| How long does it take to become fluent in speaking, reading and writing Chinese? | |
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| Jul 29, 2007 23:30 | #31   |
 | The sheer magnitude of the language is, indeed, immense. This must be why the Chinese children go to school for so long. Even after a person had mastered over 3,00 characters, one must learn about the idioms and sentence structures to be able to read Chinese. But, I have seen small children conversing in Chinese and know that, if they can learn it....why can't I also? |
| Feb 4, 2009 01:53 | #32 |
| GUESTROC | Do you realize how awesome our brains are? Learning a new language is no problem for human beings. Especially at an older age. We have a very talented creator, and I would say never underestimate the relational ability that's been given to us. We are made in the likeness of a relational God. Therefore, languages need to be learned in relationships with others in order to be learnt most effectively. |
| Feb 9, 2009 18:52 | #33 |
| GUESTREALGED... | Hi, cool site, good writing ;) |
| Jul 27, 2009 23:08 | #34 |
| GUEST19376 | Congrats on everyone learning. I myself decided (age 35) that mandarin was just going to be too difficult a challenge for me. (Became 100% pass-for-a-native fluent in german in my 20s, and chose the next (in my 30s) to be russian instead of more useful mandarin because I just didn't think I could cope with the difficulties of mandarin. Take my hat off to all of you learning it!!! (Not that the russian is going well - wish I had more time). However, in Australia mandarin is really important and I REALLY want my child (not yet born) to grow up from birth trilingual in english, german and mandarin. I can do the german & english but need help with the mandarin since I'm caucasian & have no chinese friends or family. Does anyone have any ideas to share about how to teach / bring up a baby / toddler / child in an english -speaking country & family, with no family contacts speaking mandarin, to be fluent in mandarin? I'll do what it takes - but would REALLY welcome ideas. This is very important to me. As Guestroc notes above, it'll be a lot easier for the child to learn as a child than to go through the struggle of learnng it as an adult. Thanks :) |
| Jul 27, 2009 23:52 | #35 |
| GUEST19376 | Hi Windenergy Wishing you well. Just posted for help re teaching baby mandarin. Wanted to share my german experience. Obviously different language &mandarin is FAR FAR more difficult, not just because of the script but also the tones. My posting may be too late, but may also help others. My background: I spent 5 years in high school learning german. Then I went to uni (no german) for 4 years. After uni, I did one single 12 week (one semester) uni course that was one half of the year that was supposed to bridge high school students who had done no german with those who had done 5 years german .... ie to be equivalent to 2.5 years of high school. I then went to german - and had trouble buying a bus ticket (forgot the words, had't learnt practical things, culture shock). When I arrived I could manage simple things - eg could understand and ask for most main grocery items - but couldn't decipher the detail on a can of food, just the main item. Sometimes I had to rely on the pictures on the can, because i didn't understand anything. I learnt a LOT of german from signs, supermarkets, radio, tv etc. For the first two years in Germany (I was there for four years) I gradually got better but still relaxed in english - with english books, tv (bbc was my friend) and occasionally driving 2 hours each way to reach the only english-language cinema in my region (most german movies are dubbed in german, and I could not understand them. Tried, a lot, and got better, but still didn't understand them). During these two years I had access for free to german language courses - I was teaching english in a language school in germany and so could attend for free the classes funded by government for foreign immigrants to learn german as a foreign language. These classes were 3 hours a day, 5 days a week, for 1.5 years while I was living in germany. (Govt funded classes stopped after a year but paid for more advanced tuition for another 6 mths). After 2 yrs, I was nowhere near fluent, but could manage most social situations - albeit haltingly and not very fluently and definitely not if technica language was involved. After my first two years, I found out that if I pretended i wanted to study at a german uni, I could access free language classes at the uni, preparatory to me enrolling in a masters degree. So I did that. After 6 months (again 3 hrs/day, 5 days/week) cont... |
| Jul 27, 2009 23:54 | #36 |
| GUEST19376 | cont: I sat an exam and passed the exam that qualified me as having sufficient german to study at a uni. Not everyone went into this particular class - some could sit the exam immediately, others got a 1 year course instead of a 6 mth course -so that gives you an idea of my entry level when I went in & when I came out. When I was attending classes at uni, I learnt a LOT of new vocabulary but had enough sense of the basic grammar structure to recognise new spoken words, be able to write them down and look them up later. I coped. I passed my masters degree - in law- in german, including a horrible research thesis at the end which I somehow got through. The masters degree was 2 years long and whilst painful, the process definitely helped me to become fluent - very fluent. I had to research and digest, at speed, technical information in german and the process really helped my language development. Also in the last 2 years - quite coincidentally - I was in a relationship with a native german speaker. My partner spoke english well, but we were living with a whole extended family of people who only spoke german and this REALLY REALLY helped my language development a lot. For anyone who is learning a language - whatever age you are - I would most sincerely recommend this as the absolute fastest way to get fluent - by necessity. It's worth paying for - it progressed the speed of my development by years I think. And I got to an amazing german standard - even if I say so myself - I could hold a conversation for 10 minutes or so without a native speaker realising that I had an accent. After around 10 mins I would make a mistake or betray a sign of an accent - but most german people who heard me converse for some time were very suprised that I wasn't german. So I think that the amount of time to learn any language definitely depends on: - the amount you start with before you go to the country that speaks that language - the amount of time you spend in that country - and also, in classes in that language in that country. Structure in language learning does help; - ideally, the amount of time you spend at home with people speaking that language. For me - already with advanced german, enough to study at a university in german, another 2 years in a family made me almost completely fluent. There was the occasional word I didn't recognise, but even now - 8 years later with little german practice in between, I can listen to a german audio book and understand it 100% without any need to translate it into my native english. I got so fluent, my german became almost a second native language - the difficulty of the language. Because of the tones, and script, I imagine mandarin is twice if not three times more difficult and therefore lengthier than german - how much commitment you put in. I spent 4 years in germany doing 15 hours a week of formal german study, plus all the extra bits you get by socialising, shopping, studying in the country, etc. cont... |
| Jul 27, 2009 23:55 | #37 |
| GUEST19376 | cont from above: I started reading newspapers - slowly and not very well at first - about 6 months after I started uni (2 years after going to germany). Newspaper language is harder than other written language & I would suggest that learners start with novels - particularly ones that get you wanting to know what happens next -- rather than formal news, which are some of the hardest things to read (at least in german). anyway, i got fluent in german - completely so - after 4 years in the country, 2 years of which i was living with a german family with a german partner and studying at a german university. I maintained my fluency - if not my accent - for 8 years after i left the country - i wish evryone luck in language learning - it's truly a wonderful thing. And I take my hat off to all those doing mandarin , which is far harder than german!!! Just wanted to give you my own timelines, in case it helps you in monitoring your own progress in mandarin. Cheers everyone |
| Aug 5, 2009 23:34 | #38 |
| GUESTPARIS | This is the first time i visited your blog came to know of it through a friend of miner . The qaulity of the posts on this site is simply amazing . I ll be waiting for some more great posts. |
| Aug 8, 2009 13:03 | #39 |
| wind energy i think you are an inspiration. I have been studying chinese for just over a year now as i really want to be able to speak with my in laws. I started from complete scratch using only audio discs i have downloaded from the internet. I have had headaches and even made myself sick from the repetition of what seems to me to be a complete tongue twister. Slowly but surely i have started to feel proud of myself as i can pick out the odd sentence from my wifes conversations.I really am starting to feel like i am making some progress. I am in complete fear of the chinese symbols and have not even started to tackle them yet as i was only aiming to speak the languague. To hear that you have made such progress with not only the spoken but written words is astounding to me. I can tell you you have my complete admiration. |
| Aug 13, 2009 02:06 | #40 |
| I am a native Chinese speaker but I want to learn French, simply for its beautiful tone. I bought a book but sometime just unmotivated to learn because it's so difficult especially the grammer. any French guys here or somebody here learned French for a second language can share some thoughts here? Thanks in advance. Bienvenue |
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