Have you always wanted to learn Mandarin Chinese but haven’t because you though it was too hard?
The myths and truths about learning Mandarin Chinese
Myth: It’s impossible for foreigners to speak Chinese. Truth: There are now thousands of westerners speaking fluent Mandarin in their daily lives all over the world.
Myth: One must know at least 3,000 characters to read the newspaper. Truth: One must know hundreds of characters to read newspaper articles.
Myth: Chinese is one of the hardest languages in the world. Truth: While the tones and characters are tricky the sentence structure is very logical and easy to learn.
Why should I learn Mandarin Chinese?
Making friends: Mandarin Chinese is spoken by over one billion people worldwide. Knowing the language will allow you to make new friends in China and at home.
Travel: Being able to speak with native speakers will make your trip to China more enriching and meaningful.
Social networking: China now has over 200,000 Internet users and knowing the language is a great way to make new friends online.
Jobs: Thousands of people have found new, more exciting and higher paying jobs thanks to their Mandarin skills alone.
Culture: China is home of Confucianism and Taoism. Through learning Mandarin you can discover ancient texts and discuss the philosophies with native speakers.
I introduce a new method for learning Chinese that's fun and practical.
While some text book courses offer a solid fundamental base I found a better method that teaches what you really want to know. I call it the “I Want to Learn This” method.
With “I Want to Learn This” I write down lists of words that I want to know and use immediately. Then, I make friends with somebody who already speaks the language who can teach me.
I have been using this method for over ten years and now speak four foreign languages, Mandarin Chinese, French, Spanish and Portuguese.
On this website you have the same opportunity by clicking on posts and podcasts that interest you and start using the new vocabulary immediately.
Good stuff. However, the thing about Chinese which amazed me the most after sampling textbooks for several Euro languages was its relative utter lack of grammar. This feature reduced one of the biggest language learning challenges (verb tenses, word forms to change parts of speech, large number of irregularities for many of these languages, etc.). In fact, it was only after I had contact with the Chinese language that I realized most western language style grammar is truly redundant.
Eg: Yesterday / today / tomorrow I / you / (s)he / it / they go store (ok sometimes we add guo to the verb to emphasize something that happened before or le at the end of the sentence to confirm completion, but that sort of grammar is amazingly simple and straightforward compared to what students of German, English, Spanish, etc. have to face in every sentence they construct. Many things about Chinese are so simple and intuitive (for the western learner) that basic spoken fluency can be achieved quickly, perhaps even as quickly as for a language like Spanish. The early learner of Spanish will speak with very poor grammar while the early (western ) learner of Chinese will speak with very poor tones. This general lack of grammar in Chinese is a major simplifying feature which you should point out to give students more confidence. As for the Mandarin tones, yes they are challenging for us. But they are much easier and more straightforward than those of other Chinese dialects and other tonal languages such as Thai and Vietnamese. For example, I’ve noticed that the so-called low and high tones in Thai are not purely low and high. They have some variance and also depend somewhat on the tones of the syllables which immediately proceed and follow.
I like your suggestion for learning a new language. I believe its very practical and can lead to earlier spoken fluency for the student who is very diligent. In fact, I am in Bangkok right not giving this method a go for learning basic Thai.
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Good stuff. However, the thing about Chinese which amazed me the most after sampling textbooks for several Euro languages was its relative utter lack of grammar. This feature reduced one of the biggest language learning challenges (verb tenses, word forms to change parts of speech, large number of irregularities for many of these languages, etc.). In fact, it was only after I had contact with the Chinese language that I realized most western language style grammar is truly redundant.
Eg: Yesterday / today / tomorrow I / you / (s)he / it / they go store (ok sometimes we add guo to the verb to emphasize something that happened before or le at the end of the sentence to confirm completion, but that sort of grammar is amazingly simple and straightforward compared to what students of German, English, Spanish, etc. have to face in every sentence they construct. Many things about Chinese are so simple and intuitive (for the western learner) that basic spoken fluency can be achieved quickly, perhaps even as quickly as for a language like Spanish. The early learner of Spanish will speak with very poor grammar while the early (western ) learner of Chinese will speak with very poor tones. This general lack of grammar in Chinese is a major simplifying feature which you should point out to give students more confidence. As for the Mandarin tones, yes they are challenging for us. But they are much easier and more straightforward than those of other Chinese dialects and other tonal languages such as Thai and Vietnamese. For example, I’ve noticed that the so-called low and high tones in Thai are not purely low and high. They have some variance and also depend somewhat on the tones of the syllables which immediately proceed and follow.
I like your suggestion for learning a new language. I believe its very practical and can lead to earlier spoken fluency for the student who is very diligent. In fact, I am in Bangkok right not giving this method a go for learning basic Thai.
OK, that’s it for now.