# speaking chinese



## kingkong89 (Sep 16, 2008)

does anyone out there know a good way to learn chinese and how to speak it fluently


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## arnisador (Sep 16, 2008)

This is a _very _tough language for an English speaker to learn to speak! Take lessons. Someone near you has emigrated from there and will tutor you.


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## chinto (Sep 17, 2008)

that and some of the programs like "roseta stone" they actually use that kind of program in Monterey for the military and intelligence community's language program ..  best i can do for you in suggestions.


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## arnisador (Sep 17, 2008)

The DLI is quite efficient, and I have heard lots of good things about Rosetta. But to _speak _Chinese is very difficult for a non-native because of its tonal system!


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## East Winds (Sep 18, 2008)

I am learning Chinese (Mandarin) using the Pimsleur course. Expensive, but quite superb. My local Chinese restaurant now understand my orders!!!
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





Very best wishes


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## Xue Sheng (Sep 18, 2008)

Pimsleur is good, Rosetta Stone is suppose to be good

This is a good source as well 
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/

But I am married to an OMD from China who also teaches Mandarin and the local community college so I'm lucky , although she constantly tells me I am a bad student :uhyeah:


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## Yew (Sep 18, 2008)

East Winds said:


> I am learning Chinese (Mandarin) using the Pimsleur course. Expensive, but quite superb. My local Chinese restaurant now understand my orders!!!
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 
Somehow I find your  name in this thread is the most tranlslatable. Dong Feng?But don't go using that as your nickname outisde though cause it sounds similar to a very skilled but genderless character in wuxia fiction.


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## MA-Caver (Sep 18, 2008)

I myself would like to learn some day... but one has to be sure of the dialect that they want to speak... I believe that there are two primary dialects in China itself; Mandarin (the one I'd choose) and Cantonese which is primarily (if I'm not mistaken) the dialect spoken by those along the coastal cities like Hong Kong and Shanghai. Bruce Lee spoke primarily Cantonese and Jet Li speaks Mandarin so to give you an idea of the differences. Or even better.... Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and Hero were in Mandarin and other films like So Close were in Cantonese. Cantonese tend to broaden/lengthen their vowels while Mandarin is more of the concise/precise manner of speaking. 

Am not sure if both dialects are similar enough to be able to converse one way or another though. 

Either way know who you're going to be conversing with and what dialect they'll be speaking so there's clear communication all around.


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## oxy (Sep 19, 2008)

MA-Caver said:


> Cantonese which is primarily (if I'm not mistaken) the dialect spoken by those along the coastal cities like Hong Kong and Shanghai.



Shanghai speaks its own dialect of Mandarin called Wu, I think.

Cantonese is spoken basically only in the Guangzhou area. I say "only" but the population there is quite large.



> Cantonese tend to broaden/lengthen their vowels while Mandarin is more of the concise/precise manner of speaking.



Actually, I find them to be the reverse.

It could be an aural illusion. For example, Cantonese consonants are very short and sharp whereas Mandarin consonants seem longer. So framed by these sounds, the vowel sounds might seem different lengths. Kind of like that optical illusion where the inner white boxes the same size, but the surrounding black box is of a different size making the inner boxes look different.



> Am not sure if both dialects are similar enough to be able to converse one way or another though.



Only if you talk REALLY slowly and you are ALMOST shouting...


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## East Winds (Sep 19, 2008)

Yew,

Thanks for that. I was not aware of the wuxia connection. But yes, the translation is good. My local Chinese restaurant and a local Chinese shopkeeper all say my pronunciation and accent are good classical Mandarin. (That's thanks to the Pimsleur exercises). Now writing!!!! That's a whole different ball game:erg:

Very best wishes


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## Xue Sheng (Sep 19, 2008)

oxy said:


> Shanghai speaks its own dialect of Mandarin called Wu, I think.


 
Not sure about this but all I know is that a Mandarin speaker ahs a REAL hard time understanding a Shanghai dialect speaker. I have had my Sifu demonstrate the differences between Cantonese, Mandarin and Shanghai (he speaks all three) and they are VERY different. My wife speaks only Mandarin and cannot understand Shanghai dialect or Cantonese. 



oxy said:


> Cantonese is spoken basically only in the Guangzhou area. I say "only" but the population there is quite large.


 
Yup

However Mandarin is taught and spoken throughout China as the "official Language" so, IMO, unless someone plans on staying in Guangzhou or Hong Kong it is best to learn Mandarin.




oxy said:


> Actually, I find them to be the reverse.
> 
> It could be an aural illusion. For example, Cantonese consonants are very short and sharp whereas Mandarin consonants seem longer. So framed by these sounds, the vowel sounds might seem different lengths. Kind of like that optical illusion where the inner white boxes the same size, but the surrounding black box is of a different size making the inner boxes look different.


 
I have always described Cantonese as having harder consonant sounds than Mandarin. Xie xie as opposed to Doh je kind of thing for example. When I listen to Cantonese speakers it always sounds to me as having much harder consonant sounds than when I listen to Mandarin speakers. But then if I listen to the average mandarin speaker and then listen to Beijing Mandarin I hear a lot more "r" sounds in Beijing mandarin.


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## TenTigers (Sep 21, 2008)

I am learning Cantonese. (I do Hung-Ga and Jook Lum Southern mantis,whose terminology is in Cantonese)In NYC Chinatown, there are free Cantonese and Toisanese language courses. I also use Pimsleur. In Chinatown, Hong Kong, and Guangzhao, Guaongdong, Cantonese is the dominant language. In fact, when I went to Hong Kong a few weeks ago, the only manderin I heard was on the subway announcements, which were in English, Cantonese, and then manderen.
My friend speaks fluent cantonese and he learned mainly from Cantonese Kung-Fu movies-believe it or not! Of course, he also moved to Guangzhao for six months and was totally imersed in the language as well.


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## TenTigers (Sep 21, 2008)

there are many more differences between Cantonese and manderin than simply pronounciation. But the written language is the same.


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## Unkogami (Sep 22, 2008)

kingkong89 said:


> does anyone out there know a good way to learn chinese and how to speak it fluently


 

Move to China. Fall in love.


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## oxy (Sep 22, 2008)

Xue Sheng said:


> Not sure about this but all I know is that a Mandarin speaker ahs a REAL hard time understanding a Shanghai dialect speaker. I have had my Sifu demonstrate the differences between Cantonese, Mandarin and Shanghai (he speaks all three) and they are VERY different. My wife speaks only Mandarin and cannot understand Shanghai dialect or Cantonese.



Actually, I was incorrect. Wu is a separate dialect in itself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_(linguistics)

I can only speak HK cantonese and I actually can't understand a lot of cantonese from the mainland!




> I have always described Cantonese as having harder consonant sounds than Mandarin. Xie xie as opposed to Doh je kind of thing for example. When I listen to Cantonese speakers it always sounds to me as having much harder consonant sounds than when I listen to Mandarin speakers. But then if I listen to the average mandarin speaker and then listen to Beijing Mandarin I hear a lot more "r" sounds in Beijing mandarin.



Sounds right to me. I think most Southern dialects have harder consonant sounds (though I could be mistaken).


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## Xue Sheng (Sep 22, 2008)

TenTigers said:


> there are many more differences between Cantonese and manderin than simply pronounciation. But the written language is the same.


 
Mandarin has 4 tones and correct me if I am wrong but doesn't Cantonese have about 8?

Also this was told to me by a friend of mine who was born in Guangzhou and was an English teacher there as well and had to learn Mandarin. The written language is the same but to be considered literate in Cantonese you need to know about 6000 Characters were in Mandarin you need about 4000. Basically his meaning was if you want to read and understand a local paper.


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## MBuzzy (Sep 22, 2008)

I have used both Rosetta Stone and Pimsleur with Korean.  Both have their advantages and disadvantages, do you have to know what you want to do.

Rosetta Stone is a complete immersion system.  So with Asian systems, learning the written system is almost impossible with only Rosetta Stone.  If you choose to use it, it works great for learning to speak.  You do have to stick with the entire program and work at it for a few hours per day though.  

Pimsleur has its issues also.  It is great for learning the spoken language, but there is no link to the written here.  They also tend to teach the "university" version of the language and not the normal spoken version.  I learned a few things on Pimsleur that the real Koreans had quite a laugh at because no one actually talks that way.


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## SensibleManiac (Sep 22, 2008)

I heard Rosetta Stone is excellent however I would tend to agree that Asian languages require the written component to really be fluent.
I don't speak Chinese myself but you can do like a friend of mine who took some Chinese courses in Canada, then took a course to teach English as a second language and went to China to teach English and practice his Chinese.
Well it's a year and a half later and he's still there with no intention of returning soon and apparently he's now fluent in Chinese.


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## oxy (Sep 22, 2008)

Xue Sheng said:


> The written language is the same but to be considered literate in Cantonese you need to know about 6000 Characters were in Mandarin you need about 4000. Basically his meaning was if you want to read and understand a local paper.



The estimates I've seen had been as low as 1500 for a local newspaper.

Maybe some newspapers written in vernacular Cantonese may require more characters, but I remember that most Cantonese is written using the Mandarin standard.


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## mograph (Sep 22, 2008)

Some tidbits:

In terms of written, there are Traditional and Simplified Chinese characters. Neither is connected to Mandarin or Cantonese -- those terms relate to spoken language. Cantonese speakers may prefer Traditional due to an avoidance of PRC-driven Simplified characters, but there's no rule that I know of. Both Mandarin and Cantonese speakers would see a character, and for the same meaning, pronounce it differently. They would both read and write the same character for "six", but one would say "liu" and the other "lok".) I was learning simplified for a while so I could read signs in Beijing, but you won't see those in traditional calligraphy, which I love. I'll probably learn to read signs and calligraphy, letting the simplified/traditional weighting fall where it may. 

Most of the old-school Chinese who emigrated a while ago probably speak Cantonese, though more speakers of Mandarin emigrate now. I've had a hard time finding Mandarin speakers in Toronto, so I'll probably try to learn a bit of Cantonese, just to converse better with my Friday night Sifu.

A Cantonese-speaking gentleman once told me that the number of different words between Mandarin and Cantonese has crossed the threshold where the two can be called different languages -- not just dialects. I've found that sometimes there's a pattern driving the differences, sometimes not. 

As with any language, practice in conversation is the key. And watching martial arts movies.


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## Xue Sheng (Sep 22, 2008)

mograph said:


> Some tidbits:
> 
> In terms of written, there are Traditional and Simplified Chinese characters. Neither is connected to Mandarin or Cantonese -- those terms relate to spoken language. Cantonese speakers may prefer Traditional due to an avoidance of PRC-driven Simplified characters, but there's no rule that I know of. Both Mandarin and Cantonese speakers would see a character, and for the same meaning, pronounce it differently. They would both read and write the same character for "six", but one would say "liu" and the other "lok".) I was learning simplified for a while so I could read signs in Beijing, but you won't see those in traditional calligraphy, which I love. I'll probably learn to read signs and calligraphy, letting the simplified/traditional weighting fall where it may.
> 
> ...


 
Back when I was actually a Chinese Studies major in college, just before my divorce made it impossible to continue I learned that what you are saying is quite true as it applies to dialects. You are more accurate using Chinese more like you would use Romance languages or Germanic languages. Many dialects in Chinese cannot talk to one another and they are much more like different languages with a shared writing system. 

My wife understands Mandarin and reads both simplified and traditional (note if you read only simplified and try reading traditional there can be some very inaccurate translations). But she cannot understand a Cantonese speaker, a Shanghai speaker, a Sichuan speaker and there is even differences between mainland mandarin and Taiwan mandarin but she can understand a person from Taiwan. However just about everyone in their 50s and younger can speak Mandarin on Mainland these days.

Interesting note, my Mandarin, what little I speak, has a Beijing accent and what I find interesting is I can say something exactly like my wife to a Chinese person, not from Beijing, and they will not understand me but if my wife says it they understand her perfectly. I was once told by a coworker form Shanghai that she was shocked that I had a Beijing accent and was not focusing so much on what I was saying but on this meiguoren was speaking with a Beijing accent.


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## oxy (Sep 23, 2008)

mograph said:


> A Cantonese-speaking gentleman once told me that the number of different words between Mandarin and Cantonese has crossed the threshold where the two can be called different languages -- not just dialects. I've found that sometimes there's a pattern driving the differences, sometimes not.



Apart from the words, the idioms used in each dialect are different as well. I remember learning Cantonese 10 years ago in Australia where the teachers were actually using books for Taiwan Mandarin and I can't remember a thing because the way they speak using the same characters don't use the same vernacular.

I wouldn't go so far to say they are different languages.

But then, many people have quipped that English and American (or Australian) are completely different languages as well.


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## Xue Sheng (Sep 23, 2008)

http://www.chinese-tools.com/

http://www.chinese-tools.com/learn/chinese/contents.html


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## Yew (Oct 6, 2008)

mograph said:


> Some tidbits:
> 
> 
> 
> As with any language, practice in conversation is the key. And watching martial arts movies.


 
Very true.I wasn't really a cantonese speaker until I watched wuxia which was so informative in giving animal names as well as weapon names and limbs etc which lead to me being able to converse more and more in cantonese.

It then helped me move to the next step in which if a mandarin language movie has subtitles, reading them would be easy since I already recognize words in the subs of cantonese movies and thus i then knew what the mandarin equavalient was.That was waaay so much more fun than just sitting in a dumb class learning Chinese words on how to eat rice or utensil or furniture names when I was 9.If the teacher could have spiced up the lesson and give me words like jian,dao or even nei gung to write repeatedly in boxes,i would have done it willingly.


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## oxy (Oct 6, 2008)

http://www.mandarintools.com/dimsum.html


I forgot to mention this program I found a while ago.

It has a dictionary and pronunciation guide for mandarin and cantonese as well as a character writing recognition.

I used it to write up the LHBF Five Word Poem using that writing recognition with a mouse.


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## clfsean (Oct 7, 2008)

Dim Sum is a great tool. I keep a copy on my desktop at home & laptop at work. 

As far as the dialect/language differences between Mandarin & Cantonese & then even subdialects of the same languages, it's immense.

When I was in China in 2001, I went through several different provinces & the Mandarin all sounded different & was at times noticeably different from the Beijing stuff we'd all been working on. A lady that was with us lived in Taiwan for about 15 years, married a Taiwanese guy & all. She had problems with the local (Henan, Shaanxi, etc...) dialects. The Beijing wasn't so bad, but she got looked at funny when she spoke because she has a Taiwanese (Ming-nan) accent & pronunciation.

Cantonese is even worse. My Sifu's first teacher was from Toisan. So his Cantonese was whatever the dialect of Toison (don't know correct name) was. It's not the same as Hong Kong or even Guangdong dialect. Then his 2nd teacher was from a school descended from the Sun Woi dialect of Cantonese. His current teacher speaks with a SF/Hong Kong Cantonese dialect. They're all close enough to be really annoying to try ti pick out, but they're all different enough to get you yelled at if it's the wrong pronunciation on the wrong thing.


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## mograph (Oct 7, 2008)

Heh. Given all this Chinese dialect stuff, imagine trying to run the place.


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## Xue Sheng (Oct 8, 2008)

mograph said:


> Heh. Given all this Chinese dialect stuff, imagine trying to run the place.


 
That's easy... make it MANDATORY for everyone to speak Mandarin .. 

Seriously they teach Mandarin in all schools throughout China now. That and the writing system is pretty much the same throughout the country


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## JadeDragon3 (Nov 21, 2008)

Sign up for a class at a college/university near you. It may cost a little bit but its worth it.


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## geezer (Nov 21, 2008)

TenTigers said:


> there are many more differences between Cantonese and manderin than simply pronounciation. But the written language is the same.


 
A friend of mine did advanced graduate work in linguistics, so I asked him to explain the difference between "dialect" and "language". It turns out that there isn't a universal standard. In fact the terms are so biased and political that they are of minimal use. Some countries use the term "dialect" to deprecate languages spoken by ethnic minorities, such as in Mexico where Spanish, English, French, and so forth are_ languages_ (idiomas). But Native Americans are said to speak _dialects_ (dialectos). In other countries, separatist groups will insist that they speak a separate "language" and cannot understand the national tongue. In these same countries, the majority group will insist that the difference is just a matter of "dialect" and they can easily understand the other, minority versions.

So apparently in the case of China, differences between Cantonese, Mandarin, and other regionally spoken toungues, are indeed enough to make them mutually unintelligeable, and qualify them as different languages. However the combined facters of a very long shared history, a common system of writing and the current political insistence on Chinese unity all combine to explain the use of the term dialect for these very distinct toungues.

So what does this all mean? Well as my old si-fu put it, all Chinese is very difficult for Westerners to learn, and he felt Cantonese was especially hard since it has more tones. Therefore, even though he was a Cantonese speaker from Hong Kong, he advised that if we really were determined to learn Chinese, then we should try Mandarin. And, after all, he said, speaking Chinese will not make your Kung fu better. Practice will.

Still...if I only had the time and brains...


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## mograph (Nov 22, 2008)

Learn the one that you will expect to speak. If your Sifu and fellow students are from Hong Kong, learn Hong Kong Cantonese. If from Beijing, learn Beijing Mandarin. Taiwan, learn Taiwan Mandarin if you can.

I was learning Mandarin from a University course, but only knew one local Mandarin speaker. I know many more HK Cantonese speakers, so I decided to take up Cantonese, for what it's worth. 

After learning Cantonese, will learning Mandarin (or vice versa) be easier? It depends on how you learn, and how you relate new concepts to old and keep different concepts sorted out. I like relating one thing to another (oh, Cantonese uses "hou" instead of "hao"), and after a few missteps, I can stay in one language once I get going. So far.


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## furtom (Nov 25, 2008)

I just would add to this very good thread that it is hard to learn Chinese for most of us. Really, really hard!

I spent 3 years in Japan and had no trouble learning the language. Besides my knowledge of the basic characters (which changes anyway), almost NONE of my experiance in Japan has helped me in learning Chinese. It's just a whole 'nother thing. Chinese tell me I have such great pronunciation, but I am sure they are being polite because I can't understand anything they say beyond very slow and simple sentences.

Of course, you (we) can do it. But I would really recommend that you have access to a native speaker. (Which I am fortunate to have.) The software and tapes are great, but to really establish a firm footing, you need correction in pronunciation.

Finally, unless you have some specific need for the dialects, I'd say Mandarin is the way to go, no question.


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