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When I started learning Chinese the grammar really made think hard about what I needed to say first. Then put it in the right grammar order, then translate the

When I started learning Chinese the grammar really made think hard about what I needed to say first. Then put it in the right grammar order, then translate the words, which is like a inverted 3D lookup table, sounds/tone/meaning. Memorizing the lookup table which people say is the hard part is actually the easy bit. It’s the restructuring of my thoughts to fit in the grammar. I find English I get you can get away with a lot of thinking while you talk..example; I would generally make up a sentence like this.. “hey why don’t we go for a run, somewhere next Monday maybe around noon, just the two of us. I think there’s a nice track close to my place.” I though of the activity first then the time then the person. Generally that’s how I come up with how to plan activities. In Chinese its subjects, time location, verb. I’m just beginning, but that has been the hardest part for my brain in particular.

magpi3 5y ago
I am in my third year of Chinese. Ultimately I think it's best to figure out how to say things the Chinese way, and then just say that sentence a thousand times until it starts to feel more natural. If you have to think about it, you're gonna mash it up. That's my experience so far.
eloisius 5y ago
I’m about a year in studying Mandarin and feel the same way. All the “exotic” features people say make it hard to learn, like tones and writing characters, aren’t that hard to remember and use. English let’s us have a lot of flexibility when it comes to putting prepositions like “last week” before or after the main clause in a sentence. Maybe Mandarin too has this flexibility and I just haven’t gotten that far in my studies, but it sure feels like I can’t make up what I’m saying as I say it. Aside from that, I’d say some features of the language are quite nice, and feel like they were created with human experience in mind more than rules of logic. For example, it relies on specialized complements, like 過 guò (past experience), or 完 wán (finished something), to modify the action of a clause. Unlike English which uses the same past-tense grammar to describe that I ate something in the past and a tree fell in the woods. There are even complements to express the result perceiving with ones senses “I looked and saw”, and the result of cognition “I looked and understood.”
- RandomWorker 5y ago
  ahh! Very cool, thank you. These features at this point seem like something that can be locked into the look up table. Though, the exceptions rule book is getting pretty big. :P I guess that's where it gets complicated. The features approach kind of compliments my programming part of my brain. Which is also juggling between various features of programming languages and packages within those languages. It definitely takes time to lock in the vocab (I spend on average, measured on a weekly basis, between 30 min-1h30min a day learning Chinese). I'm just 7 months in my Chinese learning experience. In general, I continuously discover more and more depth. What's the amount of time you go back and redo some the earlier stuff you learn?
  - eloisius 5y ago
    Sounds like you’ve got the commitment to learn it. Are you self-studying, in class, studying in your home country or in a Chinese-speaking country? I spend 3 hours per day in class, 5 days a week. We learn about 10 new words and about 2-3 new grammatical structures per day. Outside of class it takes me about 5 hours per day to complete homework assignments and memorize vocab (including writing traditional characters). It’s very brisk and I am barely able to keep up. Every day I feel like I am in a pressure cooker. Since my homework includes a lot of writing, I tend to peek back at previous chapters and continue to fold old grammar and vocab into my writing. Since I live in Taiwan I have plenty of opportunities to practice. I make it a point to try to put new grammar and words to use immediately while texting or talking with friends. Anytime I’m riding the metro or standing in line or something, I am always practicing flash cards in Pleco. I feel like occasional review wouldn’t be enough for me, I actually have to put it to use to absorb it. Since I feel like my head is constantly just beneath the water in a perpetual state of drowning, I don’t know if I’m in a position to offer advice, but if I’m offering advice I’d say forget the lookup table. Exceptions abound, and when you start getting into complements and directional phrases and stuff it’s just too much. It’s like trying to memorize the rules for the order of adjectives in English. It’s easier to just practice usage and know when it sounds “off.” Try to find people to practice talking with.
    - 5y ago
skripp 5y ago
>“hey why don’t we go for a run, somewhere next Monday maybe around noon, just the two of us. I think there’s a nice track close to my place.” 欸！下个星期我们一起去跑步吧。比如星期一中午，就我们俩。我家附近好像有个挺好的跑道。 That's almost a direct translation that would work just fine in Chinese. > I though of the activity first then the time then the person. Generally that’s how I come up with how to plan activities. Then you will be really happy to learn about the topic-comment structure in Chinese. It's exactly what you want! EDIT: If you really want to say "go running together" before "next week" then that's also fine: 欸！我们一起去跑步吧。比如星期一中午，就我们俩。我家附近好像有个挺好的跑道。
alisonatwork 5y ago
I think this is one of those things that teachers tend to make a big deal out of that doesn't matter too much in real life communication. It's not unusual in Chinese for someone to structure a meandering sentence like "let's go for a run ba, next Monday hao bu hao, around noon we can meet ne, just us two a, there is a nice track, it's my house nearby de yige, what do you think?" The sentence order is more important when you already have all the information up-front and you are trying to describe it to someone. So if you have three different runs and someone asks "which run?" then you might say "the just us two next Monday at noon my house nearby de track de nage run". Or drop everything but the last de: "us two next Monday at noon my house nearby track de". In reality, that's a bit of a weird thing to ever need to say, you'd probably just say "next Monday at noon de". Or "my house nearby track de". But if you did say "nage track de nage, my house nearby de nage track, next Monday at noon de, just the two of us going ba, nage run, you know ma", you would be understood too. Personally i think getting the tones right is the most important part of being understood in Chinese. Some Chinese may pretend not to understand you if you get the formal grammar "wrong", but that often comes across to me as a condescending form of ingrained elitism, because it doesn't happen when you talk to working class or poorly-educated Chinese. Much like in English, as long as the general pronunciation (including tones) is recognizable, you should be able to communicate your intent. It won't get you passing grades if you have to write an essay, but if you just want to talk to people on the street, I think focusing on tones and the small sounds that give contextual hints about what you're saying (ma, ne, ba, a/ya, nage/nege, yige, de etc) is a better investment.
- princeb 5y ago
  > Personally i think getting the tones right is the most important part of being understood in Chinese yea. it really doesn't matter where you are from, the UK, the US, Japan, Korea or Hongkong. if you can't get the tones right, you will be misunderstood. If you are of Chinese heritage (like the HKers), you will be viciously mocked.
- RandomWorker 5y ago
  Thanks for this! Tones are important I have to work on them!

magpi3 5y ago

I am in my third year of Chinese. Ultimately I think it's best to figure out how to say things the Chinese way, and then just say that sentence a thousand times until it starts to feel more natural. If you have to think about it, you're gonna mash it up. That's my experience so far.

eloisius 5y ago

I’m about a year in studying Mandarin and feel the same way. All the “exotic” features people say make it hard to learn, like tones and writing characters, aren’t that hard to remember and use. English let’s us have a lot of flexibility when it comes to putting prepositions like “last week” before or after the main clause in a sentence. Maybe Mandarin too has this flexibility and I just haven’t gotten that far in my studies, but it sure feels like I can’t make up what I’m saying as I say it. Aside from that, I’d say some features of the language are quite nice, and feel like they were created with human experience in mind more than rules of logic. For example, it relies on specialized complements, like 過 guò (past experience), or 完 wán (finished something), to modify the action of a clause. Unlike English which uses the same past-tense grammar to describe that I ate something in the past and a tree fell in the woods. There are even complements to express the result perceiving with ones senses “I looked and saw”, and the result of cognition “I looked and understood.”

RandomWorker 5y ago
ahh! Very cool, thank you. These features at this point seem like something that can be locked into the look up table. Though, the exceptions rule book is getting pretty big. :P I guess that's where it gets complicated. The features approach kind of compliments my programming part of my brain. Which is also juggling between various features of programming languages and packages within those languages. It definitely takes time to lock in the vocab (I spend on average, measured on a weekly basis, between 30 min-1h30min a day learning Chinese). I'm just 7 months in my Chinese learning experience. In general, I continuously discover more and more depth. What's the amount of time you go back and redo some the earlier stuff you learn?
- eloisius 5y ago
  Sounds like you’ve got the commitment to learn it. Are you self-studying, in class, studying in your home country or in a Chinese-speaking country? I spend 3 hours per day in class, 5 days a week. We learn about 10 new words and about 2-3 new grammatical structures per day. Outside of class it takes me about 5 hours per day to complete homework assignments and memorize vocab (including writing traditional characters). It’s very brisk and I am barely able to keep up. Every day I feel like I am in a pressure cooker. Since my homework includes a lot of writing, I tend to peek back at previous chapters and continue to fold old grammar and vocab into my writing. Since I live in Taiwan I have plenty of opportunities to practice. I make it a point to try to put new grammar and words to use immediately while texting or talking with friends. Anytime I’m riding the metro or standing in line or something, I am always practicing flash cards in Pleco. I feel like occasional review wouldn’t be enough for me, I actually have to put it to use to absorb it. Since I feel like my head is constantly just beneath the water in a perpetual state of drowning, I don’t know if I’m in a position to offer advice, but if I’m offering advice I’d say forget the lookup table. Exceptions abound, and when you start getting into complements and directional phrases and stuff it’s just too much. It’s like trying to memorize the rules for the order of adjectives in English. It’s easier to just practice usage and know when it sounds “off.” Try to find people to practice talking with.
  - 5y ago

skripp 5y ago

>“hey why don’t we go for a run, somewhere next Monday maybe around noon, just the two of us. I think there’s a nice track close to my place.” 欸！下个星期我们一起去跑步吧。比如星期一中午，就我们俩。我家附近好像有个挺好的跑道。 That's almost a direct translation that would work just fine in Chinese. > I though of the activity first then the time then the person. Generally that’s how I come up with how to plan activities. Then you will be really happy to learn about the topic-comment structure in Chinese. It's exactly what you want! EDIT: If you really want to say "go running together" before "next week" then that's also fine: 欸！我们一起去跑步吧。比如星期一中午，就我们俩。我家附近好像有个挺好的跑道。

alisonatwork 5y ago

I think this is one of those things that teachers tend to make a big deal out of that doesn't matter too much in real life communication. It's not unusual in Chinese for someone to structure a meandering sentence like "let's go for a run ba, next Monday hao bu hao, around noon we can meet ne, just us two a, there is a nice track, it's my house nearby de yige, what do you think?" The sentence order is more important when you already have all the information up-front and you are trying to describe it to someone. So if you have three different runs and someone asks "which run?" then you might say "the just us two next Monday at noon my house nearby de track de nage run". Or drop everything but the last de: "us two next Monday at noon my house nearby track de". In reality, that's a bit of a weird thing to ever need to say, you'd probably just say "next Monday at noon de". Or "my house nearby track de". But if you did say "nage track de nage, my house nearby de nage track, next Monday at noon de, just the two of us going ba, nage run, you know ma", you would be understood too. Personally i think getting the tones right is the most important part of being understood in Chinese. Some Chinese may pretend not to understand you if you get the formal grammar "wrong", but that often comes across to me as a condescending form of ingrained elitism, because it doesn't happen when you talk to working class or poorly-educated Chinese. Much like in English, as long as the general pronunciation (including tones) is recognizable, you should be able to communicate your intent. It won't get you passing grades if you have to write an essay, but if you just want to talk to people on the street, I think focusing on tones and the small sounds that give contextual hints about what you're saying (ma, ne, ba, a/ya, nage/nege, yige, de etc) is a better investment.

princeb 5y ago
> Personally i think getting the tones right is the most important part of being understood in Chinese yea. it really doesn't matter where you are from, the UK, the US, Japan, Korea or Hongkong. if you can't get the tones right, you will be misunderstood. If you are of Chinese heritage (like the HKers), you will be viciously mocked.
RandomWorker 5y ago
Thanks for this! Tones are important I have to work on them!