I want to learn Chinese
I want to learn Chinese
The original article in Chinese.
The original article began with an apology here asking for lenience on my poor writing. You'll notice the language is extremely simple here in the English version because it's a fairly directly translation from the Chinese article and I can only speak simply in Chinese.
When I started going to college, there were several people that spoke Cantonese. I say several, but really there were two. The others wouldn't speak with me. We were all studying computer science there. At that time I frequently suffered insomnia, so I had a lot of free time. But the Internet then was not the same as the Internet now. I bought several workbooks, grammar books, and cassette recordings (you read correctly, there weren't many MP3s, certainly not that could be purchased), etc. I had many opportunities, but at the time I didn't know how to learn.
You see, in school you didn't need to really study. In school, you didn't need to really learn a thing, just to remember a few topics. If you could pass a test then you didn't need to learn. The other students were just as lazy as me. We all thought that if we could pass a test, we must be smart.
When I went to college, I still believed this. I memorized some characters and vocabulary, but I learned very slowly. After two semesters, I still couldn't say even the most basic of things. What's more, my Chinese speaking friends graduated and went back to China. So then I had fewer opportunities and still didn't know how to learn. The Internet still wasn't very advanced and there weren't many Chinese learning web sites.
Several years later I graduated and wanted to go back to college to learn Chinese. Of course, no one was teaching Cantonese, just Mandarin. I studied Chinese for a semester. I really enjoyed it, but I still couldn't speak Chinese with other people. But after the semester ended I started to learn how to teach myself. Several years after that, I'm still not fluent in Chinese.
Now I'll tell you the method I use to study Chinese. Afterwards, maybe you can tell me what methods you use to learn a foreign language.
To study Chinese I use the following method:
Step 1, learn a sentence.
Study how it's spoken, repeat it frequently. Really really frequently. Say it again until you don't need to think anymore when you're trying to say it. For any of the new sounds, learn where to put your tongue to make the new sounds.
Step 2, learn what each word means in isolation. When one should use each word, which words are used for their meaning, and which are purely functional words with a grammatical purpose. Chinese has no conjugation, but it has some commonly used verb complements.
Step 3, learn each sentence's grammar and use it to create new sentences using different vocabulary words. But are the new sentences correct? You can use Google. If there are a lot of results then it's certainly correct.
What I was trying to convey here was that you do a Google query for exactly what your new sentence is, and if your sentence is grammatically correct, chances are you will find search results with your exact sentence, and if you do, it's definitely correct.
Please, please help
This method is not good enough. I still don't have a method to improve listening comprehension. Perhaps I could trouble you? Maybe you could possibly help me out?
Maybe if I wanted to learn a new sentence and could listen to many different people saying that same sentence it would be helpful, but that's easier said than done. For the most part, when I'm learning a new sentence there's no easy way to listen to other people say it, and I can't find it online.
In this place I know there are a lot of foreign language speakers. Maybe you all could tell me what method you use to learn a language?
Thanks for reading.
So have you continued learning Chinese? Any updates?
Man, how did I miss this reply? Sorry.
It would seem I'm now able to read a lot of the texts that were previously just slightly too difficult. Namely, I can zip right through the low-level Chinese Breeze graded readers, the Mandarin Companion stuff, and even some random Manga on the web... I'm able to make myself understood by native speakers, though I probably sound like a child in doing so. Actual novels, though, they make use of more complicated grammar and I spend more time puzzling over what the intended meaning is than actually reading the material.
О Азия! тобой себя я мучу.
Как девы брови, я постигаю тучу.
Как шею нежного здоровья.
Твои ночные вечеровья.
Где тот, кто день иной предрек?
О, если б волосами синих рек
Мне Азия покрыла бы колени
И дева прошептала таинственные пени,
И тихая, счастливая, рыдала,
Концом косы глаза суша.
Она любила! Она страдала!
Вселенной смутная душа.
И вновь прошли бы снова чувства,
И зазвенел бы в сердце бой:
И Мохавиры, и Заратустры,
И Саваджи, объятого борьбой.
Умерших их я был бы современник,
Творил ответы и вопросы.
А ты бы грудой светлых денег
Мне на ноги рассыпала бы косы.
«Учитель,— мне шепча,—
Не правда ли, сегодня
Мы будем сообща
Искать путей свободней?»
<1921>
В.Хлебников.