Ok I really want to learn to speak mandarin.

[Randy W]

Wafan is right about the dictionary.

A Mafan, it's interesting that in all the different ways I've seen your moniker mispelled, I've yet to see the most damning of all possibilities -- i.e., mafen (Âí·à)

 

http://www.chinafamilyvisa.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/default/horse.gif

 

He's a little bit easier on himself

Edited November 4, 2009 by Randy W (see edit history)

[shadeOgray]

I use Fluenz, very happy with it.

[shushuweiwei]

I highly recommend this page on Mandarin phonetics at Sinosplice.

 

We have no tongue blade sounds in English and so learning the proper tongue position for the tongue blade sounds x, q and j will help you to pronounce Mandarin in a more natural way. Making a sound with the tongue blade engaged with the palate requires a slightly more forceful exhalation to make a clear sound and practicing that helps to sound authentic. I'm sure the first time we all said "xie xie" that we attempted to use some form of our familiar sibilant sound "sh". I'm sure all had trouble at first hearing the difference between the sibilants in Mandarin and the tongue blade sound "x". Practicing it correctly, in my experience, makes it easier to hear as well as to say.

 

Learning which sounds require your tongue to be back in the retroflexed position is also very helpful as almost all English speakers try to find a shortcut way to make the sound that avoids retroflexing as we rarely do it in English.

 

In my experience, when a native Mandarin speaker hears you correctly make these sounds they are often surprised and interested in hearing you speak more, which often gets you more free lessons. My wife gets frustrated when her English teacher asks her to teach him a Chinese word because he can't say it correctly even after many repetitions. She comes home and asks me why other America people can't say Chinese correctly like me. I laugh because I can actually speak very very little Mandarin but I make the sounds correctly and that makes her happy.

 

There is also the idea of learning language like a child, which although more difficult at our advanced ages , is still possible. Just listen intently when you are around people speaking Chinese and watch the actions associated with what they say. I am blessed with a mother in law who loves to talk to me and I just listen. Gradually your hearing of the language changes and you feel more sure of what sound is being made and which tone is being spoken. It's exciting when you suddenly know what was said even if it's a little thing. I listen when my wife talks to her family and to her Chinese friends. When her eyes dart to me momentarily and she says "Ta shi" I know that I'm the "ta" who is "shi-ing" something and I try to see if I can figure out what I "shi-d"

 

I have used livemocha.com as well and found it somewhat helpful for learning some vocabulary and simple grammar.

 

There is a "Chinese Character a Day" calendar that shows correct stroke order and has boxes around the outside to practice writing the characters. I think it is a good start for learning to write characters. Usually we are more intent on learning to understand and speak so writing characters is usually less of a priority and that's a way to start that is easy but gets you writing 365 characters by years end.

 

Many people have given a lot of great advice. I hope you enjoy learning Mandarin.

[Zhou Zhou]

The third language you learn is much easier that the second was...Chinese is fun and when speaking to locals, they always seem amazed when they hear a westerner speaking it.

[A Mafan]

I have no disagreements with waiaijiayou's advice, but I'll offer a different perspective. They are probably complementary.

I¡¯d say your advice is more long term whereas mine is mostly what I suggest someone should do first. My advice about learning pronunciation was based on something I saw a couple weeks ago. My dad wanted to learn how to say ¡°banana¡± in mandarin. No matter how many times my wife and I repeated to him ¡°xiang1 jiao1¡± he would say back to us ¡°shang1 chao3¡±. To him, his pronunciation sounded just like ours, because he wasn¡¯t aware that he had to differentiate between ¡°xia¡± and ¡°sha¡±, ¡°jia¡± and ¡°cha¡±, and the first and third tones. So for my dad at least (and I¡¯m assuming he is somewhat normal for an older English speaker who has never studied mandarin), I believe he needs to understand what sounds there are in mandarin before he can learn how to correctly say just about anything (and also, more than likely, to differentiate between words he hears). Someone could certainly make these realizations through experience over time, but I believe understanding the sounds up-front would save time and prevent people from having to relearn the correct pronunciation for words they keep saying wrong¡­

 

To anyone using this thread for advice on how to learn mandarin, you should keep in mind a couple things. First is the ¡°curse of expertise,¡± which refers to the idea that people who are experts at something have a very hard time recreating the mental state of a novice. When you get advice from a fluent mandarin speaker, what they tell you about what they personally did certainly has value, but I would be skeptical of advice that you feel, for you, would put the cart before the horse. It¡¯s hard for people to remember what it was like before they knew something the way they do now. Second, different things sometimes work for different people. For example, if you are really good at imitating people exactly, then don¡¯t waste your time studying specific sounds. Just jump right in to learning words and grammar. Perhaps the only advice that applies universally for anyone doing something like this that takes a long time is: don¡¯t get discouraged.

Well said.

 

My advice is better for improving basic Chinese abilities, rather than establishing basic Chinese abilities.

 

I had the wonderful advantage of attending the Defense Language Institute. It was like drinking from a firehose, but even more like having the firehose strapped to your mouth so you couldn't stop drinking even if you wanted to.

 

So like it or not, I ended up with a solid, if mediocre, base upon which to add my own practice.

 

That means that the initial phase of learning Chinese is absolutely, um, foreign to me (pun intended).

 

I end up defaulting to "go study Rosetta Stone or Berlitz to get a solid base, then go speak with native Chinese to sort it out."

 

I admit that isn't really that helpful to a complete novice. Case in point: Your explanation about the extremely subtle differences in pronunciation is spot on, but I would never have thought about that.

[A Mafan]

The way I learned before was to pick english words that sound the same and think fo those when I was tryign to spea

FWIW, I've seen articles by language learning experts who say this is a bad way to learn a foreign language.

It amounts to rote memorization that won't really help you communicate in the language.

[A Mafan]

Wafan is right about the dictionary.

A Mafan, it's interesting that in all the different ways I've seen your moniker mispelled, I've yet to see the most damning of all possibilities -- i.e., mafen (Âí·à)

My non-Candle internet moniker is Brainfertilizer. I've given general permission for people to interpret that as shit-for-brains, if they want.

[Mike and Yan]

I highly recommend this page on Mandarin phonetics at Sinosplice.

 

We have no tongue blade sounds in English and so learning the proper tongue position for the tongue blade sounds x, q and j will help you to pronounce Mandarin in a more natural way. Making a sound with the tongue blade engaged with the palate requires a slightly more forceful exhalation to make a clear sound and practicing that helps to sound authentic. I'm sure the first time we all said "xie xie" that we attempted to use some form of our familiar sibilant sound "sh". I'm sure all had trouble at first hearing the difference between the sibilants in Mandarin and the tongue blade sound "x". Practicing it correctly, in my experience, makes it easier to hear as well as to say.

 

Learning which sounds require your tongue to be back in the retroflexed position is also very helpful as almost all English speakers try to find a shortcut way to make the sound that avoids retroflexing as we rarely do it in English.

 

In my experience, when a native Mandarin speaker hears you correctly make these sounds they are often surprised and interested in hearing you speak more, which often gets you more free lessons. My wife gets frustrated when her English teacher asks her to teach him a Chinese word because he can't say it correctly even after many repetitions. She comes home and asks me why other America people can't say Chinese correctly like me. I laugh because I can actually speak very very little Mandarin but I make the sounds correctly and that makes her happy.

 

.....

 

Many people have given a lot of great advice. I hope you enjoy learning Mandarin.

 

Excellent site quick easy clear

I benefited!!

thank you

[david_dawei]

Pleeeaaaaassssssseee....

 

This entire thread is fertilizer material

[carl.hops]

Thanks, I like livemocha, italki.com is good as well.

[Eric739]

Wafan is right about the dictionary.

A Mafan, it's interesting that in all the different ways I've seen your moniker mispelled, I've yet to see the most damning of all possibilities -- i.e., mafen (Âí·à)

 

 

Not a misspelling. A simple typo. Sorry A Mafan.

 

I use an easy moniker because my real name has been massacred many times.

[A Mafan]

Wafan is right about the dictionary.

A Mafan, it's interesting that in all the different ways I've seen your moniker mispelled, I've yet to see the most damning of all possibilities -- i.e., mafen (Âí·à)

 

 

Not a misspelling. A simple typo. Sorry A Mafan.

 

I use an easy moniker because my real name has been massacred many times.

I thought nothing of it.

[weiaijiayou]

Pleeeaaaaassssssseee....

 

This entire thread is fertilizer material

in the sense that it helps something grow or in the sense that it is sh!t?

[george lee]

rob,

 

one day you will be just like him, singing in mandarin to your wife.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y19vv0ZEMPU...xp_fresh+div-HM

[A Mafan]

Pleeeaaaaassssssseee....

 

This entire thread is fertilizer material

in the sense that it helps something grow or in the sense that it is sh!t?

...depends on who is posting.