What kind of Chinese would you like to learn?

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What kind of Chinese would you like to learn?

Postby Yaojia » 2016-02-25, 1:51

Hello, everybody!
I joined in this forum yesterday. I would like to know what kind of Chinese you'd like to learn!

First, I'd like to know when you started to learn Chinese.
Second, how do you learn Chinese?
Third, what do you learn Chinese for, interest, work or something else?
Fourth, do you like Chinese, or maybe you don't like it since you are forced to learn it?
Fifth, what do you think is the most difficult part to learn Chinese?
Sixth, are you happy with your Chinese studies now, such as the way you learn it, your level, your Chinese teacher, etc...

At last, if you had a choice, what kind of Chinese would you like to learn, basic Chinese, everyday speech, business Chinese...and how do you want to learn it?

Thank you for your time, I'm looking forward to your answers^^I hope we could help each other to learn!

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Re: What kind of Chinese would you like to learn?

Postby linguoboy » 2016-02-25, 2:33

When you asked "what kind of Chinese?" I thought you meant what variety, e.g. Standard Mandarin, Cantonese, Hakka, Jiaoliao, etc.

I chose to learn Taiwanese Mandarin in traditional script. My teacher was from Nantong (南通) by immigrated to Taiwan before coming to the USA.
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Re: What kind of Chinese would you like to learn?

Postby Yaojia » 2016-02-25, 3:07

linguoboy wrote:When you asked "what kind of Chinese?" I thought you meant what variety, e.g. Standard Mandarin, Cantonese, Hakka, Jiaoliao, etc.

I chose to learn Taiwanese Mandarin in traditional script. My teacher was from Nantong (南通) by immigrated to Taiwan before coming to the USA.


Thank you, I see now, I should have said what kind of “Mandarin Chinese” would you like to learn~~~~(>_<)~~~~
And thanks for your answer, traditional characters are nice, too bad we couldn't use it in daily life here in mainland China.

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Re: What kind of Chinese would you like to learn?

Postby Yasna » 2016-02-25, 15:45

I am learning Chinese mostly out of personal interest, but I hope it will be useful professionally at some point too. My goal is to become proficient enough to read newspapers and sophisticated books smoothly, understand all sorts of media, and have in-depth conversations on most topics I would be comfortable speaking about in English. Listening comprehension has proven to be the most difficult aspect, but I continue to improve so I think I'm on the right path.
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Re: What kind of Chinese would you like to learn?

Postby Yaojia » 2016-02-26, 3:11

Yasna wrote:I am learning Chinese mostly out of personal interest, but I hope it will be useful professionally at some point too. My goal is to become proficient enough to read newspapers and sophisticated books smoothly, understand all sorts of media, and have in-depth conversations on most topics I would be comfortable speaking about in English. Listening comprehension has proven to be the most difficult aspect, but I continue to improve so I think I'm on the right path.


Thank you Yasna, thank you for your answers in details. :) In my opinion, interest is the most important thing when you learn a foreign language, especially when this language has nothing in common with your native language.

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Re: What kind of Chinese would you like to learn?

Postby Núria Harket » 2016-10-15, 15:35

How to Learn Chinese While Remaining Sensitive to Regional Languages and Dialects


http://www.digmandarin.com/how-to-learn-chinese-regional-dialects.html

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Re: What kind of Chinese would you like to learn?

Postby mōdgethanc » 2016-10-15, 23:20

linguoboy wrote:When you asked "what kind of Chinese?" I thought you meant what variety, e.g. Standard Mandarin, Cantonese, Hakka, Jiaoliao, etc.

I chose to learn Taiwanese Mandarin in traditional script. My teacher was from Nantong (南通) by immigrated to Taiwan before coming to the USA.
Same to all of the above, except I think she was from Taipei.
First, I'd like to know when you started to learn Chinese.
Second, how do you learn Chinese?
Third, what do you learn Chinese for, interest, work or something else?
Fourth, do you like Chinese, or maybe you don't like it since you are forced to learn it?
Fifth, what do you think is the most difficult part to learn Chinese?
Sixth, are you happy with your Chinese studies now, such as the way you learn it, your level, your Chinese teacher, etc...

1) 2010
2) I'm taking a break from it, but I started with a tutor for about a year and I also took a year-long university course in it.
3) Mainly interest and because there is a huge Chinese population in Toronto and Canada in general.
4) Of course I like it. I wouldn't learn it if I didn't.
5) The script. I love it, but it just takes forever and involves a lot of memorization by repetition.
6) No, I wish I'd kept it up, but the need to learn other subjects is more pressing lately. I was happy with my teacher, but she moved out of town and I haven't found a new one. One-on-one tutoring with a native speaker for $5 an dollar was pretty sweet.
At last, if you had a choice, what kind of Chinese would you like to learn, basic Chinese, everyday speech, business Chinese...and how do you want to learn it?
Everyday Chinese, I guess. Enough to read a paper, watch a movie and have simple conversations. I don't want to write a PhD thesis in it.

As for which variety, I guess my favourite is Taiwanese Mandarin. I don't like the Beijing accent. The only other variety I would learn besides Mandarin is Cantonese, but I doubt I ever will.
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Re: What kind of Chinese would you like to learn?

Postby Meera » 2017-01-07, 20:21

I would like to learn Taiwanese Mandarin in traditional charecters, but I don't think that is too practical so I think if I was to learn Chinese I'd learn simplified.
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Re: What kind of Chinese would you like to learn?

Postby linguoboy » 2017-01-07, 21:23

Meera wrote:I would like to learn Taiwanese Mandarin in traditional charecters, but I don't think that is too practical so I think if I was to learn Chinese I'd learn simplified.

What makes you think it's not practical? That's exactly what I did in preparation for our trip to China.
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Re: What kind of Chinese would you like to learn?

Postby Meera » 2017-01-08, 0:02

linguoboy wrote:
Meera wrote:I would like to learn Taiwanese Mandarin in traditional charecters, but I don't think that is too practical so I think if I was to learn Chinese I'd learn simplified.

What makes you think it's not practical? That's exactly what I did in preparation for our trip to China.


I was thinking that maybe traditional wouldn't be used much or that course books wouldn't have it?
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Re: What kind of Chinese would you like to learn?

Postby mōdgethanc » 2017-01-10, 5:01

Meera wrote:I was thinking that maybe traditional wouldn't be used much or that course books wouldn't have it?
It isn't used much in the PRC, but there are plenty of books that teach it and knowing it would still help you read simplified since there's a lot of overlap. I learned traditional and found I could read simplified fairly well without having to look a lot of characters up. It's inevitable that you'll pick up some of both, really.
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Re: What kind of Chinese would you like to learn?

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-01-28, 16:23

mōdgethanc wrote:
Meera wrote:I was thinking that maybe traditional wouldn't be used much or that course books wouldn't have it?
It isn't used much in the PRC, but there are plenty of books that teach it and knowing it would still help you read simplified since there's a lot of overlap. I learned traditional and found I could read simplified fairly well without having to look a lot of characters up. It's inevitable that you'll pick up some of both, really.

Yeah. Simplified is just traditional with some of the characters changed, after all. :P In college, everyone in my Chinese classes had to be able to read both but also had to pick which one they wanted to write in. Most chose to write in traditional Chinese. I would expect other North American universities to be similar.

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Re: What kind of Chinese would you like to learn?

Postby mōdgethanc » 2017-02-25, 23:57

vijayjohn wrote:Yeah. Simplified is just traditional with some of the characters changed, after all. :P In college, everyone in my Chinese classes had to be able to read both but also had to pick which one they wanted to write in. Most chose to write in traditional Chinese. I would expect other North American universities to be similar.
You're lucky. Mine only taught shitplified.
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Re: What kind of Chinese would you like to learn?

Postby OldBoring » 2017-05-15, 20:50

Why do the laowai want to learn the feudal capitalist traditional characters. Simplified characters belong to the proletariat.

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Re: What kind of Chinese would you like to learn?

Postby mōdgethanc » 2017-05-16, 2:53

OldBoring wrote:Why do the laowai want to learn the feudal capitalist traditional characters. Simplified characters belong to the proletariat.
Because that shit is ugly, and feudal characters are still commonly used here.
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Re: What kind of Chinese would you like to learn?

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-09-16, 3:56

I had a minor discussion on Reddit in Chinese once with someone who was complaining about traditional characters after some guy who lived in Taiwan and was married to a Taiwanese lady used it.

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Re: What kind of Chinese would you like to learn?

Postby Karavinka » 2017-09-18, 6:52

Going from Traditional to Simplified isn't a big deal at all. I can tell from my own experiences that all it takes to go from Traditional to Simplified is just some getting used to the most common patterns, but it's reportedly much harder to go the other way around.

Not only the characters look more complex, Simplified Chinese often merges different characters into one. 志 (zhi4; will, intent) and 誌 (zhi4; record) become merged as 志; so the word for "magazine" (za2zhi4) is spelt 杂志 in Simplified, 雜誌 in Traditional but your "willpower" (yi4zhi4li4) is 意志力 in both Traditional and Simplified. I can imagine why going the other way can be headache.

First, I'd like to know when you started to learn Chinese.
Second, how do you learn Chinese?
Third, what do you learn Chinese for, interest, work or something else?
Fourth, do you like Chinese, or maybe you don't like it since you are forced to learn it?
Fifth, what do you think is the most difficult part to learn Chinese?
Sixth, are you happy with your Chinese studies now, such as the way you learn it, your level, your Chinese teacher, etc...


When:
Hard to tell. The first time I decided to learn any Mandarin was probably around 2008-ish, but I was doing some Classical Chinese with Hanja phonetics before that. I haven't done Chinese consistently though; there were long gaps here and there.

How:
Mostly by myself, sometimes listening and mostly reading. I don't care about speaking the language, though. I use the local dominant language whenever I talk to Chinese immigrants and students. (It's not that I have anything against them; I don't talk to immigrants in their language unless I'm near-native-fluent. It's a waste of time and energy on both sides not to use the common denominator language.)

Why:
Personal interest and the need/want to access modern academic/linguistic materials as well as Classical texts. You need to know Chinese if you're doing any sort of historical, philosophical, philological or literary stuff pertaining to the Far East. And that variety of Chinese is Classical; I actually find Modern Mandarin much more difficult than Classical texts because I'm simply not as used to Mandarin.

Like/Dislike:
I'm fairly neutral. I don't think the language is beautiful or ugly. I'm totally fine whether it's written in Simplified or Traditional, unless the text is Classical (then it has to be Traditional). To me, Chinese is kinda like a hammer or a screwdriver. It's a tool that is useful in the right situations, but most people don't get enamored by them.

Hard?:
I don't really think Chinese is a particularly difficult language. Some may say tones are hard, and I kinda agree. It took me ~50 hours of one-on-one with a Xi'an native tutor to get the pronunciation right; but it's like riding a bicycle, once you do it, you do it for the rest of your life. Interestingly, once you know how to do the tones, that skill transfers to other tonal languages; I had no problem learning Thai tones when I tried it.

Regarding the Hanzi, it's not necessarily _difficult_, it's just a fuck shit ton of things to remember. Learning the first five hundred is more difficult than the next 1500, so good luck there. Learning a new Hanzi can become almost trivial past +2000 as you'll readily recognize its components and have a rough guess at its phonetics.

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Re: What kind of Chinese would you like to learn?

Postby linguoboy » 2017-09-19, 2:23

Karavinka wrote:Going from Traditional to Simplified isn't a big deal at all. I can tell from my own experiences that all it takes to go from Traditional to Simplified is just some getting used to the most common patterns, but it's reportedly much harder to go the other way around.

Easier said than done, IME.

Karavinka wrote:Not only the characters look more complex, Simplified Chinese often merges different characters into one. 志 (zhi4; will, intent) and 誌 (zhi4; record) become merged as 志; so the word for "magazine" (za2zhi4) is spelt 杂志 in Simplified, 雜誌 in Traditional but your "willpower" (yi4zhi4li4) is 意志力 in both Traditional and Simplified. I can imagine why going the other way can be headache.

This also makes going from Traditional to Simplified a headache. 誌 contains the valuable clue that it means "record" in the form of the "speech" radical on the left. When I see 志, my mind seizes on "will" and it takes me a moment to remember that in Simplified it does double duty. I expect this effect would eventually fade with increased exposure (which would lead to recognising words like 杂志 as a gestalt rather than a compound), but exposure takes time and effort and I'd rather just read texts which don't present this difficulty.
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Re: What kind of Chinese would you like to learn?

Postby vijayjohn » 2018-01-09, 0:27

Karavinka wrote:Learning the first five hundred is more difficult than the next 1500, so good luck there. Learning a new Hanzi can become almost trivial past +2000 as you'll readily recognize its components and have a rough guess at its phonetics.

But maybe that depends on how you learn them, too! Right? I mean, I'm sure there are still radicals I'm not really familiar with, for example.

...You know what, I never answered these questions, did I? :o

I started to learn Chinese when I was, like, five? I started learning how to count to ten in Mandarin thanks to one of my dad's co-workers, who I think was from Shanghai or something and wrote out all the numbers from 1 to 10 in Hanzi, pinyin, and Arabic numerals. Then I spent many years learning just bits and pieces of Mandarin. I tried to learn a bit of Cantonese, too, but struggled with it a lot. In sixth grade, my first year of middle school, I started trying to learn Mandarin Chinese a bit more seriously with the help of an obliging Taiwanese American classmate who I remember being puzzled when I tried saying "你吃了吗?" to her (she responded "我 吃 了...pizza..." with a blank face, paused awkwardly for a few seconds, and then walked away). I tried speaking in Chinese several times to various people. When I tried it with people born in China or Taiwan, they were impressed; when I tried it with Taiwanese American classmates, they were usually weirded out by my Beijing accent. In high school, I started studying Mandarin Chinese more seriously. Then I minored in it in college.

Lately, I've been continuing with the Practical Chinese Reader series (the old one). I am now on Volume IV, Chapter 19. I really just learn it out of interest. I love Chinese, and I think I'm happy with my Chinese studies. The hardest part for me lately seems to be 多音字.

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Re: What kind of Chinese would you like to learn?

Postby do_shahbaz » 2020-08-07, 6:13

Ngu 吴, because the language is the easiest of all Chinese ones I believe, and maybe Hokkien if I can gulp its 8 tones down. And maybe Old Chinese (in its reconstructed pronunciation), to read those old texts.


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