Learning Mandarin for beginners
 

My friend is taking beginner Mandarin class at UBC (which will count towards his degree). My situation is different as I am well past the the University stage in life but I would like to to start learning Mandarin. I have never taken any courses before.

Here are my options (from what I have researched so far):

1) Take classes either from SFU or UBC.
2) Listen to language audio recordings in car (after work etc.) - this I tried with minimum results.
3) Find classes in Richmond (I assume there are many) that do not provide any certification but have smaller grops, better teachers and better pricing... (for example: Mandarin Classes Vancouver, Richmond, Burnaby, Coquitlam, Surrey, Abbotsford etc)

This is where RS comes in...

Did any of you take beginner Mandarin? Especially non-Chinese members, if you did, do you mind sharing where and what was your experience? I'm looking for some suggestions in addition to my Google-search.

Cheers.

If you don't need it for credit for anything you could also try at one of the collages, I was looking at taking some language classes at Douglas.

The audio tapes are great for tuning your ear to a language but I think they really need to be reinforced with actual instruction.

just pickup a rich mandarin speaking chick...:fuckyea:

I haven't actually tried this yet but there's a program called Rosetta Stone that helps teach languages. I've read that it's good and I've been meaning to try it for Japanese or French.

Learn Chinese (Mandarin) | Speak Chinese | Learn Chinese with Rosetta Stone®

Ive knowledge of mandarin classes @ douglas college, convinced a gf to take some there and subsequently a friend (who's a realtor and wanted to pick it up)

the teacher is actually a white guy, Ralph Lake, and he's surprisingly, surprisingly good

the classes are split into 2 one where he teaches and makes you speak and a conversation lab with another teacher where you hone your skills


the gf got really good amazingly fast (shes white) and well quite frankly so did my friend (not as good but rather good) the pace which they picked it up was excellent

i understand there's like 3 levels (courses) to take the gf only took level 1 and my friend went on to lvl 2

you can buy the course material from the school bookstore which is like $15 and it teaches you pin-yin and a lot of words highly worth it even if you dont take the course (oh yeah the course teaches you how to write words too)

seeing how well people i know have learned from taking the course @ douglas im always quick to suggest it and support people going there

i sat in a few classes with the girl and the teacher is really top notch and enthusiastic; its filled with chinese students there to get some free credit but there were quite a few white/japanese/indian ppl too who seemed to really enjoy it

since you're in Coquitlam anyways it should really work out perfectly for you



id also suggest downloading Rosetta Stone too and try out the lessons ive used it for other languages and its quite amazing i can only imagine the mandarin lessons are just as good


side note, you're never too old to learn or go back to shcool

side note 2, this website should assist you greatly regardless where you take your lessons http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/ you also may want to check out some smartphone apps that teach you the language regardless of the smartphone platform you're on there's a plethora of apps to get

If you're going to attempt it at all I'd suggest you just take a course. The Douglas one sounds good. The main thing about learning a new language, particularly one that's very different from yours, is practice and interaction. You're going to need to hear it spoken in person, and try speaking it with others.

How about getting Rosetta Stone ?

Have you thought about just going to regular night schools (continuing education)? I think a couple districts like Richmond and Burnaby offer these programs and I'm guessing Coquitlam might as well:

Richmond Continuing Education - Mandarin
Burnaby Community & Continuing Education | BCCE

I have used all of the methods you listed, they all have their positives and negatives:

1) College classes are good to learn grammar and develop a solid structure, but they can be a bit impersonal, and lack the oral practice you might get from a smaller class.

2) Language audio recordings are a great way to practice listening/speaking but often lack the structure of a well organized class. I recommend using this in addition to a class.

3) IMO, these smaller language schools are the best option. They often tailor the lessons to what you want to learn. Coincidentally, I have actually used Key Language Training (the link you provided) and I was very happy with them. The owner Suzanne is a chinese lady who is very fun and experienced. Her daughter also helps teach sometimes, and she is hot as fuck.

You can also find private tutors on CL, I have one who is only $10/hr and she is not bad. There is also a mandarin meetup group that meets a few times a month, they are all levels of speakers and its a great way to practice.

If you want to learn a language, you really need to immerse yourself in it..spend some time every day studying and practicing. I remember when I was a beginner I put labels on all the items in my house in pinyin (door knob, wall, toothbrush, tv, etc...). Let me know if you want help contacting a tutor or a specific program. I am actually headed to China on Friday to do a 2 month mandarin immersion program!

good luck with your studies!

Rosetta Stone has been invaluble for me while in Germany. The best part about it is it's picture based so you learn to associate things with an image rather than learning the language as an English -> Mandarin translation which will constantly make you translate things in your head before speaking. It has word recognition and everything.

Thank you all very much for your responses and suggestions. I have the tapes and will continue supplementing my learning with them. I've contacted "key language" and hope to start something with them. I will look into Douglas college course as well.

Redlines_daily: what kind of immersion program are you attending? I'd love to learn more from your experiences.
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Learn Mandarin Chinese in China at One of the Top Chinese Languages Schools in China - Keats School <- this is the school I will be attending

It's 4 hours a day of 1-to-1 mandarin instruction. They try to make it an immersion like environment, but you are allowed to speak English if you like.

As for audio, I went through all 3 levels of the Pimsleur method, it is really good - highly recommend! You can find them on bittorrent, or I can give you my copies if you want them.

Dude just hit up westmall at SFU. Mandarin is like the other offcial language there.
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If you have the time for something like that, Douglas College has a summer abroad in China as i understand it where you learn 2 levels of mandarin as well im not sure on the particulars of it though as i simply heard from the girl as an "aw shucks we could have..." might be cheaper dunno

Redlines brings up a good point about class sizes @ douglas there was like 20ppl

smaller groups or 1on1s might be something to consider

should lemme know how it goes and did you learn it easily :troll: born and raised in vancouver, living under a roof where my parents can only speak chinese. and my chinese is the most white washed crap ever :alone: need to improve my chinese... even the asian girls find it funny i cant speak chinese :'( cant get my own race lulzzzz

I got a call back from Suzanne and am signing up for her class starting this month. This should kick start the learning process.

It may be a hard sell, when I ask my boss to give me a few months off to learn Mandarin. That said, the immersion seems the only way to learn a new language within a reasonable amount of time.

Cheers.

Rosetta Stone looks good.. they have Swahili and Pashto but not Cantonese :rukidding:

I already have Pimsleur recordings, so I don't feel like spending the $$ on Rosetta Stone at this time. I am having high hopes that a combo of classes and Pimsleur will get me to a conversational "level".

One of the smartest girls in my high school class took chinese school at killarney for a couple years. (once a week)
She is half white/chinese.

After all of that time and effort she still couldn't learn it...So ymmv

And Rosetta Stone doesn't have Cantonese because it's not very helpful in my opinion. In this day in age if you were to learn a language, it should English and then Mandarin. Far more possibilities with Mandarin imo.

That's awesome man, you can make your class go a lot smoother if you learn pinyin now before it starts

cantos a dialect, i dont think rosetta does dialects, and within that dialect there are further variations
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...e_Dialects.png
the orangey-brown ones is canto as you know it in HK all the variations combined equate to 56million worldwide (i imagine there's much more now as those nnumbers are from waaaaaaaaaay back)

pashto is an official language and over 60million people speak it
swahili is as well around 41million (800k+ only as 1st language)

Take it at a college first, a few semesters would suffice. Somebody mentioned Douglas College, which is a pretty solid/cheap place to start.

Then once you have some basics, go backpacking in a Mandarin speaking part of Asia for a month.

Come back= speak fluent Mandarin.

While different languages are useful for different people (which is why I failed mx703 for his stupid comment) you would have to admit that cantonese would be more useful to more people than swahili and pashto. Whether it's a dialect (like mandarin is, and Dari the Afghan dialect of persian spoken by 20 million or so which is not as much as Farsi Persian which they also offer) or not.

Cantonese is really hard to learn on tape with so many tones which can have multiple expressions. A learner would literally need to be surrounded by canto users everyday before he/she would be able to learn it some how. Mando on the other hand is easier with pin yin, you can say its more scientific?

Good thing about canto is you go to any chinatown in the world, majority there should speak canto.

I live in HK and my wife speaks it (hence why I want to learn it) so actually I think it would be doable. If I had taken the time to do actual lessons, I'd probably be fluent by now :okay:
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