Mandarin

[cRazy-]

So I know Nibby is learning Japanese at the moment and I've been tempted to start learning Mandarin, the most common language in China, so far I've just found random mini flash tutorials and other little bits here and there.

Does anyone here know Mandarin or anything about it?

[Pantho]

So I know Nibby is learning Japanese at the moment and I've been tempted to start learning Mandarin, the most common language in China, so far I've just found random mini flash tutorials and other little bits here and there.

Does anyone here know Mandarin or anything about it?

Its used in china

[mdares]

im ur resident (usa - cali) neocronplaying china man.

(yes im actually from china! and yes i actually speak chinese! and yes i also speak engrish! and yes i speak 3 other languages!)

but uh yeah enough self promo.

best way to learn chinny is to go hang out with chinnies...

[eLcHi]

@Crazy: PM me the link-farm you surely have collected so far on that topic :-)

[Sanctity]

I have been learning Mandarin for two years now at my local university. Grammar is not that hard, but the really hard thing is it's a completely alien language when your native language is european.

You'll need to spend a lot of time writing lines of characters regularly and you'll definitely need help with prununciation. When saying "ma", there are five possible tones, each one changing the meaning of the word from "horse", to "mother" or "insult".

You'll need a lot of time, but the good thing is japanese will be easier after this because you'll roughly now the meaning of kanjis. You'll also be able to understand what any chinese writes. Understanding what they say is another story.

I don't know how things go on your side of the pond, but try to get your hands on the most used method (with tapes, or CD's -you get my drift)used in universities and find chinese pals to check your prununciation from time to time.

Methods for learning mandarin in a short span of time can be helpful as a supplement. Alone they might not be enough for a long-term learning.


In the end you'll have to spend some time in China or your Mandarin will only be good written.

[Ryen]

So I know Nibby is learning Japanese at the moment and I've been tempted to start learning Mandarin, the most common language in China, so far I've just found random mini flash tutorials and other little bits here and there.

Does anyone here know Mandarin or anything about it?

Keep this is mind (although it's already been stated). English, German, Spanish, etc are all based loosely off of latin. Mandarin is not.

[Mr Kot]

The BBC have some good language tutorials. You can learn Mandarin here.

Never attempted any Mandarin myself, although i did dabble in Cantonese once when i had to teach a student who knew no english.

[Spermy]

Oh dear crazy.

My girlfriends best mate, in an effort to avoid student loan repayments has just finished a course in teaching english as a foreign language. She's off to china in june, and has been cramming mandarin for the last 6 months.

Apparently, the way our language works, and the mechanisms involved are the biggest impedement in learning it, french and spanish and most euro languages all have reasonably close ties with English, mandarin is totally alien.

All I can say is good luck pal

[nobby]

I tried it, hated it.

Stuck with Japanese!

do the same!

[Sanctity]

I must admit I'm having a blast learning it though. People no longer blink when they hear japanese in the street nowadays, but man Mandarin... ah ah ah , oh wow. Good times.

[Scaramanga]

I learnt a bit of a chinese dialect from a colleague afew years ago when i worked in a hospital in north borneo.

Swearing and food, start with those as they provide the most amusement and use.

Basically, practice. Just stick with it and keep speaking it, watching some dubbed kung fu movies might help.

Ni de lien how sia lan chau.

[Koshinn]

nihongo is harder than zhong guo hua. By far.
Mandarin's sentence structures at least make sense to the normal english speaker.

[nobby]

really?

The 5 Mo's are easier to understand than nihongo to the english speaker?

Thats bollocks and you know it!

[Sanctity]

Grammar in Mandarin isn't hard, and I'll give you that much. But. When a japanese speaks, regardless of the vocabulary he uses, you can actually picture in your mind romaji, or the syllabs. When a chinese speaks you have to figure which tone he is using for EACH syllab, and which word he is actually referring to. Shitloads of homonyms in chinese too, but with the added difficulty of tones.

Easy exemple: pick your average (not fluent in any asian language) friend and have him read the following sentences:

watashi no namae wa akira
wo shi mei guo ren

The first sentence will cause minor trouble for a japanese to understand, while the second sentence will never, never be understood by a native chinese. Learning Mandarin in the long run is like learning to use your tongue differently. Not so easy, since it's something we take for granted past childhood.

[nobby]

Japanese is syllables- I find it has a very simple word order which you can adjust to easily.
Cow heavy is ( also there's no "the" or "a" or "plaural" so it can be cows are heavy and It's easy to understand the speaker by this. )
pigeon clever is
nidhogg smelly is
and so on. also like our past tense, we add "ed" to the verb- doing word, ( knock-knocked) in japanese, "ikimasu" (pronounced i-ki-mass) meaning go, to put into past just remove the "u" and add shita (sh-ta) ikimasu-ikimashita go-went easy!
and they say all our j's w's g's ( well like a "ga" than jee)

chinese is alien tbh

like mumemahuen

too hard and smelly for me.