How to self-study chinese

That's already been about two months and I must say that I'm bad, I think, advanced in learning Chinese.

In this article I will try to share ways that you can effectively and quickly teach yourself Chinese.

I never liked academicism inherent language teachers. I do not like long introductions, introductions and no unnecessary theoretical knowledge. I prefer what is called "the bat" and believe that it is necessary to learn a foreign language quickly and effortlessly. That's why when I started to learn Chinese, I immediately deliberately abandoned the Chinese textbooks for which students learn in high school. I am sure that these books are overloaded theory, grammar and other things that initially do not need and can only push during mastering a foreign language. I do not think that in this respect the Chinese language textbooks are somewhat different from the English language textbooks, most of which are very dull and the main emphasis is on grammar rather than on the practical use of language in everyday life.

chinezeTak how then independently learn Chinese? The answer for me was found pretty quickly. By itself, the Chinese language - unique. In the sense that the mark of the character and its pronunciation are not connected to each other (ie, you can learn conversational Chinese, but not able to read and write characters, and vice versa). Therefore, learn Chinese, unlike many European languages​​, it is necessary and visual, auditory and oral.

Let's start with the latter. To study the spoken Chinese language, I chose chinesepod. What are the advantages of this particular, shall we say, "school" for me personally?

First, they broadcast in English, it is possible to repeat the parallel and English too.

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Second, they focus on just spoken, "live" with the intricacies of the language that you can not find anywhere else (for example, in contrast to the Russian, the Chinese use the phrase "drink soup", instead of our "clear", say "white, pure ", etc.).

Third, the method itself is very pleasant learning, they do not overload the sounds and repeats the same word 10 times as some other methods of learning Chinese. Instead, they use the same words in different podcasts, helping us to better remember information.

Fourth, their podcasts are made very well, leading always happy and cheerful and uplifting jokes excellent morning on the way to work. The only "minus" for those who can not speak English - learning takes place in this language. BUT! There is good news. Because soon they should start a Russian project http://chinesepod.ru/. Looking forward to.

So, on the way to and from work I listen to one or two of the podcast, and mentally pronounces heard (not to cause suspicious looks of other passengers). During the day, staying alone, I blurt individual words, sentences and dialog elements of podcasts.

Next - visual perception characters. This is very important. Not very nice to know that you know the language of the illiterate Chinese peasant worse, so I was puzzled searching techniques for the study of hieroglyphs. Certainly, tru-sinologist recommend proven in the Soviet Union a simple technique of cramming and prescribing 100500 times on the same character in the recipe. This technique is certainly effective, showed positive results and all that, but only on the condition that you have left about 5-6 years to reach an acceptable level of knowledge. I do not like. I started digging in the opposite direction from the textbooks and methods used in linguistic universities.

chinese-textbookCherez some time came across a site http://umao.ru. In karttse essence systems - partition of the character into simple elements "radicals", naming each radical ridiculous name like "Napoleon", "ax", "crocodile with wings", "automatic Kalashnikov," etc. Next - binding radicals with each other via a ridiculous story and remembering the story - as a consequence of the sequence and the most radical of the character. Technique is really effective, but ... I was interested in the true meaning of radicals, not stupid senseless substitution. After knowing the true meaning of radicals can understand the depth of the language (eg character "good" in Chinese is composed of radicals "woman" and "child", and turns on the system umao "stick and struck the woman was good" - is completely lost sense of the character). So I decided to look for something similar, but has a deeper meaning. And who seeks will always find! And I found this wonderful book, which is exactly what I needed - history, as in the "Umao" and present the correct value of characters and radicals. It is worth noting that shipping to Russia is this book is not cheap, but it is worth every penny nested. Although if you do not want to overpay - there is an option to read it in google books. Of the minuses - the book in English. In Russian such materials, unfortunately, I have not found. It is not excluded that they are not at all: (.

Also for better absorption of characters I use the program anki. The program is installed on a PC, has Russian interface. In the program it is possible to download a pack of cards on any topic, including the Chinese language. Next - start the program every day and teach a specified number of new cards and repeat the old. I it takes about 15 minutes per day. Usually do it in a lunch break at work.

Also, ideally, for greater efficiency to find a pen pal - a native speaker than I am doing at the moment, but so far no one wants to be.

Now to the question of productivity in an independent study of the Chinese language. I teach language about 2 months. Started with a full ground up. At the moment, I shall declare at the name, occupation, family information, preferences hobby, food. That is, in general, the level of tourist. Understand some phrases in the texts, and even fragments of songs. However, I have already saved about 5000 rubles for Chinese language courses. Not sure that when you visit the courses I would move much faster. In any case, I plan in October-November this year to start attending free Chinese club in our town (which go mostly students - philologists and course participants) to compare how well I get to learn the most.

I hope I've convinced you that you can learn Chinese on their own and need. If you have questions - write in the comments, I will answer and help you.

Today - everything. Later I'll write some useful tips on self-learning Chinese.