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12 Months of Mandarin

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Re: 12 Months of Mandarin

#91

Post by subarctic »

hintymad wrote: post #80

A side topic, for those who have acquired Mandarin, do you think Chinese is a really easy-to-learn language in the long run? Yes, learning all the characters has a steep learning curve, but once one passes that stage, it's all about combination of the characters. That Chinese's grammar is heavily influenced by modern English also helped. I feel that the grammatical similarity between English and Chinese is closer tha…

Is it similar to English? The one thing I remember is there's no tenses or gender.

Re: 12 Months of Mandarin

#92

Post by triyambakam »

cmuguythrow wrote: post #74

I’ve been learning Mandarin via Comprehensible Input (CI) for about 9 months and really admire OP’s dedication and consistency. In the first 4-5 months of being truly consistent with ~1hr a day of Anki and Peppa pig I got to around 2,000 words and was able to have a great experience when I traveled to Taiwan, so I can vouch for the core methodology in this post. It’s not “easy”, but it’s definitely the most effective…

Thank you so much for sharing!

Re: 12 Months of Mandarin

#93

Post by 15kingben »

cmuguythrow wrote: post #74

I’ve been learning Mandarin via Comprehensible Input (CI) for about 9 months and really admire OP’s dedication and consistency. In the first 4-5 months of being truly consistent with ~1hr a day of Anki and Peppa pig I got to around 2,000 words and was able to have a great experience when I traveled to Taiwan, so I can vouch for the core methodology in this post. It’s not “easy”, but it’s definitely the most effective…

DuChinese is a great app for reading stories at beginner levels of vocabulary. It also supports tap-to-lookup and saving words to flashcards, but unfortunately they don't integrate with Anki, only their own app's system.

Re: 12 Months of Mandarin

#94

Post by indigo945 »

hintymad wrote: post #80

A side topic, for those who have acquired Mandarin, do you think Chinese is a really easy-to-learn language in the long run? Yes, learning all the characters has a steep learning curve, but once one passes that stage, it's all about combination of the characters. That Chinese's grammar is heavily influenced by modern English also helped. I feel that the grammatical similarity between English and Chinese is closer tha…

    Yes, learning all the characters has a steep 
    learning curve, but once one passes that stage, ...
One never passes that stage, though? Even once you know the 6,000 characters that people often cite as being needed to read a novel, you'll still run into characters that you don't know (especially in proper names, but also in less common, especially literary or chengyu, vocabulary).

I also disagree about the "grammatical similarity", but at the point of fluency we're talking about here (day-to-day fluency in idiomatic Chinese), that doesn't matter anyway, not even a bit.

Re: 12 Months of Mandarin

#95

Post by triyambakam »

neves wrote: post #89
cmuguythrow wrote: post #74

I’ve been learning Mandarin via Comprehensible Input (CI) for about 9 months and really admire OP’s dedication and consistency. In the first 4-5 months of being truly consistent with ~1hr a day of Anki and Peppa pig I got to around 2,000 words and was able to have a great experience when I traveled to Taiwan, so I can vouch for the core methodology in this post. It’s not “easy”, but it’s definitely the most effective…

Peppa Pig is hard :-) What would a be a good child animation for learning a foreign language? I'm trying to learn a little of French for a coming trip.

1. Check Wikipedia for the major TV networks in the country. E.g. Sweden is SVT

2. Check if the network has a mobile app

3. Use a VPN to connect to that country and open the app

4. Look for shows you want to try.

Re: 12 Months of Mandarin

#96

Post by rnoorda »

hintymad wrote: post #80

A side topic, for those who have acquired Mandarin, do you think Chinese is a really easy-to-learn language in the long run? Yes, learning all the characters has a steep learning curve, but once one passes that stage, it's all about combination of the characters. That Chinese's grammar is heavily influenced by modern English also helped. I feel that the grammatical similarity between English and Chinese is closer tha…

In my experience- yes. As you mentioned, there is a steep learning curve before you get to that point. Characters instead of letters, sounds you're unaccustomed to hearing and making, and multiple tones make learning basic phrases much more work than many languages. However, once you get some time with those difficult pieces, the grammar is actually much easier than one would expect. I would much rather learn another language like Chinese than a conjugation-heavy one such as Finnish.

Re: 12 Months of Mandarin

#97

Post by ilamont »

I really like the focus on watching or listening to source materials every day. This is where Duolingo fails, or at least how my SO uses it. It becomes a game for listening to snippets and remembering vocabulary, not actual comprehension of language spoken by native speakers.

For anyone who is a student, I highly recommend the National Taiwan Normal University (師大) Mandarin Training Center summer sessions. The materials are developed and taught by well-trained teachers. It's completely immersive in the classroom, and it can be applied on the street every day you're there. They have programs for younger kids and middle school students (which my kids took some years back) as well as college and graduate students (http://www.mtc.ntnu.edu.tw/eng/course-seasonal.htm).

Re: 12 Months of Mandarin

#98

Post by Apfel »

jmyeet wrote: post #78
lxe wrote: post #68

I don't think I can do SRS. My dopamine system is at a point where I can't do anything for a long time that isn't interesting, has immediate or intermediate rewards, or can capture attention for a long time. And on top of that, repeating that habit requires all these criteria. Examples: Scrolling on the phone?: Basically direct dopamine injected into my brain. Can do indefinitely. Not good. Programming? Sure I can pu…

You're quite literally describing textbook ADHD symptoms. If you haven't already, you may want to get assessed.

I'm someone who was perfectly able to use anki and learn chinese to a decent level with fairly intense combined-type untreated (at the time) ADHD. What you need is a compelling reason to learn (for me, it was the fear of letting down my wife by not being able to talk to her family).

Re: 12 Months of Mandarin

#99

Post by cmuguythrow »

neves wrote: post #89
cmuguythrow wrote: post #74

I’ve been learning Mandarin via Comprehensible Input (CI) for about 9 months and really admire OP’s dedication and consistency. In the first 4-5 months of being truly consistent with ~1hr a day of Anki and Peppa pig I got to around 2,000 words and was able to have a great experience when I traveled to Taiwan, so I can vouch for the core methodology in this post. It’s not “easy”, but it’s definitely the most effective…

Peppa Pig is hard :-) What would a be a good child animation for learning a foreign language? I'm trying to learn a little of French for a coming trip.

Totally depends on what you can get access to in the target language. For French - maybe Trotro? https://www.youtube.com/@TrotroOfficiel/videos

If you need French Subs + dictionary (and maybe also English subs) you can try using the [languagereactor](https://www.languagereactor.com/) chrome plugin and find a source that has both subtitles (i.e. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIZ2gLCkv5Y)

Re: 12 Months of Mandarin

#100

Post by triyambakam »

In case anyone reads this, soon or in the far off future... I really don't like Anki from a design perspective, but the technique behind it is great. I've really been enjoying Mochi [1] as an alternative. I am not affiliated, just an unpaid shill for a good app.

[1] https://mochi.cards/

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