speaking chinese

[kingkong89]

does anyone out there know a good way to learn chinese and how to speak it fluently

 

[arnisador]

This is a very tough language for an English speaker to learn to speak! Take lessons. Someone near you has emigrated from there and will tutor you.

 

[chinto]

that and some of the programs like "roseta stone" they actually use that kind of program in Monterey for the military and intelligence community's language program .. best i can do for you in suggestions.

 

[arnisador]

The DLI is quite efficient, and I have heard lots of good things about Rosetta. But to speak Chinese is very difficult for a non-native because of its tonal system!

 

[East Winds]

I am learning Chinese (Mandarin) using the Pimsleur course. Expensive, but quite superb. My local Chinese restaurant now understand my orders!!!

Very best wishes

 

[Xue Sheng]

Pimsleur is good, Rosetta Stone is suppose to be good

This is a good source as well
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/

But I am married to an OMD from China who also teaches Mandarin and the local community college so I'm lucky , although she constantly tells me I am a bad student :uhyeah:

 

[Yew]

I am learning Chinese (Mandarin) using the Pimsleur course. Expensive, but quite superb. My local Chinese restaurant now understand my orders!!!

Very best wishes

Somehow I find your name in this thread is the most tranlslatable. Dong Feng?But don't go using that as your nickname outisde though cause it sounds similar to a very skilled but genderless character in wuxia fiction.

 

[MA-Caver]

I myself would like to learn some day... but one has to be sure of the dialect that they want to speak... I believe that there are two primary dialects in China itself; Mandarin (the one I'd choose) and Cantonese which is primarily (if I'm not mistaken) the dialect spoken by those along the coastal cities like Hong Kong and Shanghai. Bruce Lee spoke primarily Cantonese and Jet Li speaks Mandarin so to give you an idea of the differences. Or even better.... Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and Hero were in Mandarin and other films like So Close were in Cantonese. Cantonese tend to broaden/lengthen their vowels while Mandarin is more of the concise/precise manner of speaking.

Am not sure if both dialects are similar enough to be able to converse one way or another though.

Either way know who you're going to be conversing with and what dialect they'll be speaking so there's clear communication all around.

 

[oxy]

Cantonese which is primarily (if I'm not mistaken) the dialect spoken by those along the coastal cities like Hong Kong and Shanghai.

Shanghai speaks its own dialect of Mandarin called Wu, I think.

Cantonese is spoken basically only in the Guangzhou area. I say "only" but the population there is quite large.

Cantonese tend to broaden/lengthen their vowels while Mandarin is more of the concise/precise manner of speaking.

Actually, I find them to be the reverse.

It could be an aural illusion. For example, Cantonese consonants are very short and sharp whereas Mandarin consonants seem longer. So framed by these sounds, the vowel sounds might seem different lengths. Kind of like that optical illusion where the inner white boxes the same size, but the surrounding black box is of a different size making the inner boxes look different.

Am not sure if both dialects are similar enough to be able to converse one way or another though.

Only if you talk REALLY slowly and you are ALMOST shouting...

 

[East Winds]

Yew,

Thanks for that. I was not aware of the wuxia connection. But yes, the translation is good. My local Chinese restaurant and a local Chinese shopkeeper all say my pronunciation and accent are good classical Mandarin. (That's thanks to the Pimsleur exercises). Now writing!!!! That's a whole different ball game:erg:

Very best wishes

 

[Xue Sheng]

Shanghai speaks its own dialect of Mandarin called Wu, I think.

Not sure about this but all I know is that a Mandarin speaker ahs a REAL hard time understanding a Shanghai dialect speaker. I have had my Sifu demonstrate the differences between Cantonese, Mandarin and Shanghai (he speaks all three) and they are VERY different. My wife speaks only Mandarin and cannot understand Shanghai dialect or Cantonese.

Cantonese is spoken basically only in the Guangzhou area. I say "only" but the population there is quite large.

Yup

However Mandarin is taught and spoken throughout China as the "official Language" so, IMO, unless someone plans on staying in Guangzhou or Hong Kong it is best to learn Mandarin.

Actually, I find them to be the reverse.

It could be an aural illusion. For example, Cantonese consonants are very short and sharp whereas Mandarin consonants seem longer. So framed by these sounds, the vowel sounds might seem different lengths. Kind of like that optical illusion where the inner white boxes the same size, but the surrounding black box is of a different size making the inner boxes look different.

I have always described Cantonese as having harder consonant sounds than Mandarin. Xie xie as opposed to Doh je kind of thing for example. When I listen to Cantonese speakers it always sounds to me as having much harder consonant sounds than when I listen to Mandarin speakers. But then if I listen to the average mandarin speaker and then listen to Beijing Mandarin I hear a lot more "r" sounds in Beijing mandarin.

 

[TenTigers]

I am learning Cantonese. (I do Hung-Ga and Jook Lum Southern mantis,whose terminology is in Cantonese)In NYC Chinatown, there are free Cantonese and Toisanese language courses. I also use Pimsleur. In Chinatown, Hong Kong, and Guangzhao, Guaongdong, Cantonese is the dominant language. In fact, when I went to Hong Kong a few weeks ago, the only manderin I heard was on the subway announcements, which were in English, Cantonese, and then manderen.
My friend speaks fluent cantonese and he learned mainly from Cantonese Kung-Fu movies-believe it or not! Of course, he also moved to Guangzhao for six months and was totally imersed in the language as well.

 

[TenTigers]

there are many more differences between Cantonese and manderin than simply pronounciation. But the written language is the same.

 

[Unkogami]

does anyone out there know a good way to learn chinese and how to speak it fluently

Move to China. Fall in love.

 

[oxy]

Not sure about this but all I know is that a Mandarin speaker ahs a REAL hard time understanding a Shanghai dialect speaker. I have had my Sifu demonstrate the differences between Cantonese, Mandarin and Shanghai (he speaks all three) and they are VERY different. My wife speaks only Mandarin and cannot understand Shanghai dialect or Cantonese.

Actually, I was incorrect. Wu is a separate dialect in itself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_(linguistics)

I can only speak HK cantonese and I actually can't understand a lot of cantonese from the mainland!

I have always described Cantonese as having harder consonant sounds than Mandarin. Xie xie as opposed to Doh je kind of thing for example. When I listen to Cantonese speakers it always sounds to me as having much harder consonant sounds than when I listen to Mandarin speakers. But then if I listen to the average mandarin speaker and then listen to Beijing Mandarin I hear a lot more "r" sounds in Beijing mandarin.

Sounds right to me. I think most Southern dialects have harder consonant sounds (though I could be mistaken).

 

[Xue Sheng]

there are many more differences between Cantonese and manderin than simply pronounciation. But the written language is the same.

Mandarin has 4 tones and correct me if I am wrong but doesn't Cantonese have about 8?

Also this was told to me by a friend of mine who was born in Guangzhou and was an English teacher there as well and had to learn Mandarin. The written language is the same but to be considered literate in Cantonese you need to know about 6000 Characters were in Mandarin you need about 4000. Basically his meaning was if you want to read and understand a local paper.

 

[MBuzzy]

I have used both Rosetta Stone and Pimsleur with Korean. Both have their advantages and disadvantages, do you have to know what you want to do.

Rosetta Stone is a complete immersion system. So with Asian systems, learning the written system is almost impossible with only Rosetta Stone. If you choose to use it, it works great for learning to speak. You do have to stick with the entire program and work at it for a few hours per day though.

Pimsleur has its issues also. It is great for learning the spoken language, but there is no link to the written here. They also tend to teach the "university" version of the language and not the normal spoken version. I learned a few things on Pimsleur that the real Koreans had quite a laugh at because no one actually talks that way.

 

[SensibleManiac]

I heard Rosetta Stone is excellent however I would tend to agree that Asian languages require the written component to really be fluent.
I don't speak Chinese myself but you can do like a friend of mine who took some Chinese courses in Canada, then took a course to teach English as a second language and went to China to teach English and practice his Chinese.
Well it's a year and a half later and he's still there with no intention of returning soon and apparently he's now fluent in Chinese.

 

[oxy]

The written language is the same but to be considered literate in Cantonese you need to know about 6000 Characters were in Mandarin you need about 4000. Basically his meaning was if you want to read and understand a local paper.

The estimates I've seen had been as low as 1500 for a local newspaper.

Maybe some newspapers written in vernacular Cantonese may require more characters, but I remember that most Cantonese is written using the Mandarin standard.

 

[mograph]

Some tidbits:

In terms of written, there are Traditional and Simplified Chinese characters. Neither is connected to Mandarin or Cantonese -- those terms relate to spoken language. Cantonese speakers may prefer Traditional due to an avoidance of PRC-driven Simplified characters, but there's no rule that I know of. Both Mandarin and Cantonese speakers would see a character, and for the same meaning, pronounce it differently. They would both read and write the same character for "six", but one would say "liu" and the other "lok".) I was learning simplified for a while so I could read signs in Beijing, but you won't see those in traditional calligraphy, which I love. I'll probably learn to read signs and calligraphy, letting the simplified/traditional weighting fall where it may.

Most of the old-school Chinese who emigrated a while ago probably speak Cantonese, though more speakers of Mandarin emigrate now. I've had a hard time finding Mandarin speakers in Toronto, so I'll probably try to learn a bit of Cantonese, just to converse better with my Friday night Sifu.

A Cantonese-speaking gentleman once told me that the number of different words between Mandarin and Cantonese has crossed the threshold where the two can be called different languages -- not just dialects. I've found that sometimes there's a pattern driving the differences, sometimes not.

As with any language, practice in conversation is the key. And watching martial arts movies.