I want you to think like a Mandarin teacher. You’ve just met someone who is really interested in learning Chinese, but has never studied it before. What tips do you offer the newbie?
Next you meet an elementary. Again, tips for an elementary?
And so on.
If you’re willing to share your advice on learning Chinese, we’d sure like to hear it. We spare someone a lot of time and effort through a few simple suggestions.
Ken Carroll
Well, actually I was a Mandarin teacher and went through a pedagogical training program for Chinese teachers at the college level. My take on learning Chinese is that learning about the behavioral culture is just as important as learning the language.
I think for the intermediate to advanced level students, watching Chinese movies is a great way to learn both. I wished I had a library of video clips that exemplify those behaviors. It would be a great way to analyze and teach cultural behaviors in relation to the language. Body language plays an important role, but the choice of words is equally important in behavioral culture.
I would tell a newbie:
1: Don’t worry about the hanzi for now learn to speak a little first, you don’t have to completly ignore them and here are a bunch of computer tools that will help with annotation etc.
2: Learn pinyin as a priority the more of a beginner you are the more you will need it to help you, if you delay learning it too long it will be much less of help.
3: Get a feel for the sound of the language, whilst you are learning the first few phrases, listen to lots of real Chinese, try to listen out for the odd simple words as you learn them. Your target may be to get to the stage where you can immediately identify the differnece bettween Chinese, Japanease and Cantonese. When you hear real Chinese as a stream of discrete syallables and the cadence is in your blood all that remains is to find out what the syallable mean (easy eh?)
4: Learn through your ears as much as you can, thats where language started, you can learn through the written medium later.
5: Don’t even attempt to speak until the pressure to speak comes from within you, don’t feel pressurised to speak.
6: Define your goals and be realistic, if you want to learn relatively fast you are going to have to dedicate a large amount of time. Identify ‘dead time’ in your life that can be utilised.
7: If you hit a blockage don’t kill yourself over it, work around it and carry on with the other stuff, come back to it later (you may find it has already gone).
8: Have fun.
Just a few ideas, this assumes a self-motivated independant learner.
When learning any skill/trade you will undoubtedly come across certain obstacles. Things such as, time, motivation, etc. I would say the best advice is to just dive into the deep end and swim your way back to safety (When I was little I nearly drowned but I did learn how to swim, lol). Anyways, I hope this helped someone.
what I would say across levels is, don’t pay too much attention to the tones (as in “what tone is this Jenny?”) BUT before everyone start shooting at me, I would immediately add, pay extreme attention to the MUSIC of the tones.
In other words, I find that it’s way easier to get the tones right by mimicking whole sentences (starting with simple patterns) than interpreting pinyin as you read. Incidentally, I found this useful to learn English way back, made good use of a book that was very strong on those patterns (”some carrrrots and ca-bagges…)
I think Chris outlined nicely many points. I say thiseven though I may diagree with some.
1. I would learn or play with Hanzi. Especially writing it. Its fun and may help burn a word or two into one’s brain.
2. I am not sure if Chris you mean pinyin or proper pronunication. I would concur with pronunciation but not pinyin. If I see a line of pinyin it may take time to understand it. If I read it I have a better chance of understanding it. If it were in Hanzi I would have my best chance of comprehending what it says.
3. Distinguish Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese. This is nicely put. Yes I think for a newbie to be able to distinguish this is a great step forward. Even as you advance being able to distinguish ( Cantonese, Mandairn, Japanese) in complicated speaking is a good feeling.
4.Learn with your ears. Yes if you can. In my case the least used of my senses. This is the tough part for me. So others too may find visual is easier. If so don’t fight it and continue to work on hearing.
5. Speak when ready. Yea I think this has as much to do with what options you may have. I am in Taiwan I can always open my mouthed and maybe it will be understood. If I was back in New Hampshire my options would be fewer for speaking.
6. Define goals, be realistic and I would add reconsider the goals all the time. If the learning of Chinese is not in order to understand what your Mother in Law is saying about you then learning should be fun.
7. Use Chinesepod if for nothing else support of like minded folk. I think many Poddies may be the odd Mandarin Duck out there. At least here you can paddle around among friends.
Mike in Jubei
Added to Mike’s advice:
Go with your strenghts: if you’re into technology, play with the mp3’s, videos, and programs like pleco - they’re all out there. If you’re more of a people person, look for personal contacts that challenge you to speak the language. Most of all, have fun, enjoy the process, focus on your improvement rather than absolute proficiency. That will come.
I agree that finding your strengths is important. (I think this extends very much to work, also.) There are things that will work for you, and keep you motivated. My approach is to search for them, to be creative about it, and to always come up with new things. (Some people prefer stricter, disciplined, approach, i know.)
I also like the point about learning to differentiate between Chinese, Cantonese, and Japanese. That’s a great, relatively easy goal. It’s informative, and I think, intellectually edifying - it may even come in handy some time. (I must admit, though, that I still have dfifficulty dfistinguishing Japanese from Korean, at times.)
Ken Carroll
To Chris, Mike, Conrad, and goulniks’s excellent advice I would add one thing for Newbie and Elementary students. I have found through peronal experience that when learning any language that you wish to be able to speak as opposed to merely “understand” it is important to memorize entire phrases and better yet, simple short stories. The phrases and the short stories should represent simple standard sentence patterns…nothing too complicated. Then, when you want to speak, all you have to do is open your mouth and your wonderful brain will take over. You already have the words in your head in the right order and they will be there whenever you need them. No need to “translate” in your head while trying to speak at the same time. I would recommend compiling little stories of about one paragraph each using the C-Pod transcrips even if you make them a little silly and they seem too simple. Memorize one each day - YES, I said EACH DAY if you are at all serious about developing the ability to speak. I think if you try this method you will be amazed at your progress. Go on…try it
Just one: do not give up, keep moving…
I think any advice is bound to be coloured by your own experiance.
Yes Mike a very good point, the advice would have to be different for someone actually living in a Chinese speaking country. There may also be a more pressing need to engage with characters and darn it I have to admit some people may actually like to start playing with characters from the get go :).
I think also for pinyin and pronounciation I tend to see them as running together as you guessed. If you want to play with the sounds of Chinese on one of the many charts with audio you need the basic pinyin knowledge to interact with it. Pinyin is also a way for the beginner to encode the sounds they hear and the only way I can think of to take a sound you have heard and then try to look it up later in an online dictionary. I agree though it does not make for easy reading as you progress (a point that was made to me but I didn’t believe at first until I found out for myself).
Bob I understand your point about the phrases and short stories, I have a few stored up there and they can act like interactive storage reposistories for words and phrases. Did you use the same approach when learning Spanish?
Ken,
Not sure about the Korean Japanease thing, I might need to find some Korean, perhaps I have heard some already but didn’t realise. I don’t know how to encode it but Japanease sounds like taka waka nada taka … hai taka waka needa hai etc. etc. and Cantonese is a dead giveaway becuase I always quickly hear sic, ..ng (a strange ng or uungg I can’t really write) type sounds in there somewhere. There is also at least one tone in Cantonese (a constant flat low tone I think) that sounds just wrong if are used to listening to Mandarin. Cantonese sounds like a good language for Heavy Metal music (like English and German etc. but unlike French). I would like to learn some Cantonese at some point as a lot of Chinese people in England speak it also my local university seem to take a lot of students from Hong Kong, but for now brain is at full load. Japanease scares me I had a look at it briefly and my sister and brother in law lived there for two years, but for someone who hates grammar (I really do hate grammar) that is probably a language I should avoid.
The language that threw me for a brief while when I had only been learning for a little time was Vietnamese (even when I knew it was Vietnamese my brain kept trying to parse it for some reason) but maybe it would be obvious now. Besides now if I don’t hear at least one word I understand quite quickly I know I am not listening to a standard(ish) Mandarin.
I think picking up this very general feel for the Asian languages is a good early excercise afterall most Europeans seem to be able to pick out other European languages fairly easily even when they don’t speak them (just from background exposure). In fact in some strange alternate reality where I was teaching Mandarin I would set this as an early exercise and some subsequent fun classwork for my students.
Chris,
I first learned the memorization method at DLI in 1966. Memorizing a one page story in Yale romanization was a daily requirement. Believe it or not when I recently took my mid-term exam for Chinese Level II the teacher surprised us by asking us to stand up and introduce ourselves and tell us a little something in Mandarin. I stood up, introduced myself, gave my address and phone number and where I work and then I opened my mouth and one of the stories that I learned forty years ago popped out with no trouble at all and after that I sang the Lao Pengyou song that Jenny recently taught us. We were ALL amazed, especially me, and needless to say I got a very good grade. My teacher at DLI, Dr. Robert Tharp, told us that if we dropped our Mandarin studies after leaving the Air Force and we wanted to pick it up again someday that it would take a few months for it to reawaken in our memories and drift to the surface. Lo and behold, that is exactly what is happening. I used the same method when learning Spanish and have applied it to three other languages (which I don’t yet claim to speak fluently like Spanish). I put the Spanish stories and/or phrases on 3 X 5 cards and carried them around in my pocket. I do the same thing with Chinese and I do what I know that you also do. I try to eliminate as much “dead time” in my waking hours as possible by always having at hand something to study. As you already know, it works wonders…phrase by phrase, word by word, inch by inch. During my non-waking hours I try to dream in Chinese
When I started learning Mandarine, I got totally overwhelmed. Walked away with a massive headache and overload after every lesson. There’s so many new things to learn that it’s a huge wall to climb: Pinyin, Characters, Pronounciation, tones (what the #$% is that?), different sentence structure, same word being verb, noun, adverb etc etc. I needed smaller chunks of information, but more often, and lots of repetition. I have also always liked using a slew of different tools, that you can jump between. They stimulate the brain differently, uses different parts of the brain and can complement each other in the learning process - Tutor, 3 different study books, Chinesepod, Chinese Movies and Videos, Flashcards, Dictionaries and real live chinese friends. Of course this can become pretty expensive (it is).
Once you get over the introductory pain threshold, I like the “jump in the deep end” approach. I also felt I got several “ahaa” experiences at this stage, understanding things I had been tought months earlier, but then without a clue. When being at this stage, I felt most books, and classes are perceived as too slow or not enough challenging (The books typically have the same pace straight through the book, when they should instead start very slow and then half way through rapidly pick up speed. Once you get into the elementary stage, and are still enjoying the learning, I would really start challenging the student. Especially with themselves speaking the language (being in USA this has been a hard thing to achieve). While learning a language you go through many quick climbs and long plateaus, and the teaching should be adopted to that. I just picked up a book from the library called “Easy Chinese Readings in 500 Characters”. This is a brilliant concept. You are totally on your own trying to read a text, but then you can flip a few pages over and get help with glossary and an english translation. I’ve learnt more in the 3 weeks I’ve had this book than in the past 3 months.
米高
Mikke, great find!!! I looked for a copy but it seems that it is currently out of print and not readily available. If anyone has a source please let us know.
“Easy Chinese Readings in 500 Characters”
Binding: Paperback
EAN: 9781891107023
ISBN: 189110702X
Label: Evergreen Pub & Stationary
Manufacturer: Evergreen Pub & Stationary
Publication Date: 1997-08
Publisher: Evergreen Pub & Stationary
Reading Level: Ages 9-12
Speak speak speak. This is what I missed out on. I did all the character practice and none of the spoken practice. Now I’m stuck with a good reading level and a totally terrible speaking level that I’m trying to improve before I get to China. My tongue’s simply not used to the pronunciation at any decent level, and my brain can’t think quickly enough to get it out.
I’d also suggest that you experiment with a number of styles of learning until you find one that doesn’t leave you with as much of a headache as the others. Then use it primarily, but don’t ignore all the others, because they all have a use.
Bob - I found something similar here:
http://asianbookone.com/store/.....ts_id=5168
There are three books, not one. And the title is different. But it definitely refers to “our series EASY CHINESE READINGS IN 500 CHARACTERS.”
Mike - Could you take a look and let us know if this is what you are using? Thanks a million.
1. I would tell people that most people speak Chinese as a second language and that as a result there is a wide variation in how it is actually spoken.
2. I would agree with the other posters that it is best to try to concentrate on duplicating tones at the sentence level. However, having said this I think the key for must Westerners in getting the first tone right because it serves as a kind of anchor to build on. It is a kind of boundary tone. It is much easier than the third tone to get right but it presents its own kind of special problems.
3. Personally I wouldn’t work on the numbers until I had some success with tones as numbers are tone sensitive and need to be stated with a fair amount of precision. I would wait to work on numbers until my individual tones started sounding somewhat evolved. The reason is that it is much harder to break habits than it is to create new ones.
4. I would study the words Chinese uses to replace the Western Be verbs. It is eye opening to see the ways our beloved Be verb is replaced.
5. At some point, I’d suggest spending a lot of time getting a handle on the particle “le”. It is perhaps more important than understanding the present perfect in English.
6. I would suggest that people find someone who they can work on doing TPR-like activities very early in their study. Words that show placement, movement, and relative location, are fundamental to any language and it is amazing to me how many programs miss teaching this at an early stage.
7. Master the modals (or the Chinese equivalent) as early as possible.
8. You can learn to read characters without learning to write characters but if you are going to learn to write- learn stroke order.
9. Study birth, death, and marriage. These are entry points into the culture.
10. Learn to play Ma-jong in a non-English speaking group. If you are a good loser you will be invited back.
DON’T SAY “NI HAO MA” - for the newbie, it’s the first phrase everyone learns, but it’s the same as the English “Good day fine Sir and may I ask how are you this day.”
Just say, “Ni hao?”.
(and maybe say it twice in rapid succession and shake their hands with both hands) People will think you’re fluent…
The learning tip is to listen to how other’s talk, and give the book material a 70% weighting versus real-life content.
¦“Good day fine Sir and may I ask how are you this day.”
That’s what I always say hehe. j/k
Here are a few tips based on my learning experience over the past year:
* First, memorize the first hanzi character in the dialogues thoroughly before attempting to pronounce it. Focus on only one character at a time. Forget about the pinyin, that just adds to the confusion.
* Get a book on Chinese writing and practice writing the character over and over until you are bored. Ensure that you use the proper stroke order.
* Look at Chinese print media often and try to recognize the character. By the third month, you should be proficient at it.
* Once you can recognize and write the first character perfectly, now you are ready to start with the pronunciation.
* Do not speak it out loud at this point, simply repeat it over and over in your head. Look it up in a Chinese character dictionary and memorize the tone mark for that character.
* Rent a Chinese DVD movie and see if you can pick out that new character you just learned.
* Buy a book on Chinese grammar and memorize any special rules for that character.
* Repeat the steps above for the next character in the dialogue.
This process may seem tedious, but heck, it sure is efffective.
My tips for learning Chinese are mainly for those struggling to read hanzi. I found at some point that reading Chinese requires a finer discernment between characters than the English alphabet requires, ie. that your eye is accustomed to looking at general shape but the characters require much greater attention to detail since some characters differ only by a stroke or two. So my idea was to develop my attention to detail by using a book on drawing that taught one of the contour drawing techniques where you try to draw familiar pictures upside down or draw your hand over and over again to force yourself to only see what’s actually there to draw it accurately instead of relying on mental expectations of what you think you’re seeing, which is why most people screw up drawing. I think the key to hanzi is definitely some visual arts training, and I’m an art museum junkie, so it was a natural connection to make in developing this method for refining my reading skills. I have improved by doing it, but the good part about it is that every time you think you need to do better, you just take out your pencil and sketch pad and practice some more.
I would also agree with other comments in the blog on being patient with slow progress and reassessing your goals frequently. There’s no way to force progress, and as long as you don’t quit and keep your input level high and daily, you’ll eventually get there. The main thing is to be creative about studying and try lots of different types of language materials to see what works for you. Also, as you get to the higher levels, the need to maintain a focused goal and a strategy to meet that goal is increasingly necessary because advanced level materials aren’t numerous, and as you get to real-world reading level, your options are wide open as to what you can do, maybe too open. It can be a bit overwhelming past the textbooks stage because you’re sort of losing all markers for progress and all crutches for study, so it’s a critical moment to make plans. I found out about the HSK test just as I was finishing intermediate textbooks, so that gave me a more tangible goal to try to work toward and a measure of how well I was reaching that goal, regardless of how hard it is. It’s still useful to work on vocabulary geared toward that text, and to go over the grammar and word usage exercises for it, because it forms a good bridge to general reading, plus once you get the material down, maybe you can get rid of the dictionary a bit.
For beginners: with a headphone on, find a quiet place, listen to spoken Mandarin and “speak along” with half a second to a second delay. This will work wonders to practice the particular innervation patterns and movement patterns of the mouth. Dont worry if you understand NOTHING at first. Take it as a gymnastic exercise, initially. You may notice that the strain on your face muscles is quite high. Just speak out loud what you heard while there is still a trace of it your short term memory buffer. You can do this at any speed. When you lose track, wait a few seconds and restart. This will feed your unconscious with lots of material to work on while you sleep
Everyone has different aptitudes and problems when it comes to reading, writing, speaking and understanding a language. I have lived in China for a year and studied Mandarin haphazardly for several years before, and at my rudimentary level I have no trouble with Hanzi, or speaking many simple sentences. But I am completely overwhelmed by the difficulty of understanding spoken Mandarin, a problem which has not been mentioned much on this page. There are several reasons for this. (1) whereas English has a few hundred thousand words, Chinese has less than 150 (without tones). This means that everything - - - animals, names, chemical substances, foods, colors, emotions, street names, cuss words, sports, technical terms, months, - - - really everything uses these same 150 words! (2) many of these words are very similar in sound: xin, xing, qin, qian, quan, qing, jin, jing… (3) Chinese speakers tend to blur the distinctions between these sounds, making it even harder to identify words. Here in Shanghai, qing and qian can sound like each other, the number 4, si, is pronounced like shi, the words zao and cao sound like zhao and chao. (4) When a bus driver asks if anyone wants to get out at the next stop, it sounds like “Aya walla wugga wa!?” and not like anything I ever learned in lessons one through twelve. If you do manage to understand a word or two, you haven’t accomplished a thing, because while you are trying to decide which of the six meanings of the twelve homonyms of that word your speaker is using, that speaker has gone on and said another fourteen words. The English equivalent of “Aya walla wugga wa!?” is “Wheneryagonnawannagetup?”, which no beginning student of English could possibly understand either. Conclusion: I would advise students of Mandarin that it is extremely important to get lots and lots of practice in hearing phrases, rather than trying to identify single words. And for this you need organized help and interaction, rather than self-study.
FrankF,
Are you the same “Frank” who lives in Shanghai and who created the gazeteer of place names in Chinese, including pinyin transliterations? If so, congratulations (祝贺 zhù hè). It is a wonderful resource and it is obvious that a lot of work went into it. Many thanks for adding “Chicago” 芝加哥 Zhījiāgē, my home town, and also many thanks to Bazza for pointing out the site to me.
Mexico Bob
Conrad,
that’s the correct book.
I’m not sure how good or bad my techniques are, because I don’t know what rate of progress is reasonable to expect. I’ve been trying seriously to learn Chinese for over four years, live in the US, started when I was over 40, and am currently at an Intermediate/Upper Intermediate level.
I’ve tried to learn about 60 new words and phrases a week and 20 new characters, and adjusted the materials I study to maintain that rate.
I memorized small stories and dialogs until I could understand them at the speed a native speaker would deliver them.
I use multiple sources of input: Movies/Chinesepod/成语故事/Roseta Stone/private tutoring/Taiwanese and Mainland tutors/unfortunate stewardesses, taxi drivers, hotel clerks, coworkers/Chinese language radio stations.
I compose a small story in Chinese every week and ask native speakers to correct it.
I think reading and writing 汉字 is essential to understanding the spoken language.
Writing is much easier, if you use a computer (I think Pinyin IME’s are the most natural for Westerners).
Reading is much easier, if you use an electronic dictionary that supports drawing the character to look it up.
Mark
Hi, friends,
Appreciate your efforts in learning Chinese/Mandarin. You’ll got what you want soon by trying your best. Also, you’re warm welcomed to China.
Please feel free to talk China in our forum:
www.tellchina.com/forum
Best Regards,
John,
Tellchina.com
Mandarin is the fourth foreign language I’ve studied, and I feel like I’ve got the whole procedure down to a routine. Be warned though, that my ideas of how to proceed often conflict with those of many teachers and learners of foreign languages. Anyway, here they are:
1. Think of the language as a skill to be learned rather than an intellectual puzzle. Don’t expect that learning grammatical rules and listening to recordings will lead to proficiency. You must open your mouth and practice making those sounds.
2. Pronunciation is the first and greatest hurdle to be overcome. If you don’t get it right from the start, it will be difficult or impossible to correct later. Therefore, in the beginning, focus most of your attention on pronunciation, even at the expense of progress in other areas. Learn what the phonemes of the target language are, and how they differ from similar English phonemes.
Start by learning a lot of simple words such as numbers, parts of body, colors etc. Only pronounce a word immediately following hearing a native speaker pronounce it. Otherwise your pronunciation will drift back to your native language pronunciation. Do this in a place where no one can here you so as to be completely uninhibited. Practice each word many times, comparing it with the native speaker recording. Learn the words in isolation first, then sentences using the words. But don’t make up your own sentences yet, just copy recordings.
3. Find a native speaker and try out your words and simple sentences on them and ask for criticism. Don’t be misled by false praise. Ask them this: “Can you tell by the way that I say this that I am not a native speaker?” Their responses will guide you as to where to direct future efforts.
4. You will have finished the first phase of language learning when you can pronounce a good number of words and sentences with what native speakers tell you is perfect or near-perfect pronunciation. At this stage, your fellow language learners will be way ahead of you. They may be scornful of your lack of progress and laugh at the funny sounds you are making. But native speakers, who are the ones who really count, will be lavish in their praise. Now you can start concentrating on vocabulary and syntax.
5. When you learn a new word, first get the pronunciation, then say it and try to mentally picture its meaning. Ideally, you won’t even think of the English equivalent. When you learn a sentence, imagine a situation in which it might be spoken.
you
6. It is not essential that every new word you learn immediately become part of your active vocabulary. Learn to pronounce it, have an idea of its meaning, and recognize it in slow conversation. Then, over a period of time, it will become active.
7. There is a school of thought that says that language learners should immediately try to imitate and understand the language spoken at native speed. But, if you can’t understand it and pronounce it at a slow speed, you won’t have a chance at a fast speed. I see nothing wrong with language learning materials using an artificially slow speech. I also think its best to learn “radio announcer” language. Don’t worry about street language, swear words etc, until you are already quite fluent.
8. Nevertheless, at any stage of language study, you can learn a lot by listening to and watching native speakers interact. Try to enter a kind of Zen-like space where you pay very close attention to the sounds and their relations to the actions of the speakers. Try and banish English from your mind; don’t translate. Listen as a child would.
9. I spend about 1% of my time reading about target language grammar, and I wonder if this is too much. Once I am past the initial stages of learning the sound system, I try to learn single words immediately followed by a number of sentences containing the word. I find that if I learn to say a very large number of correct sentences in context, meanings and grammatical rules become intuitively clear.
10. I’m a great believer in language recordings. I think a language learner should try to acquire every language recording available. Play them while you are driving, jogging, cooking your beans. You won’t learn as efficiently as when you are fully engaged, but you will certainly learn something. Work through one set of recordings until you reach the level where it is too difficult, or you are bored, then start over with another method.
When you are really advanced, listen to the radio and repeat words and phrases that you hear. You are truly advanced when you can understand and echo everything you hear.
11. Don’t be in too much of a hurry to try your language out on native speakers. When you do, look for situations where you are forced to use the language with native speakers who don’t speak English.
Bob, I may well be that same Frank. In addition to my gazetteer with pinyin, you may be interested in a Hanzi flash card site I am developing: at http://flashcards.eur.com there is a small link to “Chinese Character Drill”.
FrankF. Yup, you are the guy! Thanks for the flash card program. The Chinese Character drill is easy to use and avoids making computer challenged old folks like me having to mess around with downloads and set ups. It is very good for character recognition and the variable speed function is a nice touch. I applaud your efforts.
For a beginner learner:
I’ve heard people suggest that it is best to learn spoken and written Mandarin separately, mainly to allow faster learning of speaking/listening without having to worry about the characters. Also, the first spoken words learnt (eg nǐ, wǒ, xìe) are quite complex, whereas a more natural character progression involves focusing on the radicals and simpler character first.
Personally, however, I don’t feel comfortable unless I know the characters for everything that I learn
It is also essential for those of us living outside China to find a native speaker to help with our pronunciation and tones. There are various language exchange websites around to help with finding someone. In Melbourne, I have been going along to a Mandarin practice class organised by the Australia China Friendship Society. You could also try checking out your local Chinese societies to see what they offer. Is there a way for Chinesepodders to find each other and arrange local practice sessions?
Good written reference materials are very useful. A Chinese-English dictionary (splash out and buy a good one as you will get plenty of use from it) provides not only the full meaning of the character, but gives examples of how it combines with other characters to form various words and also idioms. For character study I use “Reading and Writing Chinese (Simplified Character Edition)” by William Mc Naughton – which includes a radical chart, and works through the characters in a sensible order including meaning, stroke order and an explanation such as radical X for meaning and radical Y for sound.
I think when deciding to learn chinese you must make a decision:
do you just want survival/basic chinese
or do you want to reach a high level/fluency
because the approaches are totally different
If you just want basic chinese then your learning method can be similar to learning most other languages
If you are trying to reach a higher level or fluency, then you really need a completely different approach to learning say another european language
I would recommend the following:
1. Learn pinyin!
You should be able to listen to short sentences slowly and then write them in pinyin. Learn to hear and speak the differences between ci and ce, fang and feng ect.
2. Learn to say the tones correctly.
This is the most difficult part for most people, speaking is more important than listening here because (as Michael Butler said earlier in the debate) it’s easier to make good habits than break bad ones and once you start saying the tones wrong it’s twice as hard to correct them as it is to just learn them right in the first place.
N.B you can not ignore tones, if you want to learn mandarin properly, even if you find them really difficult
many many people have said to me things like this:
“yeah, i can speak some chinese, i don’t bother with the tones though”
that’s as stupid as saying
“yeah, i can speak some english, i don’t bother with the vowels though”
imagine a person speaking english who can’t pronouce any vowel sounds at all, that’s what your chinese sounds like if you don’t use tones, basically incomprehensible beyond the most basic of communications
3. At the beginning learn reading and writing separately from listening and speaking. With writing you will need to learn radicals and simple characters first.
So really what it comes down to is with chinese we need to learn some basic tools, basic skills, to give our learning a foundation before we can start learning chinese in the same way as any other language.
These skills are difficult at first, which is why people say the learning curve is so steep, but in reality everyone can do them, you just need time and persistence
learning tones, pinyin and characters can be boring
but if your serious you need these foundational skills
once you have really mastered them, i think it is no exageration to say that the rest of the language is pretty easy (except writing the 1,000’s of characters).
I’ve finally succumbed to years of holding out and have started to make flashcards. I’m not using online/digital ones though, because I’m having too much fun making them, and I’ve found that making them is in itself a learning exercise. I made a bunch last night of words I didn’t know, and I still remembered them this morning wihtout further study (but not this afternoon…).
I’m thinking it’ll actually be useful for me. I think the main reason I was holding out for so lng is becasue I wasn’t prepared to put in the effort to actually make them, and wasn’t going to make flash cards for such useful vocabulary as ‘trade deficit’ or ’supply and demand’, which I have rarely felt the need to use in English, let alone in Chinese. I’ll survive without those ones, and now that I won’t actually ahve an exam, I’m starting to learn useful words, like ’suddenly’ and ’soap’ and ‘palm (of a hand)’, which I might just use.
RedViolin is right on with his suggestions, especially:
“At this stage, your fellow language learners will be way ahead of you. They may be scornful of your lack of progress and laugh at the funny sounds you are making. But native speakers, who are the ones who really count, will be lavish in their praise.”
You can’t build a strong house without a solid foundation. I was lucky to have spent more time on pronunciation than on anything else early on, and I can say hes absolutely correct. I so often hear students speaking Chinese with a vocabulary much larger than mine but spoken with horrible pronunciation. No matter how large their vocabulary, it’s hard to consider someone with incorrect pronunciation fluent.
Now for my own two cents, I would say it is important to try and change your mindset when studying a different language. That is, realize that non-English speakers THINK differently, and look at language differently. Try to put yourself in a native speakers shoes and see the language from their side.
Jeff, I think your two cents is worth a million. The most important thing to learn about other languages and the main reason that I like to study them is that other people have different thought patterns than “we” do. To really understand how they think takes years and years of study and practice and even then we may not understand totally. I also think that if you are going to “speak” a language as opposed to merely “understanding” it you should learn to speak it correctly. There is no bigger turn-off than hearing some foreigner “butchering” someone else’s language in a loud voice.
Jeff, RedViolin: You might be right, but some of us are more challenged by pronounciation than others. Tongue just does not obey your orders. 怎么办?
You need some feeling of success at least sometimes. I get a lot of that from reading (now). And it is easier to train pronounciation if you have something to say. It still reamains a major issue but at least it got better. Message: Different learner, different focus.
By the way: Wow, long thread!
Someone who is satisfied with reading and/or crude communication doesn’t need to pay much attention to pronunciation. However, I believe that most language learners dream of one day speaking the target language fluently and well. If that is your ambition, then the point I am trying to make is that you shouldn’t wait to get the pronunciation right. Sure, its difficult in the beginning, but it will be far more difficult if you have to go back and try to correct a mess of bad habits. Also, I think the nature of the Chinese language makes accurate pronunciation even more important than in European languages.
I’m convinced that most people can learn to pronounce a language well with enough effort. If most people are bad at it, its because they either think its not important, or they think its impossible.
You say your tongue doesn’t obey your orders. I would ask you then if you could pronounce the 4 tones on the syllable “ma” with good pronunciation. Not in isolation though; pronounce them one at a time immediately after a recording of a live native speaker. Then check with a native speaker and see if your pronunciation is good.
If you can achieve that, then why shouldn’t you be able to learn to pronounce enough single syllable words to cover all the initials and finals? Yes, some words are more difficult than others. But how would you do if you were willing to spend five minutes on a single syllable? Doesn’t it take you longer than that to learn the character? Have you looked for physical descriptions of the phonemes to help you?
Once you have learned to pronounce each individual syllable , it only takes a little extra work to string them together in a sentence.
I am not saying that you shouldn’t learn the meanings of the syllables you learn to pronounce, even in the beginning. I’m just saying that your main focus should be on pronunciation.
You are right that we all need rewards for our efforts. And of course we all have different interests. But I can tell you that when I first attempted Mandarin, when it seemed so weird and impossible, I got my biggest rewards from trying out my–painfully learned humorously inappropriate but oh so well pronounced–sentences on unsuspecting native speakers. The laughter, warmth and encouragement they gave me helped me keep going.
LEFT TO RIGHT - I have been noticing lately that Chinese is kinda easy, well except for the words that I don’t know. j/k But seriously, there’s no conjugation and such and it seems to follow simple English logic.
So my hint is this.
Learn a good percentage of the particles, stuff like 了，的
Learn the basic pronouns, 我，你，你们，他，她
Learn a few verbs, 是，吃，去，看
Then forget about any more grammar and start reading, listening and speaking carefully. Learn to ask in your mind ‘who, what, how’ in Chinese (谁，什么，怎么)
Just listen for one-three words at a time, grasp that meaning. When you come to words that you don’t know, ask the ‘who, what, how.’ (The answer will come from either conversation partners, the textbook explanations, or a dictionary)
That’s it. It then builds over time. Easy as pie.
RedViolin:
Pronouncing characters in isolation is just stage one (by the way: you can use the Chinesepod pinyin-soundboard for that).
It gets messy for me when done within a real-time communicative setting where you have to construct larger sentences, remember all words including their tones, produce correct grammar, combine the sounds to evil tongue-twisting patterns, and listen at the same time. Work on either front is helpful here. If you do not have to struggle with grammar or vocab there is more brain capacity left for pronounciation. I definately do not advocate neglecting pronounciation, but would give the advice to focus on your individual strengths.
Lantian: The book you recommended steals my last bit of sleep…欲罢不能
Henning:
Maybe I wasn’t too clear in my posts. Of course pronouncing individual sounds is only the first step. So let me try putting it this way:
It is not really that difficult to pronounce all the initials and finals of Mandarin, especially if you pronounce them immediately after a sound clip and you read up on the physical mechanisms of the sounds. Suppose a complete beginner decided to spend whatever time it takes to master this task? I suspect that even untalented individuals would do pretty well after, say, 24 hours of concentrated practice.
Once someone has mastered this can now combine his correctly pronounce single syllables into correctly pronounced double and triple syllable words. Then he can combine his correctly pronounced words into correctly pronounced sentences at slow speed. And with time and practice, the slow speed sentences will become fast speed sentences. Its not rocket science. And he can learn this while he is learning vocabulary and sentences. Its also fun and satisfying to do.
The problem is that most beginners don’t want to spend the initial 24 hours (or less) that it takes to learn those basic sounds. Then they spend years struggling with pronunciation.
Of course you need vocabulary and correct grammar as well as good pronunciation. But how can you say a word is part of your vocabulary if you mispronounce it? Mandarin has a far more limited number of sound combinations than European languages. A single botched phoneme or wrong tone, and you have said a different word altogether.
But the main point I was trying to make is that you only have a narrow window of opportunity to get a good accent. The longer you have been misprounouncing words,the more difficult it becomes to pronounce them correctly. You can always acquire new vocabulary. I’m still learning new words in English.
A six year old child speaking his native language has pretty well perfected his pronunciation and syntax, but he still has a limited vocabulary.
I’m suggesting that beginners concentrate first on pronunciation, then on syntax, and finally on vocabulary. This doesn’t mean that you can’t be learning new words while you perfect your pronunciation. I’m talking about what you should focus on at different stages of your developement.
If you want to speak a language well, wouldn’t it be best to focus on your weaknesses?
You are right in pointing out how difficult unstructured conversation can be. That is why I suggested in my original post “Don’t be in too much of a hurry to try your language out on native speakers.” (Trying out words and sentences that you have imitated and polished up is another matter) If you spend enough time imitating and polishing correct native speech, then the mechanics of it all become automatic. Then when you try unstructured conversation, you can concentrate on what you want to say.
I said at the beginning of my first post that “my ideas of how to proceed often conflict with those of many teachers and learners of foreign languages”. So I certainly wasn’t expecting that everyone would agree that my ideas are right. I’m happy for the support from Jeff though. I agree completely with him saying that we should try to put ourselves in the native speakers shoes.
What Red Violin seems to be saying is that unlike grammar, which obviously improves with age, our pronunciation (in Mandarin) doesn’t really improve much beyond a certain point. Basically he says we have a small window to get “good” and if that window flies past our pronunciation is essentially fixed or fossilized.
I like his thinking with regards to the limited number of phonemes in Chinese. His ideas are intuitively appealing.
However they are not backed up by my experience. Pronunciation certainly becomes fossilized but the point at which it becomes fossilized varies according to people. My guess is that the point where it becomes fossilized is roughly at he point where people get complacent and stop trying to improve.
In other words, continue to try to imrove and you probably will improve- in grammar as well as pronunciation. Of course, the research suggests that to be really gifted with good pronunciation START YOUNG and the younger the better- anything before 12 seems to be best.
Having said that it makes a lot of intuitive sense to spend a lot of time at the beginning getting pronunciation right and eschewing ALL other matters. But there is at least one problem with that. Some people can’t do this without guidance. They don’t have the magical “ear” that allows them to reproduce exactly what they hear, or even worse, these people are completely unsure of themselves.
Now, try finding a teacher that is willing to practice pronunciation straight for 24 hours. You’d best go to the loony bin because that is where you’ll find them.
I like Red Violin’s thinking and his idea that Mandarin presents a special case but I’m not sure that I want to scare people by telling them they have a 24 hour window to get it right or even if they spend this time they are guaranteed to never have pronunciation problems again.
For an interesting take on this see http://www.auroville.org and earobic language training (I never actually experienced this myself).
My own experience with pronounciation has been -
I focused on listening to a lot of chinese and developing my ‘ear’ for chinese.
Once I could hear the different tones in speech i could reproduce them without much trouble.
However now my brain tends to bypass listening for tones in native speed chinese..and just translates through context
In terms of speaking…if i havent used a particular word often then i do have to think of the tone before i say it..but otherwise i don’t expressly think of the tones…i just talk.
There were, however, a few particular sounds that i had to consciously practice (e.g. x,j,q,r,c, u get the picture). I found John’s guide on sinosplice excellent for this purpose. I consciously focused on pronouncing the above sounds in my speech for about a month and afterwards it became natural to pronounce it correctly.
Nowadays, when i am talking on skype…any new people i meet often think i am BBC (British born chinese)…and my chinese teacher here has also said that she can tell from listening to me…that my tongue is in the correct position…and apparently i could pretend to be a chinese guy from xinjiang province (close to india and pakistan).
So, my advice is
focus on listening and developing the ‘ear’ before speaking
when you feel the ‘need’ to speak check out John’s pronounciation guide on sinosplice.com.
Good Luck!
Michael:
I certainly wasn’t trying to say that a beginner should pull an all-nighter on pronunciation. I’m guessing that most beginners who spent a couple hours per day for a couple of weeks on concentrated pronunciation practice would have an acceptable pronunciation of a basket of words and a handful of sentences. But this is only a guess. Its very helpful to have a native speaker to check on results but you don’t need to be with one while you learn about the sound system and imitate sound clips. You can continue to tweak your pronunciation for months and years after that. Its like learning to type. You spend the first few weeks learning where the keys are and what finger goes on which key. Then you spend months and years perfecting the skill while being very careful not to develop bad habits.
The fact that we didn’t start as babies is precisely the reason we need to do extra work on pronunciation. Did you know that babies babble using the phonemes of the language they are exposed to? Chinese babies babble using Chinese phonemes. They do this for close to a year before uttering their first “Mama” We adults can surely go a little faster than this.
There are those who believe that an adult learner must always have an accent. Is this true? Lets try a little thought experiment. Suppose someone offered you $100,000,000 if you could pronounce a single sentence in Mandarin with such a perfect accent that a native speaker thought you were one of them? Suppose that you had a year to complete this task?
My guess is that a few people, even total beginners, would collect the money in less than an hour. And pretty well everyone reading this could collect the money in a year.
On the other hand, suppose someone offered you $100,000,000 if,within 10 years,you could learn to speak Mandarin so well that a native speaker could have an extended conversation with you and not realize that you weren’t a native speaker. I suspect that very very few readers would collect the money. (But some would)
However, I am convinced that anyone who could achieve the first task is capable of achieving a good accent in Mandarin. It just takes time and motivation.
just to say add to red violin there
i have met several people who have lived in china for
around 10 years and a lot of them have accents that are like this guy
http://www.melnyks.com/
indistiguishable from a native speaker i’d say
Mathew:
I wouldn’t presume to judge how good Melnyks accent is. Native speakers are the only people qualified to do that.
There have been times when I have been convinced I have mastered a certain sound combination only to have native speakers inform me that its not quite right. Then its back to the drawing board.
I have been able to recite sentences and entire dialogues to native speakers and been told that the accent was flawless. I asked them if they would have known that I wasn’t a native speaker just from hearing me speak and they said no. But these were dialogues that I slaved over, tweaked for weeks, using recordings and phonetic transcriptions and checking the results with native speakers. I’ve been able to achieve this
in a number of languages. Its a peculiar mania of mine. I wouldn’t say that this kind of obsessiveness is necessary or even desirable for all language learners. But its a test that I think most of them could pass if they really wanted to.
Speaking in free conversation without an accent is a far more difficult task. When I speak French for instance, I find myself drifting back to English intonation, even though I can imitate the French intonation. I was recently in Marseilles. When I made a conscious effort to use their sing-song,exaggerated
intonation, I felt like I was acting. (Which is a sign that you haven’t yet completely gotten into the native speakers world)
Speaking in another language with such a good accent and facility that native speakers think you were one of them is the hardest test of all. I’ve been able to do this for short periods in both French and Spanish. But sooner or later they realize that I’m not one of them. I think that to achieve this goal, you would have to completely abandon English and live in the target language country for many years.
As I said, native speakers are the only one competent
to judge such matters. Have you ever met someone who learned English as an adult who could fool you? I’ve met a few in my life. They aren’t common. I thought it was significant that one of them told me he had seriously studied English phonology and had also spent many many hours in the language lab. So it isn’t just natural talent.
I would love to hear how Jenny Zhu got so good in English. I suspect that she has some of that obsessive perfectionism in her that so many good language learners have.
2. Pronunciation is the first and greatest hurdle to be overcome. If you don’t get it right from the start, it will be difficult or impossible to correct later. Therefore, in the beginning, focus most of your attention on pronunciation, even at the expense of progress in other areas. Learn what the phonemes of the target language are, and how they differ from similar English phonemes.
I think that this is probably the most important thing RedViolin said above.
What I have observed is that is some ways Pinyin does not actually help non-Chinese speakers, because many people get lulled into a false sense of security by those sequences of roman characters and their brains, unless they make a big effort, supply an English or French or whatever pronunciation for them.
For example, 佷 (hen3). So many people in my class last summer were attempting to pronounce that to rhyme with pen or any of the many other en words in English. Similarly with 我. They would want to pronounce it to rhyme with whoa as it is pronounced in California. Other sounds, like 學, also caused problems. Rather than properly enunciate both the u and e in xue2 the wanted to pronounce it like shwey as if it were a diphthong.
All of these problems, it seems to me, are caused by the beguiling nature of Pinyin. We would almost be better off with Bopomofo.
I did my initial learning off CD using the Pimsleur resources. I found this an excellent way to learn - captive in the car with a daily dose of input .. and Pimsleur is ALWAYS asking the listener to speak, to repeat and to answer questions.
I find Chinese Pod useful but it doesn’t force me to speak - by asking me questions and leaving gaps for my reply.
I like to repeat simple stuff MANY times - till it becomes automatic.
All the advice here is really good, but I happen to know from personal experience that the method advocated by John Heap (right above) is proven to work for pronunciation and vocabulary acquisition. John writes: “Pimsleur is ALWAYS asking the listener to speak, to repeat and to answer questions … and leaving gaps for my reply.” I’ve suggested in the “HSK” blog (probably the wrong place, but where’s the right place?) that ChinesePod create full-scale “Pimsleur-like” Podcasts that accompany and supplement the regular PodCast. These supplemental Podcasts would add the element of review, drill, self-assessment, etc., that is missing from the regular PodCast. We would then have the same fun PodCast that we presently have, and in addition, we would have a no-nonsense, nose-to-the-grindstone PodCast for perfecting pronunciation, vocabulary retention, or whatever the teaching objectives were of that day’s PodCast. And most importantly, it would be in the form of a PodCast, which retains the mobile nature of ChinesePod. If ChinesePod did it right, I strongly believe that this would be a popular service. Note that people pay quite a bit for the full Pimsleur CD sets, and their very popular. I’d love to know if others have any thoughts on this.
I didn’t read all these comments because there are so many. That said, I agree with what I read that Bob Mrotek says, i.e. speak, memorize, speak, and memorize. I have to tell you that as much as I like Chinese Pod for the simple dialogues that use regularly used, everyday, expressions as building blocks–what I am finding that does not work for me is that their is no space built in for repeating and it is all based on listening. The Pimsleur approach I think works better for me. It repeats over and over in different contexts and encourages the listener to participate and challenges the listener to respond to English is Chinese (if I remember correctly) so not only are you getting a lot of chance to repeat expressions you are being challenged to think and quickly respond in Chinese. I didn’t like the formalism of Pimsleur but I think the approach cannot be equaled. I did all 3 levels of Pimsleur but if I don’t get back to it I fear some of the skills I acquired will dissapate. All I can say is go and look at how they do it–try to do it the same way but keep the great dialogues. Also, don’t forget to discuss etymology. The hotel dialogue talked about the expression, Ma3 shang4 jiu4 and you gave the incorrect tone for ma3. This never would have happened if you explain the ever so cute literal meaning which is “just get on your horse”…that was completely missed. I have no trouble remembering the tones cause I know what it means and where it came from rather than just rote memorization of the sound and tone. Wow, as I’m typing this I’m peaking at the last comment which is echoing what I’m saying here! Look at Pimsleur, there is no better approach around.
One more thought, after I subscribed at the cheapo level on Chinese pod I was very enthusiastic and recommending it to everyone. Now after I have been with you for awhile I do not use it as much cause it is proving not to be working very well. I am ready for an intermediate level but cannot easily follow your intermediate level dialogues because they are all based on listening and are not interactive. It is very frustrating for me–I have been taking Chinese at Chinese School for 4 years and studying for 6–and I can’t even keep up with your Intermediate Level because their is no opportunity for me to speak and practice built in. I got a wonderful i-pod for my birthday from my husband I what I would most like to use it for is to help me with my Chinese like my old Pimsleur CDs used to do–I listened and practiced everyday in my car. I was hoping I could do that with Chinese-Pod but unless you change it just won’t work for me.
Hi Erica (From North Carolina),
I found it very interesting, your situation. I think with your iPod and the Cpod podcasts you can do something better than Pimsleur. What continues to strike me as different with Cpod is the ‘content’ they produce. It really is practical and everyday conversational Chinese. I think if you give it a little time, things will all of a sudden ‘gel’ because you’ve had plenty of exposure with your Chinese school and other studies.
I found this to be the case, there was a 3-month period, after which I had transitioned to another level. There wasn’t any overt speaking or drilling.
Have you tried putting lots and lots of the podcasts on your iPod and then repeating phrases from the conversations and scripted dialogue? Listening to a podcast a few times but with gaps of a few days inbetween. What I mean is listen to a podcast three times, but have gaps of a few days inbetween.
During and after a podcast, repeat and also think and have little conversations with yourself, especially spoken out loud little conversations. You can also try mental exercises where you can ask yourself (in Chinese), what was yesterday’s podcast about, what did Ken say, how did Jenny answer.
I think it’s like this, if you practice conversations (even when it’s just with yourself), you’ll be practicing for listening to conversations. Which is what the intermediate level shows are. My personal opinion is that more drilling of just set words or phrases will not ‘open the door’ to the next level.
Lantian,
It is not as simple as that. I have been here for about 6 months and am now realizing the shortcomings here. I do agree that the CONTENT is superior. Just not the implementation. In C-pod lessons there is a lot of intellectual discussion built-in to the recordings. The discussion is interesting but not the kind of stuff you want to hear over and over again. It is the repetition that allows it to become second nature. Once you have a whole lot of constructions or building blocks you can quickly retrieve you can begin to build a fluency. One needs a lot of repitition before these structures are commited to long term memory and yes I agree with Bob Mrotek that once they are learned you can still retrieve them years and years later. I learned a lot of Chinese children’s songs and will be able to sing them until the day I die–also remembering the meaning. It is because of the repitition. Same idea behind jingles to sell products–I can still remember annoying TV commercials from when I was a kid some 40 years later. I do believe that the ability to participate and repeat over and over is the key. Pimsleur is great at that building upon each lesson and adding just a bit more–they are experts in knowing how to repeat material in different ways and at what point to add a bit more. I think C-pod can still pull off having dialogues that are on unrelated topics as long as they start providing the opportunity to repeat and practice. The intellectual comments on grammar, syntax, etymology, cultural relevance or whatever seems like should be on a separate recording or track so that once you hear it you don’t have to listen to it over and over. It actually makes you NOT want to listen over and over cause you wouldn’t want to hear that over and over again–that is a one shot deal and is wasting time to listen to over and over again. What is helpful is being able to both practice and be challenged to practice (i.e. how do you say, “Where is the bathroom?”) over and over again until you just know how to ask the question without thinking about it. Hope this helps and I truly hope the C-pod community can take some of these comments to heart.
I like the podcasts because they get me used to listening to real Chinese speakers speaking at normal rates (especially the intermediate ones, which I have started listening to).
Just being able to hear all those sylables and not miss them is important. I remember years ago in Hong Kong I kept asking my wife and her family what a particular phrase meant that I was hearing on TV(B, I think it was). It sounded like ‘lei tik-a-toi.’ When I finally managed to point out the phrase, it turned out that it was:
你的電視第一台 (In Cantonese of course) and I had missed three or four sylables. This happened more than 20 years ago and has left an enormous impression on me.
However, one problem I have is the lack of male native speakers on the ChinesePOD series. It seems to me to be important to hear male native speaker so I can callibrate my pitch and so on.
It is not clear what the problem is. Perhaps only females in China will do language work of this sort.
Having said all that it seems to me that Jenny ennunciates very clearly event when she is speaking 20-to-the-dozen, which makes her a delight to listen to.
Erica — You Go Girl!!! — Delta
Delta, you too, 加油! I agree with everything you said 2000%!!! I would pay extra for the Pimsleur-like added feature, that is one thing for sure! For me that would be just as important as getting access to the transcripts. Please note Pimsleur doesn’t even offer any transcripts but they are so popular people generate them for themselves! This tells you something. It works therefore it sells! I keep trying to get them to put out a 4th level of their Mandarin series.
Hi Erica and Delta,
If you could indulge me for just a bit more, and we’ll put aside the usual ‘pleasantries’ of ‘everyones different, different methods for different folks, etc., for the sake of argument; let me throw out two things:
(1) I don’t disagree with your suggetions for ‘drill-types’ of podcasts, I’ve also asked for them. But I’d like to see them appear with a bit of a twist — as a separate companion podcast to the regular Cpodcast episode.
Plus I’d like the repeating and drilling to go thru parsed patterns, lexical patterns, and then isolated morphenes in different words. Versus just word and phrase repetition aka Pimsleur.
(2) Do you think ‘drilling’ and repeating and memorizing really works? I remember some English rhymes and Shakespeare but I don’t think it’s ever really helped with my English speaking. Millions have used Pimsleur — and don’t really speak Chinese well at all afterwards. I have yet to meet a non-native Chinese speaker of a high-intermediate to high level that mentioned to me that a Pimsleur route was how they got there.
And now for me to get on my high-horse over pronunciation, Red Violin and Richard S, Red’s quote was
“Pronunciation is the first and greatest hurdle to be overcome. If you don’t get it right from the start, it will be difficult or impossible to correct later.”
Do you have any proof for this? My experience is that it ‘can’ get better over time in two ways, naturally with general increased ability, and with explicit attention/correction.
If everything fossilized (which I’m not saying it can’t), then you two are also saying there’s no hope for my putt shot, or zh-ch problems.
May the glory of change rise with each morning sun.
I have to admit that I have been a “victim” of Pimsleur. I totally relied on this system daily for the past 10 years, based on recommendations from others. You would think that I would be at the advanced level in Chinesepod..but no way…i’m even struggling with the “newbie” lessons. My tones are terrible and I can’t even pronounce basic stuff like “Ni Hao”.
I’m now convinced that the ability to become proficient in a second language depends on superior genetics. I’ve wasted 10 years and now ready to throw in the towel.
Lantian says:
“Pronunciation is the first and greatest hurdle to be overcome. If you don’t get it right from the start, it will be difficult or impossible to correct later.”
Do you have any proof for this? My experience is that it ‘can’ get better over time in two ways, naturally with general increased ability, and with explicit attention/correction.
I have to agree with both of these parts. Pronunciation is so very important that if your pronunciation is different (outside the range expected by your interlocutors) it is a serious impediment to communication. My wife, who is Chinese from HK, always complains about English speakers from India who have accents. Since her ear is not attuned to their accents, and she is not as patient as I am, she has problems understanding them.
However, it is true that your pronunciation can improve over time, especially if you are prepared to believe that your pronunciation has problems and you want to improve. Of course, you have to be prepared to open your mouth and make mistakes.
My wife’s pronunciation has definitely improved since she went to Australia as an eighteen-year old and could hardly speak English. She now sounds Australian to some extent … through long usage on a daily basis.
Clever Dick says:
I’m now convinced that the ability to be proficient in a second language depends on superior genetics. I’ve wasted 10 years and now ready to throw in the towel.
Hmmm, don’t give up. Spend some time doing a formal course at a community college first. There are several in the Bay Area that are very flexible and offer classes in the evenings … give it a try. You might find that you improve.
Wow! Interesting discussion!!
In my original post, I said. “Pronunciation is the first and greatest hurdle to be overcome. If you don’t get it right from the start, it will be difficult or impossible to correct later. “ After reading some of the above posts and thinking about it a bit, I think I should have written the following as my second sentence: The longer you wait to get it right, the more difficult it will be” I think people with bad pronunciation habits can improve them at any stage. But the longer you wait, the more difficult it is. My advice for someone working on correcting pronunciation is this:
Start with a few single words. Know what each phoneme in the word and read up on their physical description. Only practice saying them immediately after a recording of a native speaker. (Otherwise sounds, particularly vowel sounds, will tend to drift back to your native language sounds) When you think you have it right, check your results with a native speaker. When you are able to pronounce and number of words with good pronunciation, do the same with a sentence. Continue doing this with more words and sentences. Bit by bit, your rate of progress will accelerate. Avoid pronouncing words when you are not sure of the phonemes. Beware of “false phoneme friends”. The word “xi” in Mandarin is not the English “she”, even with a tone added.
I was surprised to learn that most of you posters are, like me, studying the intermediate lessons. I had assumed that most of you were advanced students.
I studied French, and particularly Spanish with a very large amount of drill recordings. To give you and idea, in my first 26 weeks of Spanish, I had to memorize and recite 48 pages of recorded dialogue along with about 20 hours per week of recorded drill work. It was something like the Foreign Service Spanish course but even more rigorous I think. I continued drilling and studying ever Spanish recording I could find for quite awhile after.
That kind of rigorous structural drill approach has gone out of fashion. Instructors hated it because it really gave them nothing to do, you just needed the recordings. Most students hated it because it was, well, inhuman. Sentences were given at a rapid fire, native speed pace, and you had to reply just as quickly. It was relentless. I got through it by continually stopping the recording, sometimes for minutes as a time, while I broke down and practiced both the stimulus sentences and their responses. It usually took me about 10 hours of work to totally master 1 hour of drill recordings. I persevered because I was motivated, and I believed it would give good results. But none of the other students really mastered the recordings and many expressed their dislike of the method. For these reasons, I think we must look for better ways.
Nevertheless, we must be careful not to throw the baby out with the bath water. Drill approaches (combined with other approaches) can be very effective, but they need to be humanized and customized. And now, with our computer technology, we finally have ways of doing this.
Imagine a language teaching computer program. First it would ask you a series of questions about yourself. How much of the language to you eventually hope to speak? Do you want adequate pronunciation or great pronunciation? How much time to you want to spend? What kind of vocabulary are you most interested in? Will you be doing your studying at the computer only or also in the car? Etc.
From these kinds of questions, a good language teaching program could make an attempt at customizing a program for each individual. And, it could continue adjusting the learning program according to the feedback it received. Computers are beginning to have the capability of judging your pronunciation. But it could also get feedback from more questions, from the speed of your responses etc. It could give you homework in the form of customized Cds to be played in the car. Also, listening lessons to be loaded into your Ipod.
Imagine if the program used some of the Pimsleur principles. But now many responses could be elicited using pictures and animation clips, thus keeping your mind working in Mandarin. And the computer would know (or you could tell it) how well you responded and time further requests in the manner of the Pimsleur recordings.
The computer (and users) could send feedback back to the programmers to help with upgrades.
The program might make use of sensors to judge your level of attention, frustration etc. and make continual adjustments accordingly. It might use a Skinnerian type reward system to keep you interested.
I think the eventual best solution will be a virtual reality type game. You take your smart drugs, get hooked on the game. A few months later you are fluent in Mandarin.
I’m sure many readers could think of other ideas. Perhaps some who agree with me that this is the way to go might suggest how long it might be before programs like this start to appear.
addendum to my last post: The Spanish course had 2 hours per week of recorded drill. It took me about 20 hours to completetly master it and memorize the accompanying dialogue.
Lantian,
I’ll be happy to indulge you, but let’s not put aside ALL ‘pleasantries’ as we’re all on the same team, just with different experiences and ideas about how to help ChinesePod help us. Here’s a pleasantry to start us off with: I love ChinesePod for its fun and educational PodCasts and especially for its community. I’ve also read a number of your posts with great interest and am an admirer of your Full Transcript Initiative (FTI). OK, now on with it …
Your point (1): “I don’t disagree with your suggestions for ‘drill-types’ of podcasts, I’ve also asked for them. But I’d like to see them appear with a bit of a twist — as a separate companion podcast to the regular Cpodcast episode.”
If you read what Erica and I wrote (see above), and my comments elsewhere (especially the second of my 2 comments in the “HSK” blog), you’ll see that we are all saying the exact same thing, so welcome aboard. Now if we can only get ChinesePod to listen. I’ll quote myself in part: “At first I thought it most convenient to put it [ the review / drill / self-assessment ] at the end of the PodCast. Subsequently, I realized that it should be a full scale separately produced PodCast and put into the premium section to cover the cost of producing it. Also, that would draw in new premium subscribers who prefer the PodCast approach to the online software approach.”
Please take a look at those comments for a fuller explanation of how this could work.
Your point (2a): “Do you think ‘drilling’ and repeating and memorizing really works?”
The short answer is that I know for a fact that it works from my own personal experience. Also, if you look at the Amazon reviews for Pimsleur’s full, unabridged CD sets, then you’ll see that most purchasers agree. Amazon reviewers, by the way, can be brutal, yet this product consistently scores at the highest level, even though it’s among the most expensive of products sold in its category. Consumers almost always rate products on a sliding scale with the product’s price in mind. The fact that Pimsleur raises expectations by being expensive and that it also gets consistently high ratings over a long period of time, has to say tell you something. For the casual, free PodCast downloader who comes here, there is a totally different level of expectation. In fact, I only become demanding when I consider giving ChinesePod my hard earned money (and then I speak up); otherwise, I’m also happy to just download for free and use ChinesePod as a supplement to something else that’s more structured, listener participative, interrogative and demanding.
Your point (2b): “I have yet to meet a non-native Chinese speaker of a high-intermediate to high level that mentioned to me that a Pimsleur route was how they got there.
As I said in my HSK blog comments, “Pimsleur leaves off short of where ChinesePod intermediate begins.” So we all agree once again. If Pimsleur produced more advanced levels, then we would buy them. That’s why we’re trying to get ChinesePod to be our one-stop, self-study shopping solution. (As an aside, I can’t believe that you’re implying that the Pimsleur METHOD doesn’t work because there isn’t a Pimsleur Mandarin Volume 4 through 10?)
Delta, dui4, dui4, dui4!!!
Let me give a background on my studies. Eight years ago today I traveled to China to adopt my little girl who is now 8. Eight years ago I knew no Chinese. I became passionate studying with my daughter. I learned more children’s songs in Chinese than most native speakers and will sing at the drop of a hat. At that time I never dreamed I would start studying the written language. I got the sounds very easily I guess cause I must have some natural gift and also because I worked very hard and listened a repeated a lot. It wasn’t until I had a pretty good base that I even started with the Pimsleur–I do think you can start with Pimsluer too early. When I started I was ready and just took off. Please don’t tell me Pimsleur is all about “memorizing” …. When I started Pimsleur I needed only to listen 2 or 3 times to each CD before I mastered it. I did NOT memorize any of it. I practised enough that when they drilled me in English for the Chinese I could very quickly construct it in my head. Also the very nature of Pimsleur is that they provide enough repeated practice on any 1 CD that just a few exposures to it allows you to master it. Pimsleur re-introduces the material in so many ways so that you really do understand what you are saying and can use it outside of the lesson context. Pimsleur gives you just the right time lags to develop a proficiency. This is the path needed to develop a fluency. Everyone tells me I would quickly become fluent now if I went to China and allowed myself to become “immersed” in the language. However, I disagree. I have been “immersed” in the C-pod intermediate lessons and really am not ready for this. If I could continue with Pimsleur I know I would quickly get there. I could progress MUCH faster if C-pod or Pimsleur would provide the support in a Pimsleur like approach. Without this support my skills will start fading and now I am getting more interest in the written so am spending more time at Chinese school studying the written long form characters. All the while the path I was on with Pimsleur is now derailed until more support for my verbal practice becomes available. No one is going to develop a fluency in any language if they don’t practice speaking every day–you need a lot of practice and C-pod is not presently helping with that. I enjoy listening to the C-pods but most of it doesn’t stick in my mind because it isn’t really designed for repeated listening or practicing so while interesting it is not a real good use of my time if I’m not remembering it and putting it to practice.
By the way, are we just talking to each other about this, or is anyone from C-pod listening? Me thinks we are just wasting our time here.
Erica
GET RE-WRITES - I find that writing down and having my Chinese edited is a great way to learn and it’s interesting. Let me warn others though, it seems very very hard to find Chinese teachers and people who will do this for you. “Editing” seems not highly practiced in schools and universities here.
But on Cpod, we have friends, and friends help friends! See my State-of-Mind post at the comments for the Hardships of Finding a Job
http://www.chinesepod.com/podcast/?p=192
Lantian,
I just had the same experience - although I do not yet dare to try this on these forums. After I got my corrections I complained once again to my wife about those missing grammar rules. She claimed that there are indeed clear rules. But the ones who follow those rules sound “strange”, “like foreigners”. She recommended to get more input to further improve the feeling for the language. Listen to even more Chinesepod lessons.
Erica,
I do not believe there is anything like a straight “path” to Chinese - there is definately none for me. I am convinced that it is a fallacy to believe that you just “build up” lessons on top of others and gradually increase the “difficulty”. This only well in a laboratory setting within the confines of a selected set of grammar points and vocabulary. If you enter real life you have all the complexity at once. What you need then is rather a broad grasp of what is going on than a precice understanding of individual words or phrases.
Drill: They tried time lags in some of the early Chinesepod lessons, highly annoying. If I need time lags, I just push the pause button. But have you tried translating the expansion phrases and comparing your result with the given phrase? That is effective training for me.
I also recommend to try out the level that is one above the comfort zone. There one is forced to understand and thereby learn more in less time.
Erica : I’d never heard of Pimsleur before that discussion so I can’t compare, but I too believe in repetition –that certainly works for me, provided it’s fun rather than brute force, much as repeating movie lines.
Actually, ChinesePod does provide a tool for you to practice, that’s the expansion section you get with the premium subscription. I do them all, repeating until I’m satisfied with pronunciation, and that’s also a good way to get exposed to sound and characters at the same time. Unfortunately, those sentences are embedded in flash modules, you can’t easily get them out as mp3 and take them on the road.
I’ve suggested that ChinesePod strings them all together and makes them available as a complementary podcast to premium subscribers. It would be straightforward for them to add a pause after each pattern/sentence for us to practice.
As to developing a fluency, yes you need to practice everyday but there’s more to it than speaking, getting the speech muscles trained up is a lot faster than absorbing the listening patterns, attidutes *and* vocabulary. That’s where I find ChinesePod dialogues and discussions across many levels very effective. I now practice daily with the top 3 levels from intermediate, and I do find the zh-advanced *very* challenging, but every time I listen to a podcast I get more, look up another word, pick up another expression, get back to the transcript. I know from experience that the path is long, often frustrating, and regularly goes through plateaux or what even feels like regression.
I’ve given up on every other learning tool but ChinesePod, listening for an hour, exercices and transcript for half an hour or more, and frankly there’s still lots I don’t fully exploit even though I’m gradually finding my way through all previous podcasts. I started this less than 2 months ago, but frankly it’s given me an incredible boost and I’m confident my “fluency” will be much improved when I go back to China for hols next year.
Yv
I share Henning’s views - funny enough, we posted them at the same time
Yv
Goulnik,
Way to go! You will be more confident and fluent when you get to China nexct time. And don’t forget to come and see us while you’re here.
Ken Carroll
Goulnik,
Sorry but I won’t pay extra for a “premium” service unless there is something that is transportable. I can’t be anchored to my laptop in order to get the practice in that I need. I want to be able to do it on the road like Pimsleur allows. I find Pimsleur very fun and challenging cause it makes me think–it is not just rote repitition but quizzes you to quickly translate, very much like you were immersed in a conversation and had to come up with a quick response. That is what makes the practice so powerful. I spent a ton of money for my Pimsleur albums but consider it well worth it. I can practice in the car which is otherwise wasted time. By the way, my long time Chinese teacher (I have been taking his classes for 4 years now) told me C-pod’s advanced lessons are very challenging for even native speakers so don’t despair if you’re having trouble.