In learning Chinese, would it be good to start off with the 1000 most common characters?
No. Highly not recommended. You should be doing a lot of listening and speaking before attempting to learn characters. Mandarin and Cantonese are tonal languages. It's essential to master the tones to be converse and understand others. Without this, learning characters is useless. Consider this. We all learned to speak before we read. Learn the tones. This will benefit you like nothing else. Two great books I recommend are Chinese 24/7 by Albert Wolfe[1] and Learning Chinese by Julian K. Wheatley[2]. The first gives you "everyday strategies for speaking and understanding Mandarin." Speaking is the focus of this book. The latter is a online textbook that represents the first two semesters of learning Mandarin at MIT; characters are not covered until page 400 of 600. Other resources I've read suggest not tackling characters until year 5. At this point, if you're still with the program hit it. Pick up an Anki and Pleco and learn characters like there's no tomorrow.* Good luck.0-18 months: Learn and master the tones. 0-5 years: Learn pinyin and speak a lot.5 years+ : Learn characters with Anki (or other SRS).* What I've come to realize is that most people outside of a native language environment speak and do not write. This seems to be common for Yiddish, Chinese, Indian, and Vietnamese to name a few— pretty much all second generation kids. Lots of speakers and few readers.[1] Chinese 24/7 by Albert Wolfe.[2] Online Textbook | Learning Chinese: A Foundation Course in Mandarin (汉语基础教材) | MIT OpenCourseWare by Julian K. Wheatley.Both of these books have audio for downloading and practicing.
I think I want to start learning chinese?
I already speak fluent French and Spanish, and now I think a 3rd foreign language would make me cooler. =) Besides, the Chinese are buying out America and before they enslave us, I thought I would make myself useful in hopes that they don't send me to the coal mines. Which form of Chinese is most common? Is there any way to learn it for free online?
What is the best way to learn Chinese by your own?
Hi, Pankaj. I’m Jennifer, a Chinese teacher from China. As for learning Chinese by your own, please see below. As for the pronunciation, I suggest you to learn Chinese Pinyin well. Chinese Pinyin should be the first step to learn Chinese. Pinyin uses the English alphabet to represent Chinese syllables. The earlier you start learning Chinese Pinyin, the easier it will be to grasp the correct pronunciation of Chinese words. Here are some tips when you learn Chinese by your own: React to what you hear: Listening isn't enough. A student needs to react to what they have just listened to. The reaction allows students confirm that they heard correctly, understood correctly, and can respond appropriately to the situation. Speak daily: Practice makes perfect! You will never be able to speak Chinese perfectly, but you will be able to come pretty close if you take the time to practice every single day. Practice with a native speaker: You can find some native Chinese speakers around you. If there aren’t any native Chinese speakers around you, you can find some language partners online or find an online Chinese tutor. You can visit this webpage which provides many valuable tips on Chinese listening, speaking, reading and writing. Hope these help. http://www.echineselearning.com/learn-ma... By the way, I’d love to recommend you a site which provides all kinds of free Chinese learning materials for language learners such as popular Chinese expressions, Chinese culture stories, sample Chinese tests and so on. You can visit: http://resources.echineselearning.com/?e... Hope you enjoy reading all the articles they offer. Please feel free to contact me at jennifer.zhu@echineselearning.com if you still have any Chinese related questions, I’m always happy to hear from you.
What advantages do I have in learning Chinese if I'm bilagual?
Unfortunately Chinese is completely different from English/Spanish/Russian, it has no alphabets at all. The English alphabets used for Chinese pinyin you might have seen is only a romanized version so westerners can handle it easier, Chinese language is in fact logogram. I don't know Russian, but I can tell you its structure is very different from English and Spanish. That said, you don't need to bang your head, but I suggest you start learning Chinese by attending some courses that could give you an introduction to how the language works and is formed. After understanding the concepts, it's not that hard.
Do you think I should learn Korean and Chinese? Or Korean and Japanese? Or All?
Im currently Learning Korean and I started in February. I can read symbols, but I still need to understand meanings and work on the grammer. Im a fast learner when i put my head to it. But for the future I want a fashion based career mainly in Asia. My mum wants me to learn Mandarin too, but I feel like I would need Japanese too. 1. How long do you think it will take ( I know thats a vague question, but an estimate for a quick learner aged 17.) ? 2.How hard is it to learn Mandarin & Cantonese? (compared to knowing English initially) b) Do I need both? 3.How hard is learning Japanese? (compared to knowing English initially) 4) How long does it take to know the basics/ conversational level? 5) I live in London, is there anyway of me getting help in Learning these languages? Courses? People Willing to help? Thank you in advance