以夷制夷 edition
The thread for posting in Chinese and discussion about the Chinese-speaking world, culture, life, travel, economics, geopolitics, etc.
Thread theme: youtube.com
>Learning resources:
pastebin.com
mega.nz
>Recommended TV Series:
movie.douban.com
>Recommended Movies:
movie.douban.com
>Literal Chinese cartoons:
bangumi.bilibili.com
ac.qq.com
>Chinese Manga:
ac.qq.com
u17.com
>Online Novels:
qidian.com
Previous thread:
Memes aside, just how hard IS Chinese? Also, Mandarin vs Cantonese? Both have a ton of speakers in relevant places.
对一个外国人讲没有问题
Don't do Canto unless you have a specific reason. Most material for educated people is in Mandarin these days, and even in Hong Kong you'll get better treatment if you just use English.
Tones vary from person to person: I found them easy but you really have to drill them for awhile. It's best to drill common tone pairs to hear them in context.
Pronunciation is different as fuck but not hard once you get used to it, which should take a few weeks to a month. You won't get it just from looking at pinyin, though: you have to really learn how the gestures work in your mouth, because English just has nothing like them.
After all that, Spoken Mandarin is legitimately the easiest language I've ever learned. The grammar's nothing and the new turns of phrase and ways of expressing yourself are fairly obvious and even fun. You can reach a good level of spoken fluency pretty quick, especially if you live near a chinatown.
The written language is fucking hell though. A year at minimum to start recognizing those damn characters consistently enough to read the goddamn newspaper.
Very helpful answer. Thanks!
I'm the user from /lang/ working on a Classical Chinese deck meant to go through all of Confucius' Analects by the time it's done. Here's my deck prototype for anyone interested. It presumes a little bit of background in Mandarin and goes up to the first line of the Analects: you should be able to use it if you have around 500-600 characters and very comfortably if you have 1000 or more. Let me know if there's anything I could improve. So far I've gotten through most of the grammar necessary for the first chapter of the Analects in forty-some cards (all through example sentences,) ending with the first line of the first book, which should be pretty transparent by the time you get to it. Let me know if this isn't the case.
mega.nz
Mandarin. Pronunciation is key since there's a difference between chu and qu or you'll be making choochoo train noises. Try to rely less and less on pinyin after you learn how to pronounce stuff since there's a limited number of sounds. Never write in pinyin. The key to Chinese characters is to split them up into parts. Try to find language classes with a Chinese person. New Chinese Practical Reader is a good book to start with and you can find the pdf just by googling.
Imo encouraging total command of characters too early will slow progress. Best to learn to speak completely first with passive exposure to characters and pinyin as a crutch where necessary, and only where necessary. I took a break from studying characters to focus exclusively on speaking for a few months when I began and the characters were a lot easier when I came back.
Asking a Chinese person for feedback on pronunciation isn't a bad idea but often they'll want you to sound like their immediate family and friends, which will sometimes result in awkward regional accents like merging 是 and 四 if they're from the south. Untrained tutors, meanwhile, will often rely too heavily on godawful Chinese pedagogy and make you copy characters and repeat mundane sentences after them for hours, none of which will make you do anything other than hate Chinese. Really, you should have some idea what you're getting into when you look for help. Strongly seconding the NPCR recommendation though.
Also honestly Zhuyin over pinyin where possible
bump
hong kong fags assemble
what kind of dogshit meme is that? 100% Guaranteed you're some aloof ESF kid who is totally out of touch with the real world yet think that you're hot shit. News flash: proper intl schools shit all over ESF
#defundESF
I wish sino threads were more common/popular I always wanted to learn Mandarin. Its more fun when you can try shitposting in a thread and being able to ask questions.
Bampu.
>the Battle of Suiyang
Took two quarters of Mandarin, didn't do too hot. I'm taking a quarter off to independent study and then doing a summer in Beijing. How do I get good at this language so I can start least have basic conversations with people?
Listen and don't focus on writing just yet. Go through Spoonfed Chinese on Anki. Input is king when you're having trouble with output.
Cha老师 stressed writing for the tests. This Spoonfed seems great though, a lot of useful small phrases. 谢谢 what do you mean by input is King?
Everyone learning a foreign language should watch this. t. someone with an actual fucking linguistics degree.
youtube.com
Long story short, stressing writing is silly for Mandarin. Students perform best learning languages when exposed to the maximum amount of comprehensible input with minimal stress; characters early on represent the minimum amount of comprehensible (often quite asinine, from what I've seen) input and the maximum amount of stress.
动态网自由门 天安門 天安门 法輪功 李洪志 Free Tibet 六四天安門事件 The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 天安門大屠殺 The Tiananmen Square Massacre 反右派鬥爭 The Anti-Rightist Struggle 大躍進政策 The Great Leap Forward 文化大革命 The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution 人權 Human Rights 民運 Democratization 自由 Freedom 獨立 Independence 多黨制 Multi-party system 台灣 臺灣 Taiwan Formosa 中華民國 Republic of China 西藏 土伯特 唐古特 Tibet 達賴喇嘛 Dalai Lama 法輪功 Falun Dafa 新疆維吾爾自治區 The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region 諾貝爾和平獎 Nobel Peace Prize 劉暁波 Liu Xiaobo 民主 言論 思想 反共 反革命 抗議 運動 騷亂 暴亂 騷擾 擾亂 抗暴 平反 維權 示威游行 李洪志 法輪大法 大法弟子 強制斷種 強制堕胎 民族淨化 人體實驗 肅清 胡耀邦 趙紫陽 魏京生 王丹 還政於民 和平演變 激流中國 北京之春 大紀元時報 九評論共産黨 獨裁 專制 壓制 統一 監視 鎮壓 迫害 侵略 掠奪 破壞 拷問 屠殺 活摘器官 誘拐 買賣人口 遊進 走私 毒品 賣淫 春畫 賭博 六合彩 天安門 天安门 法輪功 李洪志 Winnie the Pooh 劉曉波动态网自由门
Fuck china
Added forty cards to my Classical Chinese through Confucius and Confucianism Anki deck. Feedback is very welcome. The point of this deck is to create an inroad to Classical Chinese, learned by all educated Chinese and necessary for interacting with higher Chinese culture or even understanding what people are saying sometimes, for people who have an intermediate understanding of Mandarin: those who know 1000 characters should be very comfortable using this deck. Let me know any faults you find.
mega.nz
1000 as an overestimate. Even 500 should be enough.
didnt take chinese lessons seriously when i was a kid... ;;
someone pls help
Wow this is great. I've seen one of our TA's use the +1 input for her slides.
Exactly: it's almost ridiculous how painful Chinese pedagogy is when it really doesn't have to be.
Focus on absorbing and understanding as much as possible. You'll learn the language in the end.
what's it like being han chinese?
*cough*
Nice thread.
还是没有定下thread, edition的最佳翻译。
「缐」肯定不成。
I have made a thread about learning 中文 but I always manage to get almost 0 replies. It's sad that it's almost impossible to learn Chinese here on Jow Forums
From 量词 thread?
You need ChineseGrammarWiki.
Yes
I have still so many questions though because Chinese apparently uses a lot of idiomatic expressions like 乱七八糟,胡说八道,理所当然 etc. and I don't know how to use 理所当然 in a sentence because apparently it has many uses.
Idiomatic expressions are like using latin in English. Most of the time it's a short sentence from classic Chinese. It can be used in different grammar locations depending on the meaning of the idiomatic expressions.
bump
Top 5 dynasties?
I'l start
1.tang
2.han
3.song
4.ming
5.liao
>tfw they all look the same
>liao
why?
Tang
Han
Ming
Qin
Qing
I see very much 共匪文字 in this thread.
Everything aside from 傳統漢字 need to be fucking banned
They had the best looking statue
Hello, I would need some help for composing a dialogue between two people about basic things. Could someone help me for doing it well ? Help me to avoid mistakes ?