bad methods of study...such a thing?

[赫杰]

Hello all,

Regarding an individual who wants to eventually equally understand, converse, read, and write Chinese on the same OR NEAR level as native Chinese...

Are there in generalities on how NOT to study Chinese?

To help, try to finish this sentence:

For this individual, in my opinion, it would be more beneficial to focus not on ________ but on _________ while trying to reach that level of Chinese comprehension.

I used to often ask my roommate (from tianjin) how he learned such good English after living in America for a few years, and having no prior knowledge of English except for, he said, greetings and such. Among his answer he told me this

Everyone has their own way of learning things, he knew people that become proficient at English by only reading, by only talking, by only listening and watching, a combination, etc.

As I use my methods of trying to learn Chinese that seem to work for me, but looking at the forum I see so many different methods that seem to work for different people, my question is this:

[same as top]

Regarding an individual who wants to eventually equally understand, converse, read, and write Chinese on the same OR NEAR level as native Chinese...

Are there in generalities on how NOT to study Chinese?

To help, try to finish this sentence:

For this individual, in my opinion, it would be more beneficial to focus not on ________ but on _________ while trying to reach that level of Chinese comprehension.

Thank you all for your time and good luck!!

HJ

[fenlan]

I think sentence drills such as in the Colloquial Chinese by Kan Qian are the best way forward. But do the characters at the same time - there is a pinyin and a character version of the text - and put great effort into the pronunicaiton from the beginning.

[wai ming]

I don't think this is specific to Chinese, but rather applies to any language: don't simply learn/memorise words without learning how to use them.

It sounds obvious, but I find it painful how many Chinese students of English are forced to memorise hundreds of words (some of these words being fairly difficult) without learning how to use them properly. In some cases it's possible that they just haven't mastered basic grammar yet; in other cases, they haven't learnt the connotations behind certain words.

So I'd suggest that simply learning a word/phrase without learning it in context (ie with examples of its usage) is probably NOT a good way to learn Chinese.

[Undermost Salamander]

as a student of teaching, here's what I would suggest:

the only universally bad study style is one that doesn't interest you. if it's not something you like to do, something that you feel works for you, you won't want to do it, and you'll derive no benefit from it.

your sentence:

in general, it would be more beneficial to focus not on grammatical rules but on communication while trying to reach that level of Chinese comprehension.

if you want to seem like a native speaker, the best thing you can do is to interact with native speech. I'm sure you know not to ignore studying grammar, but it's also important not to ignore what you learn from interacting with the language. even if you just watch a lot of TV in your target language, or listen to songs, it will develop your sense of "well-formedness," so that when you're trying to speak you'll have a vague sense of what feels right to say just the way you do in your native language. also, if you spend time on this, then when you do study a grammar rule explicitly, it will just explain and reinforce a rule that you have been beginning to understand just from hearing it said that way.