Self-Teaching: Where to begin?

[m1kesta]

I plan to learn how to read and speak Mandarin, but I'm overwhelmed as where to start. I do have a good learning environment as my parents are Chinese. 

 

I downloaded the Anki software to make flashcards easier, but I have a feeling I need to learn grammar and theory before I can start. I also just downloaded Rosetta Stone to get me started as well. 

 

What approach worked best for you guys? And what did you focus your time on in the very, very beginning? 

[winterpromise31]

Hello! I bought a subscription to yoyochinese and worked my way through the beginner course and intermediate course. It was fantastic and I felt like it gave me a solid grammar base. I downloaded the lecture notes for each lesson and put all of the new vocab and some sample sentences into Anki and reviewed like crazy. It looks like they are starting to provide Anki decks for the lessons, which is even better.  https://www.yoyochinese.com 

[Shelley]

I have to recommend using the New Practical Chinese Reader (NPCR) text books, work books, audio and videos. I would also suggest Pleco instead of anki.

I would also strongly suggest not using Rosetta Stone at all. There is a discussion about it on these forums. If you search for it would be wise to see what the majority opinion is.

If you search for NPCR you can find lots of strategies on how to use it effectively.

I am with out a main PC at the moment, and typing on my tablet is slow, but if you search some of my topics, I have explained more about how to use NPCR.

[arreke]

What approach worked best for you guys? And what did you focus your time on in the very, very beginning?

In language schools students waste too much time on learning characters, how to read and write them, and don't often practice speaking, this approach quite common between language schools, and it is totally opposite to the way children learn their native language - children first learn to listen, then to speak, and eventually they learn to read and write only by the age when they can speak whatever they want and understand everything they listen to.

Perhaps that's the reason why lots of foreigners after learning Chinese for several years easily pass HSK6, but struggle listening to the radio and speak with strong foreign accent. Children, on the other hand, when they watch cartoons they listen to it, they don't read subtitles because they simply can't, they develop native listening skills long before they learn how to read. And by the age of 4 they speak very fluently, have clear pronunciation and don't make any grammar mistakes, even without studying grammar at all - it's because they learn by practicing, not by studying theory...

Recently I decided to learn the way children do, instead of reading and writing I spend more time on listening and speaking. But you should find your own way of learning, which best benefits you, what I have wtitten above is just what I think, it's not neccessarily right for anybody.

[ChTTay]

I'd get a decent textbook to give you structure whilst also introducing some useful grammar structures and vocabulary. If you're in the states check out the "Integrated Chinese" series of books. I believe they use them on a fair few University courses.

I personally prefer Pleco flashcards to Anki and use them on my iPad/phone. Flashcards can be good way to review but aren't a magic bullet.

Assuming you're not in China, do you have access to classes or a tutor? Language exchange? If not then perhaps Skype lessons. You can also listen to some podcasts made for language learners and pick up a few graded readers.

I would also not make Rosetta Stone my main source of learning. Might be okay for some speaking/listening.

[LiMo]

I see your goal is to be able to read and speak. There's a lot of discussion as to the best way to pull this off. arreke talks about how children learn and this is always an interesting approach to take. Some people recommend delaying characters for several months and focussing on pinyin, pronunciation and speaking and listening. As arreke says it's best to try a bit of everything and find out what works for you. Olle Linge has a great website on HOW to learn Chinese (because most sites tell you what to learn which will only get you so far), so I'll give you a link to that:  http://www.hackingchinese.com/    

(Honestly, this guy really opened my eyes)

 

You're right at the start so you need to develop good habits. Here is what I've learned from discussions on these forums:

 

1) DON'T be scared of characters, learn them when you want but be sure to approach them with the right attitude, if you think they're stupid or massively inconvenient and you can do fine with other methods you will probably never learn them (although you say you want to read so maybe this isn't an issue but I feel a lot of people have this problem)

 

3) Pay attention and learn pinyin properly. Much of it doesn't follow your expectations of pronunciation as an English speaker so be sure to double check. If you hear someone pronouncing the pinyin funny then it's probably because you've been doing it wrong, at least at the start.

 

2) One of the keys to learning characters is to start small and get larger. This means learning the components and radicals so that you can start to decode them. There is a method to the madness. I found memrise.com pretty good for this. It's SRS like Anki but the decks are simple and start off with lots of radicals. This may seem strange because a lot of these things don't mean anything on their own (they aren't words) but it's very useful in order to actually be able to understand a character, it makes memorisation and recognition so much easier.

 

3) I agree with arreke. Speaking and listening are going to be a big part of this. I've heard Pimsleur is pretty good for listening. It's basically all audio material and you basically learn like a child (I think, I've never used it myself). If you're like me and you take to reading quickly you'll soon find that you end up reading too much, so be careful.

 

4) USE YOUTUBE: From my personal experience listening is really important. There are a lot of Chinese TV shows on youtube that you can watch, many have English subs. I watched an entire 40 episode TV show about a girl who gets transported back in time to the Qing Dynasty with English subs. It was great fun and now I watch other shows with just the Chinese subtitles and I gradually challenge myself to not read the subs and just listen. A lot of the TV I watch is Chinese now. This may seem very daunting at first but it can soon become quite rewarding as you pick up words you've learned in a real life context and you can start to learn interesting, non-textbook Chinese that will help keep you enthused about your language learning. I'm going to recommend TV shows not films because I feel there's more time to get into it and be comfortable with not understanding everything, they're often very long (40 eps at 1hr each), so you have ages to recharge, check your dictionary etcetera. With films there's too much pressure to understand everything and if it gets to the end and you still don't know anything except the main characters name it can be really discouraging.

 

5) Speaking: This is probably my worst skill in terms of fluency, I've had precious little time to speak and I constantly "fail" at language exchanges but they can be very useful. From studying my failings the key is to go into it like a business deal and be sure to prepare material for each meeting, otherwise you'll get stuck and it will degenerate into friendly chit chat (i.e. ENGLISH). But, this links to my other point, I feel that, from doing a lot of listening and then just repeating things to myself, and sometimes recording myself, my pronunciation has progressed well. Again this is about developing habits. I didn't do this from the start but I recommend that you record yourself. You'll soon see just how far off you actually are and it will help you correct yourself if you don't have a native speaker around. (Remember, sometimes native speakers will mislead you into thinking you're a Chinese language god, listening to yourself can help dispel such delusions, encouragement is great but don't get over-confident!)

 

6) Use these forums. You'll get loads of great ideas on how to study

 

 

7) Stay calm and remember it's a marathon not a sprint. In fact, it's probably more of a life journey.

 

Good luck!

[m1kesta]

Thank you everyone for your advice and also LiMO for such a thorough answer.

 

There are some great tips in there that focus on not just learning itself, but also the mental challenges you face along the way, so thank you for that!  

 

I also feel video's and a well-rounded approach to learning a language is key, as it replicates much more realistically how a native speaker would be exposed to the language. Listening, speaking, reading, writing, videos, movies, friends, and just being around the culture all should be part of the perpetual learning experience. With that said, maybe you can add your movie suggestions to this thread I just made about good flicks to watch!