Worst Advice for Learning Mandarin?

[lechuan]

A question in two parts:

 

1) I remember reading a blog post once on a Mandarin Learning blog on the subject of "worst advice given to mandarin learners". I think a couple points on this were "Making head/hand motions to match tones", and "ignoring tones". Does anyone remember seeing this, and where?

 

2) What do you consider the worst advice that is often/sometimes given to Mandarin Learners?

[ChTTay]

I never saw that post. However, when I started with Chinese, I found making a little movement with my finger when I said a newer, less familiar word helped me to get the tone right. At least, it helped me to focus on the tone... Maybe still getting it wrong.

Worst advice, maybe that you NEED to go to China before you can really study Chinese. I know it helps being here but, as this forum shows, plenty of people do pretty well in their home countries.

[Mr John]

Hi all,

 

I'm not sure which blog post you're referring to but, in my opinion, most of the advice I've come across during my time learning Mandarin has been fairly sound. I've definitely met people that follow the "don't worry about the tones method" though. To be honest, it has its advatages. It allows you to boost your vocabulary a lot more quickly - which tends to help a lot when you are trying to mix with the locals. Personally, I've taken the slow way, beginning with the usual pinyin+tones drills etc and trying to build up to longer and longer sentences. I'm still at a fairly early stage in the process so I'm not sure which method is best. I guess most people would say it depends on your aims.

 

So, there you have it. I completely failed to answer your question... I look forward to reading some more relevant replies.

[Lu]

Imo the worst advice would be 'ignore the tones'. I have to say I disagree with Mr John, if you ignore the tones you seem to be able to learn words faster, but you don't actually learn the words, you only learn them half. Some people can pick them up later just by listening closely, but for more people it's a dangerous tactic that only means that later on they will either have atrocious Chinese or have to spend a lot of time on learning tones for all the words they thought they already knew.

[Guest realmayo]

I think 'pronounce fourth tones like you're angry' is advice that needs to be treated with care: I've heard a few people well past the beginner stage who screw up their faces and jerk out fierceness every time they get to a fourth tone.

 

Perhaps the classic is the 'you only need to learn 3000 characters and then you can read a newspaper' which is regularly refuted on these forums.

[geraldc]

It will help you join the PLA as a foreigner

[geraldc]

It will help you join the PLA as a foreigner

[Shelley]

Ignoring tones is the worst advice I think because it makes it seem as if tones are a separate thing from the character and of course they are not.

 

My strategy is to "ignore the tone" but that's because I integrate the tone into learning the pronunciation. I learn the word with the tone not as a separate thing.

 

its hard to explain but I hope its understandable, the character's sound and its tone is the pronunciation.

[winterpromise31]

I hope making hand motions to learn tones is not the worst ever advice... because I tend to draw them on the table while reviewing flashcards. I'm a visual/hands on learner so that really helps me. Auditory is my worst learning style, which means I have a weak learning style combo for trying to learn a tones based language. Oh well.

[耳耳语语]

"15 Reasons Why Learning Chinese Is Easier Than English"

[even the title is non-sensical ]

 

http://www.buzzfeed.com/nataliemorin/reasons-why-learning-chinese-is-easier-than-english#3tyc738

 

The worst ones :

2. The alphabet is totally phonetic

12. Mandarin and Cantonese characters are written the same.

14. You don’t necessarily have to worry about dealing with different dialects.

 

...(It's a bit like in the Middle Ages, on the internet you can say whatever you want about legendary China ) .

[imron]

That you can learn Chinese well in a period of time not measured in years.  It sets up false expectations and then demotivation at intermediate stages.  Learning Chinese is a long game and you should plan and prepare accordingly.

[tysond]

Use Rosetta stone.

[Basil]

What's Rosetta Stone, and why is it so bad?

[tysond]

Rosetta Stone is a software package.  It's quite expensive, not particularly effective, but widely marketed and known.

 

Kind of like the Ab-Blaster of language learning.

 

I frequently find people who visit China or arrive here have already bought it which makes me feel sad.

[Shelley]

There quite a few discussions about Rosetta Stone just search for it on the forums but this one was fairly recent.here :http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/19915-learn-chinese-with-rosetta-stone/

 

The main problem I can see is that it may work for European languages but it utterly fails when it comes to Chinese because there are no explanations of any grammar and characters,

[Basil]

Thanks Shelley, where's your 三国 thread gone btw?

[Shelley]

Its not gone anywhere, just been a bit quiet. it has been a very busy few weeks, taking advantage of the last few weeks of summer. It is here:http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/45394-group-read-san-guo-yan-yi/page-2

 

As you have contributed to it, it should be in your followed list.

 

 

[ZhangKaiRong]

There were some

1. "Ignoring the tones." I found that this is a general problem, which roots in the very early stage of the learning process. Beginner classes often start with 20+ students, and there is simply not enough time for the teacher to correct the tones. The problem can be even worse, when the teacher is actually an inexperienced, young native speaker, who simply doesn't care to correct your tones/pronounciation. Therefore, getting the right tones needs a lot of extra work by the students, but most of them are not aware of this thing. The result is messy tones, which is even harder to self-correct when you have a better command of the language. Not impossible, though, but still hard.

 

2. "Your goal is getting the HSK, because having an HSK5-6 and an advanced HSKK means that your Chinese is good. You should consider doing this as fast as possible, so maybe 2-3 years." Oh yeah, a typical goal for most Chinese learners. But it is completely bullshit. HSK is an exam, a not too well-organized and well-balanced one, so to say, and over-mystifying the importance of this exam is like walking on the wrong path for years. I met a lot of foreigners both here and in China who took the HSK way too serious, and I was not too impressed with their skills. Yes, in terms of vocab, they are good, they tend to know a lot of non-frequent characters, however, their general Chinese skills are pretty average or below average, their spoken Chinese lacks tones or they often overdo tones (see point 1) and they often mix 口语 and 书面语 words.

 

3. "Learning Chinese is a great investment, gives you a lot of opportunities and it is helpful in your career, because in the end everybody will do business with the Chinese." Well, not a methodological issue, but everybody has a motivation for learning Chinese, and among those motivations this is the worst and most obvious lie which is mainly advertised by Confucius Institutes around the world. Popularity of Chinese language and culture major is literally soaring in my area and students really believe that by learning this language they can immediately count an awful lot of cash after graduation, mostly in China. Good investment... well, long-term or short-term? On the long-term, it might be helpful, but so as other professional/technical skills or other languages. On short term, the return of your investment can be disappointing. Maybe it is just a European issue, but Chinese skills are not helpful at all in your professional career (obviously, Chinese teachers and the few interpreters were not being taken into consideration). Seeking this kind of professional satisfaction, you should consider not learning Chinese, at least not here.

[MPhillips]

As far as your third point goes I couldn't agree with you more, to me studying Chinese is like playing chess, endlessly fascinating but hardly likely to make one much money (not here on this side of the Pacific anyway).

[anonymoose]

Chinese is more interesting than chess.