Here are a few notes for you. They are long - my apologies beforehand, this is from a few years of research - but I'm hoping that they will be of use. Of course skip or ignore anything you find not to be useful to your own experience.
There's a fair amount of evidence that authentic materials and language contact are the way to go. There are many, many sites which explain the experiences of people who have learned using only or mostly authentic materials. Here are a few:
www.alljapaneseallthetime.com (a Kenyan who never took a class and learned decent Japanese in 1.5 years)
www.spanish-only.com (young man in the Netherlands who similarly went from 'zero' to near-native ability with Spanish in 1.5 years, surpassing his classmates who diligently attended classes and still had problems understanding native speakers, despite doing all the fill-in-the-blank exercises and learning lists of vocabulary)
http://www.algworld.com/approach.php (Automatic Language Growth, a site with many articles to download - a bit academic, but useful input)
http://www.victoria.ac.nz/home/about/newspubs/news/ViewNews.aspx?id=2458&newslabel=hn (article on research to do with the importance of listening)
http://www.antimoon.com/how/input.htm (young man in Poland whose English is impeccable; he describes his methods on the site and offers many interesting anecdotes)
http://www.antimoon.com/how/reading-cases.htm (the page where this same man in Poland writes on the power of reading)
http://www.apronus.com/norsk/ (site where one of the original Antimoon authors decides to take up Norwegian; he also describes his methods, report by report, rather drily, even scientifically, but it can offer some inspiration)
Teaching Chinese is big business these days. Students' motivations are many (always, it is 'the reason why you do it'), and they may try any number of methods. More often than not - from what I have seen, at least - it includes starting with some type of textbook or a site such as this to get them started, with gradual increases in comprehension and ability to speak and write. But one can add to this study routine in the following way: download the audio book of 'Dream of Red Mansions' (红楼梦), or some other book which interests you free of charge, and listen to it daily. Try it and see what happens. This is free of fees and other 'instructional advice' from experts, and it may get you quite far.
The main thing: understanding is not important. Don't place too much undue stress on yourself, as we have enough of that coming from so many other directions these days. (This can also link us up in unpleasant ways to our childhood school experiences.) Make it enjoyable, just follow the rhythms, and be neutral but pleased as words make their appearance, then recede again, then make their appearance again. If the reader of the audio book is good, and gets inspired from time to time, you might get inspired too . . . and this is all without the stresses of a 'lesson'.
This is an ongoing research, not definitive by any means. I just heard your cry and thought that you may find this useful.
A quote from one of the articles of the ALG site:
It seems that the difference between adults and children is not that adults have lost the ability to do it right, (that is, to pick up languages natively by listening) but that children haven’t yet gained the ability to do it wrong (that is, to spoil it all with contrived speaking). We’re suggesting that it’s this contrived speaking (consciously thinking up one’s sentences – whether it be with translations, rules, substitutions, expansions, or any other kind of thinking) that damages adults, even when the sentences come out right). We’re also suggesting that natural speaking (speaking that comes by itself) won’t cause damage (not even when it’s wrong). It seems that the harm doesn’t come from being wrong but from thinking things up.
One more quote from the same article:
Now it would appear that the brain is incapable of this kind of contriving before the age of 10-12, so the children are automatically protected; whenever natural sentences don’t ‘pop into their heads’ they have to keep quiet. Of course children do come up with lots of ill-formed sentences, but these sentences aren’t contrived; they pop out of incompletely formed language. But with adults, whenever a sentence fails to pop they contrive one. You can spot this contriving from the typical hesitation sounds (uh...er...mmm...) as they struggle. These sounds suggest that they’re building the language in the wrong place – the place that thinks. This part of the brain is the adults’ pride and joy, but it sure is an awkward place to put a language. Now the question is how can we get the language into the right place? And the ALG answer is to just stop ‘trying to think it in’ – to simply switch channels from ‘try’ to ‘let’. And it seems that the ‘let’ channel is still alive and well in the adult brain. Nothing has been lost.
Again, this is an ongoing research. I'm currently trying to put this all into practice. I gave my lady, who is Chinese and is - previously desperately - trying to acquire workable Dutch for her national residence exam, a copy of The Hobbit, the audio book ,read out in Dutch translation, for the New Year. (She also got The Diary of Anne Frank, which she has not started yet.) She just has it playing in the background, much of the time when she is at home. (My version of this process was to get The Lord of the Rings [指环王] in Chinese.) Rather than cramming, memorizing word lists, and somehow intellectually trying to control the language, she lets this play in the background. After a few weeks of this, she now understands quite a lot. Her systems have done the work of it. And this is in contrast to very expensive Dutch classes where the Dutch teacher speaks a great deal in English, describes grammar in English and, at the slightest hesitation in a student's speaking, interrupts with English so that the student 'will understand'.
But understanding, at this stage, is not the point.
According to the ALG people, one should have around 800 hours of such input before approaching the task of speaking. If you start too soon, you'll be using the old native-language assembly to produce the sounds and structures; it will of necessity come out mechanically.
One recent example: Today I just saw 香蕉, the word for a person of Chinese descent who has grown up in a foreign (usually Western) culture on a vocabulary list here. I tried intellectually to grasp it . . . right, I thought, yellow, white, etc. . . . But then appeared the question, 'Where have I heard this before?' I knew the word already, without thinking, and remembered the exact situation, a moment during a car ride just outside of Beijing, when the word entered a conversation and became real. A very different part of me handled that word than the part which was examining the vocabulary list.
Another example: Today I also read a post by a Chinese specialist here who noted that 小姐 xiao3jie0 is actually pronounced xiao2jie0, even though the second tone is 'no tone'. The same note was made about na3li0 being na2li0 in actual speech. I thought about this for a minute and realized, 'right', and then proceeded to consider how I could remember this . . . but wait, I had heard this many times and would never think of having other tones in these cases. It is only if a person has not had enough 'input', through listening, or through reading if for characters, that such explanations are needed.
Probably some balance should be found among the various learning methods.
Final notes: There are many 'teachers', but curiously enough, it is often not what is 'being taught' which sticks with us (or me, at least), but some side issue . . . the way Xu Zhou spontaneously adds a story from his childhood (not scripted) and emphasizes a phrase - without any vocabulary note whatsoever - an awkward pause in the dialogue, the way a conductivity appears when people are pleased to be making the recordings and begin to enjoy the process . . .
Also, try reading even when you understand nothing. Don't try intellectually to grasp it all. That will take years. There are parts of us which can recognize patterns and meaning; this often can get squashed in traditional learning environments.
None of this is final, of course. It is all a work and research in progress.
Wish you all success in your studies, that is, language acquisition.
PS Some of the sites above, written by young men exploring language learning, can have some rude language. My apologies for that. So maybe overlook those parts and try to see what they are pointing at with their study methods, which they themselves are continually researching and trying to refine.
PSS If you have a native Chinese language teacher who tries to use English for all the descriptions, or writes you e-mails in English, 'so that you'll understand', even at basic level, run from that (to put it mildly) - that is actually not constructive.
Posted on: Product Localization
April 24, 2011 at 1:52 PMHello 'Moving to China':
Here are a few notes for you. They are long - my apologies beforehand, this is from a few years of research - but I'm hoping that they will be of use. Of course skip or ignore anything you find not to be useful to your own experience.
There's a fair amount of evidence that authentic materials and language contact are the way to go. There are many, many sites which explain the experiences of people who have learned using only or mostly authentic materials. Here are a few:
www.alljapaneseallthetime.com (a Kenyan who never took a class and learned decent Japanese in 1.5 years)
www.spanish-only.com (young man in the Netherlands who similarly went from 'zero' to near-native ability with Spanish in 1.5 years, surpassing his classmates who diligently attended classes and still had problems understanding native speakers, despite doing all the fill-in-the-blank exercises and learning lists of vocabulary)
http://www.algworld.com/approach.php (Automatic Language Growth, a site with many articles to download - a bit academic, but useful input)
http://www.victoria.ac.nz/home/about/newspubs/news/ViewNews.aspx?id=2458&newslabel=hn (article on research to do with the importance of listening)
http://www.antimoon.com/how/input.htm (young man in Poland whose English is impeccable; he describes his methods on the site and offers many interesting anecdotes)
http://www.antimoon.com/how/reading-cases.htm (the page where this same man in Poland writes on the power of reading)
http://www.apronus.com/norsk/ (site where one of the original Antimoon authors decides to take up Norwegian; he also describes his methods, report by report, rather drily, even scientifically, but it can offer some inspiration)
Teaching Chinese is big business these days. Students' motivations are many (always, it is 'the reason why you do it'), and they may try any number of methods. More often than not - from what I have seen, at least - it includes starting with some type of textbook or a site such as this to get them started, with gradual increases in comprehension and ability to speak and write. But one can add to this study routine in the following way: download the audio book of 'Dream of Red Mansions' (红楼梦), or some other book which interests you free of charge, and listen to it daily. Try it and see what happens. This is free of fees and other 'instructional advice' from experts, and it may get you quite far.
The main thing: understanding is not important. Don't place too much undue stress on yourself, as we have enough of that coming from so many other directions these days. (This can also link us up in unpleasant ways to our childhood school experiences.) Make it enjoyable, just follow the rhythms, and be neutral but pleased as words make their appearance, then recede again, then make their appearance again. If the reader of the audio book is good, and gets inspired from time to time, you might get inspired too . . . and this is all without the stresses of a 'lesson'.
This is an ongoing research, not definitive by any means. I just heard your cry and thought that you may find this useful.
A quote from one of the articles of the ALG site:
It seems that the difference between adults and children is not that adults have lost the ability to do it right, (that is, to pick up languages natively by listening) but that children haven’t yet gained the ability to do it wrong (that is, to spoil it all with contrived speaking). We’re suggesting that it’s this contrived speaking (consciously thinking up one’s sentences – whether it be with translations, rules, substitutions, expansions, or any other kind of thinking) that damages adults, even when the sentences come out right). We’re also suggesting that natural speaking (speaking that comes by itself) won’t cause damage (not even when it’s wrong). It seems that the harm doesn’t come from being wrong but from thinking things up.
One more quote from the same article:
Now it would appear that the brain is incapable of this kind of contriving before the age of 10-12, so the children are automatically protected; whenever natural sentences don’t ‘pop into their heads’ they have to keep quiet. Of course children do come up with lots of ill-formed sentences, but these sentences aren’t contrived; they pop out of incompletely formed language. But with adults, whenever a sentence fails to pop they contrive one. You can spot this contriving from the typical hesitation sounds (uh...er...mmm...) as they struggle. These sounds suggest that they’re building the language in the wrong place – the place that thinks. This part of the brain is the adults’ pride and joy, but it sure is an awkward place to put a language. Now the question is how can we get the language into the right place? And the ALG answer is to just stop ‘trying to think it in’ – to simply switch channels from ‘try’ to ‘let’. And it seems that the ‘let’ channel is still alive and well in the adult brain. Nothing has been lost.
Again, this is an ongoing research. I'm currently trying to put this all into practice. I gave my lady, who is Chinese and is - previously desperately - trying to acquire workable Dutch for her national residence exam, a copy of The Hobbit, the audio book ,read out in Dutch translation, for the New Year. (She also got The Diary of Anne Frank, which she has not started yet.) She just has it playing in the background, much of the time when she is at home. (My version of this process was to get The Lord of the Rings [指环王] in Chinese.) Rather than cramming, memorizing word lists, and somehow intellectually trying to control the language, she lets this play in the background. After a few weeks of this, she now understands quite a lot. Her systems have done the work of it. And this is in contrast to very expensive Dutch classes where the Dutch teacher speaks a great deal in English, describes grammar in English and, at the slightest hesitation in a student's speaking, interrupts with English so that the student 'will understand'.
But understanding, at this stage, is not the point.
According to the ALG people, one should have around 800 hours of such input before approaching the task of speaking. If you start too soon, you'll be using the old native-language assembly to produce the sounds and structures; it will of necessity come out mechanically.
One recent example: Today I just saw 香蕉, the word for a person of Chinese descent who has grown up in a foreign (usually Western) culture on a vocabulary list here. I tried intellectually to grasp it . . . right, I thought, yellow, white, etc. . . . But then appeared the question, 'Where have I heard this before?' I knew the word already, without thinking, and remembered the exact situation, a moment during a car ride just outside of Beijing, when the word entered a conversation and became real. A very different part of me handled that word than the part which was examining the vocabulary list.
Another example: Today I also read a post by a Chinese specialist here who noted that 小姐 xiao3jie0 is actually pronounced xiao2jie0, even though the second tone is 'no tone'. The same note was made about na3li0 being na2li0 in actual speech. I thought about this for a minute and realized, 'right', and then proceeded to consider how I could remember this . . . but wait, I had heard this many times and would never think of having other tones in these cases. It is only if a person has not had enough 'input', through listening, or through reading if for characters, that such explanations are needed.
Probably some balance should be found among the various learning methods.
Final notes: There are many 'teachers', but curiously enough, it is often not what is 'being taught' which sticks with us (or me, at least), but some side issue . . . the way Xu Zhou spontaneously adds a story from his childhood (not scripted) and emphasizes a phrase - without any vocabulary note whatsoever - an awkward pause in the dialogue, the way a conductivity appears when people are pleased to be making the recordings and begin to enjoy the process . . .
Also, try reading even when you understand nothing. Don't try intellectually to grasp it all. That will take years. There are parts of us which can recognize patterns and meaning; this often can get squashed in traditional learning environments.
None of this is final, of course. It is all a work and research in progress.
Wish you all success in your studies, that is, language acquisition.
PS Some of the sites above, written by young men exploring language learning, can have some rude language. My apologies for that. So maybe overlook those parts and try to see what they are pointing at with their study methods, which they themselves are continually researching and trying to refine.
PSS If you have a native Chinese language teacher who tries to use English for all the descriptions, or writes you e-mails in English, 'so that you'll understand', even at basic level, run from that (to put it mildly) - that is actually not constructive.