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Mandarin method when living in China | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| BrendanJNorman Newbie Australia Joined 3320 days ago 1 posts - 2 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin | Message 1 of 6 11 April 2015 at 3:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hey guys,
I've been a long time reader of this site although never posted and have a lot of people on here who I admire for their language learning abilities. I'd love to get some advice if possible...thanks :) I'm currently living in China helping to run a school and my spoken Mandarin is quite reasonable (meaning I can get around, order stuff) , but would like to reach SPOKEN fluency ASAP. Based on the fact that I already understand basic grammatical rules and pronunciation, etc how would you suggest I go about it assuming:
I have seen a lot of people do well in Mandarin over time reading here, but even so there are many methods and things evolve, so I really appreciate any schedule/method you can suggest. Thanks guys. :) Edited by BrendanJNorman on 11 April 2015 at 3:09pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5038 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 2 of 6 11 April 2015 at 4:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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OK, I wish I could speak Mandarin as well as you. But I have frequently thought about what I would do if I for example worked in Singapore for a year or two. This is what I would do, your mileage may vary.
1) Have your wife never, ever speak to you in any language other than Mandarin. Never, ever, from now on, regardless how hard it is for her and you. 2) From this point on, only ever write in Chinese characters. Notes to yourself, grocery lists, everything. 3) Switch your internal dialogue to Mandarin, never speak to yourself in any language other than Mandarin. If you stumble on a word, use the English, write it down, look it up and use the Chinese word from then on. 4) Hire a private tutor for lessons, 3-7 hours per week, or however much you can afford. Have them teach you grammar, and talk about difficult topics which you would never speak to your wife about. Nuclear physics, motorcycle repair, ancient Roman history, etc. The purpose is to encounter new words, your wife and your neighbours will teach you common words for free. 5) Download ANKI on to your phone and memorise the 7000 most frequently used characters. Do this for at least 15 minutes everyday. 6) Go outside to a market/book store TODAY and buy some books. Buy five books to start with that you like. Read them all cover to cover. If you don't know a character, learn it, write it, memorise it. Read another book, repeat. Repeat until you've read 500 books. 7) Watch TV, find a show you like and watch every episode. Watch the news. Watch at least 1-2 hours of TV or film every night. 8) Make a point of finding Chinese friends who do not speak any language you know other than Mandarin. Make a point of going out with these friends at least twice a week for an hour. Lunch, dinner, down to the pub, whatever, go out with them, talk to them. 9) After you get to the point you understand most 1-2-1 conversations, start going out with groups of people and practice speaking and understanding when multiple people are talking at the same time. Again, I haven't done this. This is just what I would do, if I were you. Feel free to ignore this post completely. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4246 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 3 of 6 12 April 2015 at 5:00am | IP Logged | ||
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In China it would be much easier to be using Chinese 100% of the time. I tend to think about the African-
American Jerome White who adopted the name Jero and became a successful singer in Japan. He started taking Japanese lessons since he was young in the US and moved to Japan permanently in his early 20s. His Japanese is practically at the native level. When it comes to learning Chinese characters, there are a lot of second-generation Chinese expats in Canada and the US who learned to speak the language at home but they are completely illiterate reading the characters. A few years ago I came across 2 singers from Nigeria who adopted the names (Hao Ge & Hao Di). Both of them learned to speak the language phonetically (by Pinyin) but have yet to master Chinese characters. They seemed to have no trouble on TV understanding the host & hostess in Chinese. Chinese characters don't make a lot of sense because each character does not suggest how it is pronounced. Once you start learning characters, you can sometimes guess what an unfamiliar character is by the context of the sentence or the shape that resembles another character. Otherwise, it is totally possible to learn the language phonetically without reading a single character. In the beginning you can learn a number of simple phrases such as: 你好, 我从英国来的 (nǐhǎo, wǒ cōng Yīngguó lái de) "Hello, I'm from England" by phonetics alone. I normally look up words & phrases in a computer dictionary by Pinyin since some characters are cumbersome to scribble. When I'm reading a news article online, I can Copy & Paste characters easily onto a computer dictionary. I'm in an English-speaking country so my exposure to Chinese would be limited. I do aim for at least 2 hours per day (watching the news, listening to the radio and watching videos, etc). Out here I have access to YouTube and I pick up all sorts of programs from China. The first programs I watched before included 1. 中国达人秀 (zhongguo daren xiu) which is the Chinese equivalent of "Britain's Got Talent" and "America's Got Talent". The format is much the same with each contestant introducing himself / herself, what he / she is about to perform, the performance, the judges response and finally the audience response. 2. 星光大道 (xingguang dadao) which is a singing show. The Chinese and the Japanese love Karaoke singing so watching amateurs sing on stage is popular. Besides these 2 there are other reality & variety shows on TV that are easy to get into. Even if you don't understand every word, you get hooked watching the performers. On my spare time, I get into watching documentaries very much. You can find all sorts of interested shows online including cooking shows, travel, etc. Last year I watched 2 interesting shows: 外国人在中国 which documents the lives of foreigners living in China and 北京新发现 which is a show taking about the latest electronic gadgets including iPhones, mobile phone apps, etc. Back in my school days I studied ancient history. I watched quite a few documentaries on the ancient Greeks, Romans & Phoenicians from the BBC. Recently I started watching a few shows on Chinese history from CCTV including the Sanxingdui (archaeological site in western China), Tang Dynasty, Ming Dynasty, etc. There are also a few videos on UFO visitations in China in ancient times. A lot of the documentaries I watched I actually know the content very well except that the language spoken is Chinese instead of English. There are new words & phrases that come up occasionally but otherwise I do pick up the context. The last unfamiliar word that I came across was 幽浮 (yōufú), the Chinese phonetics translation of UFO. Finding documentaries online on topics you already know you can pick up the context easily even if you don't know every word / phrase. For drama series I particularly like watching the ones from Channel 8 in Singapore. These shows are usually very short in 20 episodes each. Many of these also have English & Chinese subtitles / captions at the bottom. Many of these shows are available from the LETV site: www.letv.com The last 2 drama series I watched from Singapore included 边缘父子 which is a show about rival gangs and 奇 迹 which is a show about doctors & nurses in a hospital. Edited by shk00design on 12 April 2015 at 5:06am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4509 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 4 of 6 13 April 2015 at 1:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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When you know - tell me. I would like to know. I live in China too and am struggling with
the same issue. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| makochan Diglot Newbie United States Joined 3344 days ago 1 posts - 2 votes Speaks: Japanese, English* Studies: Mandarin, Uyghur | Message 5 of 6 14 April 2015 at 5:10am | IP Logged | ||
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Some good suggestions already.
I would say download this ACTFL checklist and systematically work your way towards advanced fluency: http://www.actfl.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/1-Interpersona lCommunication.pdf The longer I study languages, the more I realize that we actually acquire "fluency" in a piecemeal fashion. So just start with the topics that are most important to you (family, hobbies, career, etc.) and go out and talk about these topics over and over until you are super comfortable. Then keep building a wider variety of things you can talk about. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5038 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 6 of 6 14 April 2015 at 12:31pm | IP Logged | ||
corrected website address. http://www.actfl.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/1-Interpersona lCommunication.pdf 1 person has voted this message useful |
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