Getting that Mandarin feeling
chrismarsh
April 05, 2009, 09:13 PM posted in General DiscussionHi, I suspect I know the answer to this question, but maybe someone could give an additional view. As a beginner Mandarin learner I have at times felt as though I really 'get' the way the language works, thinking about how sentences are structured it at times seems really logical, 'natural', and you have one of those "I get it!" moments :) ...
...Unfortunately this feeling only comes fleetingly at the moment :( and so I was wondering whether you have any suggestions about how to really 'get' how the language is put together? Maybe I'm just looking for a magic bullet when the answer is practce, practice, and more practice, but maybe there is something in particular which you could recommend which could help us students naturalise that Mandarin feeling...I find just listening to Mandarn, even though I can't understand it, helps you get the rhythmn...any other suggestions...?
Thanks, Chris
Tal
April 13, 2009, 11:19 AM@kimiik - you're right! So no worries. It's now many years since I gave up on my teenage dream of fluency in French, (with good reason as you can see!) I've learned the importance of perseverance too late in life.
Nice link, and a good illustration of how the French see sex in everything. (j/k!)
ptsmith
April 06, 2009, 04:51 AMI have heard that called the "Ah-Ha!" moment. I've been at this for two years and have had my moments too. As for methods, I agree with reigau, use multiple streams. When the brain is presented with information from different directions, it seems to absorb it better for me. But specifically, I listen to lots of chinese pop music CDs and watch all the movies I can. They are a nice (and easy) addition to more traditional methods. Mostly, keep at it!
helenhelen
April 06, 2009, 01:05 PMMy biggest 'Ah-hah!' moment was practising tones in pairs. (Examples; http://www.sinosplice.com/lang/tone-pair-drills/02/ -谢谢 John!) It was a bit magic, like cutting out a step between hearing something and knowing what it means :-)
Tal
April 12, 2009, 07:25 AMI've just been reading this interesting and amusing article about why learning Chinese is such a challenge (for most people!) The author admits upfront that his piece is something of a whinge, but it does contain some interesting insights and experiences I feel.
RJ
April 12, 2009, 08:20 AMreigau,
just read the article, Id say he nailed it. Maybe I should take up Spanish. JP where are you?
Tal
April 12, 2009, 08:40 AM'Nailed it' indeed rj! Ahh, and those latino girls are so passionate, (so I've heard!)
zhenlijiang
April 13, 2009, 12:49 AMhi reigau, i too like to commiserate from time to time and compare my struggle to proficiency with fellow students'. however. about this article ...
yes it was (surprisingly, for being written by someone who has been studying more than 5 years--shouldn't he know better?) very whingey, and a tough read. the only other point i heartily agreed with him on is that his pov is anglo-american (NOT that all, or even most, students coming from anglo-american backgrounds are like him). i would say he downright lacks in perspective. while the native french speakers here may disagree, french is so close to english you can so often literal-translate your way across reading, if not colloqial speech. so his constant comparison to learning french strikes me as pathetic. as for japanese not being as hard as chinese ...? really?
having said that, unless i'm mistaken this was written by 莫大伟 aka David Moser (he's famous in china isn't he? like an american 大山? saw him on tv in japan once), in 1991. so we could conclude that even such a whingey sixth-year learner with no perspective, if he doesn't give up but remains dedicated to his studies and gives of himself (much more than just time), can eventually become "very fluent"--say maybe fifteen years later. at some point he probably dropped the whingey attitude and gained some perspective. in any case, that's really not bad at all (not being sarcastic).
so in that way, it's an inspirational piece. thanks for sharing!
Tal
April 13, 2009, 01:46 AMHi zhenlijiang! You make some good points. I did warn you about the whingeing! Actually I think that's deliberately exaggerated, partly for humour and partly to 'let off steam'. I think several of his anecdotes are quite amusing though, for example the one where he's in the restaurant and his companion asks him to translate the classical Chinese scroll on the wall.
I have (almost) no experience of Japanese, I think it's probably true to say that most westerners would also consider that an extremely difficult language to learn, (usually based on little knowledge).
I live in Guangdong in the south of China, where the local people speak 潮汕话 (Cháo-Shàn huà) as their first language. They are immensely proud of how difficult this language is, how it has 8 (or more?) tones compared to Mandarin's 4. Local people have a reputation for treating Mandarin speakers in an unfriendly way because they know they must be outsiders.
Anyway a (linguistically gifted) colleague of mine who is a native of this place has told me in conversation that she studied Japanese at university and found it fairly easy. She said that in many ways it reminded her of her native language. She also speaks 广东话 of course (which she considers easier to learn than 潮汕话) and Mandarin, (which she considers easiest of all!) I guess the issue of whether a language is hard depends after all on your point of view!
miantiao
April 13, 2009, 01:56 AMreigau,
great article, cheers for that. his main point being chinese is the most difficult language to master in terms of time needed to become not only fluent but literate, and that it's very much easier to study a language of the same family as one's native 'instrument', no new news there.
however, he has pointed out many of the problems associated with studying chinese from a western point of view. quite perceptive in fact.
loved some of his anecdotes, and examples, particularly in regard to the writing system.
tonal languages are the most arbitrary.
@zhenlijiang, he could have used spanish, which he does mention, italian, or german. you miss the point.
'while the native french speakers here may disagree, french is so close to english you can so often translate your way across reading, if not colloqial speech'.
as such you must be a true linguistic genius.
while many words, as the article points out, may be recognised in other european languages, there are also many key words that are not and thus to be able to translate an article or such would require, as the author suggests, at least a year of formal study. to be able to translate literature and newspaper article the author suggests three years of formal study, quite economical really when you consider the complexity of chinese.
the author is basically pointing out what many of us already know or suspect.
zhenlijiang
April 06, 2009, 03:19 AMchrismarsh, a fellow Japanese i was working with who really needed English in his position on a daily basis once asked me what the secret is to "mastering" English. he said he was making the effort, taking classes at this no-good "conversation school" as often as he could after work. then he grabbed a dictionary lying on the table and said, "aargh i should just eat this" and pretended to bite. and i was tempted to suggest that devouring (and if possible digesting) a dictionary actually is a good place to start. i didn't mean that in an unkind way either. we're not small children, we're adults so that's the kind of effort i think it will take us.
your "just listening" i think is also good. being around and listening to people speaking Chinese with each other is obviously v good. i hear that watching TV / movies with Chinese subtitles is immensely effective (always amazed at how conversational in Japanese the Chinese people who come here become in 2-3 months, they say it's from watching Japanese tv).
yes i know what you mean by the "i get it!" moments. actually i think that happens more when you're coming from English than, say, my native Japanese. i came to CPod because i wanted someone to talk to about those things.
hope that helps a bit.
zhenlijiang
April 13, 2009, 02:08 AMreigau, yes. a former tutor from HK (best language 广东话, then 普通话 then 英语) would say to me all the time--mandarin easy! as in, come on, you think this is hard? you should try cantonese. now she found japanese an extremely steep hill to climb (but a lot of that i think was fundamental lack of interest). i should refrain from trying to explain how japanese is linked to cantonese as my knowledge on that is virtually nil, just to say there are traces, such as in how we say our numbers 1 to 10, of the pronunciation that are not from mandarin but from cantonese (??). i do need to learn a lot more about japanese, which for the record many natives find difficult. it is a language very easy to be unwittingly 不礼貌 in, esp if you imagine you're quite fluent.
as for my own perspective, i know. i imagine i'm aware, but actually probably do not truly appreciate how difficult the reading and writing is for anyone who doesn't have hanzi in their language.
zhenlijiang
April 13, 2009, 02:19 AMmiantiao, sorry i didn't make my meaning explicit enough but was not saying you wouldn't have to formally study french at all. of course i don't think i'm a genuis. i only studied french at school. and i do think it is especially close to english.
Tal
April 13, 2009, 02:38 AMGeneralisations can mislead as often as they enlighten! English people (of whom I am one!) have a reputation for being lazy about learning foreign languages, and we are usually appalled by French and German when we are introduced to them at school.
The genders of nouns for example, le (masculine) and la (feminine) in French. Why is a table female (la table) and a chair male (le chaise) I used to wonder? lol I recall my beginner's delight that 汉语 did not bother with such nonsense, and that the forms of verbs did not change according to the tense!
changye
April 13, 2009, 05:57 AMHi reigau
You are right. Learning Chinese grammar is almost equal to learning word order rules. You don't have to pay attention to gender, case, conjugation, inflection and so on. Modern Mandarin is definitely easier to learn/teach than German, for example. Of course, to "master" Chinese is a rather tough job, maybe as difficult as mastering any other language. But to achieve an intermediate level in Mandarin proficiency is relatively easy.
P/S. Actually, looking up a Chinese dictionary is not difficult. At least, you would find your target character/word in unchanged form in a dictionary. You don't need to recall its root form, since there is no such conception as "root form" in Mandarin grammar, hehe.
Tal
April 13, 2009, 08:09 AM"But to achieve an intermediate level in Mandarin proficiency is relatively easy."
Well my friend it has taken me 6 years to attain that intermediate level, (and I sometimes feel that I am flattering myself with the intermediate label!) And I have actually been living in China for the last 5 of them. I am a 'mature learner' (lol) however, and largely self-taught. I never seem to get the time or opportunity to take advantage of more formal tuition.
As you say 'relatively easy', which reminds me of much of the content of David Moser's article.
对了，@zhenlijiang, I was trying to say that my multi-lingual colleague considered the 潮汕话 (Cháoshàn huà) similar to or reminiscent of Japanese, rather than 广东话 (Cantonese). This language (to my ear anyway) sounds as different to standard 普通话 as say, English does to Italian, and others have told me that it is also very different from Cantonese. I'm sure you're familiar with the whole 地方化 thing in China. Before I came here I was more than a little unprepared for the linguistic diversity of China, how the language can be utterly different not just from province to province, but from city to city! It's very disorienting and a little vexing for westerners like me. One reason I don't get the Mandarin practise I would like is because when you wander abroad in this area you don't hear so much Mandarin, you hear this local language, and even when people speak Mandarin, I often don't realise at first, maybe because of their accent. Ah well, c'est la vie!
zhenlijiang
April 13, 2009, 08:33 AMreigau yes thanks, i got that, though my lack of knowledge re/chaoshanhua produced a not quite appropriate response.
when we begin learning mandarin our teachers are always assuring us that 普通话 is really really 普通; of course they aren't lying to us. but like you say the reality on the ground once you're there must be something quite different. with hindi, which i started studying once, after three weeks i realized that i would not be understood/ understanding in many areas in the south of india so decided to give up and focus instead on becoming familiar with the english spoken in india. they have many official languages there don't they--so interesting. language always exists for and belongs to the locals doesn't it. doesn't matter how inaccessible we foreigners might find it. so yes you're right, c'est la vie. let's enjoy.
zhenlijiang
April 13, 2009, 09:26 AMmy hindi episode is a good example of shallowness by one who "thinks it would be a good idea" to "invest in mastering" a certain language, then promptly opting for cool-off as soon as it "doesn't work for me like i thought it would". and languages aren't products; they are culture and real people's means of communication--as i know everybody here knows (still i do often find that i have to say this in japan, mostly about english).
kimiik
April 13, 2009, 10:02 AM@Reigau,
Sorry to bring back a small mistake in one of your last messages : "Why is a table female (la table) and a chair male (le chaise) I used to wonder?"
Actually, a chair is also female in french (la chaise) but a stool is male (le tabouret).
There's a famous sketch by Roland Magdane on that same subject : Masculin-Féminin
changye
April 13, 2009, 02:05 AMLearning Chinese characters is just a matter of memory, and thankfully Chinese grammar is much less complicated than those of some western languages such as German and French. Chinese might be mentally difficult for most western guys to learn due to its "unfamiliar" notation system, but actually it's not as hard as they imagine. I have a question. Which do you think is more difficult for American people, learning German/French or Chinese? Which do you think is more complicated grammatically, "Ich liebe dich" or 我爱你? I believe that "I love you" is much closer to 我爱你 than to “Ich liebe dich”.
Tal
April 06, 2009, 02:42 AMWell Chris, I hear you, but my view is: yes, there is no magic bullet; and: yes, the answer is practise, practise, practise, (and by that I mean trying out as many different kinds of learning as you can, don't just stick to one method that you like.)
I believe that every language has its own internal 'logic' which can seem mystifying to non-natives trying to learn that language. You just have to buy into that alien logic, and little by little, it comes.
I started learning Mandarin back in 2003, and I still consider myself a beginner. I do know the feeling you mention, but as a language teacher myself I also believe that at times its almost impossible to be objective about the progress one has made. (We humans are by nature troubled by self-doubt, the ever present nagging internal voice telling us we're not up to the grade, we can't do this or that, etc.) The only truly reliable measure of one's progress is: can you communicate (at any level) with natives who speak that language? Could you be suddenly put down on the streets of Shanghai and manage to find your way to food, shelter, a friendly face, at the very least someone willing to help you? More and more often these days, I pass this test!
Every year some of my (Chinese) students (of English) ask me for the secret. 'What's the best way to become good at English?' they ask me. 'What's the best study method?' And each year I disappoint them by telling them the truth, (as I see it.) There is no secret, there is no ideal study method, (how could there be when people are so very different in the way they learn?)
I tell them that like any skill, the more time they spend studying and practising, the better they will become. I also tell them that patience and perseverance are (imho) the only 'secret' there is, that learning a language well is a project for a lifetime. (A few downcast faces at this point, these guys always turn out to be the basketball or computer game fanatics!)