Thinkquest Junior project, made by children, for children. Shows you the basics of how characters are written. Also introduces China and has a nice collection of links.
by Hans van den Boogert (in Taiwan).
Their shortwave radio service has regular Mandarin language instruction programs. See their program schedule.
Yao has a school in New York which specializes in beginner to intermediate level Mandarin Chinese training and business Chinese. He has some special websites:
- Yao Mandarin School The language school website.
- Learn Chinese Links Directory
- Chinese Translation Pro
A commercial translation agency.
Has some articles and links that might be of interest. I don't know anything about their products.
China Links and other resources.
A tutorial about general linguistics, with some connections to Chinese.
Marilyn Shea, Department of Psychology University of Maine at Farmington, ME.
- Chinese is much more a visceral language than a conceptual one. Try to relax, and let yourself think and feel holistically.
- Chinese grammar is very logical and actually not that difficult.
- Think in terms of scope. What has to be described or explained first needs to come first. Think precision and sequence.
- A nice way to imagine how you put together a sentence: think in terms of creating a movie. One picture follows another. Which picture do you need first to show what's going on? What do you need next? Chinese language is built from Chinese characters. The pictures of the characters actually function as pictures. : )
- The grammar is not structured by past, present and future tenses. And so don't get lost trying to think in such terms. The aspect particles help you determine when something happens -- frame your mind with them.
- Sometimes you need to place the object of the sentence at the beginning of the sentence -- called "transposing". This is a natural way to clarify that such an object is the particular topic of the sentence. Also, there are some kinds of sentences that will not be logical unless the object is transposed to the beginning. Therefore, don't worry about transposing. Do it when it is the natural thing to do.
- Tones:
- In practice, the tones are just a way to help you distinguish between words that otherwise sound similar. There are many similar sounding words. And so the tones are a wonderful invention which really help you.
- The Mandarin tone often reflects the meaning and feeling of the word. (But that isn't necessarily the case with tones of other dialects.**)
- To some extent tones help smooth the flow of your conversation -- you'll find that with experience.
- Tones are important to get right -- don't take short cuts around them. But relax and take them a step at a time -- you'll probably do better and have more fun. Also, give the same care to pronunciation.
- Chinese characters:
- When you can, for fun, find books that show you how the Chinese characters evolved from the first picture symbols. Once I did this I was able to learn the characters much more easily and quickly. I hate memorizing. When I can visualize the underlying patterns in the characters, I can associate the words more intuitively with meaning and sound. I also get more insight into the cultural history.
- Learn how to write the Chinese characters the right way. There is a right way. Give yourself the time, because it takes time. Find the right teachers who will teach you well. In the long run you will have more fun and feel more confident. And most importantly, the language will work better for you. As a nice bonus, mature Chinese people will appreciate your efforts.
- Chinese characters are part of the poetry and beauty of the language. Enjoy the beauty and let it work for you.
- At heart, you are just trying to communicate with others. You may find that a person you talk with has a somewhat different sense of reality and life experience. But no two people on Earth are the same. People grow up with different assumptions and ways of looking at the world. This might seem like a problem, but actually it's a wonderful opportunity to really communicate and learn. You might learn something new about yourself in the process. If you approach with tolerance and an open mind, the world will be open to you. Consider, a person with the different life experience might be your teacher.
- Expect to be challenged, but nonetheless try to have fun. If you're not having fun, something is missing. : )
Some advice I can share on learning Chinese: *
* I first put together this advice section after I had been learning Chinese for a little while. I noticed that some of my experiences were particularly useful to me. And I noticed also that some student problems consistently appeared. Once in a while, students and potential students asked me for advice.
I rewrote this section after I became a student of Ben Wang, the senior language instructor at the The China Institute. He has points and appoaches to teaching that not only help one use the language better but help one develop profound insight as you go forward. I choose to highlight some points I learned from him because I use them and I think they are very helpful. I want to acknowledge that some points come from my courses with him. Probably an even better acknowledgement is that my own thinking has continued to develop from what I learned with him. I'm still a student. At this moment I can't easily separate what I get from Ben Wang and what naturally is developing in my own experience. In any event, the point of all this is to share something really useful to you.
** According to Ben Wang the modern tone system that is closest to classical Chinese is that of Cantonese.
Books about China & Chinese Language
Mail to me.