Finding an Italki tutor for tones and other pronouncation issues.

[Lumbering Ox]

I haven't started Chinese yet BTW so I am not looking for suggestions right now.

 

As I understand it, and I could be wrong, but I get the impression that many tutors are a bit week in teaching tones. How would I go about finding one that could get me on a solid basis in that regard. How can I tell a good one with standard pronunciation from someone who isn't.

 

I seem to recall someone saying that rates are about 5 to 10 USD an hour, I assume for someone on the mainland. Is that right or am I off. There is someone an hour away but I'd be looking at a 100 km each way drive and 40$ Cdn with a 15 hour commitment which isn't really doable sans lotto win.

 

Assuming of course that one is doing self study on the side via other methods, [texts, chinesepod, sacrificing to Cthulhu, the usual] how much tutoring hours would one be looking at before one can run with the training wheels off. Using someone to fine tune what one has learned on your own]

[Flickserve]

In order to keep up interest, many students will want to dive into using the language straight away. That sacrifices some time on the finer points of pronunciation.

It's a fine balance between being sufficiently rigorous on tones without being put off, and progressing on conversation.

[li3wei1]

I would say that, financially speaking, you want to put off most of your tutor time until you're not at a beginner stage. I'd find a book/course you want to work with, and study for a bit, especially the pronunciation. Pinyin can be tricky. Ideally you should be have some audio material to go along with your book so you can listen and imitate. Also use audio pinyin tables, sprinkled around the internet. Use several, because the layouts, accents and clarity vary. Then spend an hour or two with a tutor working on getting the sounds and tones right. Then go back to the book and do about a hundred hours so that you have enough vocab and grammar to work with, so your lesson time isn't full of 'how do you say X?' and the tutor struggling to explain grammar in broken English. Many italki tutors offer shorter lessons, and you may want to consider this, as an hour is a long time when you're starting out.

 

As for picking a good one, read the student comments, and try to get a feel for whether their students come back. Do they have a lot of long-term (10 or more lessons) students, or do they take a lesson or two and then disappear? Unfortunately at your level you won't be able to judge whether their pronunciation is standard in their intro video.

[Lumbering Ox]

If I were to go with Chinese I'd probably split my time between the Hello Chinese app which not only has audio but also listens to you speak and gets you to try it again and again till you get it right, I'd ANKI the vocab, I know pleco is better but at this stage I'd stick with what I know, and remembering the Hanzi.

 

I suppose based on liwei's comments I could delay until after I get through the app.

 

I tried the app earlier, I found when I was trying to get the tones right that it seems I was almost making fun of the language with the exaggeration. Is that normal at first.

 

As for Flickserve's comment.

"It's a fine balance between being sufficiently rigorous on tones without being put off, and progressing on conversation."

 

I am the guy who has in Japanese done nothing but Remembering the Kanji. No texts, no vocab, nothing but English keyword and Kanji. Also did it production style writing everything out every time.

I am willing to eat bitter. I'll eat concertina wire and crap napalm if it will work. Just don't want to blow lots of money for nothing.

[TheWind]

I use italki daily, and I've tried all aspects of the website. As you haven't started, I would suggest going with a  "professional teacher" even though they can be more expensive, they are usually much better prepared and structured. 

 

As long as your learning 普通话 (putonghua) and not some local language like "shanghainese" then the teacher should be fine. I think it's good to get a wide exposure to the language. 

if you want to save money, you could also do a language exchange with a professional teacher on the site. but it takes extra time. 

I don't think students "disappear". after class comments are optional, so maybe they get tired of writing the same thing. Also they could switch up their time between teachers. I personally use about 4-5 different teachers on a regular basis.