Learning Mandarin

[rahul]

I am considering taking up some course to learn basic Mandarin.
Basically want to pick up some conversational and basic reading skills.
I have absolutely no background with this language and will be starting from the scratch.

Hope to give something like 6 months(weekend study) for this pursuit.

Is it a reasonable time frame for achieving my objectives ?
Can you recommend some tutor / classes ?

Thanks

 

[catchlights]

Not sure is this helps??


=======================
Learn Chinese In Three Minutes

English: He's cleaning his automobile
Chinese: Wa Shing Ka

English: This is a tow away zone
Chinese: No Pah King

English: Is there a fugitive here?
Chinese: Hu Yu Hai Ding?

English: Small Horse
Chinese: Tai Ni Po Ni

English: Did you go to the beach?
Chinese: Wai Yu So Tan?

English: It's very dark in here
Chinese: Wai So Dim?

English: Has your flight been delayed?
Chinese: Hao Long Wei Ting?

English: I thought you were on a diet?
Chinese: Wai Yu Mun Ching?

English: Your body odor is offensive
Chinese: Yu Stin Ki Pu

English: You know lyrics to the Macarena?
Chinese: Wai Yu Sing Dum Song?

English: I got this for free
Chinese: Ai No Pei

English: Phew! Does this bathroom stink!
Chinese: Hu Flung Dung?

============================

 

[matman]

I reccommend the course offered by the National University of Singapore Extension.

http://www.nus.edu.sg/nex/

The course material is good and contains CDs of the lessons. This course places a strong emphasis on leanring to write the characters from the start, while other courses want you to be able to speak a bit before they teach you the writing. Lessons are at Park Mall. It helps to be in a class with other students of the same level.

Its not a cheap course, but it is a good one. Two nights a week, from memory. Has 3 levels of beginners, then three levels of intermediate so you can keep going if you want to.

For a cheaper course, a friend reccomends the Hua language school at United Square. Very affordable. Again two nights a week.

 

[rahul]

Thanks Matman.
Will look those courses up.

Catchlights, I wish it was that simple

Came across this article. http://www.pinyin.info/readings/texts/moser.html
Apparently Mandarin is probably one of the most difficult languages to learn.
But I will give it a shot

 

[eikin]

catchlights, that one more like learn English in 3 minutes for Chinese who don't know English :bsmilie:

rahul, learning Chinese requires alot of memory work for vocabulary, as for grammar and sentence structure they are not complicated. have patience and good luck :thumbsup:

 

[ricohflex]

I am considering taking up some course to learn basic Mandarin.
Basically want to pick up some conversational and basic reading skills.
Can you recommend some tutor / classes ?

Try this. Only $17.90 from Challenger.

 

[rahul]

Try this. Only $17.90 from Challenger.

Ok. Saw some other such audio books at Popular. Ranging from 50$-300$.
Might be a good option to explore before I commit to some classes.
Has anyone tried using one of these books ?
Any particular one to recommend ?

 

[Paul_Yeo]

Personally I think chinese is one of the most complex languages.... (compared to languages with fixed number of characters to form words (such as english 26 letters, german, korean, hebrews 22 letters...)

have patient, dun give up, in singapore shld be able to find chinese friends to speak to you easily :thumbsup:

 

[Paul_Yeo]

catchlights, that one more like learn English in 3 minutes for Chinese who don't know English :bsmilie:

rahul, learning Chinese requires alot of memory work for vocabulary, as for grammar and sentence structure they are not complicated. have patience and good luck :thumbsup:

one thing about chinese is that chinese sentences dun have spacebar and the readers need to have a very good voca in order to mentally separate the characters into phrases, nouns etc...

 

[Del_CtrlnoAlt]

one thing about chinese is that chinese sentences dun have spacebar and the readers need to have a very good voca in order to mentally separate the characters into phrases, nouns etc...

is it...

let me try...

怕路哟。。。 请问你在那里仿佛好呢？

我觉得应该是每个字就是一个空把了。

 

[Paul_Yeo]

is it...

let me try...

怕路哟。。。 请问你在那里仿佛好呢？

我觉得应该是每个字就是一个空把了。

see, your entire sentence is one chunk without spacebar, i have to mentally separate them into "那里" , "仿佛", ... hee

if i not familiar with the words, i may separate like this 请 - 问你 - "在那" - "里仿" - "佛好" which totally meaningless

 

[eikin]

what's with the space thingy?

in Chinese there's no 'spacing' so to say because the word is written as a character, remember Chinese words evolved from pictures, each character is a word. you put the spacings in English because that's how a word is identified. you don't need spacings to identify Chinese characters.

 

[Paul_Yeo]

what's with the space thingy?

in Chinese there's no 'spacing' so to say because the word is written as a character, remember Chinese words evolved from pictures, each character is a word. you put the spacings in English because that's how a word is identified. you don't need spacings to identify Chinese characters.

oh. what i meant is that bcos of this space thing learning chinese is a bit hard.

if u have never read a chinese Bible, try to read one. u will understand what i mean. bcos u aren't familiar with chinese biblical term and names, when the entire sentence is one whole chunk, u will have a lot of difficulty in reading.

 

[eikin]

oh. what i meant is that bcos of this space thing learning chinese is a bit hard.

if u have never read a chinese Bible, try to read one. u will understand what i mean. bcos u aren't familiar with chinese biblical term and names, when the entire sentence is one whole chunk, u will have a lot of difficulty in reading.

that's really a problem with vocabulary, in this case specialised vocabulary. to be even more specific, you're referring to pronunciative translation of foreign language (especially nouns) into Chinese, where Chinese words are used not for their meaning but for their sound to construct the word. it has nothing to do with spacing.

 

[Paul_Yeo]

give u a simple ex , for this word 历 代 志 上 , if u dunno how to separate the word properly, u will not be able to know its meaning. also, the person reading will need to have a good knowledge of word, in this case, biblical terms.

so for chinese, if reading normal sentence, he must know a good pool of chinese phrases in order to separate the words correctly in order to know what that sentence mean.

if this 历代志上 has a space, i think u immediately will guess what this thing mean

 

[eikin]

give u a simple ex , for this word 历 代 志 上 , if u dunno how to separate the word properly, u will not be able to know its meaning. also, the person reading will need to have a good knowledge of word, in this case, biblical terms.

so for chinese, if reading normal sentence, he must know a good pool of chinese phrases in order to separate the words correctly in order to know what that sentence mean.

eh, don't blur yourself leh, that's a vocabulary problem, you go tell a Chinese teacher Chinese is difficult to learn because of the lack of spacing that teacher will either roll on the floor laugh till dead or pull out all the hair.

 

[Del_CtrlnoAlt]

oh. what i meant is that bcos of this space thing learning chinese is a bit hard.

if u have never read a chinese Bible, try to read one. u will understand what i mean. bcos u aren't familiar with chinese biblical term and names, when the entire sentence is one whole chunk, u will have a lot of difficulty in reading.

u mean like...

哪摩哦弥陀佛 - then must split into many gaps ar?

hmm... if bible put more blanks hor, how many more pages u reckon it will add? :bsmilie:

 

[Del_CtrlnoAlt]

give u a simple ex , for this word 历 代 志 上 , if u dunno how to separate the word properly, u will not be able to know its meaning. also, the person reading will need to have a good knowledge of word, in this case, biblical terms.

so for chinese, if reading normal sentence, he must know a good pool of chinese phrases in order to separate the words correctly in order to know what that sentence mean.

if this 历代志上 has a space, i think u immediately will guess what this thing mean

makes me wonder how to space 他妈的 :devil:

anyway, from what i know, if u really do more gaps, kids not even wanna touch chinese...

 

[Paul_Yeo]

that's really a problem with vocabulary, in this case specialised vocabulary. to be even more specific, you're referring to pronunciative translation of foreign language (especially nouns) into Chinese, where Chinese words are used not for their meaning but for their sound to construct the word. it has nothing to do with spacing.

oh...hee... a simple ex 需要您的关心与代祷, this is not a translation of foreign lang.

for a person who doesn't know how to properly separate this sentence into phrases, he will have problem understanding and evening looking up the dictionary! should he check up the word 关心 or 心与 ??

if the words are spaced out, think u can read it easier 需要 您 的 关心 与 代祷 . i think this separated with spaces, people not familiar with chinese can easier lookup the dictionary.

 

[eikin]

oh...hee... a simple ex 需要您的关心与代祷, this is not a translation of foreign lang.

for a person who doesn't know how to properly separate this sentence into phrases, he will have problem understanding and evening looking up the dictionary! should he check up the word 关心 or 心与 ??

if the words are spaced out, think u can read it easier 需要 您 的 关心 与 代祷 . i think this separated with spaces, people not familiar with chinese can easier lookup the dictionary.

i think you'll kill the chinese language if you become the education minister ... heng ah