How to start learning chinese (Mandarin)

Looking for most effective ways to really learn Chinese with active study. I'm looking for just some suggestions from people who have preferably done something similar to this already but if anyone else has tips that would be really appreciated.

Info and experience with languages:
I speak native Italian and English and near native level Spanish - slight accent + occasional grammatical errors. All these languages are from parents/family + social environment so do not have discipline or experience that people have learning a second language by themselves.
Am willing to dedicate about 5-10 hours a week to study. Am 18.
Aim is to be able to read newspapers in chinese + chinese philosophy/literature.
Idk if I'm even coming at this from the right angle any help would be rlly appreciated.

(edited 7 months ago)

Reply 1

MindMax2000

Universities Forum Helper

21

Original post by graio

Looking for most effective ways to really learn Chinese with active study. I'm looking for just some suggestions from people who have preferably done something similar to this already but if anyone else has tips that would be really appreciated.

Info and experience with languages:
I speak native Italian and English and near native level Spanish - slight accent + occasional grammatical errors. All these languages are from parents/family + social environment so do not have discipline or experience that people have learning a second language by themselves.
Am willing to dedicate about 5-10 hours a week to study. Am 18.
Aim is to be able to read newspapers in chinese + chinese philosophy/literature.
Idk if I'm even coming at this from the right angle any help would be rlly appreciated.

(edited 7 months ago)

Reply 2

Daniel9001

1

One of the good ways is to start from a baseline level that would be found in many schools that teach Chinese to younger children, albeit by yourself as I can imagine being in a class of 10 year old Chinese children learning the same as you is a little bit embarrassing,
Some examples of this are to start off with the poetry written by the great ancient poets of China, some poems are listed below.

悯农 (mǐn nóng) - A poem about the hardships of farming, often used to remind children to finish dinner! :biggrin:

春晓 (Chun Xiao) - Poem regarding the beauty of spring.
山行 (Shān Xíng) - A poem regarding the beauty of nature to be found in the mountains, it is worded very eloquently.

As you learn of more Chinese poems you will realise that each Dynasty had its own style of poetry, and the significance of poetry in all walks of life, in the Tang dynasty poetry was at a golden age of sorts, with most educated Chinese people nowadays knowing of the poets of the time and their works. Bear in mind however that some of the words are archaic and so you won't see them pop up in a newspaper very much, if at all.

Good luck on your studies my friend!

Reply 3

graio

OP

5

Original post by MindMax2000

Hey man thanks for taking time to respond although was really looking for someone who had similar experiences to me already have spent a fair few hours researching but will check out links anyway thanks. Like I said don't really have much experience learning a language but would recommend getting a spanish-english dictionary for reading Spanish and watching Spanish TV with subtitles +1000 most common words lists are very useful.

Reply 4

CHatNG3M3

Original post by Daniel9001

One of the good ways is to start from a baseline level that would be found in many schools that teach Chinese to younger children, albeit by yourself as I can imagine being in a class of 10 year old Chinese children learning the same as you is a little bit embarrassing,
Some examples of this are to start off with the poetry written by the great ancient poets of China, some poems are listed below.

悯农 (mǐn nóng) - A poem about the hardships of farming, often used to remind children to finish dinner! :biggrin:

春晓 (Chun Xiao) - Poem regarding the beauty of spring.
山行 (Shān Xíng) - A poem regarding the beauty of nature to be found in the mountains, it is worded very eloquently.

As you learn of more Chinese poems you will realise that each Dynasty had its own style of poetry, and the significance of poetry in all walks of life, in the Tang dynasty poetry was at a golden age of sorts, with most educated Chinese people nowadays knowing of the poets of the time and their works. Bear in mind however that some of the words are archaic and so you won't see them pop up in a newspaper very much, if at all.

Good luck on your studies my friend!

Im not mean to be offensive but I dont think this is a good suggestion. Chinese poems are extremely obscure for the beginning learners who should pay more attention to relatively simple comprehension and application of Chinese.

Indeed the 10 years old Chinese children study these poems but they are native Chinese speaker. Foreign beginners can read these poems to culture their interests to Chinese conventional literature, but do not try to correlate these words to modern Chinese.

Reply 5

graio

OP

5

Original post by CHatNG3M3

Im not mean to be offensive but I dont think this is a good suggestion. Chinese poems are extremely obscure for the beginning learners who should pay more attention to relatively simple comprehension and application of Chinese.

Indeed the 10 years old Chinese children study these poems but they are native Chinese speaker. Foreign beginners can read these poems to culture their interests to Chinese conventional literature, but do not try to correlate these words to modern Chinese.

Yeah, I think he may have misunderstood my post I guess it's a good suggestion for when I have achieved some basic literacy. Do you have any suggestions for my question btw

Reply 6

CHatNG3M3

Original post by graio

Yeah, I think he may have misunderstood my post I guess it's a good suggestion for when I have achieved some basic literacy. Do you have any suggestions for my question btw

Hi mate, I also dont think Im qualified to teach you anything in this subject here beacuse im a Chinese too, I learnt Chinese when i was a child and I cannot remind too much about this experience. You can seek the adult learners who used to go through your current stage for better advices.
But maybe you can ask me several specific questions about Chinese and I can try to answer as a native speaker. I think this is one of the few ways I can help : )

Reply 7

average_human

16

Original post by graio

Looking for most effective ways to really learn Chinese with active study. I'm looking for just some suggestions from people who have preferably done something similar to this already but if anyone else has tips that would be really appreciated.

Info and experience with languages:
I speak native Italian and English and near native level Spanish - slight accent + occasional grammatical errors. All these languages are from parents/family + social environment so do not have discipline or experience that people have learning a second language by themselves.
Am willing to dedicate about 5-10 hours a week to study. Am 18.
Aim is to be able to read newspapers in chinese + chinese philosophy/literature.
Idk if I'm even coming at this from the right angle any help would be rlly appreciated.

Hi! I did Chinese for a year in Year 12 and we used the JinBu1 and JinBu 2 textbooks! I really liked them and you can ofc learn at your own pace
On top of that I made flashcards with the English on one side then I used a whiteboard to practice drawing the characters and pronouncing the word

I'm by no means an expert/teacher, but this is what helped me :smile:

How to start learning chinese (Mandarin)

Quick Reply

Related discussions

Latest

Trending

Trending

Articles for you