What is best way to learn Chinese

I learnt my smattering of Cantonese in the local Chinese takeaway - it works great!!! Until you walk into a takeaway run by a Mandarin speaking Chinese and then there is a language problem!!

Hi Electoman,

I'll have two of 26, and one of 93, Thank you.

Actually the best way is to do what I did if you want to learn any language, that is go and work in a country for at least 2 years!

I learned 5 languages this way, and the reason is that you hear the language spoken all around you every day!

Spencer.

I too tried learning Chinese half haeartedly for a year or so after my brief visit to Shanghai, which created interest i Chinese culture. I tried here in my city in India with some Chinese teacher.

After this experience following are my opinions:

1. If you can stay in China as Scapolie suggests, at some remote place where english is used sparsely. It is the best way. You will learn speaking in 6 months.

2. You may use some software / teaching CDs, where verbal teaching is available. The teacher speaks in Chinese and we understand the verbal ways.. pronounciations and tone, which are very important in Chinese speaking.

3. Learn to speak first. If you start learning the scripts, you will soon fade up and get depressed, as there at more than 5000 letter in Chinese.

4. Try something like BYKI, which gives learning cards, few are available online free.

Best Luck

learn to speak...if you are doing business over there id think youd usually only have to carry on a convo. At least i figure that should be your priority...

"Guest" (not me, the original poster) has some good questions.

I myself have strongly considered learning to speak Chinese and have even made a couple of very half-hearted attempts. Each ending within about 1 minute into listening to various awful "Learn to Speak Chinese in 5 Minutes!" type audios.

From a strictly engineering aspect...wouldn't we be better off concentrating on how to read / write Chinese rather than speak it? For example, our company butts its collective heads against Chinese written correspondence, data sheets, specifications, etc. far, far more often than we need to carry on a verbal conversation. Plus with the time zone differences one party or both usually end up inconvenienced. Sure, it would be nice to speak Chinese for travel and the occasional teleconference. But 90% of the time, I think it's unnecessary.

Plus from what I understand the subtle nuances of spoken tone are nearly beyond the reach of Westerners to distinguish or produce. Kind of like a potato trying to speak with a Dolphin. (On what topic, we may never know.)

I invite your opinions and rebuttals.

that seems like a good argument to me, i just figured there would be more communication verbally and that there were half decent translators/programs for the words. But please dude, its Mandarin or Cantonese not chinese...

Ah. My apologies about not knowing the difference between Chinese / Mandarin / Cantonese. That little nugget of information was probably covered in the 2nd minute of those 5 minute audios.

Some people call chinese as mandarin. they are the same meaning. we call it as " pu tong hua" you can heard everywhere in china.

In chinese term, they mean " zhong wen' and " han wen" because most of our chinese are Han nationality. Han was our ancient dynasty.

we also heard some people, especially oversea chinese spoke that go back Tangshan, mean go back to china. Tang dynasty is also one of our dynasty in history.

cantonese is only in some distict of south of chna like canton (guangdon province), besides, we also have many other localism. like Min nan etc.

suggest you learn Pu tong hua other than other localisms.

you can watch cctv 4 there is a program for foreigner learning chinese.

the second term you reply is not quiet right.

pinyin is very important for your studying chinese. most of our chinese intellectual can read it. although we rarelly use it.

chinese character is very difficult for foreigners to write, just like painting, in fact, most of our chinese calligrapher is also painter.

most of document write in simplified characters. only some people from taiwanese still use it. but now they begine to use simplified characters in theri document. the simplified characters can be dated up to Tang dynasty. it s very suit for ordinary people.

if you will study antique of chinese, you may study more ancient words like oracle bone words or word on bronze.

once you get use to chinse, you can read either simplified or traditional chinese.

they have many resemblance.

welcome to study chinese. there is a chinenglish.

good good study. day day up

(study hard and make good progress every day)

Hi, throw yourself deep inside Chinese country side for a month,where no one understand your language.If you cant learn by the time , you can not by any method.

Wei

There is a Correspondence Course at UNISA in South-Africa on Mandarin (Mainland Chinese).

University is 19th Largest on Earth,and is therefore not a fly-by night.

Check out : http://brochure.unisa.ac.za/brochure/subjects2008.aspx

Click on Mandarin link

SA Dial Code is 0027

Hours are 09:00 - 15:00 GMT +1

Ciao

get a chinese girlfriend/boyfriend that will be the fastest pace

Im in Singapore now and was able to learn thru listening carefully and trying to speak it out loud when i know new words..asking colleagues and trying it out

I have found that the Rosetta Stone program works well, it mixes multiple types of learning so that you can learn to speak write and understand the language. The military uses it, and many government jobs use it.

Do what I did. Employ a Chinese person who is well schooled in English. This has worked out real well and he loves the experience. Remember, you will never be effective enough with the language for it to have any value (except take out). If you feel the need to really learn the language then drop what you are doing, get on a plane and live there. My wife did that in South America with good results. Considering the type of language you are talking about, plan on staying 3 to 4 years. The rule of thumb is when you start to dream in that language then you know that language.

I learned English when I met this cute girl many years ago. You could the the same strategy. She was the best motivator and the lessons were very interesting... We eventually got married and exchanges our vows in each other's language. Now our children are perfectly bilingual (French, English) and have a better professional prospect than I had.

It is not that important for us to learn Chinese but it might be important for the next generation if China doesn't collapses on itself. Remember in the 70's, we tough that Japaneses would take over the world and some people did learn the language then. Are they better off?

Even if you learn the language, the culture is such that it might not help you very much other than amusing your business partners at dinner time. It will take a generation before the integration is good enough to understand and be accepted in the culture.

I think instead ask Chinese to learn English if they want to do business with you. As everybody knows English is the business language of the world and is comparatively easier to learn than chinese, which is a picture language. Honestly learning a language is not complete without cquiring the ability to read and to write and English scores mores points over chinese. That would be a win win situation for both Chinese and you.

hehe, I think the best bet is asking a man to learn how to make money.

This is very more important than even learning any language.

if yoiu are so rich as bil, yoiu need do nothing. you can employee many many people to save you .

I remember a story I read very long long ago. a rich woman did wht he can do is only lay on the bed and order servants to do this or that.

The next best way is learning how to sit on the seat of president of a country. there are lots of counsil to serve for him on dealing whith every things.

The worst thing is going to france. there will be nobody like to speak english. I was told recently. english seems no use there.

But in china, there seems to have a lttle useful now. however, nearly 1.3billion population cannt speak english , of cause include me. that may be why I dont know business fair, only but drawing, welding and soldering and heavy labor work.

He

The guest who opened thethread didn't say ANYTHING about purpose of learning language, nor the business even.

People like you only think in terms on money and profit out of anything.

But learning could be just for learning the language of great country, knowing the culture, to speak to people of great heritage and age, to people who have created threat as well as respect beacause of their economical growth, to know the literature in the country, fine poetry of the country... and many more things.

Thinking only in terms of monetary profit will give you frustration. But, learning for all other purposes as above give you immense satisfactio and brotherhood to the people of the country.

I am Chinese, I always heard from other countries that Chinese is the most difficult language in the world. LOL, but I advise you learn simplified Chinese, which is more prevalent. And just a few people, such as some old ages or some people who work in special cultural industry, use traditional Chinese.