Advice for my first weeks of study

[n0cturne]

你好! I started learning Chinese a few days ago and I have been really enjoying. I started with the Chineasy app, and the Pleco dictionary to learn the basic radicals. I then tried downloading some pre-made Anki decks (I have had some success using Anki for other languages). I then found Hack Chinese, another SRS service which looks really good. I am having a lot of fun but I am beginning to think that my focus is spread out too thin. I feel very motivated, but it is starting to get a bit overwhelming. Does anyone have any advice based on their very first days/weeks of learning? Thanks! 

[Jan Finster]

Master the pinyin table and the pronunciation. Do not worry about anything else in the first couple of weeks. You think you know the pronunciation already? No you do not. It takes time. 

[abcdefg]

On 2/7/2023 at 9:06 AM, n0cturne said:

Does anyone have any advice based on their very first days/weeks of learning? Thanks! 

 

1.  Buy a standard textbook and follow it along with whatever else you do. 

2. Hire a native-speaking tutor if you can afford it. 

[TheBigZaboon]

My advice: listen to and follow the advice of the two people who posted before me.... Anything beyond what they told you can wait without causing any harm...

[markhavemann]

+1 for working hard on pronunciation the pinyin table. It will help your listening and make remembering vocab way easier. (don't ignore tones!)

 

On 2/8/2023 at 2:32 AM, abcdefg said:

2. Hire a native-speaking tutor if you can afford it. 

 

Maybe this is an unpopular opinion but I don't understand why people think it's so important to have a NATIVE tutor early on in language learning. It seems to be a really popular idea and part of what fuels iTalki those kinds of services. Just because someone can speak a language doesn't mean they can teach it well, and honestly most people can't.

 

In the beginning you can't even understand the target language so it doesn't really matter if your teacher is fluent in Mandarin or not. What's important is that your teacher can teach you the basics well in your own language, and has a solid grasp of whatever they are teaching you.

 

Probably, besides for pronunciation (but including the "theory" parts), someone who is naturally a good teacher (ie. is good at breaking down concepts, as well as identifying when and why you don't understand things) who has studied your target laguage for a year or two would be a better teacher for the first few weeks or months than 99% of native speakers. And obviously an experienced and professional teacher is way better than that.  

 

*I am not, and have no interesting in being, a non-native Chinese teacher so I have no personal interest in say this. I've just seen lots of really underwhelming tutors (and teachers) who speak their home language wonderfully but do a terrible job of teaching it.

[Guest realmayo]

On 2/8/2023 at 10:21 AM, markhavemann said:

I don't understand why people think it's so important to have a NATIVE tutor early on in language learning.

I think it's because tones in normal (clear, steady-paced) spoken Chinese sentences are nothing like the tones you're taught in textbooks. So if part of your early exposure to the sounds of Chinese will come in the form of natural sounding sentences, a native tutor is probably a good bet. But I agree: for correction pronunciation mistakes, native speakers with no real teaching experience or knowledge will probably do a poor job. And there are of course plenty of audio resources providing pretty normal spoken Chinese sentences to beginner students.

[Jan Finster]

On 2/8/2023 at 1:27 PM, realmayo said:

And there are of course plenty of audio resources providing pretty normal spoken Chinese sentences to beginner students.

I agree, you can find more than you ever need on Youtube and play it as often as you need. There are tons of videos on tongue placement and all. Eventually, after a few weeks, feedback by a native if you are on the right track is helpful. He/she can discover blind spots and then you can go back practicing by yourself for a couple of weeks...

[Lu]

On 2/8/2023 at 11:21 AM, markhavemann said:

In the beginning you can't even understand the target language so it doesn't really matter if your teacher is fluent in Mandarin or not. What's important is that your teacher can teach you the basics well in your own language, and has a solid grasp of whatever they are teaching you.

It needs to be a native-speaking tutor, where the tutor part is at least as important as the native-speaker part. But I agree, a good non-native tutor is better than a mediocre native one. Especially in the early stages, it's very useful when a tutor or teacher can explain things to you in your own language in several different ways. (I was taught by a Dutch teacher initially and it worked well for me.)

[PerpetualChange]

On 2/8/2023 at 5:21 AM, markhavemann said:

Maybe this is an unpopular opinion but I don't understand why people think it's so important to have a NATIVE tutor early on in language learning. It seems to be a really popular idea and part of what fuels iTalki those kinds of services. Just because someone can speak a language doesn't mean they can teach it well, and honestly most people can't.

 

 

I actually like this idea a lot. Maybe, when you're starting out, someone who has also started out with it as a 2nd langauge or later in life and had success with it is a good guide to get you up and running. Maybe even more valuable than a "native speaker" who might not present new ideas with the same level of clarity.

[abcdefg]

@nocturne-- >>"I started learning Chinese a few days ago and I have been really enjoying."

 

The early dropout rate is astronomical. Anything that makes it fun and induces you to stay around past those first few days and weeks is worthwhile. 

---------------------------------- 

Plenty of room for more than one opinion. When I had a tutor early in the game, which in my case was a face-to-face native-speaking tutor, I found it very helpful to be able to ask questions that were not an official part of the lesson plan. Things that dealt with daily life in China, how Chinese people thought and felt. Even though we focused on the "core skills," these extras made it all come alive and helped me learn in a useable, practical way. The human interaction kept it from running the risk of becoming a sterile, boring intellectual exercise. 

 

Doubtless every learner has his or her own favorite approaches. And, to be honest, I'm not sure it matters much in the first few days or weeks. What I do think matters at that stage, however, is having the material presented in a manner that you find engaging. A manner that is fun and "ropes you in" and motivates you to continue beyond the bare-bones academic basics. A manner that instills a love of the language and a respect for the people speaking it. 

 

 

[markhavemann]

On 2/9/2023 at 3:17 AM, abcdefg said:

Even though we focused on the "core skills," these extras made it all come alive and helped me learn in a useable, practical way. The human interaction kept it from running the risk of becoming a sterile, boring intellectual exercise. 

I guess this is the counter argument, and nicely put too. 

 

After learning Chinese for only a few hours a week for two or three months I got to go to China for a two week trip (thanks Confucius Institute). I remember going down into the shop of the hotel and the guy behind the counter asked me in Chinese where I was from. I gave a one word answer and he said "好的", and that was it. At the time it was pretty much the limit of my Chinese ability but I walked out of the shop and my mind was blown. I had Chinese teachers back home but something about that interaction was different. Suddenly it all felt real and urgent, and after that I was hooked.

 

So academically maybe there are few benefits from a native speaker that you can't get elsewhere, but maybe having the end goal (talking to an actual person) right in front of you is worth something too. As long as people realise that a native speaker can't osmose language ability into them then I guess it could be good from a motivation point of view.

 

[Flickserve]

On 2/8/2023 at 2:24 AM, Jan Finster said:

Master the pinyin table and the pronunciation. Do not worry about anything else in the first couple of weeks. You think you know the pronunciation already? No you do not. It takes time. 

this

 

On 2/8/2023 at 2:32 AM, abcdefg said:

1.  Buy a standard textbook and follow it along with whatever else you do. 

and this. 
 

A textbook gives you some structure to hang on to in light of all the resources out there.

 

I got fed up of speaking simple Chinese sentences really badly. I dropped learning sentences and purely focussed on pronunciation and pinyin. It took longer than I had anticipated, 20+ hours with online classes. It takes away some enjoyment to purely focus on pronunciation rather than learning vocabulary for communication but no regrets.