Jump to content

Language Learning Sites


Recommended Posts

Thread of links to sites that may be useful when learning a language either Chinese or English.

Some are paid sites, most are free.

Here are a few:

Chinese Language:

ESL:


I will keep adding to this as time permits.

  • Like 2
Link to comment

I used to try and learn to say a new Chinese phrase each week. What is your name. I am pleased to meet you. Where are you from. You are very beautiful. Are you married? :)

 

I would try out each new phrase on almost every Chinese that crossed my path... I realize now that the local dialect and accents vary greatly in China. And, where I might say something phonetically perfect to one person, it may become garbled to another. Of course, my Chinese friends are forgiving of my bad Chinese and they are also appreciative that I try.

 

Thanks for the links, Dan. I will give them a try and then bounce them around and see if anything catches.

Link to comment

I used to try and learn to say a new Chinese phrase each week. What is your name. I am pleased to meet you. Where are you from. You are very beautiful. Are you married? :)

 

I would try out each new phrase on almost every Chinese that crossed my path... I realize now that the local dialect and accents vary greatly in China. And, where I might say something phonetically perfect to one person, it may become garbled to another. Of course, my Chinese friends are forgiving of my bad Chinese and they are also appreciative that I try.

 

Thanks for the links, Dan. I will give them a try and then bounce them around and see if anything catches.

 

True, but I think most people would be able to recognize Mandarin Chinese, even if they speak a local dialect on a daily basis, or their own spoken Mandarin is not as clear when compared to their own dialect.

 

I'm sure you spoke it clearly, and it is not a language problem, but maybe a "skin color" problem. Some of my American-Chinese friends here in China speak little or no Chinese, but if we go to a restaurant and I say something in Chinese to a waiter, the waiter will act as if I'm speaking Swahili. Then the waiter looks at my American-Chinese friends, one of them says the same exact thing, but in a more sputtered-unclear way, and it all makes perfect sense to the waiter.

 

I'm guessing this could be what you encountered, because they just assumed you couldn't speak any Chinese whatsoever, and when you starting spitting things out, they were just flabbergasted! hahaha

 

But, ehhhh, I don't know..........

Link to comment

 

I used to try and learn to say a new Chinese phrase each week. What is your name. I am pleased to meet you. Where are you from. You are very beautiful. Are you married? :)

 

I would try out each new phrase on almost every Chinese that crossed my path... I realize now that the local dialect and accents vary greatly in China. And, where I might say something phonetically perfect to one person, it may become garbled to another. Of course, my Chinese friends are forgiving of my bad Chinese and they are also appreciative that I try.

 

Thanks for the links, Dan. I will give them a try and then bounce them around and see if anything catches.

 

True, but I think most people would be able to recognize Mandarin Chinese, even if they speak a local dialect on a daily basis, or their own spoken Mandarin is not as clear when compared to their own dialect.

 

I'm sure you spoke it clearly, and it is not a language problem, but maybe a "skin color" problem. Some of my American-Chinese friends here in China speak little or no Chinese, but if we go to a restaurant and I say something in Chinese to a waiter, the waiter will act as if I'm speaking Swahili. Then the waiter looks at my American-Chinese friends, one of them says the same exact thing, but in a more sputtered-unclear way, and it all makes perfect sense to the waiter.

 

I'm guessing this could be what you encountered, because they just assumed you couldn't speak any Chinese whatsoever, and when you starting spitting things out, they were just flabbergasted! hahaha

 

But, ehhhh, I don't know..........

 

 

Exactly - I was asking where the 'kele' was at the grocery story (the shelves where being rearranged), and got an admonishment to speak 'Putonghua'. It's just NOT what's on their mind when they hear you say something. Also that many of the Mandarin sounds are not really distinguishable as Mandarin sounds, unless you expect someone to be speaking Mandarin.

Link to comment

 

I used to try and learn to say a new Chinese phrase each week. What is your name. I am pleased to meet you. Where are you from. You are very beautiful. Are you married? :)

 

I would try out each new phrase on almost every Chinese that crossed my path... I realize now that the local dialect and accents vary greatly in China. And, where I might say something phonetically perfect to one person, it may become garbled to another. Of course, my Chinese friends are forgiving of my bad Chinese and they are also appreciative that I try.

 

Thanks for the links, Dan. I will give them a try and then bounce them around and see if anything catches.

 

True, but I think most people would be able to recognize Mandarin Chinese, even if they speak a local dialect on a daily basis, or their own spoken Mandarin is not as clear when compared to their own dialect.

 

I'm sure you spoke it clearly, and it is not a language problem, but maybe a "skin color" problem. Some of my American-Chinese friends here in China speak little or no Chinese, but if we go to a restaurant and I say something in Chinese to a waiter, the waiter will act as if I'm speaking Swahili. Then the waiter looks at my American-Chinese friends, one of them says the same exact thing, but in a more sputtered-unclear way, and it all makes perfect sense to the waiter.

 

I'm guessing this could be what you encountered, because they just assumed you couldn't speak any Chinese whatsoever, and when you starting spitting things out, they were just flabbergasted! hahaha

 

But, ehhhh, I don't know..........

I think you do know, Dan. And, I think you're exactly right. Too often they're expecting to hear English words coming out of the mouth of this white man and are completely thrown when hearing something else coming out.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
  • 1 month later...
  • 8 months later...
  • 4 months later...

 

I used to try and learn to say a new Chinese phrase each week. What is your name. I am pleased to meet you. Where are you from. You are very beautiful. Are you married? :)

 

I would try out each new phrase on almost every Chinese that crossed my path... I realize now that the local dialect and accents vary greatly in China. And, where I might say something phonetically perfect to one person, it may become garbled to another. Of course, my Chinese friends are forgiving of my bad Chinese and they are also appreciative that I try.

 

Thanks for the links, Dan. I will give them a try and then bounce them around and see if anything catches.

True, but I think most people would be able to recognize Mandarin Chinese, even if they speak a local dialect on a daily basis, or their own spoken Mandarin is not as clear when compared to their own dialect.

 

I'm sure you spoke it clearly, and it is not a language problem, but maybe a "skin color" problem. Some of my American-Chinese friends here in China speak little or no Chinese, but if we go to a restaurant and I say something in Chinese to a waiter, the waiter will act as if I'm speaking Swahili. Then the waiter looks at my American-Chinese friends, one of them says the same exact thing, but in a more sputtered-unclear way, and it all makes perfect sense to the waiter.

 

I'm guessing this could be what you encountered, because they just assumed you couldn't speak any Chinese whatsoever, and when you starting spitting things out, they were just flabbergasted! hahaha

 

But, ehhhh, I don't know..........

 

My husband went to a Chinese restaurant all by himself to test his hard work on learning Chinese.

He called the waitress: fu wu yuan

She came.

He said: I want la ji. (spicy chicken)

She was shocked: Garbage?!!

Link to comment

http://www.mandarintools.com/ has a lot of useful tools and links to other links.

 

The "language shock" that was mentioned when someone like "us" speaks a word or two is very familiar to me. I lived in Spain when I was a kid and speak Castilian (or properly, Castellano) quite well, thank you.

 

It shocks the heck out of them when I let people speaking Spanish know I understand what they are saying about me and I look like I just got off the boat from Norway.

 

For me, because of the differing structure of Mandarin and the "helping" words (particles), Mandarin is tough to learn. And like all languages, they change. Dui bu dui is becoming just Dui?, which it should. And 43 different meanings for the word Shi? Jeez.

 

But I'll stumble through it. Mandarin is actually a fun language too. I like when the phrasing is almost like a song. You would think two people are actually singing to each other.

Link to comment

 

 

I used to try and learn to say a new Chinese phrase each week. What is your name. I am pleased to meet you. Where are you from. You are very beautiful. Are you married? :)

 

I would try out each new phrase on almost every Chinese that crossed my path... I realize now that the local dialect and accents vary greatly in China. And, where I might say something phonetically perfect to one person, it may become garbled to another. Of course, my Chinese friends are forgiving of my bad Chinese and they are also appreciative that I try.

 

Thanks for the links, Dan. I will give them a try and then bounce them around and see if anything catches.

True, but I think most people would be able to recognize Mandarin Chinese, even if they speak a local dialect on a daily basis, or their own spoken Mandarin is not as clear when compared to their own dialect.

 

I'm sure you spoke it clearly, and it is not a language problem, but maybe a "skin color" problem. Some of my American-Chinese friends here in China speak little or no Chinese, but if we go to a restaurant and I say something in Chinese to a waiter, the waiter will act as if I'm speaking Swahili. Then the waiter looks at my American-Chinese friends, one of them says the same exact thing, but in a more sputtered-unclear way, and it all makes perfect sense to the waiter.

 

I'm guessing this could be what you encountered, because they just assumed you couldn't speak any Chinese whatsoever, and when you starting spitting things out, they were just flabbergasted! hahaha

 

But, ehhhh, I don't know..........

 

My husband went to a Chinese restaurant all by himself to test his hard work on learning Chinese.

He called the waitress: fu wu yuan

She came.

He said: I want la ji. (spicy chicken)

She was shocked: Garbage?!!

 

 

The first time I got to China in 2005, I was lost and about as helpless as it gets. My program set me up with an apartment (and helped me apply for my university Chinese classes). As I was getting lost every time I stepped more than 500 feet from my apartment, all I could eat for the first week was chips and cookies from the small corner shop right below my apartment. After 7 days I finally mustered up the courage to go to a restaurant (at that time I still didn't have any classmates or friends or anybody), I ordered 口水鸡 (cold chicken dish) and rice. I ordered the chicken after looking at the menu and only recognizing the character for chicken, ahhhh, chicken and rice, can't go wrong with that......little did I know that this was a cold dish - chicken with blood remnants and, well, cold chicken!! I ate my rice and left the chicken, and ran back to my apartment thinking what was wrong with this country I found myself in. Who would have thought, almost 10 years and many dinners later, 口水鸡 is something I enjoy when it is ordered. How far I've come..........

Link to comment
  • 5 weeks later...

Memrise has some great Chinese courses and lots of English courses, and it's free. I started with their HSK Level I class and it made a huge difference.

 

I was wondering about your retention on the characters.

I finished all of the hsk level 1 about 4 months ago, and I keep reviewing and practising.

I only range from 60 - 80% on most review sessions.

 

Is this normal ?

Link to comment
  • 4 weeks later...

I very rarely get 100%. Usually forget some tones or don't get a definition exactly right.

 

I think the proof is in the pudding…try doing some reading! From Amazon.com you can get the Chinese Breeze books (the ones with red covers are Level 1). They've got fun stories and the Memrise HSK 1 class was just about enough to get me through them, with the occasional help of Pleco and my wife .

 

I haven't bought any of the Mandarin Companion books yet, but they also look good.

Edited by lhp (see edit history)
Link to comment

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...