Chinese (Mandarin) quick learning tips

I'm trying to pick up a very basic amount of Mandarin. I've been obsessed with mainland Chinese food for a while and want to visit there soon, and also my gf's grandmother speaks it and I want to be mildly impressive.

So I don't really care about being "good" or even very conversational. Broken vocab and grammar is fine as long as I can get the general point across. Speaking/listening are the main things for sure, writing/reading is really secondary.

I've been going through the Duolingo lessons a bit and they are nice so far. I'm trying to copy their tonal pronunciation and it seems okay, but I don't know how accurate it is. Any tips on improving that and also listening, without having native speakers around?

@SantaRPidgey

Think you should at least learn some pinyin. Much easier if you just want to converse based on those rather than actual Chinese characters.

@SantaRPidgey

Edit: whoops didnt read the OP first

doesn't @5tarscream live in China? maybe he can help

if you're not looking to read and write then you just have to watch dramas or conversational youtube videos

handsomeboy2012 posted...

Think you should at least learn some pinyin. Much easier if you just want to converse based on those rather than actual Chinese characters.

Yeah I wish duolingo showed the pinyin for characters but it doesn't. I don't mind learning the characters though since it helps with Kanji which I have been learning also. I want my brain to recognize radicals and such. So I guess I do care about reading to the extent that it helps with Japanese.

This is a pretty good tonal video that helped me get it situated back when I was learning



Once you get more comfortable with tones you'll realize that the tones come from different areas of your mouth and it will become a little more fluid.

Chinese is much much more about mouth movements than any other language. There's a reason why it's it hard to switch between english words and chinese words in conversation. Practice listening to the difference between lin and ling and xin and xing learn how to pronounce the "r" properly and the difference between qu and chu (and then when you learn it teach it to me lol)

The truth is I started learning mandarin in the same way "just to be kind of impressive" and I reached that point at about a year in with some intense level study. I'm now at the point where I can have boring conversations with native chinese speakers and only have them ask me to clarify my self once every 10 sentences. Chances are you'll fall in love with the language pretty quickly.

If you do fall for it, start on stroke order immediately. The "hello chinese" app is a good one for that. Stroke order will help you memorize the thousands of different characters.

EmoCombeeDancin posted...

Chances are you'll fall in love with the language pretty quickly.

I mean I quite like it so far but probably not. This would be my 6th language (including natives) that I've learned to various usable degrees, and the only one I really want to develop further and into professional territory is Japanese. Sometime later I imagine I might want to go farther on Mandarin but this is really just for a party trick.

Def gonna check out that vid. So far I haven't had much trouble with tones, but I'm not getting them checked by a native speaker. I can say all 4 tones for most sounds for example, though some are tough. There's only some that I can't differentiate like shui3 vs xue2.

Nothing harder than Russian though. That one took like 2 years to get decent.

foolm0r0n posted...

my gf's

wait what did i miss

also isn't meisnewbie chinese? does he still post?

Mr Lasastryke posted...

wait what did i miss

I came out as a straight man a few months ago

finally

Hey I'd also recommend the Skritter or ChineseSkill apps to begin with. They both start very simple but they're useful for starting out. The tones are much more important for foreigners to learn than Chinese natives. We have to basically over emphasise the tones because Chinese people automatically assume you can't speak Mandarin. If you want any specific help then shoot me a message and I'll be happy to try.

EmoCombeeDancin posted...

you'll realize that the tones come from different areas of your mouth

Still haven't watched that vid but from copying Duolingo voices I feel like this has started to click. I can feel how the sounds resonate in different parts of the mouth. 1st tone is all in the front, 2 is all near the throat, 3 is flat and spreads in cheeks almost, and 4 is 2 but the other direction.

ok yeah that tone pairing system is really good

@EmoCombeeDancin side note I'm gonna be in Seattle/Bellevue again end of this month

oh nice I'll def come out and hang out.

I'll see if Mrs. Claus' sister can come

EmoCombeeDancin posted...

I'll see if Mrs. Claus' sister can come

Yessss