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Long term Mandarin Chinese strategy | ||
Tags: Learning Strategy | Mandarin | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| outcast Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member China Joined 4758 days ago 869 posts - 1364 votes  Speaks: Spanish*, English*, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Mandarin Studies: Korean | Message 1 of 11 15 May 2011 at 10:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hello,
I decided some time ago that Chinese is an investment I would like to acquire. As my profile states I am native English and Spanish speaker, equally bilingual in both. I have been learning German and Portuguese for the last several months, 7 months for the first, 2 months for the latter. I took French in high school but the vocabulary has evaporated last 5 years. These are my language goals: intensively study German and Portuguese until I reach B2 level. I believe I am two months away from that in both. Once I reach that level, I can lay off the accelerator and coast myself long term to C1 in both with an hour daily (currently 2-3 hours on both). I trully believe that achieving some descent vocabulary and grammatical proficiency makes it much easier to ''maintain'' a language than if you left it at a pre-intermediate level where you still need the dictionary and your grammar confidence is low. I'm at the point in German where it is increasingly rare I need a dictionary, and I can begin to understand some nuance, which I could not much even 6 weeks ago. Portuguese for a Spanish speaker is rather self-explanatory and more a question of learning the correct spelling and the differences in grammar (object pronoun placement mainly) and idiomatics. Since I took French in high school and remember the grammar in general, and given my Spanish and recent Portuguese study, I think it should be very easy to recover my French and take it beyond High School Honors level. All that brings me to Mandarin. I have set myself a 5 year timeframe, which is conservative in my view, to have basic to somewhat advanced fluency and reading ability. These are my questions I would so much appreciate some advice and general guesstimates: 1. I plan taking formal classes to start off, mostly for the pronounciation where I think in a language like Mandarin a flesh and bone native speaker in front of you, coaching you, is invaluable. I also hope that a Mandarin professor has some insight in strategies or tricks to make character learning easier. For those two reasons, I think attending a class may be quite helpful. I would be going to a local college that offers Mandarin and would set me back 300-400 dollars with books and everything. Do you think it is a good way to invest that money? Or is there something I'm perhaps not thinking of as a substitute? 2. I will also of course do self-study. I have read mixed thoughts on learning the spoken vs also learning the writing. Im an all or nothing guy, so I learn everything Mandarin or I don't learn at all. So with the assumption I will be learning both, and I hope to hear from both native Chinese and non-native speakers that LEARNED Mandarin on this one, should one: - Learn spoken Mandarin first then writing? - learn the first characters and their meaning then learn grammr and spoken Mandarin? - Learn a bit of both as you go along? Any help will be trully appreciated as I am nearing my launch in this long-term and hopefully rewarding experience. Hopefully my long term table makes it realistic and thus you guys can give useful advice (as supposed to ''How do I learn Chinese in 3 months''??) ;) ps - Given 5 years, how many hours a week do you think I would need minimum (I ask minimum so I know at what point not to go lower, a lot of things can happen in 5 years so I would like a minimum of hours so it is easier to keep up). Thank you. Edited by outcast on 15 May 2011 at 11:00pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| lichtrausch Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5769 days ago 525 posts - 1072 votes Speaks: English*, German, Japanese Studies: Korean, Mandarin | Message 2 of 11 16 May 2011 at 1:19am | IP Logged | ||
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I've been using chinesepod.com for the last seven months and I'm pretty satisfied with
the progress I'm making. It costs about 70 dollars for six months. I took a semester of Mandarin at university a couple of years ago and I feel that I make better progress with self-study. The thing I treasure most about self-study is I can move at my own pace. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6188 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 11 16 May 2011 at 4:51am | IP Logged | ||
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1. I think it depends on the quality of the course and the teacher. I imagine a lot of teachers don't emphasize pronunciation and tones so you may be frustrated by the experience. I've read a lot of accounts of students who said their teachers never once emphasized tones.
2. I was just reading one of John DeFrancis's textbooks last night in which he said that students should start with the spoken language and move onto reading later. He spend his whole life thinking about how to teach Chinese so I'm taking his advice myself. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6391 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 4 of 11 16 May 2011 at 7:07am | IP Logged | ||
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I did listening first and then getting into the characters. It was fine. I think today I'd recommend doing both at the same time, but really, both ways work. Just don't do characters before speech!
I, too, am a satisfied ChinesePod customer. It might be a better investment than college classes, but that really depends on the quality of instruction. Good luck! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| jasoninchina Senior Member China Joined 5040 days ago 221 posts - 306 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Italian | Message 5 of 11 16 May 2011 at 7:59am | IP Logged | ||
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I have found it very satifying to learn the characters right from the beginning.
I think self study is always better, but classes do have some benefits. All in all, if you can get your hands on a good integrated textbook with cd and a native speaker to practice with, you'll be well on your way. You should likewise be prepared for the long haul, as Chinese will be unlike any of your other languages. In terms of a time commitment, it is often said to take somewhere between 1200-1500 hours to reach a proficient level. That is about double the time it takes for the romance languages.(there's a thread on this website that links to a document containing that information, but I can't find it at the moment.) Edited by jasoninchina on 16 May 2011 at 8:00am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| xiongshi7 Newbie United States Joined 4750 days ago 21 posts - 25 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 6 of 11 17 May 2011 at 4:19pm | IP Logged | ||
Yes, I would concur with you on your comment about self study, however, I also believe that it is beneficial to take a course pertinent to the language that your studying occasionally. While I'm just a newbie, less than one year of self study and beginning courses in Mandarin, I'm ready to focus on listening comprehension. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| lichtrausch Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5769 days ago 525 posts - 1072 votes Speaks: English*, German, Japanese Studies: Korean, Mandarin | Message 7 of 11 17 May 2011 at 8:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thought I'd comment some more on my experience learning Mandarin. I started out with a
good foundation for learning it. My knowledge of Chinese characters from Japanese was good enough to comfortably read a Japanese newspaper. But despite that, I've had to learn a ton of simplified characters and even lots of brand new characters. Add to that a bunch of 4 and 5 character phrases (chengyu) that I never encountered in Japanese. My impression so far is that Mandarin makes far greater use of these than Japanese does. The grammar is also showing quite a bit of depth and intricacy now that I am learning intermediate and advanced stuff. In short, there are challenges around every corner. But I truly enjoy this learning process because Mandarin is rich beyond belief with creative use of language and nuance. Learning Japanese greatly broadened my perspective of what is possible in language and Mandarin is taking it a step further. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| xiongshi7 Newbie United States Joined 4750 days ago 21 posts - 25 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 8 of 11 17 May 2011 at 8:43pm | IP Logged | ||
How long did it take you to be able to read a Japanese newspaper? TY 1 person has voted this message useful |
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