Mandarin has four tones and a neutral tone.  My best advice to anyone wanting to speak this language is to learn how to say the tones comfortably.  You need to hear them first without preconceived idea.  Once you are able to hear –  ”Oh yes, this sound rises. This one falls” – practice reproducing what you have heard. Although it may seem strange, it is essential.

Tones are not an optional luxury. Without them you will not be understood. At all!  There are many words which sound exactly the same in Mandarin except for one thing: their tones.

You can practice making them mechanically, but the best way is to imitate. Listen – hear – imitate! Do your best. You will not be perfect. But it will make a world of difference when it comes to being understood.

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Pinyin makes it possible to pronounce Chinese fairly accurately very fast.  You want to be learning how to read and write characters at the same time, but Pinyin will really help you penetrate into the language.

Another fantastic thing it does is it tells you exactly how to pronounce the tones on every word. I will get back to tones in another post, but realize that you must pronounce the tones of Mandarin or you will not be understood when you speak.  At all.!  The Chinese characters do not show you how to pronounce the tones: Pinyin does.

You can learn how to read Pinyin in 30 minutes. You won’t be perfectly accurate, but you will be able to read, learn vocabulary and use correct tones. It is really an indispensable tool.  Yes qi = chi might be a little strange, but you can quickly get used to it.

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Language is sound.  Arrgh! … Oops! … Wow! …  Oh noooo! …  Various combinations of sound  communicate our meaning.  As you approach Mandarin as your new language, get acquainted with its sounds. The better you hear, the easier it will be to understand natives. The better you sound when you speak, the easier your communication will be.

Falling in love

My advice is always to learn a language that you are attracted to. It is much easier to spend time with something you enjoy. If you need to learn for an external reason ( work, family matters), you should at least feel neutral toward the new language. Aversion is never a good place to start.  Strange, unusual even alien are OK.

Get into that crib

Remember when you were living in your crib and you spoke no English? You spent hours listening to Mom and Dad talking and making faces at you. It worked, didn’t it? Remember! It’s never too late to have a happy childhood in Mandarin.

Input: make it so.

So you’ve decided to learn Mandarin. Do you know what it sounds like? To many, Chinese sounds like ping tong ping.  Well it’s time to get on your computer and take a little tour.  Where do you go? Anywhere Mandarin is spoken. YouTube is a good place to start. Movies are another. Internet radio and television are everywhere. Cartoons or songs in Chinese  are fantastic. Listen! Without judging or rejecting. Stay relaxed, breathe and move around. Some speakers will have voices you enjoy. Others may not. Explore! For a few days.

Next time we will talk about specific Mandarin sounds and how to approach them.  But today, go out and listen to your new language. This is not a mental exercise. Go and land your ship on planet Zhongguo and find out what you can about its inhabitants: directly. What do you actually hear? How does its vibration  feel inside your body? Find good-looking actors or actresses being interviewed. They tend to have good voices and they are fun to look at.

The only assignment is to expose yourself to as much enjoyable Mandarin as possible.

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In many ways, learning Mandarin is no different than studying French, Spanish or German. You need to learn new sounds, to get a feel for how natives say things. There are words and expressions to be learned. It naturally takes motivation and time. But there also are different things to absorb. If you approach them smartly, they become very enjoyable.
Initial Exploration

I’d like  to give you a window onto the world of Mandarin.

When you begin a new language, it is very useful to understand where you will be going, and what you will need to learn.  So! What are the important features of Mandarin?

1. New sounds.

All the sounds of mandarin are quite learnable.  They all exist in some form in English. You will simply have to learn a few new distinctions. Chinese syllables are also  more staccato than those of English. Chop, chop, chop!

2. Tones

Chinese speakers actually  ”sing” all the words of their language.  There are 4 tones or notes  in Mandarin. Your first job is to begin to hear them and to start reproducing them. We as Westerners are not used to this.  The tones are not difficult to hear or to speak, but they take a while  getting accustomed to.

3. Characters

Chinese characters are an incredible writing system, but they require quite a bit of memorization. Take your time learning them, but begin to study them immediately. You will need to know them to be literate. Fortunately, there is a much simpler way  to read Chinese initially.  It is called …….. Pinyin.

4. Pinyin

Pinyin is a way of writing Chinese that uses our own Roman alphabet. It is very systematic and easy to learn. It allows you to read and write words in Chinese immediately. It also tells you where to pronounce the tones. Pinyin is your best friend.

5. Vocabulary

Yes, you have to learn words. The best way is to hear and see a lot of the language.  And actually, the more characters you know, the easier it is to absorb vocabulary. More on that later.

6. Grammar

Chinese grammar is  easier to learn than that of a  new Western language.  It has no verb tenses or conjugations; no singular or plural; and no declensions (like Russian or German). Simply stated, the words do not change in any way.  Remember those French irregular verbs? and the German der die das? Throw them out. They are not needed here. Chinese does have some new concepts, but they are easily grasped.

7. Word order

Chinese word order is different from ours. Simply listen and model what you hear. The expression “Long time no see” actually comes from Chinese. Easier to say  than “it’s been a long time since I have last seen you”, isn’t it?

These are all the things you need to consider initially: the “What ” of Mandarin. The next part in this series will begin to deal with the “How”.

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Whenever you learn a language, the great limitation is vocabulary – in speaking and also in understanding. Trying to increase my own fluency, I just created the following technique for  practice.

I was listening to a guided meditation in English and was trying my best to translate what I was hearing into Chinese.  I was vitally hampered by my lack of vocabulary.  I played with my English-Chinese dictionary and then my Chinese English one for a while. (The great danger in using a dictionary – paper or electronic – is that it may give you a completely different or inappropriate translation. That’s why you should always translate  in both directions.)

Led by my curiosity, I went on my computer and started using the Google Translate Tool to test my own knowledge and learn new words.  I usually find the tool’s results are remarkable, especially when translating  European languages – close linguistic relatives.  With Chinese, the accuracy is more limited but still useful.  I started typing sentences in English and reading the Chinese translation.  I would then take the Chinese translation and plug it back into the tool to retranslate into English.  (This catches many gross mistakes.)

This taught me a lot of useful expressions and vocabulary. The next step will be to run them by a native, to see if I found the right words and how natives would use them. Fortunately I love being laughed at.

The important thing to remember –  if you decide to play with this technique – is to use very short and non-ambiguous sentences.  ”The woman laughed at the dog” is much safer than “Although he feared the elevator had begun to malfunction, he rushed out to the street in search of a new diagram.”  The more complex the grammar, the more likely an incorrect, hilarious translation.

If you use this system with care and a big grain of salt, you can test your capacity to generate sentences while learning new vocabulary.  It is a fast and fun way to develop your capacity to express yourself. It is definitely not 100% or even 80% accurate but it is still amazing. The next step is to check with a native of course.

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What this means is that you can customize your way of learning exactly to your own specifications.  You can work alone, with others, online, at home, anywhere and any way you like.  If you find one learning style boring, there are many others to choose from.  And there are so many people willing to help and share their knowledge and their tools.  Yes, there are entities who may think of us only as consumers and sources of income.  They make seductive promises so that we buy their products.  But there are also many people who are sharing information out of kindness, joy and a desire to help.

With the onset of IM, Skype video calls, etc, we are able to communicate directly with anyone in the world instantly.  Instead of Bali, Morroco or Italy being days and thousands of dollars away, they are within instant reach – and for free.  So as we organize our learning, we can easily expand and connect with people who speak the language we are learning.  This is the delightful gift of the Internet to the language student.  Have fun in your treasure hunt!  and if you want to practice your new language online, you can contact me at my school, Focus Language.  Our prices are reasonable and we will help you shine in your new language. Jean-Paul

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Speaking a language, hearing it, and interacting with native speakers are the vital steps that allow you to make a language yours. It is often a challenge to arrange this. Online classes make it incredibly easy. We must still learn new vocabulary and grammar to  expand our knowledge, but  a new language only becomes integrated when we speak it and hear it frequently. Online language are an amazing way to do this.

All you need to set up your online language classes with us is Skype  and a webcam. (Skype is a phone, IM and video service: www.skype.com. It takes 5 minutes to set up and costs $4 a month) Online video calls  allow us to meet with anyone on the planet and have a personal, productive multi-sensory experience effortlessly.

Call us at  (630) 333 9513 or Email us for a free consultation and trial class. Finally begin to  practice your new language regularly.

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