5 ms·

his tones are off, but he has a pretty impressive vocabulary

pgrote 12y ago
I took Chinese in high school and did ok. Didn't use it and have tried to pick it up twice as an adult and have yet to get the tones down in conversation. Put a book in front of me, I can get it. Let me listen to someone speak it and I am lost. Any ideas on how to conquer that fault?
- newhouseb 12y ago
  Watch reality Chinese television with subtitles. You get both the visual confirmation alongside the sound. They can be kind of a drag to get through (esp if you're used to HBO-level stuff), but the benefit of reality TV is that you can miss parts of a conversation and not be completely confused as to what's going on as there is no real plot.
  - atratus 12y ago
    can you recommend some shows/channels? Are there any online streams?
    - imron 12y ago
      Check out the Grand First Episode Project on Chinese Forums: http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/24097-tv-series-recommendations-and-index-thread/ http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/24097-tv-seri... Some of the links are outdated, but there's a ton of info there, including descriptions, vocab lists, difficulty rankings and more.
  - ravitation 12y ago
    I find it really hard to watch foreign TV/Movies with subtitles because I lose almost all of the audio, and am pretty much just reading the whole time - path of least resistance to understanding, I guess.
    - jackvalentine 12y ago
      I think he's referring to Chinese subtitles. Almost all television in China is subtitled with Chinese characters.
- jliechti1 12y ago
  Here's how I did it: Listen a lot, as often as possible. Watch TV and movies - there are many on Youtube and Youku. I like to convert interviews from Youtube into mp3s and listen to them during the day during down time. Pick a character in these shows and try to imitate their accent (stick to someone your own gender). Try not to read the subtitles (even the Chinese subtitles). If you want to go further, strip out voice clips from these TV and movies and put them into an SRS system (Anki, Mnemosyne, etc...).
- dreamweapon 12y ago
  What the others are saying. The thing is, your brain is very plastic and will eventually grow new connections to process the novel sonic inputs -- but there will be some time delay involved. Not a lot will happen for a while. But then... a lot will happen. It will all start gelling, and making sense. The key is to (1) watch/read/listen to stuff you truly love, and (2) make a sustained practice of it.
- Steko 12y ago
  Setting Siri to Mandarin is great practice.
- kyllo 12y ago
  Make some Chinese friends and speak only Chinese with them. Really listen to them and try to say the words and phrases the way they say them. You have to socialize in the language, that's really the only way to learn it.
- dgacmu 12y ago
  Beyond what's already been suggested: Work through the DLI tapes ("tapes"). They're good at throwing varied phrasing at you. For pronunciation in general, find an instructor who's good at teaching Americans how to make the sounds right. There are some mouth positioning tricks that are helpful. http://fsi-dli.yojik.eu/DLI/Chinese%20Mandarin/ http://fsi-dli.yojik.eu/DLI/Chinese%20Mandarin/ for the DLI stuff.
- imron 12y ago
  Record yourself speaking and listen for mistakes. Hands down this is one of the best ways to improve your spoken ability in a language (even your native language if you want to avoid umms, and ahhs and so on). Use a tool like Audacity: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ Find a recording of a native speaker that has a transcript. Listen to a section of the recording. Record yourself saying the same thing. Listen back to your recording for mistakes and problems. Repeat the record/listen cycle until you are happy. Move on to the next segment. Finally the most important part and key to the whole thing: do it every day. If you do 30 mins of this a day then you'll notice minor improvements after about a month and significant improvements after about three months. Also, a shameless plug, check out http://www.chinese-forums.com/ http://www.chinese-forums.com/ which has a load of advice for learners of Chinese. And my own tools for learning Chinese: http://www.imralsoftware.com/ http://www.imralsoftware.com/
jvagner 12y ago
he's probably a pretty busy guy...
irollboozers 12y ago
That's what I immediately noticed - his grammar and processing speed is pretty slow and steady but his vocabulary is incredible. I mean, he's been studying for what, 2-3 years? I wouldn't be surprised if he was in like the top 1% of people studying Chinese, on top of the fact that he has a small company to run.
Istof 12y ago
might be explained by delays and ear piece

I took Chinese in high school and did ok. Didn't use it and have tried to pick it up twice as an adult and have yet to get the tones down in conversation. Put a book in front of me, I can get it. Let me listen to someone speak it and I am lost. Any ideas on how to conquer that fault?

newhouseb 12y ago
Watch reality Chinese television with subtitles. You get both the visual confirmation alongside the sound. They can be kind of a drag to get through (esp if you're used to HBO-level stuff), but the benefit of reality TV is that you can miss parts of a conversation and not be completely confused as to what's going on as there is no real plot.
- atratus 12y ago
  can you recommend some shows/channels? Are there any online streams?
  - imron 12y ago
    Check out the Grand First Episode Project on Chinese Forums: http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/24097-tv-series-recommendations-and-index-thread/ http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/24097-tv-seri... Some of the links are outdated, but there's a ton of info there, including descriptions, vocab lists, difficulty rankings and more.
- ravitation 12y ago
  I find it really hard to watch foreign TV/Movies with subtitles because I lose almost all of the audio, and am pretty much just reading the whole time - path of least resistance to understanding, I guess.
  - jackvalentine 12y ago
    I think he's referring to Chinese subtitles. Almost all television in China is subtitled with Chinese characters.
jliechti1 12y ago
Here's how I did it: Listen a lot, as often as possible. Watch TV and movies - there are many on Youtube and Youku. I like to convert interviews from Youtube into mp3s and listen to them during the day during down time. Pick a character in these shows and try to imitate their accent (stick to someone your own gender). Try not to read the subtitles (even the Chinese subtitles). If you want to go further, strip out voice clips from these TV and movies and put them into an SRS system (Anki, Mnemosyne, etc...).
dreamweapon 12y ago
What the others are saying. The thing is, your brain is very plastic and will eventually grow new connections to process the novel sonic inputs -- but there will be some time delay involved. Not a lot will happen for a while. But then... a lot will happen. It will all start gelling, and making sense. The key is to (1) watch/read/listen to stuff you truly love, and (2) make a sustained practice of it.
Steko 12y ago
Setting Siri to Mandarin is great practice.
kyllo 12y ago
Make some Chinese friends and speak only Chinese with them. Really listen to them and try to say the words and phrases the way they say them. You have to socialize in the language, that's really the only way to learn it.
dgacmu 12y ago
Beyond what's already been suggested: Work through the DLI tapes ("tapes"). They're good at throwing varied phrasing at you. For pronunciation in general, find an instructor who's good at teaching Americans how to make the sounds right. There are some mouth positioning tricks that are helpful. http://fsi-dli.yojik.eu/DLI/Chinese%20Mandarin/ http://fsi-dli.yojik.eu/DLI/Chinese%20Mandarin/ for the DLI stuff.
imron 12y ago
Record yourself speaking and listen for mistakes. Hands down this is one of the best ways to improve your spoken ability in a language (even your native language if you want to avoid umms, and ahhs and so on). Use a tool like Audacity: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ Find a recording of a native speaker that has a transcript. Listen to a section of the recording. Record yourself saying the same thing. Listen back to your recording for mistakes and problems. Repeat the record/listen cycle until you are happy. Move on to the next segment. Finally the most important part and key to the whole thing: do it every day. If you do 30 mins of this a day then you'll notice minor improvements after about a month and significant improvements after about three months. Also, a shameless plug, check out http://www.chinese-forums.com/ http://www.chinese-forums.com/ which has a load of advice for learners of Chinese. And my own tools for learning Chinese: http://www.imralsoftware.com/ http://www.imralsoftware.com/

jvagner 12y ago

he's probably a pretty busy guy...

irollboozers 12y ago

That's what I immediately noticed - his grammar and processing speed is pretty slow and steady but his vocabulary is incredible. I mean, he's been studying for what, 2-3 years? I wouldn't be surprised if he was in like the top 1% of people studying Chinese, on top of the fact that he has a small company to run.

Istof 12y ago

might be explained by delays and ear piece