Pronouncing characters

[Xaphan]

Hi!

 

So, I just started learning Chinese, and so far it's going ok. The grammar isn't too weird, a lot of the characters are reasonably intuitive (I might not be able to figure out what 'to move the hand' means on my own, but once I've been told, it just makes sense), etc cetera. The different tones are throwing me a little, but for the most part the spoken stuff is going OK too.

I'm sure things won't stay this easy, but I'm enjoying myself, so hopefully I can keep at it.

 

The problem is, something in my brain seems to think written Chinese and spoken Chinese are different languages. I cannot learn to associate sounds or Pinyin with written characters. It just will not stick in my brain. I spend hours (actual hours, not the kind that last five minutes but then the person says 'hours' to sound good) trying to drill a couple of characters into my memory, and then it's gone again the next day.

Needless to say, this is somewhat frustrating.

The best I've managed is translating to English and then back again, but that seems like a bit of a sticking-plaster solution.

 

So, does anyone have any solutions? Has anyone else had a similar issue? Is this just normal, or am I doing something horribly wrong?

[889]

Listen to tapes while you follow basic short texts. Over and over again till the texts become practically part of you. Then read the texts again and again aloud without the tapes.

 

Myself, in the beginning, I worked first on Pinyin, then moved on to reading those characters. There was usually about a two-week lag between my place in the Pinyin text and my place in the character text, using DeFrancis.

[Flickserve]

There is definitely a delay but don’t overtly fret about it. It will most likely outpace your listening skills later.

 

There’s an argument for placing more emphasis on listening skills and verbal skills at the beginning. 

[Xaphan]

Ok, thanks! I'll try the passages thing, maybe it will work better than trying to learn individual characters.

 

Thing about trying to learn a language on your own is not knowing whats normal. I was a bit worried that the more used I got to not having a connection between written and spoken, the harder it would be to pick up later.

 

Thank you both.

[道艺]

Do you live in China?

 

I had to get over that hump at the beginning too. What worked for me was starting with the simplest characters （人，大，多，小，女，心）and then finding them in more complex characters. Having that foundation helped me start to see the network of connections within the written language.

 

女-》安 nv (female) -> an, as an is about protection/safety, as we should always protect our females ;D

心-》想 xin (heart) -> xiang, as xin has to do with internal feelings/thoughts

I'll leave a few for you to think about

人-》坐

多-》够