“they say i should retreat / i’m marching to the rhythm / of a lonesome defeat”

[larryhammer]

Notes on learning Chinese, in case others might find it useful. Feel free to chip in with suggestions and advice.

Specifically, I've been learning Mandarin with simplified characters, primarily using apps on my phone. My immediate goal is tourist-level conversational ability by next summer, with long-term goals of basic conversational facility and basic reading comprehension. I try for a bare minimum of 15 minutes study a day, preferably >30.

At this time, my primary learning app is Duolingo, despite the limitations of its Mandarin unit, which is not as full-featured as some languages. Be warned that its method throws you into the deep end -- grammar is absorbed entirely by example -- and there's no pronunciation training, only listening. However, I keep up with daily lessons more readily on it than anything else, so it must be doing something right.*

Hello Chinese was particularly useful as a total beginner -- especially its pinyin training. The grammar notes remain helpful and the free version trains on both listening to native speakers and grading student pronunciation. I've not yet purchased the extended lessons, but am seriously considering it.

The way I learn, reading real texts with pony assistance is very helpful. My current choice for this is Du Chinese, with dialogues and texts read aloud by native speakers, graded by language level. I haven't yet sprung for the pay version because I rarely overtake the free lessons (all are free for a period before paywalling), but if I do more often I probably will.

Dictionary of choice is Pleco. Excellent, even the free version. The for-pay modules (including voice-recognition translation) look VERY useful.

Not in play at the moment:

• There's a ton of flashcard apps, but I've not kept up with any of them, so not useful to me at this time. (If the HSK exam were a goal, maybe, but it's not.)
• Once I have a better foundation, Skritter may be useful.
• MemRise's lessons and manner were really sweet, with extended training using native speakers, but the amount available free was annoyingly little.
• Various learning games. Though I have kept Study Cat's Fun Chinese on my phone, for occasional play and TBD to use.

Both Janni and I are looking at taking a beginner-level adult conversational class, but only if the schedule works out and it won't start for a couple of months anyway.


* Plus, it taught me how to say "I have 1500 cat photos on my cell phone." I KNOW RITE?

---L.

Subject quote from Battle Symphony, Linkin Park.

Comments

[sartorias]

wo3 you3 1500 mao1 kuai4zhao4 lian4jie1 wo3 de shou shou3 ji1.

(Has to be a mess, as I still don't quite parse prepositional phrases, but hey, it was fun to try. )

[larryhammer]

I learned, and I think this is more idiomatic, to use for this sort of thing yǒu in the sense of "there is" rather than as "to have" with a subject. So -- wǒ de shǒujī lǐ yǒu 1500 gè māo de zhàopiàn.

(Our prepositions are done as postpositions -- so literally "cell phone on/in". And don't forget the measure word! I think kuàizhào liánjié probably works just as well as zhàopiàn.)

[sartorias]

Oh, that looks right! (Er, from what very, very little I have managed to scrape together.)

[asakiyume]

One of the thing I absolutely loved about the early-level Spanish course on Duolingo were the example sentences, which were exactly as delightful as the example you have in your asterisked note. Definitely makes language learning extra fun.

[larryhammer]

Good sentence selection certainly helps.

[thistleingrey]

> "I have 1500 cat photos on my cell phone." I KNOW RITE?

thank you--I needed that :))

[larryhammer]

Bú kèqì!

[thistleingrey]

Good to know what it ought to be, though TBH I can't tell at all :D