Comments on: Best way to learn Mandarin in GNU/Linux or OS X?

By: Francois

Francois — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 02:15:53 +0000

The best way to learn Mandarin (IMHO) is with http://www.rosettastone.com. I have started to use it and it is awesome. I think it works in linux, if you can get your own microphone/headset configured, and you use crossover office (yeah, lame, but blame it on shockwave being stubburn and refusing to make a linux friendly version). There is a cost to it, but it is well worth it. It kills me to leave my Ubuntu / beryl setup to reboot in windoze everytime, but I currently just don’t have the time to fight with my microphone… Plus I use a Toshiba laptop …

Just my 0.02$.

Regards,

Francois

By: byte

byte — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 08:23:32 +0000

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By: popagandhi

popagandhi — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 08:20:31 +0000

You could start by learning pinyin. The standard romanization of standard Mandarin. Pinyin on its own isn’t going to give very much meaning into the words — for example, “wo3 shi1 sheng1 le4″ means “I’ve lost my voice” as much as it means “I’ve lost my virginity”. It’s the actual character in “sheng1″, and how different they are in both instances, that’ll give meaning to the phrase. I’m not sure what good QQ chat with a Chinese person can do, because it’s one of those languages where you NEED to be maybe 70% conversational to even.. chat!

But it’s a start, and having a good grasp of pinyin will help you along with the tones, which is pretty hard for many people who didn’t grow up speaking a multi-toned language.

Also, if you intend to go to a school/class, make sure it’s one following the standard Mandarin/simplified Mandarin as it is spoken in Beijing. =) You wouldn’t want to come out of it wondering why you’ve got 20x more strokes on every character than everyone else. Heh.

By: popagandhi

popagandhi — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 08:14:01 +0000

I’ve checked out the Chinese podcasts available. If you were learning something like Thai, where the language is FAR simpler… an audio-only approach using podcasts (or even Pimsleur, which I like for Thai), might be do-able, depending on one’s talent for language =) However. Learning and acquiring Chinese is a completely different ballgame! It is so damned hard!

The Chinese podcasts available don’t seem to have any structure or syllabi designed to help a beginner leaner acquire competence in the Chinese language. It’s just “in lesson one, John goes to the tailor”, then they repeat things like “hello” and “goodbye” and “how much is that”. I don’t believe they are even 20% adequate.

There must be a proper Chinese class/lesson in Melbourne, with such a sizable Chinese community. Readig/writing is another thing… without an alphabet, you just need to know characters in order to make sense of an article. At times we native speakers of Chinese go to a Chinese restaurant, look at menu item and momentarily forget what two out of the six words mean, and lose meaning of what the dish is about completely =) Heh.

Not to discourage you, but Chinese requires years of one’s life! Read the following essay =)

I’ve always said I greatly admire people who embark on the task of studying Chinese late in their lives.. because if I hadn’t learned it/spoken it growing up, I probably would never bother. Unless I wanted to be a Chinese academic. Heh.

http://pinyin.info/readings/texts/moser.html

By: kaeru

kaeru — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 06:43:19 +0000

If you’re learning a language to communicate orally, then basic classes and an environment in which to listen and talk to others is best. If you’re not in a native environment, having things to listen and watch will help a lot eg. mandarin news, music, tv shows and movies (present time/current topics). The exaggerated and loud way actors say common phrases helps as you can see the context visually as well as hear the expression clearly.