Learning mandarin as a third Language? how can I do that?

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  • January 1, 2008 at 2:13 pm #5647
    Rob_Hugo@PortNW
    Keymaster

    What is an effective system to learn Mandarin?
    When I hear people speak Mandarin I have a very hard time figuring out syllables. My first language is Spanish and I started learning English in my 20s, realizing that, in my personal case, I cannot loose my accent and my pronunciation of some vowels sound very Spanish. When I think on how cool it would be to learn some Chinese, I also realize how hard it is, I just don’t have the ear for it, no matter how much I like it, is like a personal difficulty (how sad)
    With the Chinese Culture Club we will be practicing a character a week with a book called A character a Day”
    A friend gave me a course of 8 CDs that you are supposed to hear while you drive or you can download into your iPod. It’s called Instant Immersion Chinese Mandarin by Topics Entertainment.
    I will be listening to them hoping I can memorize some cool sentences and train my ear.
    Has anyone found such type or courses efficient?

    January 1, 2008 at 5:31 pm #33899
    Anonymous
    Guest

    I have mixed feeling about some of those CDs. I've tried a couple of them for Spanish, but I personally think taking a class somewhere is the best. When I took Chinese (Mandarin), it was different since I already speak Cantonese at home. Both use all these different tones that if you've never really heard them, it can be difficult. I think taking a quick class on it would be best because once you understand the different tones, you can just read the rest in pin ying a phonetic thing.

    January 2, 2008 at 3:33 pm #33900
    Anonymous
    Guest

    I think it is a wise advise. There is only one way to get questions answered as they come up, and that is by having some one there to answer them.
    I browsed the local community college and found that they do not offer Mandarin but do Fundamental Japanese class. I might start with that one. Another posting I just read here earlier, did remind me that Japanese fonetics are similar to those in Spanish.

    January 3, 2008 at 9:20 am #33901
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Good luck with Japanese. I do know that at SMC there is a chinese (mandarin) class available. I dont know what times they start. They problem with many community college courses are they are offered during the day - times we ourselves are teaching.

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