ta12121 Wrote:I'm interesting in started Mandarin Chinese.

DevvaR Wrote:

ta12121 Wrote:I'm interesting in started Mandarin Chinese.

I"m also interested. There doesn't seem to be a RTK->TaeKim->Core2k->Kanji Odyssey->Core6k->JLPT2 Grammar type of equalivant for Chinese.

Also, if you've already gone through RTK, I don't think RTH will be necessary. Think about what you gained from RTK, how to remember the kanji through primitives(radicals) and getting a vague sense of meaning from it. The meaning is soon replaced by actually learning vocabulary and knowing all the primites(radicals) allow you to apply the same methods to new Hanzi instead of pushing through another uphill slog whilst relearning a lot of Hanzi with the same Kanji equalivant.

louischa Wrote:If you want to learn Chinese, I would suggest you don't need to do RTH after doing RTK because the characters are 90% the same (that's my guesstimate), but focus instead on learning the good Chinese pronunciation of the characters.

In my case, I took a course at the university; that was perfect because beginners need someone to imitate the sounds from and someone to correct you, because foreigners usually tend to exaggerate the tones while speaking. Also, tones change depending on the context of other words in the sentence. You also want to associate the correct sounds to the pinyin. It is essential to have this training if you want to be understood, since it is easy to mix up the tones if you're not careful, and end up pronouncing something else than what you actually meant. Like when you think you are asking for where the post office is, but actually saying that your wife has a very fuzzy bush instead.

The good news is, once you master the pronunciation, then Chinese is a piece of cake to learn compared to Japanese. The grammar is trivial, many words are the same as in Japanese (because the Japanese borrowed them from Chinese in the first place), so your progress is going to be much faster. I think that grammatically, Chinese is even easier than English.

louischa Wrote:Traditional vs. simplified characters: depends on where you want to go. Simplified are used in Mainland Chinese, so if your focus is business or teaching there, go with simplified. Traditional are used in Taiwan, so if you are planning on going down there, then learn traditional - but I'd say that 95% of Japanese kanji (guesstimate again) are identical to traditional Chinese characters. Hong Kong also uses traditional, but then the language is not Mandarin, and good luck if your goal is to pronounce Cantonese like a native!

If you'd like to learn simplified, if you've done RTK, then you've done most of the hard work already. Most simplifications are really straightforward. For instance, 言 becomes 讠, and that applies to all compounds having the radical 言. Likewise, 長 becomes 长, 貝 becomes 贝 in all compounds as well. So there you go, knowing these simple mappings allow you to "know" already a bunch of simplified characters.

Some characters are so simplified that they are unrecognizable for us, RTKers. For instance, 為 becomes 为 (makes sense, but you need to learn that), and 書 becomes 书 (not so obvious), and 幾 becomes 几 (impossible to guess). These extreme cases count for perhaps no more than 1-2 hundred characters (my guesstimate, here again).

So there you go: learning simplified characters will take someone who went through RTK just a couple of weeks - so this is really a trivial investment. But then your primary focus should be on learning proper pronunciation.

Another annoying thing is that **some** characters have evolved to have different meanings in Japanese, so you'll have to "unlearn" some of the RTK meanings and replace them by proper chinese meanings. But hey, if you were serious about learning ... Japanese in the first place, you'll know that learning new meanings of familiar characters post-RTK is something you need to do all the time. So learning Chinese is not such a great challenge after all.

I personally started learning Chinese, and then I stopped because I couldn't handle the characters. After doing RTK I and II, I give myself two more years to become more fluent in Japanese, and then I will return to Chinese. There would be too much interference between the two languages if I decided to continue Chinese at the same time, but that's just my personal preference. But boy, how much easier Chinese is compared to Japanese. It's dramatic and when you tell that to people, they almost refuse to believe you.

Jarvik7 Wrote:I've always wondered what the draw to Cantonese is. So many foreigners seem to go for it instead of Mandarin even though it is comparatively much less useful of a language.

Is it because of kung fu movies or the background of most Chinese-Americans?

Jarvik7 Wrote:I can understand the draw of media (my total lack of interest in modern Chinese culture is probably why I don't study Chinese more than I do), but not really the overseas Chinese bit.

Wouldn't all first generation immigrants also know Mandarin? Second generation ones would probably be able to speak only some Cantonese as heritage speakers.

Jarvik7 Wrote:I've always wondered what the draw to Cantonese is.

louischa Wrote:Oh, and last detail: be patient. I recall that in the beginning of my Chinese studies, there were some sounds ("qi" and "qu" as opposed to "ji" and "ju") that I couldn't reproduce at all, and some that were easy for me but that other classmates could not say at all ("xi" - same consonant as the German "ch" in "ich").

I remember one evening I had to ask a pretty Chinese friend of mine to yell "qi qi QI QIIIIII!!!!!" into my ear hundreds of times, and I still couldn't get it. Each time I would try say "qi" it would sound like "ki" or "chi" or "ji", which are different sounds in Chinese. That was hugely frustrating, and I thought it was impossible to learn to produce these sounds in a manner that would be intelligible to native speakers.

Then a few months later, I woke up and I knew how to say "qi" correctly. Something clicked in my brain, or in the relationship between brain, ear and speech. But I had to work at it a long time.

Same thing happened for the tones, it took me maybe 6 months of practice before they became natural (bear in mind that "ma2" has not the same meaning as "ma3" or "ma4", and that's something our brains (assuming your maternal language is not tonal) have trouble getting to terms with.

Perhaps it takes musical talent to properly learn to speak Chinese when you are a foreigner. I know of some people who can read newspapers in Chinese, but who never managed to produce the correct sounds. Do not be a foreign devil like that! Be an intelligible foreign devil, all devils will thank you for it.

DevvaR Wrote:

Jarvik7 Wrote:I've always wondered what the draw to Cantonese is.

Personally for me, Cantonese sounds a lot more awesome than Mandarin(especially the swearing and bad mouthing, threats etc.) and that is probably because of the modern media of Cantonese kung fu movies and so forth and because my family friends all speak Cantonese. My parents can speak both and I'm assuming some of my family friends can speak Mandarin, but they we always have a gathering, its always Cantonese.

But at work, my colleagues speak Mandarin though.

In terms of getting started with Chinese(let's stick to Mandarin for consistency's stake), what would be a good path to take for acquisation of basic grammar and vocab to the point where native level immersion can take over? As I stated in my original post, for Japanese, something like RTK->Taekim->Core6k/Kanji Odyssey->JLPT2 Grammar.
(Also, according to my parents, they learnt Cantonese in about 3 months from watching Cantonese movies with Chinese subtitles. Apparently, its called the TV methods or something within language learning groups.)

ta12121 Wrote:That's probably because they were already familiar with mandarin, making Cantonese easier?

DevvaR Wrote:

ta12121 Wrote:That's probably because they were already familiar with mandarin, making Cantonese easier?

Well, clearly, of course. Well I guess what I'm trying to say is, when trying to choose between Mandarin and Cantonese, just go with one with more resources/support, and once you've reached a fluent level, it shouldn't take too long to pick up the other. So don't worry about it too much. I wasn't trying to sound like a show-off saying that I'm advantaged because of my Asian heritage or anything like that.

louischa Wrote:But boy, how much easier Chinese is compared to Japanese. It's dramatic and when you tell that to people, they almost refuse to believe you.

ta12121 Wrote:So Chinese is easier than Japanese. I can understand that, the grammar is easy, there is only 4 tones, to be fluent you just need to memorize characters and no other system of writing. Plus doing RTK makes it easier.

DevvaR Wrote:In terms of getting started with Chinese(let's stick to Mandarin for consistency's stake), what would be a good path to take for acquisation of basic grammar and vocab to the point where native level immersion can take over? As I stated in my original post, for Japanese, something like RTK->Taekim->Core6k/Kanji Odyssey->JLPT2 Grammar.