Learn Chinese (places, speak, travel, cons)

[happylily]

if you want to learn Chinese,it's better to begin "touching" it by some books ,classes online. to have a brief understanding about Chinese study first.

I have to say , the way of Chinese pronunciation ,writing is greatly different with English or French. for English and other European languages , you can "guess" the pronunciation by its writing and "guess" the spelling by its pronunciation. but ,it's not OK about Chinese.

if you only want to spend 3-4months to learn Chinese, it's recommended that you pay more attention to the speaking.about the writing ,even we Chinese have to spend about 6 years in premiry school to learn the writing for most useful words. unless you really want to study it , I mean ,to learn it very very good ,then remember some very useful words is OK .

below is the cost in shanghai:
rent cost:USD260.00 with bathroom,kitchen ,air-conditonal, TV,maybe with internet,about 20M3. very comfortable for one person.

food cost:USD6.00 , you can eat very well, I mean fast food, and the environment is OK. if go to some expensive restuarant ,then ,things will be total different.

transportation cost: about USD50.00( this means you have to go out very often ,by subway, subway in shanghai is very convenient ,but can be very crowd in peak time), but if you always go by taxi ,things different, the starting price for taxi is about USD1.8. very expensive.

then the study cost ,you have to check with some schools.

yes ,summers in shanghai can be very hot ,about 38.C. but it's very cool at night because of Huangpu Rivel . it will last about 20days. in winter , no central heating ,because we are belong to the south part in China. it can be very cold in about 10 days, but not that serious.


In my opinion ,shanghai is a very good place for you. because shanghai have been very international ,you will not get too many trouble to adapt here. and it's a very active city ,many young people ,volunteer, and many good universities. such as Fudan university ,Tongji university.

hope the above info can be useful.

anyway ,welcome!

[houstonreadhead]

Originally Posted by desperad0stl

Beijing Language & Culture University

While BLCU is too far from where I live and work, it does look like a good option.

S

[jamison1987]

Living in China is a better choice.You have to practice more to learn Chinese.Beijing,Nanjing,wuxi must be good choice.You can choose to live in a courtyard house.

[desperad0stl]

I wish I would have lived in a nice old hutong. I had a friend who had a hutong completely modern inside and still the old charm outside...they're so nice

[Ryuji]

Originally Posted by the troubadour

Have a friend who speaks fluent Mandarin learned in Taipeh.Liked the place so much he decided to call Taiwan home.
He didn't appear impressed with China(PR) though.

I've lived in Taipei for ten years and other cities in mainland China for ten years, mainly Shanghai.

People who learn Mandarin in mainland China tend to be more cool while talking to other people. I mean it is hard to feel their emotion in their languages

I prefer Taiwan Mandarin.

[Ryuji]

Originally Posted by happylily

for English and other European languages , you can "guess" the pronunciation by its writing and "guess" the spelling by its pronunciation. but ,it's not OK about Chinese.

That's not true though.

Say, you can't guess how to pronounce Reiter in German if you have'nt learnt the language.

As for Chinese, more than 90% of Chinese characters are Xingshengzi(形声字), which mean one part of a character expresses its pronunciation.

中=zhong

So you can guess 种, 钟, 仲 = zhong.

文=wen

纹雯蚊=wen

In my opinion, Chinese is one of the easiest language to learn

[japanese001]

I want to learn Manchu.

[Ryuji]

Originally Posted by japanese001

I want to learn Manchu.

Sigh... We can't watch youtube from China... It's banned by the government.

I took Manchuria language class when I was a college student. It was funny even our teacher couldn't speak Manchuria language

[igneel]

I studied Chinese at BLCU (Beijing Language and Culture University) before for 1 year.I heard it the best university to learn chinese with the qualified teacher.
I LIKE it!

want to go and study there again

[xiansheng_g]

Originally Posted by Tavludo

This may be a shot in the dark...

Hi everybody,

I'd like to learn Chinese, I've always been good at learning languages, in speak 3 and currently learning Italian. My question is: what way would it be better to start learning Chinese? I am planning to buy Rosetta Stone but so far with my experience moving to the country for a couple of months has been greatly beneficial.

I have traveled to Europe and that's how I learned French but never to Asia, that's why I am hesitant moving there and about how much would it cost me to live in let's say Shanghai or Beijing for 3 or 4 months and enroll in a school. Also, I was looking into enrolling for a summer in Middlebury College, I hear they have a great language program. It costs 9K dlls for two months including room and food, what would it be more cost efficient and helpful?

Ok let's see your insight on this matter,

Thanks!

I have been studying Chinese for nine months (Wo shi xue hanyu jiu yue). I like it very much (Wo xihuan hen hao).

The best way to start learning Chinese is by purchasing a traveler's phrase book to establish a base of core phrases that are easy to remember, e. g., "ni hao," which means' hello', and is pronounced 'nee how.' Afterwards you can determine if you want to use online learning resources like chinesepod.com, or the MIT Open Courseware class in Mandarin, or if you'd rather take a "brick and mortar" course at your local institution of higher learning. I've have at times done all of the above, in addition to purchasing several texts and a Rosetta Stone DVD computer program. Like the saying goes, "it's all good," but be prepared to really work hard at this endeavor.

As far as Middlebury College is concerned, I've heard nothing but excellent things about their Arabic language program, so I would expect that their Mandarin courses are equally as well. Good luck with your goals.

PS. If there are any native speaking Chinese tutors in the NYC metro area on this board who would like to help me with basic conversational Chinese, please contact PM. Xie xie.