Chinese 漫画

[Nicholas 陈]

Hello 

I'm not really sure if anybody has the same motivation to learn Chinese as I do. I started learning Chinese because I want to read manhuas 漫画. Basically, it's Chinese mangas. I can say that my level of Chinese is around A2-B1. Most of the times, I read Chinese manhuas rather than trying to learn things from books. If I don't understand it, I translate it, take notes occasionally, and try to pronounce it. 

 

My question is, Is this kind of "learning" really effective? if not, what methods would you suggest?

[Lu]

I think this kind of learning will be effective in that you will get pretty good at reading manhua. You will not necessarily get good at other things, such as writing or speaking/listening, because you are not practicing those aspects. I think it might be helpful if you learn some grammar, because you might not necessarily recognise some patterns when you come across them in the wild. Also, if you take a guess at pronunciation without any instruction or anyone correcting you, you run a great risk of developing very bad pronunciation. So if you hope to speak Chinese at some point, you might want to work on that as well.

 

But all in all, if you are enjoying what you're doing, and feel like you are getting better at it, I think you should continue on.

 

Also, search the forums for 漫画. We have had a few threads about Chinese and Japanese 漫画 and discussions about learning from them. Perhaps you have something to add!

[NinjaTurtle]

20 hours ago, Nicholas 陈 said:

Is this kind of "learning" really effective?

 

No, not really

 

20 hours ago, Nicholas 陈 said:

what methods would you suggest?

 

The only way to do it is to put in a lot of hard work. Get a textbook, take a class, practice speaking Chinese with someone, etc. I teach English to Chinese students. A lot of my students think they can learn to speak English by simply watching movies in English. Sorry, it doesn't work that way.

[dtcamero]

13 hours ago, NinjaTurtle said:

On 10/12/2018 at 12:00 PM, Nicholas 陈 said:

Is this kind of "learning" really effective?

 

No, not really

 

lol manga is probably the best learning material for people to start reading in a foreign language.

let me break down why...

 

1 its real chinese - written by chinese people for chinese people, authentically spoken. this is much more useful than any textbook pseudo-chinese for foreigners (e.g. graded readers)

 

2 it's colloquial - as opposed to books that have lots of complicated exposition before you get to simpler sentences, manga is almost all practically useful spoken chinese, from the very beginning.

people often complain that there may be some specialized fantasy etc. vocabulary, but it's 1%. how much of star trek vocab is about phatons etc.? very little actually... it's almost all super practical speech patterns. 

 

3 it's got pictures - when you don't understand 1/3 of the text, this becomes a valuable tool to help you get started reading real chinese. much more fun than trying to look up 10 words per page in a novel. this helps you punch above your weight re your reading level, and hurry up to the fun part of spending more time reading things you find interesting.

 

4 there are manga at every level - you could start out with doraemon or crayon shin-chan for super low-level practical reading, but you're probably already at a place where you could try harder stuff.

 

5 they're really well done - this is serious culture for a lot of people. don't listen to your highbrow uncle poo-pooing it, saying you should read books rather than 'low culture' (he probably has terrible chinese anyway). if you do a bit of research on the internet for the best titles out of thousands you may be interested in, you can surely find something amazing 

 

6 - it's free! there are plenty of apps in the apple and android stores that let you download chinese-translated versions of pretty much every old and contemporary manga... japanese, american and any other country really. i recommend 漫画人 manhuaren, although it only works in certain countries (us is ok... japan obviously not)

if you tell me a little about what comics you're interested in i'll try to give some recommendations. 

 

FYI I read about 3-500 books of manga when I started self-studying japanese and the same for chinese, and they really helped me get where I am now... comfortably able to read newspapers and novels in both languages. 

 

[DavyJonesLocker]

@dtcamero

 

Good arguments! You have me convinced to last have a try, Any free (or paid) Android apps you can recommend for Chinese. Are they theme specific or conver a wide range?  I never had any interest in manga before but will keep an open mind. Anything that is not too child like would be of interest to me. 

 

@Nicholas 陈

Same question to you, how do you read Chinese manga? E version or paper format

[dtcamero]

@DavyJonesLocker

i use apple so i can't say which app for sure, but search 漫画 mànhuà in the app store and i'm sure there are several. 

they usually work like a free digital library... the only trick is in order to search for a specific title  you need to know the chinese name, which is often different if the original is japanese or english.

give me a general direction of what you're interested in and i'm happy to make recommendations:

comedy / historical drama / crime fiction / science-fiction / horror / etc.

[DavyJonesLocker]

Many thanks, I'm exploring it at the moment. I think I might be in the wrong track as there seems be a lot of virtual almost naked females with swords 

Crime or sci-fi would be great! 

 

Looks like a world I never explored before . 

 

As to the original OP question, I think it's vitial to find some material you are interested in. If you take up studying chinese you're in it for the long haul! I read graded readers but many are often very dull, far from useful for everyday life and oddly written without a consideration for who is actually going to read these books. (I am pretty much stick of hearing about how how hard life was in China decades ago).

I would say though that you can't ignore other aspects of Chinese such as reading a wider variety if material, grammar, listening, speaking etc. They are very much intertwined so will be mutually helpful in improving your Chinese.

 

[dtcamero]

@DavyJonesLocker 

the naked girls might be part of the ads that are prevalent in many of these apps.

i'd say try lots of different apps and see if you can find one that has a better viewing experience. 

 

re crime i'd suggest

杀手阿一 or killer number 1

暗金丑岛君 or loan shark Mr. Ushijima

 

for sci-fi i'd suggest

杀戮都市GANTZ or "gantz"

 

and you might also be interested in what many people consider the best new manga in 10 years,

进击的巨人 or Attack on Titan.

AoT has also been turned into a great anime series...I have yet to find a chinese dub, but it's probably worth a look if you have interest reading the series, to see if you want to invest the time in a long story.

(it's awesome but a bit dense)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koJGHfDLAQo

[DavyJonesLocker]

@dtcameroExcellent, thank loads! 

Nice to find a new area to focus my Chinese on. I think I'm becoming a bit stale in my approach.

[Lu]

17 hours ago, dtcamero said:

1 it's real Chinese - written by Chinese people for Chinese people

That would be a good argument, but:

17 hours ago, dtcamero said:

doraemon or crayon shin-chan

 

14 hours ago, dtcamero said:

暗金丑岛君 or loan shark Mr. Ushijima

... are in fact all written by Japanese people for Japanese people. Foreign works translated to Chinese are often written in unnatural translatese. How is the translation situation for manga? I would be glad to hear they are in fact translated well, into natural Chinese.

 

I am not at all saying that people should not use Doraemon to learn Chinese. If you enjoy your study material, that helps enourmously in keeping up with studying. It's not a good way to get well-rounded Chinese (because again, you're not learning to speak or write), but it will help you get better and better at reading. So if you (general you) are clear on what you will and won't learn from manhua and wish to continue learning from manhua, you have my complete support.

[dtcamero]

7 hours ago, Lu said:

... are in fact all written by Japanese people for Japanese people. Foreign works translated to Chinese are often written in unnatural translatese. How is the translation situation for manga? I would be glad to hear they are in fact translated well, into natural Chinese.

 

what I mean is the translations are written by native-chinese speakers (mostly taiwanese) for a native-chinese audience. there's no money in this... it's really just a labor of love for the translation teams (汉化组). accordingly they are pretty well done by any objective standard.

 

you could say they are slangy or fantasy-vocab, and will not give you well-rounded chinese... but is there any single cultural touchstone which will give you well-rounded chinese?

I think the key is just to read a lot of lots of different things, right? well the key word there is read, a lot. that's hard in the beginning and this is a good way to get into the habit of reading chinese for pleasure and not for homework.

[Lu]

5 hours ago, dtcamero said:

there's no money in this... it's really just a labor of love for the translation teams (汉化组). accordingly they are pretty well done by any objective standard.

I'd caution that when things are done by unpaid volunteers, that does not always mean they are done according to the highest standards. But if manga are actually well-translated, that is good news and I'm happy to hear it.

 

Well-rounded Chinese to me includes not only reading but also writing, speaking and listening, none of which you can learn effectively from just reading manhua. But I completely agree that reading Chinese for pleasure is a good way to stay motivated and continue to learn. A student who does this consistently will get quite good at reading manhua.