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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   3190 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for December 8, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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How would you start learning Chinese? Has anyone here done it? I'll probably take a class, but I'd also like some digital tools for self-guided learning.

I downloaded Duolingo and, hoo-boy, has that app gone downhill. It's essentially impossible to use without paying for premium version now. Even when they're not shoving ads down your throat, the animations and interstitials are over-the-top annoying.

I did some work with a textbook ~20 years ago, but never got very good and basically forgot everything.

What really helped me was working through the Spoonfed Chinese Anki deck. It's a deck of several thousand sentences, with cards having Chinese on one side and English on the other side. I did both Chinese to English, as well as Chinese to English to help with production.

It also has audio recordings of the sentences. What I did was listen and repeat as many times as it took me to pronounce a sentence correctly from memory at natural speed before moving on to the next card. This is key, IMO. Early on I would often have to repeat longer sentences 10-20 times to get it right.

I used the Chinese Grammar Wiki to figure out grammatical patterns I didn't understand.

This made me really good at pronunciation and speaking at a natural speed. Unfortunately, it didn't help much with listening. I'm working on that now with podcasts while walking to/from work. I'm going with 大鵬說中文, but it's not suitable for total beginners. I've heard good things about ChinesePod, which covers a broader range of ability levels.

Also, make sure you understand, in terms of where you need to be placing your tongue, how to pronounce the phonemes not used in English. X, j, and q are kind of like English sh, j, and ch, but they're pronounced with the tip of your tongue down below your lower incisors. Zh, ch, and sh are like English j, ch, and sh, but with the tip of the tongue curled slightly upwards. R has extensive regional variation, so just try to imitate it and it will probably be close enough.

Oh, also it helps if you spend a decade learning Japanese first, but not as much as you might think.

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