I wanted to do a proper post about learning Hanyu Pinyin and the Chinese tones.

I found this video which is remarkably helpful distinguishing the intials, finals and tones. Though it looks like it was made for children, It hink it is useful for anyone learning the language.




I will write a post when I get my new laptop with tables of the intials, the finals and the tones. With tips on how they are pronounced and equivalents in English. Hopefully this will give a little more deatail to what this video shows with how the syllables can be put together.

I ordered Heisig's the 'Remembering the Simplified Hanzi' last week as you may know if you read my post about my excitement. Whilst learning with this method I am still going to be carrying on learning sentences from books and carrying on with Rosetta Stone (although I have been finding my progress in it rather slow recently.)

I won't be doing much preparation before I start this method of learning the Hanzi. Though, I did hunt out the list of all of the 1500 Hanzi characters published in his first book to see what I would be trying to overcome. (Thanks to John @ Chinese Quest for helping me find them. Also check out his great post about the Heisig method and its criticisms)

If you want to download the excel file with all the hanzi, hanyu pinyin, stroke numbers and lesson numbers for the first Heisig book (this is the ANKI file for simplified hanzi in excel essentially) I include the link here for you.

Heisig & Richardon say that these characters (shown below) are the most frequently used 1000 hanzi plus some additional Chinese characters that make sense to learn with the primitives learnt along the way.

(If you would like to download the sample chapter from their book Remembering Simplified Hanzi 1: and give this method a go yourself you can do so here. I have breifly looked over it, but havent commited to learning them yet. I will start when the book gets here.)

Below, I list the hanzi in order they are taught in Heisig & Richardson's 'Remembering Simplified Hanzi'. It really serves its purpose for me because I wanted to print them out and stick them up in my room. But also illustrates quite how many characters I aim to learn and how dizzy 1500 hanzi can make the uninitiated.

Three Months of Learning Mandarin

I started writing this blog just after I decided to commit and start learning Mandarin. In the three months since, I feel like I have made good if a little slow progress. Before people jump up and tell me off for thinking that I have made slow progress. It is not that it is slow, so much as, I haven’t spent and dedicated enough time (that I told myself I would) revising the things I have learnt.

I have certainly thrown myself in at the deep end by starting this blog and forcing myself to keep up with the goals I set myself. Yet, I still find myself wanting to know more, a real craving and frustration that I can’t say anything I want to.

So What I Can Say After Three Months Learning Mandarin:

Basic Greetings,
Basic Colours,
Basic Numbers,
Days of the week,
Months,
Basic Foods,
Basic Drinks,
and some basic actions (eating / running / cooking etc)
Most recently some basic items of clothing, and basic household items.

I can say : thank you, I want, I like, I love etc.

And about 70 Daily Proverbs... Although I would certainly not claim that I remember them off the top of my head.

And this is my current problem, I am learning a lot, but the memory recall of it isn’t strong currently. Hopefully it will get better with time.

Discovering Mandarin:

I intended this blog to be a collection of the things I had learnt as a reference point for myself, and for other people who are learning too. It has turned out that through the daily updates and being busy that I haven’t had time to update with things I have learnt quite as often as I had hoped.

I started out writing this blog because I did not have anyone to practise my Mandarin with, and my housemates were both learning Japanese. Truth be told, they haven’t stuck at Japanese at all and my motivation has sunk a little. The people I have met through this blog are very inspiring and have made me continue with my dream and I want to thank you all for the little bits of help you give me daily.

Learning Mandarin - What Now?

The three months I have been learning Mandarin I have learnt more than I have ever learnt in French that I learnt for four years at school. This is largely due to the fact I wanted to learn Mandarin and never wanted to learn French.

I want to carry on learning and actually stick to my commitment of daily learning. I think I am also going to try out the much talked about Heisig method of learning characters. Although, many of the drawbacks are outlined well in Chris' Mandarin Student blog post. I think I would like the ability to know that I can understand a large amount of characters much like Greg’s experience of the theory in Mandarin Segments blog.

I intend to carry on using Rosetta stone for my basic vocabulary and helping to build it up bit by bit, alongside my other research. Also using Heisig as mentioned to increase my knowledge and recollection of Chinese characters I hope that my writing and reading ability will increase with my spoken Mandarin.

So here is to another three months of Mandarin learning, and to hopefully many years of learning Mandarin happily and as excitedly as these first three months.

This is another Guest Post just in time for #MandarinMonday It is written by my friend Greg over at Mandarin Segments and is his personal experiences of learning Mandarin. Greg has been learning for about 2 years, although has made amazing progress in the last two months. Here is Greg's learning process.

Disclosures

Before describing my journey in learning Chinese, I need to be open with you:

When I began learning Mandarin: I did not have any Chinese relatives (I still don't), I do not have a Chinese wife, and I do not work for a Chinese company. I don't live in China, and I was not planning to move there. I do not have any ancient secret documents written in Chinese that I need to translate, I am not practising t'ai chi, and I am not studying acupuncture.

Nope, there was no obvious reason for me to learn Chinese whatsoever. And yet, there I was, subscribing to the "Teach Yourself Mandarin" series on iTunes - and really excited.

Pressing The Button

Just 6 months earlier I had been in Taiwan on business, and I learned to read my first Chinese word: exit = 出口. (You can read the story here.) And so my entry was 'exit' - then Mandarin started to creep into my thoughts.

I also learned a dozen basic phases (Hello, How are you, I am fine, Two beers please, Just a little, Don't want, ...) Chinese people are so complimentary when they find out a Westerner is learning their language. You don't need much more than "ni hao" or "zai jian" - to get lots of bubbling outbursts like "Wow - your Chinese is amazing!" and "You are so clever!"

And for 6 months, with just a dozen tone-less phrases, it felt like I was fluent. Until I realised that I wasn't ... but that I really wanted to be.

So I pressed that magic 'subscribe' button in iTunes.

The Laziest Path

By that stage in my life I had no spare time, and absolutely no desire to study any more. A couple of degrees and a professional qualification lay in the past, and 10-12 hour work days and a half-dozen international business trips a year lay in the present. I knew that anything extra that I took on would quickly get discarded - I definitely needed a better plan.

So I did nothing. Well, almost nothing. On the way to & from work - totalling 20-30 minutes a day - I listened to my Mandarin podcast. Most of the time I was thinking about something else, but those beginner podcasts played over & over in the background. Until one morning, after a month, I woke up from a dream repeating "Huan ying nin lai Beijing" to myself. That phrase must have played in my ears a dozen times by then, and even though I'd never really concentrated on it, here I was, saying it in my sleep, knowing exactly what it meant.

So I took a significant step forwards - I actually started to listen to the podcasts, rather than just playing them. I also subscribed to ChinesePod, and my conversational Mandarin continued to develop.

But I stuck to my original promise - I was not going to study Chinese, and I was definitely not going to waste time learning to read Chinese! I would plug into my podcasts, but it would not be like school. I was not going to memorise lists of vocabulary, and this was not going to feel like a big effort. (And yet, I was enjoying myself so much at the time that - looking back now - it was a disproportionate amount of time that I was spending with my Chinese-English dictionary!)

Steroids

Then in May this year, I changed gears again after spending a month in Asia on business (China, HK, Taiwan and Singapore).

When I took off from Heathrow Airport I was pleased with how much Chinese I could speak. When I landed here again a month later, I was frustrated and determined to up my game. There was going to be more effort, more podcasts, memorising lists, using flashcards - and learning to read. Although I was at a conversational level, I realised in trying to speak with people that I simply didn't have a wide enough vocab. I could speak & be understood, but they used so many words when speaking to me, I just couldn't keep up.)

So in the last 4 months, I have been listening to more podcasts, memorising lists, using flashcards - and learning to read. It has been fantastic.

Sometimes I wish I had been this fired up 3 years ago - I'd have a much better command of Mandarin by now. And yet, somehow, that's OK. If I had pushed too hard at the beginning I might have scared myself off. But that feels irrelevant ... this is where I am now. I've learned over 1000 Chinese characters in my reading experiment, and I am progressing all the time in my spoken Mandarin.

Discovering Mandarin

One of the things I did at the start of my 4 months of passionate learning was to start my blog, Mandarin Segments. And through blogging I discovered a world of people who are also learning Chinese, who have also experienced the same challenges as I have - and who are willing to provide input, and to debate in a way that keeps my moving forwards. Blogs are a great resource, and an excellent sounding board. Make sure you subscribe to a few with a Mandarin focus.

But perhaps I am preaching to the converted - after all, you're reading this on a blog, Charlie's excellent Discovering Mandarin blog.

In English there are set ways that you can say things in pairs, that usually wouldn't necassarily come in twos. For example: two Jeans is wrong, yet a pair of Jeans is correct. Two glasses is wrong, but a pair of glasses is correct. Two shoes is ok, but a pair of shoes is better. The list could go on; headphones, shoelaces, scissors, shorts, gloves... etc.

In Mandarin I got very confused because the classifier for veichles is very similiar to the word for a pair. So when I learnt bicycle I had assumed I was hearing a pair of wheels or similiar because of our sometimes odd rules about pairs.

两
liǎng​
Pair / Two / Both



辆
liàng​
Classifier for veichles (辆自行车 liàng​ zì xíng chē)

I keep finding the odd phrase which when said makes me smile. It isn't that it is actually funny, nor that it sounds funny when in English, or that it is one of the funny things you will have seen written down.

It is just a nice sounding phrase that makes me smile, much like the previous post where I talked about my favourite sounding phrase, here is another one that similiarly is nice to my ears.

我是老师
wǒ shì lǎoshī

It means, I am a teacher. Funnily this week I got an email from someone telling me how much they had learnt through this site, and made me proud that I am making a difference to other people, (and not just helping myself motivate and learn Mandarin). So I guess in fact, wǒ shì lǎoshī. I am a teacher (of kinds). Though I still have a hell of a lot to learn myself, and thank everyone that has bee helping me along the journey so far.

-I am also not as good looking as the picture of a teacher that I found. :D

The way that phrase flows is what makes me smile. I think it must be the two third tones, followed by the homophone 'shi' that makes it so pleasant. To my ears, the third tone is still one of the best things about the language. Which is something I really struggled to get to terms with intially, but have grown to love it already. I will continue to post here my favourite phrases, and hopefully some of them will be better than this one.

There is only one real formal way to say hello in Mandarin Chinese, and whilst you can translate literal meanings from many English greetings the only one that is used is 你好 (nǐ hǎo). Below are some introductory sentences, greetings, how to introduce yourself and how to say bye. There is a lot to take in here, but I hope it useful. Please suggest ways to continue conversations below in the comments.

I am...
我是...
wǒ​ shì​...

How are you?
你好吗
nǐ hǎo ma?

How are you doing?
你怎么样?
Nǐ zěnme yàng?

How are you today?
你今天好吗？​
nǐ jīntiān hǎo ma?

Did u sleep well last night?
昨晚睡得睡的好吗?
zúo​ wǎn shùi de hǎo ma?

I am Good
我很好
wǒ hěn hǎo

And You?
你呢？
nǐ ne?

Good Thank You
好谢谢你.
hǎo xiè​xie​ nǐ.

Nice to meet you!
幸会
Xìng huì!

The weather is nice today, isn't it?
今天的天气真好,是不是?
jīn​tiān​ de tiān​qì​ zhēn​ hǎo​, shì​bù​shì​?

Saying Hello at Different Times of Day


Good Morning
早上好
zǎo​shang​hǎo​

or

早安
zǎo ān
(literally 'early peace')
- mainly used in Taiwan

Good Afternoon
下午好
xià​wǔ​hǎo​

or

午安
Wǔ ān
- mainly used in Taiwan

Good Night
晚上好
Wǎnshàng hǎo

or

晚安
Wǎn ān
- mainly used in Taiwan


Saying Goodbye in Mandarin


I have to go now.
我必须走了。
wǒ bì xū zǒu le.

Goodbye
再见
zài​jiàn​

Byebye
拜拜
Bàibài

See You Later
回头见 jiàn
huí​tóu​

or

待会儿见
dài huìr jiàn

I need to go to sleep
我需要睡觉
wǒ​ xū​yào​ shuì​jiào​

See you Tomorrow
明天见
míng​tiān​ jiàn

This is a guest post from my Dutch friend Guus. This is his experiences of learning Mandarin. Guus runs a Mandarin school in Singapore and has been learning Mandarin himself for about 3 and a half years. I wanted to add a new perspective to the blog, to give new learners like myself an idea of the stages of transition that you are likely to go through learning Mandarin. Guus also runs a blog about learning Mandarin with tips.

My journey of learning Mandarin

China View today reported that 44 Chinese Characters (many of which are in common use) are likely to be amended. This has caused widespread criticism from Chinese nationals who think the change is "瞎折腾" (blind torment: meaning similar to a ‘pain in the neck’) Whilst some complain that one billion people will have to learn Chinese characters anew.


However ministry officials and some experts said the revisions would only target 44 characters printed in the Song typeface on publications, in other words, the revised characters would only be used by computers and printing machines. These changes from the governments perspective is that it will unify the typeface and printing standards of Chinese characters, whilst not affecting the Chinese public too badly.

These 44 characters are to change from the Kai typeface to the Song typeface, most often in these cases a slight change of only one or two strokes are changed. "The characters printed in our textbooks adopt the Kai typeface, and we don't need any change. But students would be easily confused by the revised characters on other publications," said Wang Jiayu, a Chinese language teacher at a primary school in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.


Among the 44 characters in question are:

琴 (qín) violin,
征 (zhēng) musical instrument,
魅 (mèi) demon/magic,
籴 (dí) buy grain,
褰 (qiān) to lift clothes,
巽 (xùn) part of the trigram,
瑟 (sè) Se (type of harp),
琵琶 Pipa (lute),
亲 qīn parent、
杀 (shā) kill、
条 (tiáo) ribbon 'item'、
茶 (chá) tea 、
新 (xīn) new、
杂 (zá) miscellaneous、
寨 (zhài) camp / village,
恿 (怂恿) (sǒngyǒng) instigate,
瞥 (piē) glimpse,
蓐 (rù) mattress,
溽 (rù), muggy,
缛 (rù), elaborate,
褥 (rù) mattress (again),
耨 (nòu) hoe 'weeding tool',
薅 (hāo) to weed,
唇 (chún) lip,
蜃 (shèn) mythical sea creature, and
毂 (gǔ) hub.

Another 55 characters are considered allogeneic (异体), and to be recovered or unified in some way, among them 淼 (miao, flood), 喆 (zhe, same meaning as 哲), and 堃 (kun, same meaning as 坤, female).

There is always conservatives and moaning regarding any change, especially with regard to unification where some people feel they are loosing identity through the changes. However this small amount of changes are unlikley to cause any real loss of identity and arent anywhere near as big as the simplification in 1965 to the Printed General-use Chinese Character Table. (the proposed changes are just 0.57% of all the characters in the ‘Printed General-use Chinese Character Table')

The changes being made to the Song typeface are a technological based upgrade as Song is a typeface thats origins are from when block printing flourished in China. Because the wood grain on printing blocks ran horizontally, it was fairly easy to carve horizontal lines with the grain. However, carving vertical or slanted patterns was difficult because those patterns intersect with the grain and break easily. This resulted in a typeface that has thin horizontal strokes and thick vertical strokes. To prevent wear and tear, the ending of horizontal strokes are also thickened. Song typeface is characterized by design with thick vertical strokes contrasted with thin horizontal strokes; triangular ornaments at the end of single horizontal strokes; and overall geometrical regularity. This typeface is similar to Western serif fonts such as Times New Roman in both appearance and function.

This is different to the Kai (Kaiti) typeface which is more even with the strokes looking more like the caligraphy that we are used to with both horizontal and vertical strokes being fairly consistant.

字型寫法比較 (Font Comparison)


Despite this criticism and controversy that surrounds this move by the governemnt to unify the print into an understandable and universally understood set of characters there seems to be a lot of confusion around it. Personally I think it is much ado about nothing, there seems to be very minor changes proposed and won't really affect people in the way that they think it might.

To me it seems that the 44 characters that are due to be 'changed' aren't really being changed so much as look slightly different in the different font. It is like us having a font where the a has a curl, and a font where the a doesnt have a curl. The differences seem to be in the majority where dots turn into strokes. For example on the bottom of 茶 (chá) the different fonts mean the symbol looking slightly different, but certainly not unrecognisable.


Maybe living in the West has adapted me to seeing lettering in different ways with the several standard fonts. Or it could be that my personal learning of Chinese has not yet given me the ability to write characters properly, nor learnt enough to see characters that are very similiar already.

What do you think about the propsed 44 character changes?

This is a quick post to help with your vocabulary when talking about things in time. This post relates to weeks, months and years. If you are wanting to talk about things in terms of Days please check my previous post.

This is rather embarressing, and I feel like I have ruined a beautiful language. Whilst on the subject of reviewing my progress thus far. This was my first attempt at Chinese characters. Try and make out what it says. It is a fairly basic sentence. I will put the answer in white font, underneath the photo below of my handywork so you can check it.








Higlight the next few lines to see if you were right or if my writing was legible:

Whilst going over my first couple of lessons again tonight, I revisited some of the first things I learnt, and laughed when I realised my favourite Mandarin Phrase to say (so far) is the following, fairly menial sentence. The reason for it being my favourite is that it just flows nicely and sounds wonderful. This is my (anticlimatic, but) favourite spoken phrase in Mandarin.

Today I wanted to quickly go over the days of the week in Mandarin Chinese. So, if you have been following this blog, you will already know the Chinese numbering system, and this is crucial in the logical system that the Chinese use for names of their days.





Weekdays

So here goes, the first day of the Chinese week: (Monday) is called 星期一 (xīng qī yī) which is literally "star period 1". (bearing in mind months and weeks are historically based on the moons movements) or "small amount of time 1".

Today I spent all of my time (much to my girlfriends distress) researching and collecting information for a massive blogpost (or three) about the Beijing Olympics last year. Saturday is the anniversary of the opening ceremony and in its honour I am making a super blog post about it. So I apologise to myself and any of you that were expecting something exciting about what I had learnt today.... But what I did manage to put together quickly for you is the opposite of yesterday's phrase 很大 hěn dà.

I want to learn Mandarin well. I want to be able to talk, read and write in this fantastic language, and today I did a little bit. Twitter with it's #MandarinMonday search term is a great way to communicate to other people and learn more about this language.

I must admit to somewhat cheating with a translation service I have found, but it seems to work remarkably well (as for now) and has helped me devolop some key words and recognise key characters in sentences. I feel a little bit cheeky for having used it, in time I promise that it will become all of my own hard work translating sentances myself.

Today I leave myself, and anyone else in a similar position with this mantra;

My friend Gabriel, over at learnchinesetoday.info has written a guest post based about histoical figure Qin Shi Huang and his influence on the Chinese Language.

As some of you may know, the official title of 'emperor' was first used by Qin Shi Huang several hundred years before Christ. At the end of the 7 warring states period, the Qin state had conquered most of the other states and unified China properly.

Historically speaking, it was true that under the leadership of Qin Shi Huang, life was harsh and difficult. Many historians viewed him as a dictator who ruled across the land with an iron hand.
Untold numbers died working to build the Great Wall of China.

And yet paradoxically, it was Qin Shi Huang who had help create a lasting legacy in Chinese history. He had played a huge role in maintaining the stability and longevity of Chinese culture.

What did he contribute? Well, before the Qin dynasty, the 7 different states each had their own languages, rules and customs. After unification, Qin Shi Huang went about creating one common language. Everyone had to read and write the same Chinese characters.

This seemingly simple but profound change in standardizing the Chinese language would bind and enable the Chinese people to maintain their identity and culture for thousands of years to come.

If he had not done so, China might have developed differently. The Chinese people might have different languages and writing not unlike Europe (the French, British, etc.)

There were many more changes Qin Shi Huang made that help shaped the future course of Chinese imperial system, but suffice to say, Qin Shi Huang was not merely known as just a brutal dictator.

So the next time you wish to learn Chinese, think back to this historical figure who had contributed much to this ancient language.

Chinese Mandarin may not have an Alphabet but its Numerical system is very logical, much more so than the English number system. Here are the first ten numbers

0 零 / 〇 líng
1 一 yī
2 二 èr
3 三 sān
4 四 sì
5 五 wǔ
6 六 iù
7 七 qī
8 八 bā
9 九 jiǔ
10 十 shí

Once you have mastered these you have basically mastered the numerical system upto 99. So just to give you an idea here are the next ten numbers in Chinese.

11 十一 shí yī
12 十二 shí èr
13 十三 shí sān
14 十四 shí sì
15 十五 shí wǔ
16 十六 shí liù
17 十七 shí qī
18 十八 shí bā
19 十九 shí jiǔ
20 二十 èr shí

Techincally these first ten double digit numbers should use the preceeding 一(yī) but in most dialects it is ommited. Thus best practise for 11 is 一十一 (yī shí yī). The language allows you to add the number before the ten. So when you need to use the number 40 you will be saying four-tens. Here are the tens upto one hundred.

10 十 shí
20 二十 èr shí
30 三十 sān shí
40 四十 sì shí
50 五十 wǔ shí
60 六十 liù shí
70 七十 qī shí
80 八十 bā shí
90 九十 jiǔ shí
100 百 baǐ (一百 yībaǐ)

And when saying numbers in double figures for example 42 (the answer to life, the universe and everything). As above you say four-tens two. 四十二 (sìshí èr). This works exactly the same when working into the hundreds. For example 438 is four-hundreds-three-tens-eight. 四百三十八

1000 一千 yī qiān　

So lets try some now. What is the Mandarin phrase for 68? (answers at the bottom.)


91?

136?

424?





And what number are these?


三十二 ?

八十七 ?

六百十五 ?


Scroll down for your answers:





Answers:

68 is 六十八 (liù shí bā)

91 is 九十一 ( jiǔ shí yī)

136 is 百三十六 (baǐ sān shí iù)

424 is 四百二十四 (sì baǐ èr shí sì)



八十七 is 87
三十二 is 32
六百十五 is 615

Hopefully this lessons got you involved and wanting you to learn a little more about the numerical system, and with repitition you should be able to grasp the numbering system easily.


Charlie

Photo Source:
Flickr:Kenyee

I have been trying out several different ways of learning Mandarin as I set upon this language-learning journey. There is a multitude of different ways you can go about learning any language, and it can be overwhelming.

The language is of course overwhelming itself. No alphabet, 56,000+ characters, it looks wildly different from western languages and over a billion people speak it as their first language. The amount of people you can then speak to, after learning increases almost 200% from English to Mandarin. By being able to speak both of course, you are able in theory to speak to almost two billion people. A third of the world’s population.

Mandarin is also now the third most spoken language in the US, and as the Chinese economy is growing, it makes business sense to start to be able to converse in Chinese Mandarin. It makes sense to start learning Mandarin in terms of numbers of people and economics.

Yet of those reasons alone will not give you either the confidence or the determination to learn something so radically different. In my opinion, you have to want to learn Mandarin and have passion for the culture surrounding the language. The more you want to understand and open yourself up to the culture and language simultaneously the more you will take in.

Here, I wanted to just put a couple of links to software and books that I personally feel are good, as well as other resources, and ideas that could help you learn Mandarin. Nothing beats hard work and enthusiasm when learning a new language though.

1. From books:
   
   There are so many different books that usually come with accompanying audio series for language learning, I could not even try to list them all. The ones I have personally found useful are:
   
   Chinese for Dummies
   Complete Mandarin Chinese Book/CD Pack
   
   I also purchased a book that teaches to write characters, although in my naivety I bought the traditional characters guide, whilst most people that use Mandarin use the simplified characters. It seems that mainly those in Taiwan and Hong Kong use the traditional Chinese characters.
   
   
2. Podcasts:
   
   I have been made aware of some podcast series that help you learn Mandarin, whilst I personally do not use them. They are out there and no doubt help conversational Mandarin, whilst furthering the development of hearing the language day to day. The ease of being able to slip on headphones at work, or on the way to and from work, or even in the evening as you are relaxing, is very useful.
   
   The downside to this is as far as I can tell most podcasts tend to cost 99p per lesson, and they do not always cover as much as you would like.
   
   
3. Rosetta Stone
   
   Personally I seem to get on with Rosetta stone well for learning new vocab and repeating the vocab in new ways that reinforces the learning. It is based around a picture system, where you get words and the pictures together and no there is no English spoken or written. I have found that the lack of explanation sometimes causes confusion (though does make you actively learn by trial and error which is engaging and therefore good) especially when first introducing negatives and possessive elements of the language. Otherwise though it is a strong software package which I thoroughly recommend.
   
   Rosetta Stone: Chinese (Mandarin) Level 1, 2 and 3 Set (Mac/PC CD)
   
   
4. Online Mandarin / Mango Languages
   
   
There is a plethora of upstarts and a myriad of compaies that offer Mandarin courses in one way or another. Here I would like to share a couple of the gems I have found and utilised.

One of the other benefits to having twitter is being able to find out about all the other resources out there. I was lucky enough to talk to the moderator of MangoLanguages, and their system is similar in the repetition to that of Rosetta Stone, but without the pictorial element, which means that everything you learn is directly translated from English to Mandarin. The explanations are really good and there is extra narrative to provide a lot of background knowledge that Rosetta Stone cannot provide.

Both of these systems (Rosetta Stone & Mango Languages) are great, one is just CD based off of your computer, Rosetta Stone and Mango languages are quite pricy, though Mango is free at certain libraries. I personally recommend Rosetta Stone, because I believe being immersed in the language and picking it up and working it out first hand is great.

As for other learning Mandarin sites that I have found useful:

BBC offer a small amount of free lessons and games to initiate you in Mandarin learning. I recommend the Mandarin tone recognition game.

[I am open to any other suggestions for inclusion here]



5. Twitter & #Mandarinmonday
   
   Though it is also on the internet this tool I think is immensely helpful so I have given it. its own point. Though social networking site Twitter, I have met several people that have already been incredibly helpful in my learning. Twitter is incredibly useful for meeting people that have similar interests, and I would recommend if you do not have an account, go and set one up.
   
   When you do, you will start to notice that to make things easier to search people use #hash key to keep relevant topics together and easily scan-able. Bill and his friends have started Mandarin Monday, which is where anyone that wants to can get involved speaking mandarin and trying out new phrases, whilst native speakers will correct and aid the learning of everyone else.
   
   It is a growing community and incredibly useful. Again, I would totally recommend that you utilise this free learning resource!
   
   
6. Local Mandarin Get Together
   
   My local town has a small community of Native speakers that share their Mandarin with fellow learners. They meet once a month and only speak in Mandarin. This is particularly useful once you have developed some vocab and want to test it out.
   
   Gatherings like these are invaluable if you cannot afford that trip to China just yet.
   
   
   
7. Chinese Movies
   
   Whilst the internet has YouTube and many online streams of Mandarin lessons on. I have to admit, for me YouTube is not a good learning environment and I am easily distracted. I believe the lessons range between brilliant and terrible and you have to find one that suits you...
   
   Nevertheless, for me personally, YouTube does not work. However, films in Chinese will get you used to the accent, pronunciation and the speed of the language, although you may not understand much that is said, the more exposure to hearing Mandarin spoken will develop your speaking and listening skills.
   
   
8. College / School style Lessons
   
   For some reason where I am based, seems to be a lack of this type of course available and when it is, it is purely just passing the same old language qualification, GCSE or A-Level. I have always felt that you should learn what you need to get by, not what you need to pass an exam. Therefore this type of course, although invaluable would set you back substantial money (if you’re no longer in education) and when in a class of up to 20 others, you don't get the one to one time required to really improve.
   
   Whilst a great way of learning and the motivation of learning in a group, I feel that there are better ways to learn Mandarin. Especially more personalised speed of learning, as lessons are very rudimentary, and can therefore get boring and stuck in a routine. Learning a language should be for fun and for your own enjoyment when you are motivated to learn.
   
   
9. One on One teaching
   
   An expensive but fruitful way of learning. But one that will be suited to your speed of learning and will not have a set syllabus like the lessons that you may find at schools or colleges. And the teacher will be able to spend a lot of time on the things that you personally want or need to develop upon.
   
   
10. Go to China
    
    The best way to learn any Language is being immersed in it, and thrown in at the deep end learning everything and anything around you. It is probably the best way, but again expensive. For me personally, the allure of a trip to China is huge, but I want to have the basics in place first. Certainly to be able to read a little before I go is essential as I want to be included in my trip to China, not a tourist peering into a new World.
    
    There are so many other helpful resources and over time, I hope to get a large list of resources that people can utilise in their discovering of the Mandarin language.
    
    Please feel free to give me links to other sites here, and I will have a look around, and include them here.
    
    
    
    
    Charlie