| How Many Members Are Learning Chinese?? | |
|---|---|
| Apr 13, 2007 01:58 |   |
 | Just curious, how many of you are learning or learnt Chinese? Do you think it's a hard thing to learn Chinese?? |
| Apr 13, 2007 06:30 | #1 |
| Very difficult... My wife & I have been going to a local chinese language school (nearby where we live in England) for two hours a week for the past 18 months, but only make very slow progress despite the high quality of the teacher. |
| Apr 13, 2007 10:56 | #2 |
| Most of us living here are learning at some level or another. I don't work as hard as I should but I keep making progress. Depends what my schedule is like and how much I need to communicate without the aid of a translator. For general stuff this is OK but for other things it I still require some assistance so I should be more dilegent but I am essentially lazy on this issue. |
| Apr 13, 2007 20:14 | #3 |
| Hi Travellermike, two hours a week? It's too short. |
| Apr 14, 2007 05:57 | #4 |
| You are right Traveldream, it is to short (although there is home-work on top, including practicing writing characters). It is difficult to dedicate more time to the study. |
| Apr 14, 2007 06:22 | #5 |
| Studying, but not formally, just on my own with my wife's help. I'm working my way through 活着 by 余华- slow work, but very rewarding, much better than a textbook. Although, I am going to find my an HSK textbook to make sure I keep getting proper, formal grammar input. No, it's not hard. It just takes work, that's all. But so do all languages. |
| Apr 15, 2007 23:18 | #6 |
| Yes, I think it will be better and better when you take much more time on this task. Every task. Anyway, wish you all a good experience on learning Chinese! |
| Apr 17, 2007 15:56 | #7 |
| Of course it is difficult. And I willgive you 2 good examples: 1. Often we can see minorities which do not speak Chinese (putonghua) good or even they just can't speak it. In the same time they can speak some other foreign language. 2. Even Chinese from Hongkong (they are a kind of Guangdonese in fact) can't learn to speak Chinese (putonghua). Well, if the minorities and the Sothernese in China can't learn it quite good, how the foreigners to learn it fast? Yes, I met some white, black and yellow foreigners that speak Chinese better than even some Han-Chinese, but they are gifted and hard-working people. The 2 big problems of Chinese language are: a/ the characters (we discussed them in another topic). b/ the tones. EVEN HAN-CHINESE OFTEN DON'T UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER AND ASK THE FUNNY QUESTION LIKE THIS: A: Word, word, word...NAN...word, word! B: Stop!!!!!!! WHICH "NAN"? A: (here the A start to give examples like "NAN FANG' DE NAN" ( The "NAN" of the word "NAN FANG") B: Oh, that "NAN"? OK, go on! I mean - a terrible number of OMONYMS! :(:(:(........ |
| Apr 17, 2007 21:10 | #8 |
| How do foreigners learn Putonghua? The same way Chinese people learn Putonghua- by studying. These Chinese, be the Han or minorities, who don't speak Putonghua well have probably had less access to decent education. That's all. Also, Putonghua is probably less important to them in their daily lives. If you are born and raised in Hong Kong, never leave Hong Kong, and just work regular Hong Kong jobs living a regular Hong Kong life, the most important language for you to know is Cantonese. Putonghua isn't much use in such circumstances. The same applies across China. A terrible number of homophones? Yes, but so what? It's manageable, and speakers of all languages get confused by what people are saying exactly. Take French for example: 'l'amour' means 'love', 'la mort' means 'death'. The pronunciation of these two words is extremely close. Context usually makes it clear which one you're talking about, and when it doesn't, it's not hard to ask for clarification. Is it difficult? No. It just requires effort, that's all. |
| Apr 17, 2007 21:16 | #9 |
| These Chinese, be the Han or minorities, who don't speak Putonghua well have probably had less access to decent education. I'm afraid not, Chris. The fact is that Putonghua is based on northern dialect, especially Northeast China and Beijing dialects. So that's the main reason why souther people feel hard to learn. If Putonghua is based on Shanghai Hua or Cantonese, I'm sure beijing people will feel confused and frustrated while learning it. |
| Apr 19, 2007 00:56 | #10 |
| I'm learning Chinese too, or I should say Mandarin. I have mainly taught myself for the last 2 years. I think it is very difficult, having learnt French to fluency level a few years ago, I can say that learning Mandarin is a good deal more difficult than learning French. This makes sense, as the languages are completely unrelated. I also find it frustrating that certain concepts that exist in English, do not exist in Chinese, therefore some distinctions that I would like to make in English aren't possible. On the other hand, there are some geat phrases and ideas in Chinese that don't have an exact English equivalent. The Chinese characters are very difficult for me to learn to write, but very, very interesting. I am pretty good at written pinyin now, but pinyin is essentially useless as a written form, so I am trying to learn words straight from their characters rather than using pinyin. Also, the tones are difficult for me, as English is not a tonal language, I have had (and still do have) a lot of problems with these. Teaching and studying at the same time is not easy and more often than not, everyone wants me to speak English, whilst I am desperate to practice my Chinese!! Good luck to everyone studying Chinese and, to use a lovely phrase (one of my favourites) ... 慢慢来. |
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