Mandarin - need help with a plan of attack

[mairzydoats]

I made it back, and it was quite an adventure. Ah, the joys of family. It was an honor to be able to do that for my grandmother...but the rest of my family...well, this isn't the place. Before moving on I want to thank those that offered kind words during this time. Support was thin from my family, they kinda suck. It means much to me to know though you are strangers, out there in the internet, there are kind, compassionate hearts.

I've spent hours on this reply trying to come to a plan. I'll be creating a language log...just as soon as I create a dang plan!

HELP!

I thought I'd have tons of time to formulate a plan and begin study, and I thought I'd use the drive time productively. Well, I didn't have near as much time as I assumed I would, and when it was all over, I was simply so drained, exhausted and emotional that all I could do was blast music on my drive home. It was as if my brain was just done and needed to float for a bit. Even after arriving home I needed a couple of days to get back to normal. Now I'm good to go.

While I was gone I found a TV show on Netflix called 'The Dream Job' Don't know how I came across it, don't care. I watched the first episode with English subtitles on. But I do I want to be able to watch it without them. So that's a goal. I just need to know how I am going to do it. I feel like I'm trying to teach someone how to breathe. How do you do that? You cant tell them, well you inhale. They've never inhaled...how do you explain the process? I KNOW this is not that complicated, and I keep making it harder than it is. But I'm not sure I know how not to do that.

Maybe I'll break it down step by step.

First....how much time daily to devote to this endeavor....well...I do have quite the flexible schedule...so...I read an article once about practicing musicians. And I think it might apply here. The article said practice must be deliberate, intensive and in regards to time it was said there is often little benefit from practicing more than 4 hours per day, and that gains actually begin to decline after the 2 hour mark. 2 hours max it will be. That sounds like a lot, especially to just jump in to. Since I'm going to be focusing on Pinyin initially, lets start and build up to that...

Time Commitment (per day):
Week 1 - 30 minutes Pinyin (Pronunciation)
Week 2 - 45 minutes Pinyin (Pronunciation)
Week 3 - 60 minutes Pinyin (Pronunciation)

Now I'm back to HOW I'm going to do this.

How:
Start with the Chinese Pronunciation Wiki (AllSet Learning) (HatTip to reinekes list that rdearman linked to)
Work through the wiki using the Hello Chinese app Pronunciation section for the audible support in that first bit. Looks like a chart is integrated after that.

After that - what about the pronunciation module of FSI? I've got it, and really, can you drill too much pronunciation?

After that....zKing I'm very interested in that Pronounciation Trainer and I think I might do that after completing FSI/in lieu of FSI. Thoughts?

ZKing also brought up a point I've been considering. I was thinking, along with the Pinyin, I could start with Hanzi. How about 10 characters a day? (That should be 3000 by departure if I keep with it consistently-and I can always step it up) The thing is, I keep going back and forth, Traditional or Simplified (You're shocked, aren't you? I'm being indecisive? No way...loads of sarcasm there in case it didn't come across). I'll be traveling to Beijing, Xi'an, Chengdu and Shanghai. Those are all users of simplified, yes? But would I be shooting my language learning in the foot learning simplified first? Or simplified only? Either way 10 characters a day of 'to be determined' sounds like a good start.
Question: Is it stupid to learn both (traditional and simplified) side by side? Is that like attempting to learn 3 languages (spoken, simplified & traditional)? And should I even be attempting Hanzi at this point? Scanning Heisig it looks like it's going from English to Hanzi, so stripped bare is it think in English write in Hanzi? But isn't the goal of fluency thinking in the language? Or am I misunderstanding here?

Somehow we're now at the top of...
Week 4 - 60-75 minutes

zKing (now known as wealth of info) also said something that I knew, but sometimes you have to HEAR it from someone else. "The problem with the majority of learning courses is that they all are really just for the same beginner stage. Having a bunch of them is like having a bunch of different editions of the first book of a ten book series... " PREACH!

I'm going to have to thin the herd. Mastering Chinese is going back. Boya Chinese...I was going to return it, but for what I paid ($20USD) for it...eh, maybe I'll have a use for it. No no, no need to be a hoarder. Hmmm....ok back goes Boya and Get Started in Mandarin by Teach Yourself can go with it (I have the 2003 course anyway). I liked the Michel Thomas course, but it seems to fall quite out of favor moving on from the basic beginner stage. I can see a shortcoming, in the starter course, there is much English prompting. I don't want to think that way (again with think in English speak in Mandarin - or am I wrong about this being bad?). I did feel like I learned something, at the time. It's mostly forgotten now. Stress brain probably. So...what to do? Ya know. I do really enjoy the YoYo Chinese videos, but that's a bit of a cash commitment. I suppose after my returns it wouldn't be so bad.

I've also been going through the link for workbooks that rdearman included. I really want to use them....I've always loved workbooks, even as a kid. Weirdo I know. So I'd like to use them, but I'm not sure how. And how do you use them in conjunction with other methods?

I'm spinning myself into indecision. Anyone want to tell me to settle down, shut up and this is what you're going to do?

No? Fine. Take a deep breath. Step back...What's my goal here?

To understand and be understood.

To start that means listening...ok...I'm just listening for exposure, right? Well I have resources up the wazoo for that. But how much time should be devoted to this activity? So this is accomplished with Podcasts? TV and Movies? Does it matter? I'm just listening (actively) right?

As for a program...Pimsleur? I've got it, I'm going to work through it. That will take 30 minutes.

And I'll be continuing with Hanzi (traditional/simplified don't know). So that will also help on the understanding side.

Sprinkle some HelloChinese in there...

Give it a good 4 weeks then re-evaluate...(maybe in that time learn how to type without using 1000 ellipsis...they are a bit of an addiction, a crutch...we can discuss over-usage of parenthesis at a later date)

I'm tired...I've been working on this the greater part of the evening. I'm just going to put a pin in it and get back to it in the morning. Please, anyone - give me your thoughts (yea, hyphens might be a problem too). As you can see, I'm still in the initial planning stages (and way too loopy to make a responsible decision).

zài jiàn

[rdearman]

As far as simplified v traditional you're going to places which are all using simplifed, so stick with that. Also I have been told to just pick one or the other and do that, you'll pick up the others eventually.

Yes, you can use the workbooks with other methods. Plus the workbooks start for a low level (children) so you just characters for big, small, sheep, cow, horse, cloud, etc. to begin with.

Looks like a good plan.

[leosmith]

HELP!

Lol - I now know now you have been dealing with Chinese. I'll try to answer some of your questions, but first let me direct you to a post I wrote a while back. How to learn Mandarin.

I watched the first episode with English subtitles on. But I want to be able to watch it without them.

It's the ultimate achievement for many of us - being able to understand spoken native content well. Great goal, but one that will take you thousands of hours to reach. I'm not trying to scare you; just telling you the truth, and you can decide how use it.

there is often little benefit from practicing more than 4 hours per day

Imo, this isn't true for most people in most situations, but 2 hrs/day will work; it will just take longer.

Week 3 - 60 minutes Pinyin (Pronunciation)

If you use my method, an hour a day for 2 or 3 weeks is probably enough. Throw in the FSI pronunciation mudule and Sinosplice and you're ready to move onto sentence level pronunciation using Pimsleur.

I could start with Hanzi

I recommend knowing your pinyin well before you start this. Then by all means, have at it. It's more efficient to use the Heisig method to learn only the hanzi that you already "know" imo. So as you come across them, you can learn them.

Is it stupid to learn both (traditional and simplified) side by side?

No, that's what I do. But for a newbie it's probably best to choose one, and in your situation I'd go with simplified.

The problem with the majority of learning courses is that they all are really just for the same beginner stage.

This is true, but it's often good to repeat the material to get it to stick. If you feel like you've got it down, then no problems. Unfortunately, I found most Chinese textbooks lacking, and after working through one beginner course I'd recommend just using Chinese Grammar Wiki.

I liked the Michel Thomas course, but it seems to fall quite out of favor moving on from the basic beginner stage.

It's pretty basic, which makes it well suited for a beginner imo. It's main shortcoming is completely ignoring tone sandhi, which is crucial to good pronunciation. The Sinosplice and FSI pronunciation courses will teach you sandhi.

To start that means listening...ok...I'm just listening for exposure, right?

Exposure is really important, but ideally you'd start with easy stuff and gradually get more difficult, so you'd be understanding some too along the way.

[zKing]

@mairzydoats

It looks like others have covered most of your questions better than I... and I'd take the opinion of those who have learned some Mandarin over mine. I agree with everything rdearman and leosmith said.

@Glossy

Let me be clear that, in general, I wouldn't recommend anyone learn a Chinese language without learning the written language. The separation of homophones and general hints you get from the characters are really helpful. And for Mandarin where you could actually somewhat easily find word-for-word audio and text, it is even more valuable.

But there are some people that really only want to learn to speak a bit or at least want to get to that point as fast as possible vs. having more complete skills that take maybe twice the time to acquire. I've also heard anecdotally that some folks have been able to accomplish a 'spoken only' skill with Mandarin.

And let's not ignore the 'extra' work involved. For those who are really into SRS, you can end up with three way flashcards: Hanzi, Pronunciation, Meaning. If you go bidirectional you can end up with 6(?!) permutations of one note:
Hanzi -> Meaning
Hanzi -> Pronunciation
Pronunciation -> Meaning
Pronunciation -> Hanzi
Meaning -> Pronunciation
Meaning -> Hanzi

This may seem crazy, but I can tell you when I sing Cantonese Karaoke: there are plenty of words/characters that I know the pronunciation of, but not the meaning and vice versa. I DON'T recommend actually doing these 6-way flashcards, but it wouldn't surprise me if many people do.

It really can feel like you are learning two related languages at the same time when you do both the written and spoken language.
This is just a lot of raw data to cram into your brain, so I can understand why someone might want to get a foothold in the spoken language first.

As for my comment about Cantonese beyond the beginner stages:
First, there is VERY little material targeted at learners of Cantonese, because there simply aren't a lot of us to make creating them worthwhile. What does exist is, of course, almost exclusively targeted at rank beginners. So right after you finish "Teach Yourself" and perhaps a Greenwood press book that claims to be intermediate (like A2 maybe)... your only choice is now native materials.

Yes you can find Cantonese videos with English subtitles, but at maybe an A2 level, English subs won't help you much. Your skill of picking out the words in a native speed stream of audio is pretty dismal at that point (ask me how I know) and the homophones, near homophones, and of course the tones will mean you can spend a LOT of time trying to pick out just one word. And good luck with 成語 (those Chinese set phrases that are usually 4 characters long).

But if you learn to read, the good news is that a huge portion of Cantonese video comes with Standard Written Chinese (SWC) subs. The bad news is that SWC and Cantonese are quite different in many high frequency words, some word order and grammar. But for mid to low frequency words, in most instances the word choice will be the same. The idea is that when you are high beginner/low intermediate you can use the SWC subs to help pick out a few of those mid-frequency words and continue to build your vocabulary.

In the end, I can't see any other method to advance. Perhaps if someone taking an audio/jyutping only approach had a zillion sessions with a very good tutor, asked a lot of questions and took a ton of notes, they could build up their speaking/listening abilities to the point where they can listen to native audio and start to efficiently learn from it. But from my experience this would take a LONG time and I personally couldn't commit to those kind of scheduled sessions for the number of hours per week that it would take to make it work. To be fair, I should mention that there are plenty of ABC's (American Born Chinese) that speak Cantonese and don't know the written language. But I'm not sure that changes anything for an adult learner starting from zero unless they can spend a decade with a very patient Chinese grandma.

I even read a blog post somewhere in which someone claimed that the fastest way to learn Cantonese was to learn Mandarin to a high level first and then tackle Cantonese. I understand the logic, but I think that takes it a bit too far.

TLDR version:
Take my advice about Mandarin with a grain of salt - I've learned Cantonese to about a B1 level and can read SWC in the B1/B2 range. I've only read about learning Mandarin on the side. I've HEARD that some can learn Mandarin to some moderate level of proficiency without learning the written language. My experience with Cantonese tells me that once the beginner books leave you high and dry, you are going to have a very tough time learning by audio only, even with some L1 subs. Using the characters to pick out words is the only way I've found to move forward.

[leosmith]

First, there is VERY little material targeted at learners of Cantonese, because there simply aren't a lot of us to make creating them worthwhile.

I think about 30 hours of audio with transcripts, or 180 X 10 min conversations, would be enough to prepare a low-intermediate reader for native (non-learning) material. There would still be a harsh transition when jumping to native, but I think the quantity is about right based on my experience with Korean (TTMIK Iyagi series).

But I'm a bit hesitant to create it, because I wonder if there is a reasonable amount of native material with transcripts. Do you know of any transcripted news programs, for example?

[zKing]

I think about 30 hours of audio with transcripts, or 180 X 10 min conversations, would be enough to prepare a low-intermediate reader for native (non-learning) material. There would still be a harsh transition when jumping to native, but I think the quantity is about right based on my experience with Korean (TTMIK Iyagi series).

But I'm a bit hesitant to create it, because I wonder if there is a reasonable amount of native material with transcripts. Do you know of any transcripted news programs, for example?

No, that's the problem. The diglossia is pretty large. Natives don't speak like they write, it's a very muddled situation. If they write a transcript, it is written in SWC. Writing in spoken form seems to be like the equivalent of writing English like: "Wadya wanna do tammarra?" Some even call the spoken language 'slang'. Curiously, almost all music lyrics are written in 'written form' (basically SWC) and then the characters are sung with a Cantonese pronunciation. Even more confusing: when a native reads SWC text out loud, they will read the SWC with Cantonese pronunciation but often swap common words for spoken Cantonese ones, e.g. SWC: 是 si6 "to be" will get swapped with spoken Cantonese: 係 hai6 "to be" (but strangely this is not done for song lyrics?) Writing in spoken form is so unofficial that there is no common standard for characters for some Cantonese sounds, so at times people argue about how to write it. Forums are a messy mix of spoken form, SWC and sound-a-like characters where people just use a character that sounds close but is easier to type.

The most advanced resource I've found is Olly Richards' Cantonese Conversations. It is 30 roughly 3 minute full speed conversations between natives with full accurate transcripts. But this still is only about 90 minutes total and the conversations are quite random at times.

A few years ago, probably as a reaction to concerns around mainland China's view of Cantonese and attempts to reduce its usage, a handful of books written in spoken form have appeared. I have three or four. For one (男人唔可以窮), I found a podcast of what appears to be a radio show reading it out loud. Sadly the audio isn't great and it doesn't appear to follow the book exactly, but it is about 15 hours of audio.

Anyhow, for myself, I'm no longer too concerned with this problem as I can read SWC well enough and my ear for Cantonese has reached a point that learning from native materials with only SWC subs is not a problem.

I'll just continue to waddle along slowly, as always.

(To the OP: sorry for the large Cantonese side discussion.)

[mairzydoats]

As far as simplified v traditional you're going to places which are all using simplifed, so stick with that. Also I have been told to just pick one or the other and do that, you'll pick up the others eventually.

When it comes time, simplified it is...with an open mind. I was leaning that way, but sometimes I need someone to back me up.

but first let me direct you to a post I wrote a while back. How to learn Mandarin

That's you!? I have read that post. My plan really started to gel after reading the log rdearman did and IIRC the plan of study in that post was inspired by your plan on that link.

As far as the 2 hour marker goes. I want to build up to that as the amount of time per day actively learning fully engaged with the language type thing. I didn't mean complete two hours and have no more contact with the language that day. I honestly don't know if I'll be able to sustain 2 hours, probably not if I try and do it in one chunk, not at first anyway. And of course setting a minimum doesn't mean I can't do more if it's feeling productive.

I still feel more comfortable starting at a smaller time commitment and building up to it. I created the schedule knowing full well it was more like the speed limit...sure the sign says 65...but don't most of us drive over that without a thought? So I can go over as much as I want when I want. I just want to see the minimum be a consistent commitment.

Throw in the FSI pronunciation mudule and Sinosplice and you're ready to move onto sentence level pronunciation using Pimsleur.

So going through the process my pan is:
Week 1 - 30 min daily (talking minimum, and I'm thinking some if not most days I'll have more than one 30 minutes session)
Pinyin table work - a la 'Step 1'
Add in the Sinosplice - I thinking focus here for the first week

Week 2 - 45 min daily
how's that Pinyin table feeling?
Ready for the FSI pronunciation module?
Want to add in the Pinyin Practice?

Week 3 - 60 min daily
Did you answer yes to everything last week?
Good - lets make sure we're reinforcing what we've learned
Not Good - lets get good

Week 4 - 90 min daily (and the bomb drops)
Pimsleur
And because I like workbooks - the hwjyw from the link rdearman provided. I think these will provide some fun amid the...I don't want to say drudgery...but I guess, drudgery of the focused study.
And I think I can probably pop in here the Chinese Grammar Wiki - is one page (or concept) per day too ambitious? I don't want to rush, but I don't want to waste time either.

Week 5 - 120 min daily (evaluate....)
rinse and repeat or adjust and move along

so on and so forth....

As for exposure - or additional contact with the language - when I'm at work, I'm often not working (shhhhh don't tell) Today for instance I've so far spent about 1 hour out of my first 6 hours here actually working. I spent an additional 30 minutes outside sniffing around like a bloodhound. No, that is not a metaphor - I was quite literally outside sniffing the air attempting to locate a smell. My initial thought was electrical fire (like the motor of a fan catching fire), then it smelled more like paint - it was marine paint in case you're interested. My point is, I've got time. But since I'm still on the clock, not only will the workbooks be a good tool here - but also I can get some exposure. The thing is, I'm limited to YouTube or another source that wont need to be installed on the computer (belongs to the hotel). So, encourage my bad behavior! Anyone have any chatty YouTube channels good to let play while I pretend to be doing 'very important hotel stuff'? I've had a few episodes of 'Happy Chinese' from Chinese Corner on auto play. Oddly, I was able to pick up about 5 words. I thought that was pretty neat. The fact that I was able to distinguish ANYTHING blew my mind. But if there's anything anyone can recommend, I'd love to try it out.

@zKing Don't feel your contributions were shunned in favor of others with a longer learning history. You're the one that gave me the idea to return some of my beginner material and return some coin to my pocket. And for that, I love ya! It's not at all because we both have pictures of dogs as our avatars, I swear! I value your input, there's no one right way remember.

And no apology necessary for the side discussion. I rather enjoyed it. And I learned something - I have absolutely no desire to learn Cantonese. Sure if some meaningful reason crops up later that may change things. But for now, nope, nuh-huh, no way.

[Axon]

Hah, I've always thought that the perfect job would be to work at a hotel and have a ton of time to just study languages. Obviously you have to do a lot of actual work in between study, but a man can dream.

Anyway, I'll make a couple of points here that I think have helped me reach my own quite comfortable level of Mandarin. Everything zKing says is gold, by the way.

There is in fact no such thing as spending too much time on pronunciation with Chinese. Mandarin speakers are more often than not coming from a background of a non-Modern Standard Mandarin dialect, and so it's difficult for them to speak like a newscaster all the time. If you happen to be American, imagine having to pronounce the "t" in "better" clearly all the time because flapping it was suddenly considered a hilarious-to-others marker of your low class. But as you'll be starting from a blank slate, it will be natural for you to imitate "correct" pronunciation, and this will earn you an enormous amount of praise if you can do it right.

leosmith mentioned sentence level pronunciation, which is the logical next step from word-level pronunciation and is a never ending learning process. Repeat phrases and dialogues aloud in full as much as you can. If you run across a hard sentence, mumble the rhythm. Sentence rhythm is absolutely crucial to sounding not only correct, but pleasant to listen to. (Do I sound pleasant to listen to? To be honest, probably only occasionally. If only I'd practiced more sentence rhythm.)

Keep yourself accountable by recording yourself reading these dialogues. If you do more listening than speaking, your ear will develop faster than your voice and you'll be able to hear where you differ from the learning materials.

Here are a couple of good YouTube channels: 5 Minute Chinese and Xue Bai

As a tourist in China, the more Chinese you know, the better a time you'll have. It's as simple as that. Although I've stressed pronunciation, as a tourist you'll likely be asking a lot of questions you'll need to understand the answers for. Listening is important.

Lastly, I've spent a lot of time in and around Chengdu, and there are two things to note: They have the world's best food, and most people over 30 prefer to speak Sichuanese instead of Standard Mandarin. That's great, more power to them. However, I first visited Chengdu when I had been learning Mandarin for about a year and a half, and although I could make myself understood it was very difficult to understand Sichuan-accented Mandarin, let alone Sichuanese. A couple of weeks before you get to Chengdu, have a look at my free week-long pretty okay course for learning some basic Sichuanese. The vocabulary used in the recordings is almost the same as Standard Mandarin - the two languages are very closely related, and although the tones, vowels, and consonants are all slightly different, these days it's only older speakers who use "deep" Sichuanese vocabulary. Don't worry about trying to speak Sichuanese, the course is just meant to train your ear a bit.

[rdearman]

You should probably start a log at this point and track your progress. As far as YouTube channels you might want to check out these:

Xue Bai - She has over 200 Chinese lessons on her channel now, first and latest below. The first lesson is here:



I am a foody and I like to watch chefs and cooks. If you like food then you'll like Amanda Tastes which is in Mandarin, but often has subtitles.



Since a lot of the comments are in Chinese you might like to install the Perapera Chinese Popup Dictionary in your web-browser. It basically has a little popup box with translates the characters as you run your mouse button over them. I have it for Firefox, but don't know if it works in lesser browsers like Chrome or Opera.

[mairzydoats]

Hah, I've always thought that the perfect job would be to work at a hotel and have a ton of time to just study languages. Obviously you have to do a lot of actual work in between study, but a man can dream.

You don't happen to live in Southern California, do you? We are quite desperate for employees at the moment. It does grant quite a bit of study time, depending on this shift. I've been working the morning shift the past 3 days. It's probably the shift with the least free time. Plus I've been training a new hire, so all my glorious free time at work has been nil. (Side note: I could go on for hours about the do's and don't of being a guest at a smaller hotel property. I won't, but I will say please remember to be nice to the hotel staff. Before you go charging downstairs to scream at the person at the desk for something that is far beyond their control, take a breath, be nice, if you're nice, we will do everything within our ability to help you out. However if you're a jerk...well, I keep saying one of these days, I'm gonna write a book). Anyway, yes, there is work and a lot of it. But yes too there there is tons of downtime. Our overnight shift has an average of 5 hours a night downtime. That's paid study time in my mind.

If you happen to be American, imagine having to pronounce the "t" in "better" clearly all the time because flapping it was suddenly considered a hilarious-to-others marker of your low class.

Is this like pronouncing for as fur? I'm going for/fur a drive. I'm so guilty of that one. I've tried to clean it up, it's a personal pet peeve. I couldn't imagine having the general populous judging me by my mispronunciation even though I judge myself on that one pretty harshly. So if that's kind of what you're meaning, I totally get it.

Thanks for the links, I'll be checking them out.