Multilingual and Polyglot Wannabee Thread! MK I

I did start teaching myself Spanish when I was in year 7, as my school didn't offer it-they only offered French and German. It is a language I really want to learn though, so I'm definitely going to take advantage of having Spanish speaking friends.

I'm 20. Currently in my 2nd year at uni, which is also my year abroad You?

I had no interest in languages until this year and then it went crazy. My school only offered French which I didn't do much of.

Good

That's great, what degree are you studying? did you meet your boyfriend there then?

J'ai seize ans 17 this January, currently in Year 12

I'm doing Chinese with Japanese at Sheffield. Sadly I don't get to go to Japan as part of my course, but I'm planning on going out there during the holidays.

Yeah, I did meet my boyfriend here-I met him through one of my friends who was here last year

That's crazy awesome. Can you recommend any books to learn Mandarin? I wanted to learn Japanese but it's too much all of it

Ah nice

I know Schaums does a good Chinese grammar book. I use it in addition to my class materials and I really find it helps solidify the grammar points in my mind

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Schaums-Outline-Chinese-Grammar-Series/dp/0071635262/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1386427017&sr=8-6&keywords=chinese+grammar

For learning Chinese, there's also the 'Colloquial Chinese' series, which also introduces characters which I find really useful. I used this series to teach myself a bit of Chinese before I applied to uni.

Je ne pourrais pas dire je n'ai pas fini (et il est probable que je ne finirai pas) ce livre

Pour A2 on étudie les choristes pour l'examen et Amélie.

Quel livre étudie-tu pour la litérature?

Je ne fais pas la littérature

La littérature est obligatoire pour A2, n'est-ce pas?

I'll buy that, but I think learning how to write should come after for a language like Chinese but then hmmmm... Thanks!

No, no, no, you should learn how to write as your going along, or it'll be nigh on impossible

Oh okay! I wrote this yesterday...



But the dot is meant to be in the middle and a bit bigger.

How do you learn all those characters

The dot's right, don't worry

I basically write them out over and over again until I finally get them in my head.

My gosh that's crazy.

That book you mentioned yesterday, I read the reviews and some gave it 1 star and said it wasn't very useful if you want to exceed GCSE level

There was a different book, but it cost £25 so I don't know if I want to spend that lightly without knowing about it.

What is Chinese grammar? Like what things do they have?

I honestly think that book's good-it had quite a few grammar points that we never covered in first year, and we were at an A Level standard by Christmas.

Chinese grammar can be difficult. They have the so called 把 (ba) construction, which basically places emphasis on the object. I always found that one hard, as well as 着 (zhe) which indicates the progressive state. It's this whole idea that Chinese doesn't have tenses which is hard. Technically it does have tenses, it's just verbs don't decline unlike in European languages

Okay, then, I'll buy it and see

zhe ge = that? Or this?

So would you see a difference in:

I play
I am playing
I played
I was playing
I will play
I will be playing

?

zhe ge means this, if you want to say 'that', you'll want to say nei ge

You'll see minor differences, but it's only with suffixes

我打乒乓球
我打着乒乓球
我打了乒乓球
我打了乒乓球
我会打乒乓球
我会打乒乓球

They're the different 'conjugations' for play with table tennis, although 'to play' doesn't have one direct translation-it depends on how you play it

So just from what I can see I'd say:

着 = present continuous
了 = past, no differentiation between them.
会 = future, again, no differences

Well, there are two past suffixes. 了 indicates something that has been completed e.g. 回家以后我做了我的作业 Once I got home I did my homework.

There's also 过 which indicates past experience e.g. 我去过法国 I've been to France, or 我吃过混沌 I've eaten wonton before

It's quite hard at the start, but you get used to it

I understand! I read that as "I've eaten woman before"

I'm going to learn the pronouns and how to write them first

Do they change for whether they're the indirect/direct object, subject etc?