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      CommentAuthornicko
    • CommentTimeJul 13th 2008
     
    Is anyone else doing this? If so what learning aids / books / CDs are you using and are they any good?
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      CommentAuthorchris
    • CommentTimeJul 13th 2008
     
    rosetta stone :)

    other than that, good luck, i think :D
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      CommentAuthoreditor
    • CommentTimeJul 13th 2008
     
    From what I understand, the best thing to do is get on Craigslist -- or whatever equivalent you have over the pond there -- and pay a tutor to suffer your bad Mandarin until your skills are such that you can strike up a conversation with a random speaker.
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      CommentAuthornicko
    • CommentTimeJul 13th 2008
     
    Yes. I have several friends who are Mandarin speakers. A couple have offered help and one is finding the number of a tutor her daughters go to :smile:
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      CommentAuthormick
    • CommentTimeJul 13th 2008
     
    lafemi might have some advice. mr lafemi is of chinese heritage, and at one point, i think they were looking into learning chinese.

    heh.. i'm still using a Firefox extension to muddle through the symbols on japanese language pages. i wonder if there's something similar for Mandarin chinese. i'm actually starting to get a feel for the way the language modifies itself.

    not Cantonese, eh? :) That's nearly BC's second language. i know several curses, just because...... well, you know.

    x
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      CommentAuthornicko
    • CommentTimeJul 13th 2008
     
    ya, I know a lot of swearing in mandarin already. It's mandarin because I want to go live in Singapore where hardly any Cantonese is spoken
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      CommentAuthormick
    • CommentTimeJul 13th 2008
     
    Cool beans. :)

    go now. your kids will be trilingual, and they'll teach you.

    x
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      CommentAuthorQ
    • CommentTimeJul 14th 2008
     
    as Miss Q is Chinese, she speaks Mandarin and Cantonese and a few other dialects i wont even try to pronounce here.
    I got all the books and a few CD's at home.

    With all good efforts and intentions (and to get some grace from my mother in law..lol) I have it a try but been slacking a bit lately. It is not impossible but it will require all your attention and you def. need to have someone around to practice and to correct you on a daily basis. Self study and correcting yourself without supervision of a native chinese speaker might create some strange even embarrassing situations once you think you have mastered a few lines.

    If you need some audio CD's and/or tutorials, just give me a buzz.

    Also you will find loads of podcasts with lessons.
    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/china/article1375683.ece (links currently offline but i downloadedl all sessions just in case someone can use them)
    • CommentAuthorjzycrzy
    • CommentTimeJul 14th 2008
     
    nicko,
    I'm in Shanghai currently and working on my skillz. I would recommend www.chinesepod.com They offer a free service, but you can also pay some monies and get some more in depth stuff.. Sign up for the free week and try it out. Also, I heard from someone that you can download a lot of their podcasts on some new kind of internet downloading thing, but I wouldn't know anything about it.

    I also tried rosetta stone, i got bored of it pretty quickly. Also, if you are ambitious, check out MIT's OpenCourseWare. You can download notes, etc from their chinese courses.
    Chinese I (regular)
    Chinese II (regular)
    They have others, poke around a bit.

    Overall, I recommend trying to develop your ear first and foremost. Download and listen to some of those ChinesePodcasts several times. Like on the bus, walks, and so on. Don't worry about speaking all too quickly. take your time and don't get bogged down / disheartened. 1 day at a time.

    Hope that helps. best of luck!
    • CommentAuthorjzycrzy
    • CommentTimeJul 14th 2008
     
    mick said...

    heh.. i'm still using a Firefox extension to muddle through the symbols on japanese language pages. i wonder if there's something similar for Mandarin chinese.


    Dead on. There is. I use Chinese Pera-kun (works with firefox 3 so far).
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      CommentAuthornicko
    • CommentTimeJul 14th 2008
     
    That's awesome. Thanks!
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      CommentAuthormick
    • CommentTimeJul 14th 2008
     
    yay jzycrzy!!!

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