tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6275372772077650637.post696166250096190978..comments2024-03-18T09:47:18.076-07:00Comments on Forever a student: How to speak fluent Mandarin ChineseVladimirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05898612218295828520noreply@blogger.comBlogger32125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6275372772077650637.post-83795819403482079502016-07-29T17:23:15.550-07:002016-07-29T17:23:15.550-07:00Thank you for the comment Dimitrios.Thank you for the comment Dimitrios.Vladimirhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05898612218295828520noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6275372772077650637.post-643468594593502712016-07-29T14:16:17.063-07:002016-07-29T14:16:17.063-07:00This is a lot of helpful advice, Vladimir. When I ...This is a lot of helpful advice, Vladimir. When I started studying Mandarin in Kaoshiung back in 1993, my focus was on the tones and getting them right. Then I began to use cassette tapes for dialogues along with the accompanying text for building up vocabulary. A few minutes every day I would devote to studying the radicals. Then after recognizing the radicals, I began to study the main characters....by requesting children's schoolbooks from acquaintances and using the Mandarin phonetic alphabet. This worked for me and helped me become functionally literate faster. There was more urgency for me to learn to read since I was living in the country. My fascination with the characters was a big motivation too.Dimitrioshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08437310662861157044noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6275372772077650637.post-48398683639492737512013-09-16T16:43:03.101-07:002013-09-16T16:43:03.101-07:00Hello Roland,
I'm happy you found the post in...Hello Roland,<br /><br />I'm happy you found the post inspiring. <br /><br />Which programs to watch will depend on your level. What would you say is your level in Mandarin now? <br /><br />Unfortunately a lot of the shows here in Taiwan are really difficult to watch (and it's not because of the language, they are just really weird). There is finally this one show that I found on international politics, domestic affairs and economics that is on almost every day and approaches good journalism. It's called Today 正經話. You can also try 小燕之夜 which is a relatively watchable celebrity talk-show and a TV series called 痞子英雄. If you like Japanese anime, GTO (called 麻辣教師 in Chinese) has been dubbed into Chinese. All of these shows have subtitles, so you can pause - rewind through the whole show.<br /><br />hope it helps<br /><br />all the best<br /><br />VladimirVladimirhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05898612218295828520noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6275372772077650637.post-26765471408791662482013-09-16T12:14:25.071-07:002013-09-16T12:14:25.071-07:00Vladimir, thank you so much for this inspiring pos...Vladimir, thank you so much for this inspiring post.<br /><br />Could you give us some advice on which TV series and programs to see?<br /><br />Thanks.Rolandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17174289953041712807noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6275372772077650637.post-72842162598995964372013-03-07T18:25:27.118-08:002013-03-07T18:25:27.118-08:00Hello,
I like this idea (HH, LH, LL, HL). It burd...Hello,<br /><br />I like this idea (HH, LH, LL, HL). It burdens people with less information than the graph/number method that is in use, which is great. Where I see a problem would be mass vocabulary acquisition and the fact that it still is not a purely sound+meaning association that you make, but still a (sound + visually marked feature) + meaning association.<br /><br />What I like about this system much more is the fact that there is less informational burden in the beginning stages, right where students start to learn how to actually get the tones right (you don't have to look at a graph scaled from 1 to 5 and wonder where on that graph you are tonally with every syllable you pronounce, you simply stay low, high or change. I think that the height of the tone is not so important actually, much more important is its curvature), but isn't it a source of confusion later during vocabulary acquisition? <br /><br />Let's say, if you're learning 100 words every month and you'll have a string of LLHLHHHLHLLLLLHLLHHLH... the first month and HHLHLHHHLHLHHHHLHLLLL.. the next month. Didn't this eventually start getting confusing? I know it's a bit more complex, but you know what I mean? Me for instance, when I started learning Mandarin, I used colors to remember tones and it worked great for the first couple of hundred words but after that it was just wan blurry mess. Was it green/yellow? yellow/green? ect. There was just too much information.<br /><br />Would you have any video or audio recordings of anyone who used this approach so I could give it a listen?<br /><br />kind regards<br /><br />Vladimir<br />Vladimirhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05898612218295828520noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6275372772077650637.post-48302557617894974182012-12-30T06:29:36.889-08:002012-12-30T06:29:36.889-08:00Hello. I'm glad you found the article interest...Hello. I'm glad you found the article interesting.<br /><br />I used Anki to remember Romanian vocabulary and it worked great, but in case of Mandarin it didn't work that good and I would go as far as saying that it didn't work at all in my case. <br /><br />One of the problems was that I put too many words into my deck and I found myself trying to hit my daily repetition goal instead of really trying to remember the words I was studying. I also realized that trying to remember the pinyin, tones, characters, meaning and stroke order per one information slot was just too much information for me to process and move it into active memory fast. <br /><br />One other thing that I didn't like about Anki was, that it was too sterile in the sense that I had no 'environmental' elements to help me remember the vocabulary, since it was all standerdized by Anki. In a regular notebook for instance, at least the words are written in different positions on the page, or (since my handwriting is terrible) they all have their own shapes and defficiencies when I write them, which is always something that can help me remember the words. But again, this was only my experience and Anki might work perfectly well for a ton of people even with Mandarin. A lot of my friends gave up on it for similar reasons though. <br /><br />Wish you the best of luck with your studies:) Vladimirhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05898612218295828520noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6275372772077650637.post-48928659499606958152012-12-30T05:28:29.014-08:002012-12-30T05:28:29.014-08:00Great article man, good read!
Ironically Im almos...Great article man, good read!<br /><br />Ironically Im almost doing exactly the same as you but without really being aware or conscious of it haha. Only thing I dont really understand is how anyone can deny the effiency of SRP, but as you say, some things work for some etc. I feel that its insane and Ive managed to remember so much because of that.<br /><br />One thing I really appreciated and never realized is how paired syllables, indeed are easier to remember. Also I like how you point out that moment when the brain realizes that a given word is really important enough to be "stored" in the front, after the frustration of repeatedly forgetting something.<br /><br />Good stuff man, I will continue my mandarin study with a boost of inspiration:)Shaolin89https://www.blogger.com/profile/05294880353220228804noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6275372772077650637.post-44454858809034253072012-10-18T19:38:20.989-07:002012-10-18T19:38:20.989-07:00Hello dear Coline,
I'm so glad that my articl...Hello dear Coline,<br /><br />I'm so glad that my article helped you a little. I wrote it for people who would be in the exact same situation as I was and try to help them realize what they were doing wrong or at least encourage them to start thinking about the problems and deficiencies that the current Mandarin instruction has.<br /><br />Good luck with your studies and don't give up:) <br /><br />all the best<br /><br />VladimirVladimirhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05898612218295828520noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6275372772077650637.post-66103238580630012502012-10-18T09:22:05.856-07:002012-10-18T09:22:05.856-07:00Super!!!
Super!!!!
I am so happy
I've been sti...Super!!!<br />Super!!!!<br />I am so happy<br />I've been sticking to my intermediate level for years and now I can see why : I overloaded my brain with useless bunk learning.<br />For the last 3 years I stopped everything because I had the continuous feeling that I was not improving.<br />I thank you sooooo much<br />Now, I'm ready to start again.<br />C'est le déclic!<br />THANK YOU<br />Colinecolinehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02300170717685050676noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6275372772077650637.post-73802902712182233682012-03-23T01:39:36.697-07:002012-03-23T01:39:36.697-07:00Dear Jt,
thank you for the nice comment.
I'...Dear Jt,<br /><br />thank you for the nice comment. <br /><br />I'm glad that you found my post useful. I'm sure there a lot of people out there with better learning strategies and a lot of what I wrote would not work with everyone too. I was just trying to write about what helped me during my struggles with Mandarin. <br /><br />Maybe you should also try to schematize your approach and write about your strategies somewhere. There is a nice forum for that called How to learn any language, maybe you've heard about it. <br /><br />I try to post once every 2-3 weeks, but sometimes I only manage to post something once a month. I don't want to post articles just for the sake of posting and it takes a while for me to come up with something reasonably interesting to be turned into an article.<br /><br />wish you the best with your studies<br /><br />VladimirVladimirhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05898612218295828520noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6275372772077650637.post-34722430992723215732012-03-22T23:46:42.861-07:002012-03-22T23:46:42.861-07:00Hi Vlad!
I really enjoyed this post! It was so...Hi Vlad! <br /><br />I really enjoyed this post! It was so interesting to read about your approach and tactics, especially as they seem very different from others I've read about, who seem to specialize in languages... and yet, your method seems very similiar to my approach. Though I never would have thought to pinpoint all these specific (or seemingly minor) things as tips, tricks, or ... a schematic approach, so to speak. <br /><br />For example, what you said about the best teacher NOT being a native speaker! I definitely agree with that. I also think a big part of learning language and gaining fluency is having someone to speak with that can focus on communication, and can understand where you're coming from, and what you're trying to say, or how you're trying to say it - whether that person is native or not. And I also think it's important to surround yourself with all kinds of input and practice - language partners, friends, radio, podcasts, movies, TV, books, comics, non-natives, natives, chatting, talking, etc. <br /><br />I also like what you wrote above in the comments about having TWO language partners, about being in a group setting and seeing how the others talk to each other. Often, let's say when I'm operating in Russian, my Russian friends may have to 'grade' their language, or speak more easily or with certain phrases and vocabularly I know. But when we were altogether in a group with mixed Russians and foreigners, it was easy to pick up on the phrases they naturally used with each other, and then take those into my own vocabulary, especially after multiple times hearing it, and trying to remember it - another important feature you pointed out with your learning.<br /><br />Really, very interesting! I'll mark your blog and try to read along, if you're still updating. (o: Thanks for sharing your ideas and experiences!!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6275372772077650637.post-35560884946649498232011-11-15T07:34:55.474-08:002011-11-15T07:34:55.474-08:00I'll post my progress once I have some interes...I'll post my progress once I have some interesting discoveries to share. Thank you for your blog. It really boosts up my motivation! Keep it up!Boatnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6275372772077650637.post-53638504387966310222011-11-15T02:56:01.837-08:002011-11-15T02:56:01.837-08:00Boat,
I am really interested to see what you'...Boat,<br /><br />I am really interested to see what you're results will be and what obstacles you will encounter. I learned Mandarin this way and it would be great if someone else could test this approach and come up with more ideas on how to improve it.<br /><br />I am not an expert when it comes to textbooks but I tried Assimil Romanian and Assimil Farsi and they both are ok for a sequenced introduction to a language. Maybe you could try to take a look at Assimil Mandarin and see what you think.<br /><br />Difficult sounds are a problem. If you're not in a hurry, what you could try to do is that you could just try to listen to the recordings as much as you can for a month or so, until you will be able to hear the differences in the sounds clearly and will be able to spot them in the recordings effortlessly.Vladimirhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05898612218295828520noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6275372772077650637.post-49786780497167846062011-11-15T00:38:20.179-08:002011-11-15T00:38:20.179-08:00Thank you Vlad,
I do listen to the intermediate ...Thank you Vlad, <br /><br />I do listen to the intermediate level podcast from time to time just to keep me interested and motivated. It's hard for me but the challenge stimulates me more that just listening to the basic stuffs. <br /><br />I try not to write down anything at the moment. I try to play the audio repeatedly to get the sound installed in my head, like how kids learn. Not sure how it's going to work but I want to try.<br /><br />I don't have problems with the tones. It's very natural to me. However, I do have problems with the sound of alphabets but I try not to worry about it too much. Now I just have my faith in my listening skill. Haha. We'll see how it goes.<br /><br />My plan is to use one text book that I like together with the podcast. I feel that I need something concrete to help keep track of my progress. Chapter by chapter style. I feel like I need to have that sense of visible and measurable accomplishment. <br /><br />The book has audio conversations, so I'll just use it for listening and learning the new vocabs. Hopefully the sentence structure would be automatically ingrained in my head without having to read what is written.Boatnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6275372772077650637.post-36858870264020985972011-11-14T20:51:08.841-08:002011-11-14T20:51:08.841-08:00Boat,
maybe you could find some intermediate leve...Boat,<br /><br />maybe you could find some intermediate level audio dialogues (something one step higher than your current level of Mandarin is) learn the vocab for those and play them over and over until you understand them perfectly. By playing them over and over you also review the vocabulary and hopefully won't have to write anything down in pin yin.<br /><br />The problem is, that I still don't see any effective way to note Chinese vocabulary other than pin yin and you probably will have to start writing things down, but if you can do not mark the tones. Try to remember those only by sound. Maybe you could try learning the zhu yin notation system used in Taiwan. It represents the sounds of Mandarin much better than pin yin does and you will not be influenced by the pronunciation of the roman letters in other langauges. The thing is you would need to learn an additional 30 or so characters.Vladimirhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05898612218295828520noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6275372772077650637.post-28304112970167374342011-11-14T20:24:02.856-08:002011-11-14T20:24:02.856-08:00Thanks,Vlad.
I have to say that I'm an absolu...Thanks,Vlad.<br /><br />I have to say that I'm an absolute beginner. And I can't manage the soap operas (though the idea of watching South Korean soaps dubbed in Mandarin is very temping). I've been watching Disney films in Chinese because that's how I learned English as a child. Even though I've watched those films 50 times each already, and know the English dialogues by heart, I still have difficulty understanding them in Chinese. <br /><br />I think I need to build up my vocabs. Maybe learning them from some basic textbooks that come with audio is not such a bad idea? I'll try to focus on just the sound and the dialogue and how the sentences are formed without worrying too much about remembering the characters. And I'll try not to look at the pinyin.Boatnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6275372772077650637.post-16257897480419108662011-11-14T15:55:30.100-08:002011-11-14T15:55:30.100-08:00Boat,
what would you say your level of Mandarin i...Boat,<br /><br />what would you say your level of Mandarin is now? Do you think you could manage soap operas? If so, there are some relatively watchable soap operas from South Korea voiced over into Mandarin with Mandarin subtitles. <br /><br />If that is too hard, You can try some Chinesepod podcasts if you haven't done so already. What I did was, that I listened to the intermediate and advanced Chinesepod podcasts, especially those where there was no English at all. I didn't worry about the actual dialogue they were discussing, I was focusing on the discussion between the two hosts and kept listening to it over and over until I understood absolutely everything and then moved on to the next episode.Vladimirhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05898612218295828520noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6275372772077650637.post-50086668649216707462011-11-14T07:40:21.056-08:002011-11-14T07:40:21.056-08:00Since I've decided to drop reading and writing...Since I've decided to drop reading and writing altogether to focus on listening alone, my exposure to Chinese is very limited. If you don't count Chinese movies and radios that I use as background noise, the only thing that I feel like I'm learning from is the podcast Popup-Chinese. I've tried listening to many of the podcasts and like this one the best. However, I can't help feeling that it's not enough. What do you think? Do you have any advice? Thank you.<br /><br />(I don't have any Chinese friends here)Boatnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6275372772077650637.post-18988718984820463502011-11-13T02:44:07.439-08:002011-11-13T02:44:07.439-08:00Hi Vlad,
Your friend was right. The tone is easy ...Hi Vlad,<br /><br />Your friend was right. The tone is easy for us. Thai language has 5 tones and 4 of them are very similar to those of mandarin. <br /><br />What is hard though interms of sound is the alphabet sound. We don't have many of them in Thai. And some like C X Sh Ch Q for example are hard to them apart.<br /><br />The characters are also hard to remember and can be tiring. But I'm skipping them now to be able to just concentrate on listening like you suggest.<br /><br />Its grammar though is surprisingly similar to Thai. The lack of tense and many of the structures are the same.Boatnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6275372772077650637.post-64102212304342402962011-11-12T16:50:22.185-08:002011-11-12T16:50:22.185-08:00Boat,
thank you for the comment.
You being Thai...Boat, <br /><br />thank you for the comment.<br /><br />You being Thai, do you have the same problems understanding tones as we (people with no tonal language background) do, or are they easier for you? <br /><br />I heard a Thai friend of mine once say he can hear the tones right away, but didn't say anything about reproduction. Is the pronunciation difficult for you to learn?<br /><br />What has been the biggest problem for you so far?<br /><br />VladimirVladimirhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05898612218295828520noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6275372772077650637.post-31671835069259352032011-11-12T10:48:33.401-08:002011-11-12T10:48:33.401-08:00I'm learning Chinese and starting feel that th...I'm learning Chinese and starting feel that the way I learned was not working and not fun at all.<br /><br />Reading your blog confirms me that new path I'm currently experimenting. <br /><br />Thanks.Boatnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6275372772077650637.post-30719138825759441382011-09-06T03:44:56.675-07:002011-09-06T03:44:56.675-07:00Hello Matt,
thanks for the nice words.
I used ...Hello Matt, <br /><br />thanks for the nice words. <br /><br />I used Anki for about 5 months back when I was still in Europe. Maybe I just had a bad overall approach to it, but I felt like my aim wasn't to remember the characters but rather to meet the daily limit for the characters/words I had to review which was putting me under a lot of unnecessary pressure. Entering the information about characters also cost me a lot of time which I could've used on something else and in the end, even though I had a pretty good retention rate and had well documented all the characters I knew, Anki unfortunately didn't help me at all when it came to real life discussions, because I only learned how to recognize words passively in writing (it didn't help with sound recognition at all). It is a great strategy with 'easier' languages to bulk pre-learn vocabulary and review it with Anki later. Languages, where there is a lot less information per vocabulary unit where you can create yourself a 'passive vocabulary storage' which you can then gradually turn active as you speak during the day can be learned this way, but this never happened to me and Chinese. Now I think that I was learning Chinese vocabulary all wrong because there just really is too much information per vocabulary unit (pinyin, tones, meaning, character) and using Anki was just too tiring and didn't lead anywhere. <br /><br />What Anki might work for very well though is, that it might help you prepare you for tests. I do not know a lot about Japanese, but I think Anki might work better there, because there is less information that you need to remember per vocabulary unit, even more so with the 10 000 sentence method. Bulk learning separate words and expression is a bad idea when it comes to Chinese (in my opinion), bulk learning 10 000 sentences, that you never heard before at your beginner stages is absolutely pointless (my opinion again).<br /><br />I do not really know that much about the Heisig method. I've seen some scanned pages from the Chinese character book. It looks nice, but I would like to talk to someone who successfully used this method to learn how to read or try it myself. I don't know what to think about it now. My experience with Chinese was and is, that it is a good idea to learn how to read after you've learned how to speak. This way you will need no artificial mnemonics but ones that you can naturally relate to. But that's only my opinion again.Vladimirhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05898612218295828520noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6275372772077650637.post-36335369070627904422011-09-06T03:13:58.317-07:002011-09-06T03:13:58.317-07:00Hi Vlad,
Thanks for the very informative and insp...Hi Vlad,<br /><br />Thanks for the very informative and inspiring post. I just got arrived in Taiwan for nine months of study; I've been in Chinese learning limbo for a couple of years now and hoping to get past the plateau. I'd like to know more about why you don't use an SRS program--it seems like most of the SLA blogs I come across, particularly w/r/t Chinese and Japanese, take it as a given. Indeed, SRS is a critical element in the 10,000 sentence model, pioneered by Khatzumoto at All Japanese All the Time, that many people seem to be using these days. Also, what are your thoughts on James Heisig's method for learning Hanzi?<br /><br />Thanks again for your post, I'll certainly be following your blog from now onMatthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13009648918454047275noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6275372772077650637.post-36621866632698205932011-08-29T22:02:27.430-07:002011-08-29T22:02:27.430-07:00MagicMaximo,
thank you very much. I didn't ev...MagicMaximo,<br /><br />thank you very much. I didn't even know I had a youtube video:) Someone must've done it for me. <br /><br />How nice. I should go thank the person.<br /><br />VladimirVladimirhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05898612218295828520noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6275372772077650637.post-82015038372733875652011-08-29T19:56:10.833-07:002011-08-29T19:56:10.833-07:00Wow, I just came across your blog through your Yo...Wow, I just came across your blog through your YouTube video. Keep up the good work!MagicMaximohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01402312402228449357noreply@blogger.com