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Hi Peter, do you have any other recommendations for learning Mandarin. I've just started taking lessons a few weeks ago.

by poglet 6y ago

peterburkimsher 6y ago
There's a lot more to Pigntype than just the front page - check out the links along the top. Particularly the blog, with the link to ways I've tried and failed to learn. [0] Speaking, listening, reading, writing, and typing are all different parts of "learning Mandarin". All of them are hard. Pingtype (translator) can help with reading. Pingtype (keyboard, at the bottom of the page) can help with typing traditional characters. Listening can be done with music, check out the Lyrics for some bilingual Christian songs (audio is on YouTube). Singing is kind of like speaking, and can be done in church without other people looking at you weirdly when you pronounce tones wrong. Writing will make your hand hurt, and many native speakers don't know how to write their own language [1]. Speaking is pretty much impossible without a tutor, and I'm still not conversational after ~4 years. I can understand some of what other people say, but talking is hard. [0] https://pingtype.github.io/docs/failed.html https://pingtype.github.io/docs/failed.html [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxHskrqMqII https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxHskrqMqII
galuggus 6y ago
Not Peter but I learnt Chinese First I wasted a lot of time looking for how to study Chinese. The best thing to do is to consistently practice. Don't worry about grammar. Just try learn new words everyday and then deliberately practice them with speakers. No tool will help you with this. Try to identify why you need to study Chinese. You'll learn much faster if you need rather than want to learn it.if you don't have a need try to create one. Learning characters is much easier than you think. The hard part about Chinese for me is the pronunciation and when you finally get good enough to hold conversations understanding that people don't say what they mean.

Hi Peter, do you have any other recommendations for learning Mandarin. I've just started taking lessons a few weeks ago.

by poglet 6y ago

Hi Peter, do you have any other recommendations for learning Mandarin. I've just started taking lessons a few weeks ago.

peterburkimsher 6y ago

There's a lot more to Pigntype than just the front page - check out the links along the top. Particularly the blog, with the link to ways I've tried and failed to learn. [0] Speaking, listening, reading, writing, and typing are all different parts of "learning Mandarin". All of them are hard. Pingtype (translator) can help with reading. Pingtype (keyboard, at the bottom of the page) can help with typing traditional characters. Listening can be done with music, check out the Lyrics for some bilingual Christian songs (audio is on YouTube). Singing is kind of like speaking, and can be done in church without other people looking at you weirdly when you pronounce tones wrong. Writing will make your hand hurt, and many native speakers don't know how to write their own language [1]. Speaking is pretty much impossible without a tutor, and I'm still not conversational after ~4 years. I can understand some of what other people say, but talking is hard. [0] https://pingtype.github.io/docs/failed.html https://pingtype.github.io/docs/failed.html [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxHskrqMqII https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxHskrqMqII

galuggus 6y ago

Not Peter but I learnt Chinese First I wasted a lot of time looking for how to study Chinese. The best thing to do is to consistently practice. Don't worry about grammar. Just try learn new words everyday and then deliberately practice them with speakers. No tool will help you with this. Try to identify why you need to study Chinese. You'll learn much faster if you need rather than want to learn it.if you don't have a need try to create one. Learning characters is much easier than you think. The hard part about Chinese for me is the pronunciation and when you finally get good enough to hold conversations understanding that people don't say what they mean.