[Chinese] Learn Chinese

[tom09]

Hi guys

any of you learn Chinese or going to or have learned? or whatever..
if you know any good Chinese language programs please let me know..

thank you

[bobjenkins]

Hola, no sé si hables español... So ill talk in english There is a thread called you want to learn chinese, which a few of our members post in alot tons of pages you could take a look at

http://forums.tomisimo.org/showthread.php?t=2225

[jemini48]

I used to be in Kunming, China for studying Mandarin language at 'Minds Abroad'. Their Chinese learning programs are really impressive.

[Jessica]

I am Chinese :P

[kdar1987]

I learned it for a little bit, just know some words. But let me give you some site which might help you.

<snip>
Great site, a lot of different tutorials on all sort of subjects.

<snip>
Forum similar to this, only about Chinese and China.

Also on livemocha.com you can learn few things.

There are other books and resources too.

[Jessica]

I'm a member of the China Club. This is another place where you can learn Chinese

[chewy]

I guess when we learn chinese, we have to throw away all the grammar of english etc. Because chinese doesn't really have much past tense -perfect present tense etc . Yet They do have female,male and other words for each different words, like tree, water related. It's same in some way like you know actor, e female version is actress. It's around the same in some way.

There's still a few but not very common I guess.

Also, the same sound of that word,pin yin can have different chinese words of the same sound. For instance, the sound, Ma 吗, 妈,马。

吗, is normally word that use in asking question like in spanish, you have the question marks front & back.

妈, is refer to mama, mother's meaning, normally we call our mother, 妈妈 but if you're a lazy child, you just use one word, 妈 like me

马 is refer to the word. horse



And chinese words, the most hard part is remembering all those words :s I still have nightmare of learning the spelling for my chinese.

but some of my friends have no problem with it. perhaps it's just me

[Jessica]

chewy theres a thread that I made thats especially for Chinese language

[ApfelZhu]

I a Chinese too.
我也是中国人。

[wrholt]

Originally Posted by ApfelZhu

I a am Chinese too.
我也是中国人。

And in Spanish you can say either "Yo también soy chino" or "Yo también soy de China".

And finally I know all of the characters in one of your Chinese sentences! (Without tone marks using pinyin romanization, I read it as "wo ye shi zhong-guo ren.")

[ApfelZhu]

Originally Posted by wrholt

And finally I know all of the characters in one of your Chinese sentences!

Sí. ¡Muchas gracias!
I made a mistake.

I am a Chinese too.
Yo también soy de China.

If you can write Pinyin(拼音), you can type Chinese characters by using software.

[wrholt]

Originally Posted by ApfelZhu

Sí. ¡Muchas gracias!
I made a mistake.

I am a Chinese too.
Yo también soy de China.

If you can write Pinyin(拼音), you can type Chinese characters by using software.

Everyone makes mistakes sometimes. It's good that we can learn from them.

I have just added a Chinese-language keyboard to my configuration on my computer, which lets me type: 我是美国人。However, I can recognize very few Chinese characters, so often I don't know what character to select when I type, and I usually know only a few characters in any example of Chinese writing.

[Jessica]

Originally Posted by ApfelZhu

I a Chinese too.
我也是中国人。

Ni hao

[ApfelZhu]

Originally Posted by Jessica

Ni hao

你好，señorita.

[Sarita08]

Originally Posted by tom09

Hi guys

any of you learn Chinese or going to or have learned? or whatever..
if you know any good Chinese language programs please let me know..

thank you

Honestly, like any other language, immerse yourself in it. Make Chinese friends -- some of them LOVE to teach new phrases to those who are willing to learn. Watch movies in Chinese (with subs) and find music you like I'm totally into Sa Dingding (萨顶顶) right now, but I can suggest others for you, depending on what you're into. Get yourself a good book from which you can learn grammar and sentence structure, and write and read constantly. Sub to some Americans (and others) that live and work in China on youtube, that way you can learn more about the culture. There is also an online forum that I'm a part of; if you type "study more Chinese" into google, it will likely be one of the top suggestions.

People talk about how difficult learning Chinese (I'm assuming Mandarin??) is, but honestly, ALL languages are difficult at first if you have no prior base knowledge. It will become easy for you eventually.

[Premium]

Originally Posted by Sarita08

People talk about how difficult learning Chinese (I'm assuming Mandarin??) is, but honestly, ALL languages are difficult at first if you have no prior base knowledge. It will become easy for you eventually.

This is half true. All languages are a pain at the beginning, but some are more difficult than others.
For instance, Japanese with 3 alphabets; kanji, hiragana & katakana. Or their honorific speech, which is way too exaggerated.
I don't say it's impossible, but it requires way more effort than languages like English or Spanish.

[Sarita08]

Difficulty is subjective ¿no? I have learned several languages from various language groups, including languages that use honorifics. After I understand the basics they don't feel as complicated to learn. I kind of look at each language or language group as having a "code", and once I've cracked that code, similar languages do seem easier.

When people ask me now which language has been the most difficult for me to learn, I have a hard time telling them. Usually I say I don't know. All of them were difficult in the beginning. However, if you were to ask me to start learning Portuguese today, I might tell you it is the easiest language in the world, because its "code" is very similar to Spanish.

[Premium]

Originally Posted by Sarita08

Difficulty is subjective ¿no? I have learned several languages from various language groups, including languages that use honorifics. After I understand the basics they don't feel as complicated to learn. I kind of look at each language or language group as having a "code", and once I've cracked that code, similar languages do seem easier.

When people ask me now which language has been the most difficult for me to learn, I have a hard time telling them. Usually I say I don't know. All of them were difficult in the beginning. However, if you were to ask me to start learning Portuguese today, I might tell you it is the easiest language in the world, because its "code" is very similar to Spanish.

It is quite logical that a Korean guy would have no problems learning Japanese, and vice versa with Portuguese and Spanish.