imo, spoken chinese i heard is one of the easiest to master
it reduces your chinese learning time by half if you purely use romanized sound transcriptions, but its just hard to find resources
#Mandarin
keen basin
keen basin
imo it's pretty controversial, and the biggest reason you'll hit a block is the same as if you learned spoken russian, but you only agree to write in Latin script
can you do so? sure, but its not how natives communicate :/
ofc irl its different since subtitles dont appear when you speak
barren swift
mandarin does have a lot of homophones though
keen basin
When I worked at FSI (the U.S. State Department training institution that came up with Categories I to V that Professor Mair describes above), we on 2 or 3 occasions had to curtail students' training assignments from 88 to 44 weeks due to illness on the part of the officers at post whom they were being trained to replace. To help them attain the highest possible level in speaking in the shortest amount of time, we transcribed into Pinyin all the Chinese characters in their speaking and reading textbooks and materials (including newspaper readers, so they could discuss international news, etc.). The students were able in half the normal amount of time to reach the regular training goal of S-3 in speaking (though obviously not in reading, which must be in the official Chinese writing system, which currently is still Chinese characters). This experiment seemed to demonstrate, though admittedly with a very small sample, that if Chinese were romanized beginning tomorrow (which it could be, if written more or less as spoken), then training time for native speakers of English could be cut IN HALF!
barren swift
sometimes even the same tones
keen basin
well you have context
that's why some people say Spoken Mandarin is one of the easiest languages
and written modern Chinese is one of the slightly harder ones
not a fact per se, but a case
theres no formal study
so we cant say for sure
barren swift
sometimes even the same tones
like 权力 and 权利, 必须 and 必需
keen basin
but yeah, usually when you just need to learn speaking and nothing else, you do progress faster
however at a certain point, without these specialized programs, you have to either do a lot of work or hit a roadblock
or have insane amount of sentence type encounters
ok peak
ngl, with these types of learning
i agree with escooter's anki deck styles more
you can learn vocab, but the cards need to be sentences rather than simply vocab words on a blank page, or else you're getting nowhere
ok
devout dome
ngl, with these types of learning
i agree with escooter's anki deck styles more
...
most decks i use sentences yeah
but with chinese i use vocab
devout dome
i would add sentences but making a sentence deck is so tedious
keen basin
so sentence is prob the best
devout dome
idk i kinda feel like written chinese is easier than spoken
but i guess u could do
idk spoonfed chinese anki deck
english on front pinyin on the back, i guess...
keen basin
english on front pinyin on the back, i guess...
devout dome
but i honestly feel its gonna require the same or even more effort than just learning the hanzi
keen basin
well
depends on ur native language
ig
but ig its slightly faster for beginners with a latin script background
then tappers off to a plateau around intermediate/advanced learning
while hanzi is steady
devout dome
problem is that it's hard to acquire words u didn't study beforehand
and acquisition through audio is harder than acquisition through reading
keen basin
like ive felt dis during my jp learning
it's easier to remember the reading of a word when i glance at the romaji than when i stare at the hiragana
even if both are really just the same thing
keen basin
and acquisition through audio is harder than acquisition through reading
not what i meant
i meant like everything is romanized
keen basin
oh lol
devout dome
like ive felt dis during my jp learning
it's easier to remember the reading of ...
idk on my jp learning days i never used romaji so idk
keen basin
yeah but from what i read online
people basically classify any pinyin based learning as "spoken mandarin"
and hanzi learning as "written mandarin"
devout dome
i still think the amount of time he will consume will probably be the same as if he idk just did an anki deck
keen basin
imo, now its more about doing than discussing tbh
devout dome
dont let the feds trick you hanzi is not hard
🌹
but
if u wanna actually try
get the sponfeed chinese anki deck on gumroad
then uh
keen basin
千里之行 始于足下
devout dome
edit the card formatting
keen basin
devout dome
and remove the chinese characters
😭
if u wanna do spoken then recognition cards are a bit useless
so u wanna make ur cards active recall
eng --> pinyin
and then idk reformat that same deck and make it so it has
audio ---> pinyin & english
so u train listening
do that for abt 10k cards
keen basin
how did u read
devout dome
just spam learn phrases
eventually ur brain will pick up the patterns
idk if there's a pinyin based grammar thing but i mean maybe ur just built diff and passively acquire it all
again, good luck keep us updated
🌹
keen basin
The fundamental problem is that there is no word separation in Chinese text, which many Chinese the text are composed of individual separately. They tend to write geographical names syllable by syllable, like Ke Xue Yuan for 科学院，Hong Kong for 香港 unless when the original name was English as Robinson for 罗便臣[HSBC formal name is the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank, with Hongkong as one word as in Shanghai]. When left alone, Chinese would render names in characters separately. Only last year, probably due to the influence of the World University Athletic Meet, Shenzhen subway change the name of Ke Xue Yuan to Kexueyuan.
Chinese never perceive their character text as all linked together, which is actually the case. Because of it, long Chinese sentence is difficult to read, hence good Chinese writing is supposed to contain short sentences. The inevitable word separation effort or character chunking into meaningful chunks tends to slowdown the reading of Chinese text. However, most Chinese intuitively consider four character idoms as inseparable chunks as 山穷水尽，说三道四，马到功成 etc. Yet if they are ask to spell them out ,they may relapse back to shan qiong shui jin rather than shanqiongshuijin.
@devout dome this might be interesting
tho it's tangential from the thread's title
https://books.google.com/books?id=QnUmAAAAMAAJ&pgis=1
Lance, i have not checked this, but maybe you can read for fun
its outdated by a century or so tho
keen basin
no like word spacing doesn't instinctively come to mind for chinese natives, and there are controversies about where spaces should be as well
keen basin
yea
devout dome
i thought they meant like they just be looking at hanzi
and not words
😭
cuz there is no way
keen basin
like 科学院, should it be
科学 + 院 or
科 + 学 + 院 or
科 + 学院 or
科学院
because spaces matter when romanizing
devout dome
yeah it's hard with a few compounds
keen basin
though you'll find an insane number of chinese english novel pirate websites where there is absolutely no spaces between words
because its not intuitive to Chinese speakers
though, i dont think it'll be an issue when learning spoken mandarin
it's just an interesting thought tbh
devout dome
oh
now that i think abt it
ur right
yea
like how tf would u do a pinyin flashcard
keen basin
i once found this english translation of a chinese 散文 essay
and there was absolutely no spaces
betwen words
it was horrible to read, but nobody in china, who didn't already know english, would have thought it weird
barren swift
wo men zhong chu le ge pan tu
keen basin
but even in short quotations on random essays, the latin script words would be linked, because its also extremely difficult to type spaces with a pinyin keyboard without screwing up spacing
the spaces after punctuation marks are embeded into the "full width" font
keen basin
wo men zhong chu le ge pan tu
?
devout dome
well it will be an interesting experiment
if u ever change ur mind u can always join our cult at #擺龍門陣｜general-2
🌹
keen basin
how do u know wat it says
😭
this might be an interesting read for you and the folks here
yea
it seems like this topic is of learning speech-wise first is only within language systems that have complex (and not necessarily reflective) orthographies
Many of the commenters to this thread misunderstand what I said about avoiding characters during the initial stages of learning East Asian languages. I was only talking about hanzi / kanji / hanja because they are so time-consuming and difficult to learn, particularly through rote memorization near the beginning of exposure to languages in which they are used.
Hanyu Pinyin, kana, Hangeul are easy to learn and can be used to record the sounds of these languages when necessary and convenient.
otherwise, just learn it like any alphabet/phonetic script language
never demand that students read/write things they do not already know as language/speech. The writing system is introduced after a suitable foundation in speech is laid; gradually, as progress in both speech and writing continue, the gap is closed so that, in the end, students can start using authentic written materials on a self-study basis to improve their overall linguistic/cultural competence.
🤔 , take what you will from it i guess
but you should start learning pinyin right now though
im just reading random articles because im bored
As an adult learner of Chinese, I support this and take it one step further: the over-emphasis on grammar rules and memorizing individual words is also ineffective (i.e, J Omahen’s perspective is similar to mine). Learning to speak full sentences is much more effective.
The old way of teaching a language via word memorization and grammar rules is akin teaching someone to sing by 1st having them memorize how to sing each word individually – give them a test – grade them on how each individual word is sung. Then give them a rule book (grammar) and have them to try to figure out how to sing the song.
it does seem just like an older/more pragmatic school of what they hype up as "immersion" nowadays
however, most self-immersion programs is cringe unless you live in the country where your study language is spoken
what happens when you give old professors access to internet blogs i guess
no
its the website where im pulling the quotes from
In contrast to many people here, I find that I am completely unable to learn by immersive methods. It is far easier for me to learn nine rules that apply to a single word each than nine separate word. When someone teaches me how to order two beers, I can't use that at all until I understand what each individual word means and how the grammar of the sentence works. When people give me a hundred sentences to absorb without explaining what all the parts of speech are, what are the inflectional rules (not talking about Chinese here, obviously), etc., it makes me want to tear out my hair. This is how children learn, but I am not a child, I have a fair linguistics background, and I can use my higher reasoning facilities with some effect.
there are cases where it does fail tho
barren swift
not always svo
keen basin
barren swift
but chinese grammar is very simple
keen basin
no the 2nd and 3rd should be simultaneous
for example lets say you are learning about family structure, but you also dont know sentence structure
your practice card will be
"I am your father"
the vocab word here is father
and you don't have to understand the full sentence, but its still placed in a context
and there's a translation below it
credit to scooter
barren swift
🌹
keen basin
but something where like the vocab might be 早い, and a sample sentence/translation is provided
you dont need to understand the full sentence to memorize the vocab, but it gives you some listening to do ig
🙏
keen basin
Audio Lingual Method 🤔
keen basin
Because it’s been “discredited”
imo it’s just 50s “immersion learning”
The key to really mastering something is 1. Persistence and 2. Using a variety of methods
hallow horizon
Mandarin
barren swift
🌹