Learn To speak & understand Chinese

[anshul]

I am plannning to settle in Guangzhou and would want to learn how to speak and understand mandarin. Will appreciate if someone can indicate the best way to do so.

[atitarev]

I am plannning to settle in Guangzhou and would want to learn how to speak and understand mandarin. Will appreciate if someone can indicate the best way to do so.

Oh, the answer is very simple - learn Chinese.

[mlomker]

Guangzhou is a Cantonese-speaking area. That isn't to say that learning Mandarin will hurt, but you'll actually need to learn two languages which is obviously more challenging. The good news is that the writing is the same among different dialects.

The three routes to learning are colleges, community centers, and self-study in declining order of devotion (for most people). You'll need to provide more information about your timeline and finances to even begin answering your question. Learning a language like Chinese takes years of full-time study to master and perhaps just a few hundred hours to learn enough to survive.

There are plenty of English teachers that arrive in China not knowing anything and rely on the kindness of friends to get by. The amount time you devote is really up to you and you'll learn a lot more just be being there than you ever will Stateside.

[Quest]

You can survive with just Mandarin in Guangzhou.

[atitarev]

You can survive with just Mandarin in Guangzhou.

I heard that Guangzhou and Shenzhen are becoming increasingly Mandarin but surviving is one thing and getting the most out of your studies is another thing. In the street you will probably hear much more Cantonese than Mandarin, am I right?

[Quest]

I heard that Guangzhou and Shezhen are becoming increasingly Mandarin but surviving is one thing and getting the most out of your studies is another thing. In the street you will probably hear much more Cantonese than Mandarin, am I right?

Shenzhen was never a Cantonese speaking city... maybe Hakka but not Cantonese.

In Guangzhou, it used to be Cantonese everywhere, now migrants have taken over some parts of Guangzhou, so you may not always hear Cantonese or not always the standard Cantonese you would expect from a native.

The only benefit for learning Cantonese is, maybe to understand what people are saying around you or behind your back, but once you've mastered Mandarin, picking up Cantonese by passive listening would be a breeze if you are to stay in Guangzhou.

[atitarev]

Shenzhen was never a Cantonese speaking city... maybe Hakka but not Cantonese.

In Guangzhou' date=' it used to be Cantonese everywhere, now migrants have taken over some parts of Guangzhou, so you may not always hear Cantonese or not always the standard Cantonese you would expect from a native.

The only benefit for learning Cantonese is, maybe to understand what people are saying around you or behind your back, but once you've mastered Mandarin, picking up Cantonese by passive listening would be a breeze if you are to stay in Guangzhou.[/quote']

Maybe it's just me - I am learning Chinese in a non-Chinese environment and mastering the tones is almost as difficult as mastering the characters - I would rather improve on my tones and pronunciation and not get confused by listening to the dialects, at least at this stage, then again it's me - nothing seems to be a breeze with the Chinese language - although it's not the first or second foreign language I am learning. I am enjoying the process of learning, though.

[geraldc]

My family village is Huanggang 皇岗 in Shenzen, and I can assure you that they speak and have spoken Cantonese there for a good few hundred years (well my family have at least anyway, and they were basically the only people in village).

[Glenn]

Maybe it's just me - I am learning Chinese in a non-Chinese environment and mastering the tones is almost as difficult as mastering the characters - I would rather improve on my tones and pronunciation and not get confused by listening to the dialects, at least at this stage...

It's not just you. I'm also learning on my own in a non-Chinese environment, and the tones are a bit of a pain. It would be nice if I could hear them all day, every day, so that I could at least have a good feel for them, but I have no such opportunity. The biggest problems arise when there are three or more consecutive third tones, but when any tone is concatenated like that it's a bit of a issue. I'm never quite sure just how it should sound. Five first tones in a row could get very monotonous if you were to pronounce them all at the same pitch, I would think.

The characters aren't such a big deal for me, because I already know 1600 or so from my Japanese studies, and transferring the meanings isn't such a big deal for the ones that have different meanings (they're usually similar enough, anyway). Even the readings seem to follow a well-behaved pattern for the most part, so learning those isn't a big deal for me either. The problem comes with the tones again, this time, remembering which one it is and not so much how it should sound.

As for the dialects, I agree totally. No need to confuse yourself with needless complications. Anyway, they're like an advanced stage. You have to build the foundation first, and that foundation is the standard language in this case.

[atitarev]

It's not just you. I'm also learning on my own in a non-Chinese environment' date=' and the tones are a bit of a pain. It would be nice if I could hear them all day, every day, so that I could at least have a good feel for them, but I have no such opportunity. The biggest problems arise when there are three or more consecutive third tones, but when any tone is concatenated like that it's a bit of a issue. I'm never quite sure just how it should sound. Five first tones in a row could get very monotonous if you were to pronounce them all at the same pitch, I would think.

[/quote']

Three 3rd tones are pronounced as 2 2nd tones + a 3rd tone = 2, 2 + 3. Don't forget the 3rd tone sandhi - ni2hao3.

Multiple 1st tone sound a little monotonous but there is some accent still, some syllables are stressed more than the others (only slightly)), I've been trying to take notes of those. FEI1JI1 - airplane, I would say the first syllable is stressed more.

I am painstakingly listen over and over again the CD's (which I converted to MP3's) and tapes I have with the Chinese text, repeat the phrases, memorising the tones for words and checking myself. It's still difficult when I talk.

The characters aren't such a big deal for me' date=' because I already know 1600 or so from my Japanese studies, and transferring the meanings isn't such a big deal for the ones that have different meanings (they're usually similar enough, anyway). Even the readings seem to follow a well-behaved pattern for the most part, so learning those isn't a big deal for me either. The problem comes with the tones again, this time, remembering which one it is and not so much how it should sound.

[/quote']

I reached low intermediate with Japanese but I was lazy learning the characters properly - was happy just to be able to recognize them and read a lot of text with furigana.

I try to remember tone patterns, e.g. di4tu2 - map or chu2fang1 - kitchen, when I see a word with the same tone combination, I recall these words, etc.

[nipponman]

Yeah, I'm also part of the non-chinese-environment-learning-guy club. I try my best to surrond myself with spoken chinese by means of friends, tv, and internet broadcasts. The characters are easy, because all you have to do is use repetition. If anyone is interested I wrote a thread detailing my personal techinques for learning 3000 chinese characters in 6 months. Though I used a different method for the majority of my Japanese learning, I also learned all 1945 kanji in a year. The problem, I think, with learning a language is not the writing, not even the grammar, but learning to think in that language. That is why eventually, you're gonna have to get chinese friends or something, because otherwise, all the stuff you learned is gonna be just theory. You need to put into practice so your mind becomes automatic. I think this is the greatest struggle with learning a foreign language. Skylee and Quest have an advantage though, cause unless I'm wrong, they both learned english as children.

nipponman

[fenlan]

where is the thread detailing your character-learning strategy?

[rainbow]

啊！啊！啊！how to learn Chinese well? How can i speak Cbinese fluently？ Can you introduce an effective way of learning Chinese to me?

I am a HKer. Most of the time, I have to communicate with my collegue in Chinese. But i cannot speak Chinese well. My Chinese is with strong accent. So there are always misunderstandings happened between my colleague and me.

Does anyone can give me some advice to learn Chinese well？ I don't want to lose my job because of my poor Chinese.

[nipponman]

Here it is, http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/56-what-is-your-chinese-name33. For some reason, when I wrote it after everybody asked for it, no one replied:conf .

nipponman