Learning Chinese – Part 2

As usual I have far too many projects going on at once. As Sue and my parents are fully aware I have lots of ambition to start projects and love to work on more than one at a time, but my follow through has something left to be desired. So, it should be no surprise that I’m back to learning Chinese.

I felt somewhat invigorated over the past weekend when I hit the local library book sale and got a chance to pick up some children’s, Chinese books. I’ve seen the like before in NYC, but never spent the money on them. At 50 cents a pop I couldn’t resist. When I got them home and Sue took a look we found they they are traditional Chinese, not simplified. Fortunately, most of the characters in the book are simple in nature, which means they are the same in traditional and simplified Chinese. I’ll just make notes on which ones are traditional.

Besides these new books I have a small stock of other Learn Chinese books and children’s books at home ready for use. A couple dictionaries and some clippings from the Chinese newspaper. I think I’m well enough equipped to give it a good shot at self-teaching (with help from Sue) myself Chinese.

I’m biting the bullet and trying to learn reading/writing as well as spoken at the same time. This seems to be how they teach Chinese in college here so I figure I might as well give that approach a shot.

Some other tools I’m trying out are ZDT and Chinesepod.com. ZDT is an application that I can use to create flash cards and test my memorization. It comes with a complete dictionary as well as an integrated web browser. Chinesepod is a mixture of free and subscription materials for learning Chinese. It’ll probably come in more handy as my knowledge and abilities improve. Right now even the newbie level podcasts are beyond me.

I’m crossing my fingers that someday I’ll be able to handle at least a very simple conversation with my in-laws. Up until now our conversations last, on average, 20 seconds or less and consist of a mixture of broken English (them) and even poorer Chinese (me).


7 Responses to “Learning Chinese – Part 2”

  1. jessie Says:
    September 18th, 2006 at 1:36 pm

    ooh, you’ll be bilingual. that’s so cool! adn you’ll have someone to practice it with so you won’t lose it, which is even cooler.

  2. John John the Baker's Son Says:
    September 19th, 2006 at 9:23 pm

    To my mind, using kid’s books isn’t as good an idea as it seems like it would be, that’s especially true if it’s traditional characters! To study Chinese, I’d recommend starting off with the Pimsleur Mandarin series. Pimsleur is definitely better than Chinesepod. Definitely it makes more sense to go through the Pimsleur series, and then start using Chinesepod.

    Also, separately, a textbook with supporting audio materials. They vary a lot in difficulty. If you’re going to study characters, I like the Peking University Press “Hanyu Kouyu” books. “Practical Chinese Reader” has audio material online, it comes with character and non-character versions. It’s way old-school, and teaches you to say “comrade” at times! Except for that, their grammar explanations are the best.

  3. Rie Says:
    September 21st, 2006 at 11:31 am

    My dear Shaun………you get this from me not Dad……….I always start many projects all at once because I have such good intentions………but never find the time to complete them all at the same time….. Dad does one project at a time and works like a DOG until he finishes it even if it means missing meals, work and company…… I clean and cook this way too!!!! as you all know so very well……..LOL……….the good part is we have good intentions and it comes from the heart why we do things this way :-)
    Mom :-)

  4. Shaun Says:
    September 22nd, 2006 at 11:59 am

    @Jessie

    Being bi-lingual would be great! As long as I can pull it off. It is tough to learn another language amid all the other things that life throws at us, like babies. I’m willing to give it a shot though.

  5. Shaun Says:
    September 22nd, 2006 at 12:06 pm

    @John

    Learning traditonal characters aren’t in my plan right now, although, if I find I can handle them I’ll learn what I can.

    I’ve heard good things about Pimsleur, but the one downside is that it costs money. My budget for learning is quite limited. I’m gathering whatever resources I can to help me without paying a lot of money for them. e.g. Cheap children’s books, free lessons clipped from World Journal and of course my live-in teacher; my wife.

    I also found that many Chinese language classes use books from Cheng and Tsui (http://www.cheng-tsui.com), but the problem again is cost. I’m limiting myself for now. If (and it’ll most likely happen) I plan to start paying for resources I’ll definitely check out the Pimseluer Peking University stuff. BTW, can you use the term Comrade for your wife? I wonder how she would react.

  6. Shaun Says:
    September 22nd, 2006 at 12:07 pm

    @Rie

    Another one of my quirks that we can pin down on you. ;) Don’t worry though. Sue is doing her best to keep me going with my projects. The key is to keep the list to less than 12 at a time.

  7. John John the Baker's Son Says:
    September 23rd, 2006 at 4:19 am

    Oh that’s easy, download the lessons off mininova.org, or if you don’t feel like going to jail you can buy it off e-bay, then sell it when done…the lessons are pretty basic and build on the previous ones, so once you understand the lesson and move on, there’s no need to review.