Comments on: 8 Mistakes To Avoid When Learning Chinese

By: Payton

Payton — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 16:03:56 +0000

WENLIN must be mentioned as it is on of the best programs out there for learning written Chinese (although it is severely outdated)

By: Peggy

Peggy — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 15:23:19 +0000

Wonderful article!

By: Julia

Julia — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 20:46:32 +0000

I truly respect the desire to learn for learning’s sake, however my above comment isn’t for the vacationer whom only plans to stay in China for a couple weeks. Rather, its for a more serious student/worker/entrepreneur who wants to learn Chinese so that he/she can communicate with friends, co-workers or get around town (in China). If you plan to live in China for a period of time or frequently travel to China & don’t always have a guide, then I can’t really imagine not having at least a little reading ability. Many bus stations, restaurant menus,instructions, even safety-hazards, etc are only in Chinese. Furthermore, I don’t see how you could possibly type in pinyin & select the right character of a drop-down menu if you have no idea what the character looks like. To aid in reading and memorization writing characters is an essential tool. I know personally of people who started learning Chinese approximately the same time, those who learned to read & write retained their knowledge much more successfully than those who didn’t. Learning the radicals of characters is also extremely useful in reading them as well as in pronunciation, many times a radical gives clues to pronunciation and/or meaning.(also extremely useful in using a dictionary to look up characters when you don’t recognize a character)

If you have no real reason to learn Chinese then just learning how to say 你好、再见、菜单、买单、宾馆/酒店、的士 should be sufficient, further attempts to learn without a serious intention to learn is a waste of money and time.

By: Sean

Sean — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 23:10:46 +0000

Colleagues:

I’ve just come upon your website by chance (I did a Google search for “Chinese education” for my current research project).

I’ve been learning Chinese on and off – inside and outside China – for a long time. Your article and comments were very thought-provoking. For the moment, I’ll confine myself to a very general comment. Realism is crucial. My Mum always asks me, “Where’s it leading to?” She doesn’t seem to understand when I say it’s worth doing intellectually for its own sake. (I’ll admit this is not a widespread view. But in my case, it’s realistic. Some of your readers seem to have wasted a lot of time – and motivation – “learning characters,” which they apparently understood to mean learning to write characters. In one of your comments, you ” mention (all-too-briefly) something to the effect that “to a certain extent” writing can help listening, speaking and reading. But realistically, writing will be at the bottom of thelanguage skills most people need, and realistically, knowledge of pinyin computer input will cover most people’s needs.

Best wishes

Sean

By: mark

mark — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 16:06:53 +0000

On a Mac you can use the single trackpad to write Chinese characters directly into documents. It’s a good tool as it expects you to use the correct stroke order.

By: 8 Mistakes To Avoid When Learning Chinese « Sydney Uni AV Language Library

8 Mistakes To Avoid When Learning Chinese « Sydney Uni AV Language Library — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 05:16:01 +0000

[...] July 5, 2010 Here are 8 mistakes to avoid when learning Chinese (Mandarin), according to The China Expat. [...]

By: Sean

Sean — Thu, 06 May 2010 17:12:37 +0000

That was one of the best articles that I have read on learning Chinese in a while because the advice actually has a chance of working.

I started a learn Chinese company mandarinnetwork.com and have spent a lot of time doing research on the “Learn Chinese” niche.

It is amazing how many companies claim to teach someone the Chinese language in one month or some other ridiculously short amount of time.

Learning Chinese isn’t impossible, it just takes a lot of time and dedication. There is no silver bullet that will allow a complete beginner to “Master the Chinese language in two weeks”.

Another tip I might add for someone that really wants to learn the Chinese language; don’t move to Shanghai or Beijing if you come to China.

Although I love living in Shanghai because of all the Western restaurants, I would have learned much quicker if I didn’t live in a city with so many other foreigners that I can speak English with.

By: mostafa

mostafa — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 16:41:00 +0000

thanks Julia

By: Julia

Julia — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 05:52:44 +0000

To answer “learn the basic of the language before travel to china to learn or
travel to there to learn ?” is really hard, b/c everyone is different. For me, when I first came (to Taiwan) I wanted to learn some before I came b/c I would at least know how to say “I am hungry” or “bathroom.” However, for people a bit more enterprising, they might not want to spend the time, they want to immediately come. Certainly you will learn a lot faster when you come to China, you’re constantly hearing & practicing, you also feel a sense of urgency. However, it can also feel frustrating, when you get lost, when you order fish & you get fish head, when you want to talk to ppl or understand them & you can’t. Frustration and fear can kill the learning process or ability, and coming to a different country on your own is scary enough. I would recommend getting at least some basic skills, that way you have the confidence to get out there & use those skills. Also, if you are studying Chinese at a University or school in China, its all too easy to find a group of expats & hang out with all the time, or find Chinese who only want to practice their English. If you only hang out with English-speaking ppl you won’t improve as fast; if you always depend on someone else to get you around, figure out public transport or order, then you won’t increase your knowledge. So even if you fear getting fish head, pork belly, or something incredibly spicy, just go for it anyway, the food is really cheap, you can always order more. Also, Chinese ppl are really nice & forgiving to foreigners so you can always just ask questions.

By: mostafa

mostafa — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 17:45:43 +0000

i would like to know that :
what is the better way ?
learn the basic of the language before travel to china to learn or
travel to there to learn ?