Do any Chinese-specific learning tips and tricks really exist?

[werewitt]

I am recently of an opinion that there are few to none language-specific tricks to learning Chinese, and all of advice can be applied to/ derived from learning of other languages. That is, all language learning is essentially the same - a lot of practice and repetition, preferably a long-term immersion.

 

Chinese is especially difficult because of

• a) its peculiar writing system
• b) almost complete lack of cognates with Indo-European languages and
• c) a somewhat alien to a Western speaker grammar (although it depends on your mother tongue, with English speakers being hit the hardest among major IE language groups)

Chinese-specific trick or two I learned are all related to writing: Learn writing of some characters, maybe a few hundred (but prioritise using pinyin IME), and learn the most common 150-ish radicals - this will make learning characters easier. Skritter is nice, partially because they record the state of all characters you ever learn, no matter whether you add or remove lists you're studying from.

Reading and listening comprehension - well, read and listen a lot; maybe prioritise learning words over single characters they consist of (not sure about the latter though).

Speaking - the same. Find a tutor, there are tons online. A good piece of software to visualise tones is SpeakGoodChinese (or Praat, which it is based on).

 

That and all of the generic language learning advice like "find the group/book/method that works for you" (this forum is a good encyclopedia of trial and error by other learners).

好好学习天天向上, in short  A random link on the same topic. And another one - a massive language-neutral guide.

 

Am I missing anything specific to Chinese?

[Zeppa]

The grammar is harder for English speakers than those of other IE language families? Where do you get that from? Apart from anything else, we have fewer inflections (not that that's relevant).

[werewitt]

Chinese grammar, for native English speakers. Because of an almost complete lack of aspect in English, for example.

[happy_hyaena]

"Reading and listening comprehension - well, read and listen a lot; maybe prioritise learning words over single characters they consist of (not sure about the latter though)"

 

(Sorry i dont know how to properly quote.)

 

I made the mistake of focusing on memorising most frequent characters, importing the 3000 most frequent ones into Pleco's premium flashcard function. I feel like I wasted a lot of time and effort doing that.

 

Usually it would look something like this:

 

彰

 

1) Clear

2) Conspicuous

3) Manifest

 

And then I would try to memorise that. I would also try to find words with that character that would correspond to those meanings. For example, I could try to memorise 彰明 which apparently means "to show clearly", among other things. Is 彰明 a very frequently used word? I don't know. Maybe, maybe not.

 

My recommendation is to stick to the HSK word lists, especially for the HSK1-3 vocab. Remember to have illustrative sentences as well and not just rely on a short dictionary definition.

 

(For HSK4-6 I recommend that you use a textbook aimed at intermediate learners, as they will naturally make use of these HSK terms in their texts, and manually save the 生词 that they will list in every 课.)

 

Going back to 彰, the first time I encountered that character was in the word 表彰, meaning to praise/commend someone. My teacher introduced it to us in class as it was featured in our workbook, so it's obviously a relatively frequently used term that imtermediate learners should know. Also, surprise surprise, it is part of the HSK 6 word list... And its meaning seems to have very little relation to "1. Clear 2. Conspicuous 3. Manifest".

Edited May 25, 2017 at 09:13 AM by happy_hyaena

[calibre2001]

Get a strict tutor who focuses solely fixing pronunciation, especially tones.

[Shelley]

Your topic title asks if there are any Chinese-specific learning tips and tricks? Are there any "learning tips and tricks" for learning other languages? I ask because I don't really know what you are trying to find out.

English is as difficult in my opinion to learn as a foreign language as chinese, irregular verbs, homophones, grammar rules with more exceptions than not and so on. Do you have any examples of "learning tips and tricks" for English?

[yueni]

I would posit that any language-specific tips and tricks to learning any language would depend on the language being learned, and on the native tongue of the student. 

 

For instance, if you take Chinese, a Japanese speaker would have less trouble learning the writing system relative to a person whose native tongue was an Indo-European language; a person who is used to speaking a tonal language would have less trouble learning to speak relative to people whose native tongues are non-tonal (at least with regards to tone-related problems).

 

In most cases, I think you are correct in that the language learning process in general applies to all languages.

[Kherith]

I am French and studying Chinese with English, I find English waaaaaay closer to Chinese than French. There are many similarities in my opinion (in the grammar).

[Balthazar]

@KherithDon't you think that might be because both English and Chinese are "foreign" to you? I find it very hard to believe that, objectively speaking, English is closer to Chinese than it is to French. (I remember somebody posted a link to a page listing the suggested required time to master different foreign languages for English speakers, perhaps it was FSI? In any case, Chinese (and I think Arabic) came far above the others, and way above French.) Not that I'm a linguist (or know any French), though.

 

Here's a map you might find interesting (based on the work by Prof. Konstantin Tishchenko), too bad (but not surprising) it's limited to Europe. (here's a blog post clarifying what this map does and does not actually say)

 

[Geiko]

3 hours ago, Balthazar said:

I find it very hard to believe that, objectively speaking, English is closer to Chinese than it is to French.

 

English and French are closely related, but I think that what Kherith meant was that English is closer to Chinese than French to Chinese. 

[Shelley]

Well as English and French are closely related I would have thought there wouldn't have been much in it. I learnt French in Canada where I was born and went to school for 10 years. I learnt a lot of my French on the street playing games with my friends and just generally living in a bilingual city. So almost like my mother tongue English i didn't study grammar too much.

I think Chinese is quite different in many ways to these 2 languages I have learnt.

[Zeppa]

Lack of aspect? That certainly applies to most IE language families. Maybe not Slavonic. Greek?  No reason to single English out. English has few inflections and therefore often uses word order to indicate structure, rather than noun and adjective cases.

[werewitt]

14 hours ago, Shelley said:

Do you have any examples of "learning tips and tricks" for English?

I'm sorry, I don't do requests  

If you need tips for English (or any language really), try HTLAL or its younger brother. 

 

In general - I'm reassessing usefulness of this forum - is it a social club, a motivational vehicle? A 后悔 encyclopaedia? I kinda like БКРС forums too. 

 

 

[werewitt]

37 minutes ago, Zeppa said:

No reason to single English out.

I don't know that many IE languages, and I read their forums way less (heck, I don't even know if, say, a German Chinese learners forum exists), but from what I see, problems of English speakers are most widely described. Probably a self-induced perception filter. And luckily, my native language is Russian  

[happy_hyaena]

"I'm sorry, I don't do requests  

If you need tips for English (or any language really), try HTLAL or its younger brother. "

 

You don't have to give tips on learning English, but since you've learnt it as a second (?) language, and learnt it well at that,  and are now aiming at Chinese, perhaps you could highlight some interesting differences in a strategy to learn a different language (English)? Maybe give some concrete examples from your early English learning process? Ya know, add something.

 

 

"In general - I'm reassessing usefulness of this forum - is it a social club, a motivational vehicle? A 后悔 encyclopaedia? I kinda like БКРС forums too. "

 

I don't want to be rude, nor do I want to bring down the wrath of the mods on me, but perhaps you should reassess your own usefulness to this forum? So far your threads and posts seem to be revolved around complaining about the state of Chinese linguists and how it doesn't conform to your particular language learning process, as well as brazenly dismissing each and everyone who hasn't achieved what you seem to be an acceptable level of Chinese in a sufficiently short amount of time without considering their specific life circumstances... Never mind the fact that you as a beginner in Chinese do not quite have the grounds to make that kind of judgements. This post itself is just a sounding board for you, and I spent 30 minutes on my shitty smartphone typing out a response to a specific part of your OP to help clarify something for you (as well as lurkers and future learners at large), giving you advice that would have put me anywhere between 3-9 months (seriously) ahead of where I am today had I known - but hey, I guess that's just not useful enough for you? Of course all this is okay because, in your own words, you're not here to make friends? Well guess what, if everyone thought like you this forum wouldn't exist I'm the first place.

 

Maybe you can check out Reddit’s /r/Chinese and /r/language learning. They are a little more anonymous than this 后悔 club.

[werewitt]

 

1 hour ago, happy_hyaena said:

and I spent 30 minutes on my shitty smartphone

Perhaps get a newer one, this forum's software is quite mobile-friendly. My phone is fine with quoting and everything. Thanks for adding another 后悔 post anyways.

 

Re "my early English learning process" - it was so many years ago (25-30 years ago perhaps?) that I don't remember much. I remember one thing though, several times over -  until I moved somewhere I had to speak a language in my day-to-day life, my knowledge of that language was pretty much limited to reading and maaaybe a little writing. On forums   Immersion or nothing. Again, check HTLAL if you require specific hints for English.

 

1 hour ago, happy_hyaena said:

perhaps you should reassess your own usefulness to this forum?

That's part of the process, kiddo.

[iekkim]

17 hours ago, Zeppa said:

 

The grammar is harder for English speakers than those of other IE language families

 

Hi Zeppa, 

 

What does IE stand for? 

[happy_hyaena]

I'm looking forward to reading your "Just got my HSK 6 results" post in one year. I'll be the first to sincerely congratulate you with a present, like your favorite beer or cake. Until then, enjoy burning through whatever goodwill you are being afforded.

 

"That's part of the process, kiddo."

 

Doing one thing, learning a bunch, doing another thing, screwing up, realising that you could have spent your time better and sharing that 后悔 post and so on and so forth... That is part of the process. I would pay good money for a 1000 page book filled with people's language learning mistakes and regrets... Fortunately, I have Chinese-Forums.

[eddyf]

18 minutes ago, iekkim said:

What does IE stand for? 

 

Internet Explorer obviously... or Indo-European

[iekkim]

3 minutes ago, eddyf said:

Internet Explorer obviously... or Indo-European

 

HAHAHA, thanks for clearing this up! I'm seriously clueless with these language families. I clearly did not pay attention to class when we touched up on that.