simplified characters makes the learning process not so difficult and once you are familiar with simplified the transition to traditional is relativity easy. There are not so many changes as one might be lead to believe. You can even learn them together after you reach a reasonable level.

 

I  hope your studies go well and remember that the forum is here to help.

[Silent]

 

I really want to start asap, If anyone can give any advice on resources and how I should organised my learning that would be great!

What is your goal for learning Chinese? I think learning yourself to read is not too hard. That is, get some flashcarding software like anki and start learning words and basic frases. Start asap with reading some simple material. A good approach may be to learn all the vocabulary of a short simple text and then to read the text. It may be handy to go through a grammer book simultaneaous to facilitate the interpretation and don't be afraid to repeat the same over and over again. A similar approach works for listening. Keep repeating till you know what is said and then check with subtitles or transcript to get confirmation.

 

Learning yourself active use, so to write and speak, is harder as for active use you need more feedback to become aware of errors and to correct them. Sites like lang8 may help in the writing part, but feedback  on pronunciation is imho harder to get.

[OneEye]

I know you want study traditional but these days they are only really used in Taiwan.

 

And Hong Kong (and the OP did mention interest in going to Taiwan and Hong Kong), not to mention a lot of Chinatowns worldwide.

[Shelley]

Yes you are correct OneEye, just feel starting with simplified is a good way to ease yourself into it.

 

But start with full form by all means, there are no rules about what you do. it was only my suggestion.

[James3]

Welcome! You'll find people to be very helpful on this site.

I have been learning Chinese via self-study, and can echo the comments already made, that there's lots of resources out there.

One type of resource I've enjoyed utilizing, is the various web sites designed to help a person find a native speaker for one to learn from and practice with. There's even some professional teachers online. Some of these sites are totally free, and others charge a small fee. Not sure if any of these sites are the kind of thing you're looking for, but in case they would help, here's some I've used:

SharedTalk.com
MyLanguageExchange.com
LanguageForExchange.com

conversationexchange.com

polyglotclub.com
iTalki.com

I've even come across professional Chinese teachers on one of the language exchange sites who are willing to teach you for free, in exchange for letting them practice with you, so they can improve the language they're learning.

[Kujinn]

Thank you guys for your feedback xD I'm willing to put time and effort into learning Chinese since I have a lot of free time. if you guys think I should start with Simplified I guess I should. I wouldn't mind learning traditional later. There are a couple of Natives in my area, and one I'm good friends with so I'll ask them for guidance, and thank you for the resources ^^, So far I've been using Lang-8 and Shared Talk for Japanese and it was very useful, I could definitely use it for Chinese also.

 

Oh I was also wondering, is Cantonese a language that you can only learn from like a Native or living in the countries? Are there no text books or lessons online to learn from?

[Shelley]

Most people have not expressed an opinion about whether or not you should study simplified, Only I suggested that, in fact if you are going to spend more time in HK or Taiwan then full form is for you.

 

There are just as many resources for learning Cantonese as for Mandarin. I believe there is Cantonese section on this forum.

[OneEye]

There are quite a few courses for Cantonese, but not as many as Mandarin. Cantonese is a really cool language, but if you want to maximize your ability to communicate with Chinese people, you should learn Mandarin first. You can speak Mandarin all over China, Taiwan, Singapore, most Chinatowns, and even Hong Kong, but you can only get by with Cantonese in Hong Kong, some parts of southern China, and some Chinatowns. Of course, if you have a compelling reason to learn Cantonese instead, then by all means go for it.

 

As far as simplified vs. traditional to start with, it doesn't really matter. Neither is really easier than the other, so you should pick the one that will be more useful to you (sounds like it will be traditional). Once you've learned one well, the other will be very easy to learn.

[querido]

Kujinn:

Welcome. I studied Mandarin for six years and now I'm a beginner in Cantonese. 

 

For Cantonese, my favorite...

Podcast website: http://www.cantoneseclass101.com/index.php

Bookstore: http://www.green-woodpress.com/products_list.php?iscantonese=1

Forum: 1) "Non-Mandarin Chinese" subforum here 2) http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/phorum/index.php. Although there's little traffic on either I have always found what I needed and I don't recall going unanswered. The "Comments" sections under each lesson at CantoneseClass101 also have very little traffic but the management has *always* answered, so far.

 

Mandarin vs. Cantonese is a huge decision. I'll tell you about my own experience but these are just my own personal thoughts and feelings. When I was deciding between them I was more fond of and amused by the *sound* of Cantonese but chose Mandarin for the commonly discussed practical reasons: it's standardized by the biggest authority trying to make it the standard language over the largest area and number of people, there are more internet resources, a mainland-orientation meant that the simplified/traditional question would also be settled, etc, etc. (I had no Cantonese speaking friends at that time and no particular/additional interest in Hong Kong or Guangzhou.)

Skip forward six years. By chance, the Mandarin tutor I found three years ago was actually a native Cantonese speaker and I became friends with her family and some other Cantonese speakers too. Since I don't forsee moving to China, and since these friends are dear to me, I have acquired a Hong Kong/Guangzhou orientation that was enough to make me want to switch. It has been an almost impossible ordeal though, so I hope you will never regret your choice, whichever it is.

Of course, I could not forsee my friends' native languages so I don't punish myself for that. But I do regret, a little, my reasons for choosing one over the other. And continuing with just my personal experience: If I had known that listening comprehension (not to materials designed for learners but to real native speech) would be, at least for me, the overwhelmingly hardest aspect of this, and if I had been able to judge - as I do now - that native Mandarin enunciation "on the street" would be this much worse than native Cantonese, then I most certainly would have chosen Cantonese.

I hope you find your own substantive reasons, either way. Good luck.

 

Do NOT neglect listening comprehension.

 

[hedwards]

There's some really good information in this thread. I'd add that you should focus on using the language where possible. Early on you're not going to be able to do that very much, but you want to move towards using the language for things you enjoy as soon as possible.

 

I'd also recommend getting something like bite sized mandarin which you can work on for a few minutes at a time when you're not otherwise engaged. The couple minutes people spend waiting adds up over time, during a single day you can easily wind up finding a half hour or more in many cases.

 

Also, find somebody to talk with as soon as possible, even if you're only able to speak for a minute or so, every minute you speak in Chinese will result in you being that much more comfortable with the language.

[oceancalligraphy]

If you're interested in traditional characters and Taiwan, you can take a look at http://www.huayuworld.org/learningchinese/e_learning It's a website by the Overseas Community Affairs Council from Taiwan. The materials are meant for overseas students to learn Chinese and are all web-based. There might be things you can work on your own, but having someone who can help you is probably better.

[Pokarface]

My favorite media for learning languages, are books + CDs, followed by talking in real life (You need to know something before you start talking, duh!)

 

I posted a review earlier about Assimil Chinese with Ease Vol. 2. It is really good! You can probably buy Assimil vol 1 which comes with 4 cds. If you have a low budget, try getting a used copy of Colloquial Chinese by T'ung & Pollard. The audio from Colloquial Chinese used to be legally available in an old link from the University of Columbia; however, now you can find it on this new one ;-) http://ealac.columbia.edu/language-programs/chinese/clp-learning-materials/clp_lm_colloquial_chinese/

 

Stay away from Busuu, it is very tedious, monotone, and lacks Chinese cultural references. The Chinese learning website that I've found makes a great effort in incorporating language learnign with culture is http://www.fluentu.com/

 

Immerse yourself in Chinese: listen to music, watch tv shows, read about current events in Mainland China (or Hong Kong, Taiwan).

http://www.viki.com/  <<this is a nice website with plenty of Chinese and Taiwanese tv shows (by the way, you'll notice Chinese use a LOTof metaphors/idoms and like to make references about ancient China. So sometimes during Chinese tv shows, you'll be like, "wth are they talking about?" Don't worry, you'll get used to it)

 

Get a lot of friends, preferably from the region you'd like to visit (but you should have friends from different regions because of the Mandarin accents: Shanghai, Beijing, Taiwan, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, etc.)

 

They've already mentioned it, but this is the most straightforward website used to do language exchange.

http://italki.com/

 

Keep doing the things you like to do, but try doing them in Chinese. For Example, I like playing League of Legends, did you know that's a very popular game In China also? I've seen interview and matches with Chinese commentary (even though my Mandarin is not as advance to understand everything that's being said, lol). Once you have a decent Mandarin vocabulary, try http://www.youku.com/ and look for things that you're interested in.

 

understood? Lol

[Johnny20270]

I must admit, I have been in HK many times and very rarely found any need for Cantonese. A few of my friends are living there for nearly 10 years and they don't speak a word because so many good English speakers / expats so English is widespread, even in fanling, everyone i spoke to had English.

 

Mainland China - totally different story

 

Of course I am referring to a requirement rather than a desire to learn Cantonese! if your interested, go for it