Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010
Do you want to learn Mandarin? Beyond ordering food and buying souvenirs? So you can actually communicate?
Learn the Characters. It may seem a daunting tasks to learn several thousand characters.( Why don’t they use an alphabet like us? )
But, if you want to progress in the language, you need to be able to read. End of story. Pinyin is a great tool to get you started and to teach you the pronunciation of new words. But the characters contain the… Continue reading
Thursday, May 20th, 2010
Tones are what gives mandarin its character. Each syllable is actually spoken on a different note. It is at first a challenge for Westerners when learning to speak, simply because we are not used to them. The best thing you can do is to listen to Mandarin being spoken. What do you hear? Can you imitate it?
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… Continue reading
Wednesday, May 12th, 2010
Pinyin is the writing system that allows you to read Mandarin immediately. It is written with the Roman alphabet and is very consistent. You just need to learn how to read the different sounds. Some letters are used as they are in English: bei, hua, lao etc. Others are not. You simply need to learn the new values: xi is pronounced like she and qi is pronounced like chi.
Pinyin makes it possible to pronounce Chinese fairly accurately very fast. You want to be learning how to… Continue reading
Tuesday, May 11th, 2010
Some people learn the sounds of a language just by listening. Some learn by first understanding how the new sound system works. I find that getting acquainted can be a good initial step. A map can never replace walking or driving in a real place but it can be of great use.
I will not systematically present the sounds of Chinese here. I only want to mention a few features.
Se-pa-rate
The Chinese language is based around individual characters: one syllable each. So each syllable is… Continue reading
Monday, May 10th, 2010
MANDARIN AND SOUND
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… Continue reading
Monday, May 10th, 2010
So how do you proceed from here? You have a general idea what you need to learn. What is the best approach to learn effectively? the most effortless and fruitful? So many programs! So many promises!
Whatever system you choose, there are two fundamental ways to approach the language. Output and input based.
1. Output
This is the traditional approach. We are immediately asked to memorize and use an increasing amount of vocabulary and grammar. We are also asked to produce spoken and written language… Continue reading
Monday, May 10th, 2010
Mandarin Chinese is a beautiful language. I have deeply enjoyed my own learning journey through it. This article is the first in a series for anyone interested in its study.
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… Continue reading
