16 Chinese learning methods

March 22, 2008 – 4:18 am

Today I wanted to wash my clothes, but the weather is cold and cloudy, so there is no way to dry them until evening. So instead of going to the laundry I answered a post of Rainman on the CL forum. He said that it is important to speak some decent Chinese to get in contact with the more interesting Ladies he is seeking. And I think he is so right. So I just wrote this long post on the forum and then copied it here, so You can read it too, how to improve Your Chinese, or what methods to use.

Originally posted on CL forum by Junjie:
——————————————————–

Hello Rainman

I think I’m in the same boat as You and I know hard it is to keep the boat floating.

My Chinese learning background
I began learning Chinese in the summer 2006. Until summer 2007 I went to evening school every week for 2 hours, however I didn’t do any homework. What I had accomplished in this year, could be accomplished in 1 semester if You put serious time into it.

Summer 2007 I went to Chengdu for 2 months and attended an intensive Chinese course. After I returned to Germany I studied Chinese much more intensively. Since then I learned a minimum of 10 hours per week, sometimes up to 20 hours a few times.

Now I’m back in China for an internship and I’m going to invest some big amount of time into learning Chinese.

My Chengdu experience taught me the same things You already mentioned and I totally agree on the reasons why learning Chinese is essential.

Nonverbal communication and English vs speaking Chinese
You can go to China without speaking Chinese. Yes, it is possible. However You can never express the same things, as if You could speak Chinese. You can go to the foodcourt and point at something with Your finger. You can paint some nice pictures on some paper and hope the other person understands You. You can even hope the other person understands English, but it will be hard to show Your personality to the other person. Psychologists say that only 10% is what You say, the rest is how You say it and Your body language. However if You can’t say a word, You are not only missing the 10% of what You say; You are also missing the maybe 40% of how You say it. Bad deal, isn’t it.

What tools do I use currently and how usefully are they

1.) Textbook
First I use a regular Chinese learning textbook. This book teaches a rather formal language. This book helps to get hold of normal conversation like: where do You live, whats Your name, etc. You probably have one too. Although this book does not teach useful street language, this is the basis, because here You see perfect sentence patterns You can use if You want to know more about another person.

2.) Chinesepod.com
They discuss short dialogues. These dialogues are really helpful, because they are pretty natural. Chinesepod makes lots of use interjections and particles. The normal textbooks try to save me form interjections and particles, so Cpod is really helfull on this. They also cover cool topics like drugs, no boring laoshi xuesheng dialogues.

3.) Repeated writing
I choose a character and write it a hundred times or so. Especially usefull during boring classes in university. I have a special dictionary called: xiezi cidian (write characters dictionary) to help me get the correct stroke order.

4.) Conversation
When I was in Germany I tried to stick around Chinese persons to test what my other materials teach me. Using the learned stuff in context is really helpful for memorization.

5.) Writing mails
I write email in Chinese. I think this helps on getting familiar with characters. Overall my focus is 95% listening/speaking, 5% reading/writing. So my hanyu hanzi knowledge is way behind my verbal skills. However I’d like to change this (see below)

6.) Slang words
There is a page in wikipedia about mandarin slang:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_slang
This article is really helpful. At the end of this article is a link to another really helpful page on mandarin slang:
http://tianmi.info/%E7%89%9B%E5%B1%84%E8%AF%AD%E8%A8%80/
(by the way, who is that girl on the top of that page?)

I only learned quite some sexual words but not all of them. Usefull in the bedroom.

Bad words I learned only 3 or 4, because I try to express myself always in a positive way.
Learning them all would be just a waste of time, because I won’t use them anyways.

7.) Jia you er nv (or any other TV comedy show)
Nice little TV comedy show. Although I understand close to nothing it’s so funny, that I keep watching it. Try it and see if You can make anything out of it. Since it’s comedy You can understand a lot by just watching. Helps to keep focused.
8.) MIT OCW Chinese
MIT open course ware offers a Chinese course which is free to download here:
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Foreign-Languages-and-Literatures/index.htm
I use the regular course, the streamlined seems a little odd.
Downloaded this course 2 months ago and started using it last week.
Their sentences seem a bit over formal, however their explainations of grammar is incredibly good. Seems to be a real gem.

9.) Regular vocab repeating
While there are a lot of words out there, You really have to discriminate what words to learn, and which to save for later learning. If there is one word in my textbook which if think is rather useless, I won’t learn it for the moment. I make notice of words I encounter more than once in real life and put them on a top spot in my vocab-to-learn-list. Maybe You try flashcards for memorization.

10.) Talk to speakers with a bad English (grammar)
This one seems a bit odd. However I realized, that a lot of Chinese, who never had formal English lessons, use English words and apply Chinese grammar. Especially if they come form a lower educated background. This helped me more than once to understand their grammar better. Just listen carefully.

11.) Multiple opinions
When I have a question on Chinese I ask several people on a opinion on this topic. I’ve learned, especially when it comes to colloquial speech, that in different parts of China there are different ways to express one thing. So I ask several and draw my conclusions out of it. This is quite a democratic method.

12.) Chinese class
I used to go to a Chinese class, but I’m not going to one now. I feel that a class is incredibly helpful in the beginning, but at some point You are able to follow the textbook by Yourself. However keep contact with Your previous teachers (if You had some) to ask them the occasional very difficult stuff.

13.) Chinese girlfriend
She will be very happy to talk to You in Chinese and You can practice every day.

What I’m planning to do (counting continued)

I’m going to keep up all the things I mentioned above, but I’d like to add some things for the future.

14.) Slang words book
Just 1 hour ago I went to the bookstore and bought this book called “Popular Chinese expressions” isbn: 9787 8020 0100 8
My first impression of it is good. Features Chinese sentences and their English translations. Unfortunately there is no pinyin inside. The translations seem to be not very literal, but they should be pretty good translate the meaning. I’ll check this back with a native Chinese speaker who has a good grasp of English.

There is another book called “Outrageous Chinese”.
It’s out of print for several years, but from the reviews it must be really really good. You can find it on ebay for astronomical prices once in a while. Still need to get a copy of this.

15.) Read a contemporary Chinese book with a limited vocabulary
I saw some of these books at the bookstore. At the moment way beyond my limits, but if I intensify my Character studies, this should be doable soon.

16.) I learned 2 songs by heart so far.
- Happy birthday (Chinese version)
- Liang zhi laohu
These can be used at lots of situations I realized, I want to expand here and learn a few more. I also want to learn some short cool texts, maybe some quotes from movies.

conclusion
This is my list of things I do. This list is by no means complete, yet it describes my main efforts.

I hope some guys who learned Chinese could add more hints on how to successfully master Chinese. Keep up Your efforts.

Update: Some new ideas for learning Chinese

Related Articles:

• Talking to Chinese strangers
• Why to learn Chinese at a University
• Starting out with Chinese