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New Mandarin Chinese Learner

February 10, 2012
06:37

JLGACC

Mississippi, U.S.

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February 10, 2012

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Hey guys,

I'm new to the forum, and I'm taking my first stab at learning another language (Mandarin Chinese). I'm about two weeks into the Pimsleur program. So far I'm not terribly impressed with what I've learned, I can say a few phrases based off of a lot of memorization, but I don't feel like I'm progressing as fast as I would like. I'm wondering if the program is slow, since Chinese is supposedly a hard language to learn for an English Speaker.

I wanted to get some opinions/advice from anyone here who has progressed at learning Mandarin, and anyone's thoughts on any of the other language learning software's out there. Thanks in advance! laugh

John

February 15, 2012
22:14

Adriano

Brazil

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Many experienced language learners advise for the use of at least two different courses. More would be better. I have no experience with Pimsleur, so I can't give advice on that, but I was shortly in search of Chinese learning materials for my wife, and I got her Teach Yourself Complete Mandarin Chinese, FSI Chinese (free download) and Chinese 101 (free download from the Ohio University). After a few weeks she's also complaining about not yet being able to say or understand much, but she's got very limited time to devote to studying anyway. How much time are you devoting to the method?

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February 23, 2012
04:17

mona88

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September 8, 2011

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I think you can choose to learn online. It's efficient and convenient. And you should practice more often, using social networking sites such as skype, MSN, twitter, facebook, etc.

translate English to Chinese

February 23, 2012
05:40

jasminetea

徳島, Japan

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July 9, 2011

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The Pimsleur courses all basically follow the same script, so you'll learn just as slowly regardless of the language. wink

Finding a Chinese language exchange partner should be a piece of cake. The internet seems to be flooded with Chinese speakers who want to practice their English! For example, Benny said that many of the English audio recordings he commented on at LiveMocha were from people with Chinese accents. You can use this to your advantage, because as someone who (I assume) speaks very little Chinese, the conversation will mostly require English, so I think many Chinese learners of English will be happy to start out speaking to you with 90% English. Then, as your relationship develops and they become personally interested in your progress, I think they would be happy to speak more and more Chinese with you.

By the way, another resource I recommend is Chinesepod.com . Its Newbie series starts right away with useful phrases, and teaches the basics little by little along the way through these phrases. It's perfect for those with the "speak from day 1" mentality.

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Current Mission: Month of Mandarin

February 23, 2012
16:07

ShaunMcBride

Cornwall

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July 15, 2011

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I don't learn Chinese right now, but I did a year of it a few years ago, so I' ll talk from my experience with that :)

I would reccommend Michel Thomas Chinese as an audio course. The content is learnt a lot faster, and there is no drilling or anything like that. It's also not boring as hell ;)

ChinesePod is also a really good resource I found, I actually adored it.

I think you could easily hold a conversation after doing Michel Thomas, and then from there, conversation would sustain your learning.

Best of luck :D

Shaun

PS. Chinese isn't hard. In fact, I'd say its easier than English. There are no verb conjugations, no stupid prepositions or anything else that makes other languages hard. The only real hurdle is the fact that the words sound very different, and so you don't have any cognates or near-cognates that you could relate to as you would in a European language. Even the tones aren't as hard as everyone says, because if you stop worrying about them, they just come naturally with the pronunciation of the word as a package. Ma5 (question word) sounds completely different to Ma3 (Horse)

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March 2, 2012
08:12

wdaniel

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March 2, 2012

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Well hello there! I would like to welcome you to the forum. I have encountered a few of other people wanting to learn Chinese who are also coming from this ranks and it sure worked very easy for them. I think that the challenge here is when you need to speak a little too fast making some of the words not that audible. Though with a lot of practice, you sure would be on your way to being fluent in no time.

March 12, 2012
09:20

~Maria~

Russia

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March 6, 2012

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I also have no experience with Pimsleur, I learn Chinese using Rosetta Stone program. There is absolutely the same feeling that it's too slow :-)
I don't mean to insult anybody, it's just my opinion, but actually I don't think LiveMocha is so good for leaving recording. Once I left my recording there and native Chinese speakers gave me only positive comments. I went to listen to others people recordings and found out that native Chinese speakers leave good comments without corrections for most of the recordings although if even I think (I am beginner) they were horrible. I read on the Internet that it is connected with their culture, something about 'to lose face'. I think it's better to find a Chinese friend and ask to correct you.

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