Mandarin Learning Programs

[retodd1000]

I wasn't sure if I should ask this in the pinned thread or not.

I have the first set of CDs for the Pimsleur Approach program for learning Mandarin. I find it pretty boring. Last night I was looking at the Rosetta Stone website, then read some reviews comparing the two. Any insight into these would be appreciated. I might just have to discipline my self, and sit down and use what I've got.

Thanks,
Todd

[DocMartin817]

I have bought both and ended up using Pimsleur in my car and not using Rosetta much at all. I now use ChinesePod online as my main study learning tool.

 

Marty

[credzba]

I tried pimsleur, went through 30 cds, or whatever the set is, and at the end I knew phrases, but nothing I could use.

I tried Rosetta, but only the trial, and I liked the approach, but I didn't learn well that way.

 

I tried Chinesepod, and I really liked it, and probably learned a lot listening and practicing in the car, but I never advanced much.

 

Finally I bought a book on writing characters, and I learned the characters and the vocabulary, but it only helps me when I hear those words to understand some snipit of the conversation.

 

I think I am just a failure at learning.

 

I have a new plan though, I am trying to get my wife to use chinese words in sentences. Once i learn a chinese word for something, I just keep using it instead of the english word.

I don't know if this will work, or maybe i am just brain dead.

 

My suggestion is try Chinesepod.

If your disciplined, I think it will be the best choice, and if your not disciplined, you may end up a Mandarin failure like myself.

[Dennis143]

My approach has been to try and learn one new Chinese phrase each week.

The basic ones first:

I'm sorry

I didn't mean it

Don't be angry wife

 

In all seriousness, I do learn the phrases above, as well as others. I will practice on different Chinese friends until, when I think I can parrot well enough to say the phrase phonetically correct... it does depend on if the Chinese is from the north or south as their different mandarin dialects may hear and understand what I am saying differently. I try to parrot what I think the consensus. Of course, I have the advantage of living among many Chinese to practice on too which helps learn.

 

I think for someone making their first trip to China, it would be very beneficial, impressive and helpful to learn to speak some basics phrases of greetings etc. Google Translate is a very good place to enter basic phrases, translate into Chinese and then listen to how the phrase is spoken in Mandarin Chinese. http://translate.google.com/#en/zh-CN/

 

Don't be surprised if you just get blank stares when trying to speak for the first time. As is often the case, they're not expecting the sound coming out of a loawai's mouth to be Chinese. Your lady more than likely will have a pocket translator that will aid you and be a way to start engaging in some limited conversation.

Edited December 22, 2013 by Dennis143 (see edit history)

[credzba]

I agree with Dennis, learning a few useful phrases is more useful that trying to become literate.

You would be surprised how few you need, and people will be happy you tried.

 

hello (obviously)

thank you.

how much ( too much )

know your numbers so you can make change and understand cost.

nice to meet you (again)

 

The first phrase I learned (out of necessity) was I want to buy 1 ticket to Suzhou.

So think ahead what you might need to be able to say to get from airport to your sweeties side.

Edited December 23, 2013 by credzba (see edit history)

[NickF]

ChunMei's been trying to teach me "Chinese" since before she came here, and I'm still failing miserably. The biggest part of the problem is that sometimes she's teaching me Mandarin ("Beijing language,") and sometimes "Hong Kong language" (Cantonese,) but doesn't tell me which one she's speaking at the time. So my vocabulary is a horrible mix of the two, and nobody can understand what I'm trying to say.

[tsap seui]

Back in 2006 and 2007 when I was going to China often i asked Wenyan to teach me some Chinese. In her typical straight to the point Chinese outlook she told me, "I seek to go to live America, I no have time teach you Chinese, you must teach me English." So, I know how to say thank you and gambei...what the hell, it got me through 7 trips and almost a year spent in China.....LOL ...and she was right as she's the one that had the interview with an English speaking American coming up in Guangzhou. If....we ever decided to go live in Chinartucky (and that is becoming more and more doubtful as time goes on) then the ball will be in the other court.

 

Boy, I would have liked to sit and converse with ma and ba about their lives and how I feel about their daughter, etc etc but once the application is in, I feel your time on visits must be spent on English.

 

Now, as she gets more words under her sexy Chinese clothes, she tells me my english is no good....because of my accent. Aie ya, whatta tien.

 

tsap seui

[Guest ExChinaExpat]

ChunMei's been trying to teach me "Chinese" since before she came here, and I'm still failing miserably. The biggest part of the problem is that sometimes she's teaching me Mandarin ("Beijing language,") and sometimes "Hong Kong language" (Cantonese,) but doesn't tell me which one she's speaking at the time. So my vocabulary is a horrible mix of the two, and nobody can understand what I'm trying to say.

 

 

Haha, I hate it when they do that. I know a few Cantonese words, but am resolved to close my ears and say "la, la, la, la, la" when someone tries to teach Cantonese (guangdong hua) to me. It's been hard enough to learn Mandarin. Then, throw a whole new way of pronunciation, tone, dialect, vocabulary and sentence structure? No way!

 

There are countless software and audio tapes to get you started. The best method I am convinced is immersion and a skilled and trained teacher to assess your needs and best method to reach you. It gets exponentially more difficult to learn as we get older. Focus, daily practice, quizzes and drills. There is no easy way out. The best way is to hire a good teacher who is trained and educated to teach Chinese and is NOT your wife or girlfriend.

 

Italkbb.com is a good site to find a Chinese teacher online. If you're committed to learning Chinese, you will need to be dedicated and focused. Meeting a couple of times per week online or face to face with a teacher is far more effective than any software or audio application sold as one size fits all.

Edited December 27, 2013 by GuangDongExpat (see edit history)

[lhp]

Rosetta Stone for Chinese is pretty poor. Don't waste the money.

 

For starting out with speaking and listening, Pimsleur is a good resource to start with, I think. Lots of people say that it teaches you good pronunciation…I know that I was able to make myself understood after spending lots of time with it. I checked out Pimsleur Chinese 1-3 from the library and basically put each lesson on repeat while I was in the car or at the gym until I knew it cold. The first few lessons were painful, but after that I got the feel of it and the others weren't as bad.

 

If you spend time in northern China (Beijing on up), I think that Pimsleur really does a good job or preparing you for the language you hear there.

 

After you've gone through the Pimsleur CDs, lots of people seem to like ChinesePod. I've never really gotten into it, but that's not for lack of trying.

 

If you want to read/write at all, I'd recommend getting on Memrise and taking the HSK 1 Chinese course (it's free). You learn 300 characters (plus 100+ radicals). After finishing that course you can start to do some really simple reading. There's a series of books called Chinese Breeze that I've been working my way through. After finishing the Memrise HSK1 course and getting a chunk of the way through HSK 2 I can slowly but steadily read them.

Edited December 27, 2013 by lhp (see edit history)

[credzba]

OOH.. just tried memrise .. I like it .

Thanks for link!

[NUWORLD]

Back in 2006 and 2007 when I was going to China often i asked Wenyan to teach me some Chinese. In her typical straight to the point Chinese outlook she told me, "I seek to go to live America, I no have time teach you Chinese, you must teach me English." So, I know how to say thank you and gambei...what the hell, it got me through 7 trips and almost a year spent in China.....LOL ...and she was right as she's the one that had the interview with an English speaking American coming up in Guangzhou. If....we ever decided to go live in Chinartucky (and that is becoming more and more doubtful as time goes on) then the ball will be in the other court.

 

Boy, I would have liked to sit and converse with ma and ba about their lives and how I feel about their daughter, etc etc but once the application is in, I feel your time on visits must be spent on English.

 

Now, as she gets more words under her sexy Chinese clothes, she tells me my english is no good....because of my accent. Aie ya, whatta tien.

 

tsap seui

 

 

yep! been down this road before.

thought it's a never ending road and you'll always be learning, ALWAYS be learning!

 

I too tried all the Chinese learning software from all over the net.

Only to find out i ways saying it all wrong.

Many of time while in China i would speak what i thought was chinese only to get the puzzled look.

We all have seen this look.

 

I finally came to the conclusion to give up and ask the wife for help.

Wrong!!

 

The wife say and i para phrase here: Me American girl now me have visa now.

no more speak a Chinese, you teach a me English

 

Ok! I say no problem, but what about when we go home and visit family?

Wife say, No worry, i speak for you.

 

(It seams to work)

 

As of today the wife can speak very good English and knows a lot of Spanish (Work related)

As for me?

 

My Chinese has gotten some what good. (How did i learn?)

Chinese TV

 

Yes, You read right Chinese TV.

 

We have Chinese satilite TV in our house and as you can guess we/I watch a lot

of Chinese TV. ( some have English sub titles)

 

This is how i learn Chinese and also by hearing the wife on QQ everyday.

Maybe it's just me but it works for me..

 

IMO: just go with the flow and your Gal/SO will take care of ya.

 

 

mike

[lhp]

OOH.. just tried memrise .. I like it .

Thanks for link!

Glad you like it, I think it's excellent.

 

When I was doing my grad work we learned about current understanding of how we learn language. Basically, you're supposed to do productive (speaking, writing) and receptive (listening, reading) skills together. This is just really hard in Chinese, though, because speaking requires tones, writing & reading require boring memorization of characters (though Memrise really helps with that), and listening…well, listening may be the easiest part if you can find standard Chinese to listen to.

 

From what I've read, it seems like people learn Chinese fastest when they start out with instruction (including reading & writing) all in Pinyin. Use that to get down basic grammar and vocabulary and to get comfortable speaking with attention to tones, and only then start introducing characters.

Unfortunately, most Chinese teachers don't want to do that…they want to cram lots of characters down your throat from the very beginning. It's really important to know characters if you're living in China, but it isn't the best way to start learning the language.

[retodd1000]

 

 

 

This is how i learn Chinese and also by hearing the wife on QQ everyday.

Maybe it's just me but it works for me..

 

 

 

 

I looked at IMQQ. Is the translation part of it any good? I've tried to use Google Translate in the past to write some letters to Suli. She can always tell when I use a translation program, because what I write never makes any sense to her.

 

I'm trying to find some alternative ways to communicate with her, because the website I use is not exactly inexpensive.

 

I've derailed my own thread.

[Dennis143]

 

 

 

 

This is how i learn Chinese and also by hearing the wife on QQ everyday.

Maybe it's just me but it works for me..

 

 

 

 

I looked at IMQQ. Is the translation part of it any good? I've tried to use Google Translate in the past to write some letters to Suli. She can always tell when I use a translation program, because what I write never makes any sense to her.

 

I'm trying to find some alternative ways to communicate with her, because the website I use is not exactly inexpensive.

 

I've derailed my own thread.

 

It's always best never to use the first translation from a translation program. It's good practice to re-translate the Chinese back to English to see how the English translation reads.

[Randy W]

 

 

 

 

This is how i learn Chinese and also by hearing the wife on QQ everyday.

Maybe it's just me but it works for me..

 

 

 

 

I looked at IMQQ. Is the translation part of it any good? I've tried to use Google Translate in the past to write some letters to Suli. She can always tell when I use a translation program, because what I write never makes any sense to her.

 

I'm trying to find some alternative ways to communicate with her, because the website I use is not exactly inexpensive.

 

I've derailed my own thread.

 

 

 

Why would you pay money to talk to her? Are they providing some sort of "service"?

 

I've always found it best to do your own translating, and let her do hers. You can each parse and re-parse what was said to try to manipulate it into something that makes sense after going through the translator. Otherwise, it's pretty hit-and-miss as to whether what you send makes any sense.