nine tailed fox

How to learn Chinese

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Guys I wanna learn Chinese

 

Where should I start from ? ??

 

I wanna learn Chinese because I wanna read Chinese books, I am not interested in speaking and writing Chinese as much, as I am interested in reading it

 

Though it would be nice to be able to speak and write it too

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Learning Mandarin is also on my "to-do" list, but I'll need to speak it too.

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The back of the fortunes in the fortune cookies is a good place to start.  I learned how to say Watermelon - but I can't remember it now.

 

Funny, I've been thinking about the same thing - only I would do it to try to keep my old brain alive.

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Add me to this list. Like nine tailed fox, I've been interested in learning to read and write Chinese, not quite as much to speak it. I took nine or ten of a series of brief instructions that are up on iTunes U. They were good, slow, but good, and I began to at least recognize some characters. Ultimately, I decided that for my learning style I need it in a hard copy book, something I can mark up, put book marks in, review, review, review.

 

And that's kind of where my journey with it stands at the time being, as I've just not got around to finding said book.... 

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http://thedaobums.com/topic/37718-chinese-efficient-methods-of-learning/?p=611191

http://thedaobums.com/topic/37727-how-do-i-learn-chinese-well/

 

 

Any aspect of the language is made infinitely easier to grasp if one is, at the same time, able to grasp all other aspects. It can be broken up if necessary, into reading/writing and speaking/listening -- I know of researchers who can read ancient Chinese fluently but speak no word of modern Mandarin -- but I wouldn't go any further than that.

Edited by dustybeijing

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My wife is chinese but I only seem to learn all the bad words/curses/phrases  :D

 

Immersion is best... live among the people, go to a school, etc... or find one in the US with chinese language. 

 

Here is the kicker:   If you just learn it in the US you will learn proper chinese but not sure you will learn colloquial speaking.

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Dawie is totally right. I was good friends with a Mandarin teacher and immersion is best - BUT - there are so many different regional variations, what are your goals?

 

But good luck on this - I respect any westerner who can converse in Chinese!!!

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