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sager · Joined: 26 Dec 2012 Posts: 35 Location: Germany

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/dec/17/mistakes-while-learning-languages-spanish?CMP=share_btn_fb

water rat · Joined: 30 Aug 2014 Posts: 1098 Location: North Antarctica

Aristede · Joined: 06 Aug 2009 Posts: 180

fpshangzhou · Joined: 13 Mar 2012 Posts: 280

I too have followed the fatal Pimsleur route, only to fall off the cliff. Also attempting Mandarin and Spanish, I have gotten further with the Spanish (lesson 15, level 1), but with little results due to little effort, I will keep plugging along occasionally, thinking that I'm learning a language, when in fact I'm just running in place going nowhere.

Oh the instant gratification that we require......

Cheers,

Aaron

Aristede · Joined: 06 Aug 2009 Posts: 180

Alien abductee · Joined: 08 Jun 2014 Posts: 527 Location: Kuala Lumpur

I didn't much like that article but there's a link to a better one at the bottom - Learning a Language 10 Things You Need to Know. I'll mention a few of the headings here, and offer my opinion and advice.

Remind Yourself Why You're Learning. For many people on this forum your interest in language learning is probably because you're living in a foreign country. I can't think of a better motivator than that to learn a new language. Yet of all the people I've met in my travels through 43 (and counting) countries native-English speaking expats are the worst at learning language. Yeah, I know - everybody else in the world is learning English so why bother learning their language? Other than the sheer arrogance this kind of thinking implies, not to mention the bad example we set for our own language students, language skills actually come in handy. In my case the only English speakers nearby are the students I teach. Outside of this on-campus language bubble English is almost non-existent, so it's either learn and use Chinese or become known as the helpless foreigner that can't do anything on their own. Honestly I'd be embarrassed to tell anyone I'd been in a foreign country for x number of years yet couldn't speak any of the language.

Go to where the language is spoken. If you're working and living in a foreign country where your target language is spoken you've overcome a major hurdle (finding people to speak with). Many ESL students don't improve a lot, or improve more slowly, because they have fewer opportunities to communicate with native speakers (definitely true in China). Most of us expats can't use that excuse.

Ignore the myths: age is just a number. How may times have you heard that old(er) people can't learn language? It's total BS.

It's taken me awhile to figure out, but here's what I do to learn Chinese:

Find the tools that work for you and use them regularly. I've got a stack of books, apps on my phone, flashcards, Pimsleur, Rosetta Stone on my laptop, lots of native speaking Chinese around me. Much of it I don't use that often. I rely a lot on the Pleco app on my iPhone. Buy the fully functional version of Pleco and you have a dictionary, live/still OCR, simplified/traditional characters, ability to make flash cards etc. I also use a set of Tuttle Flashcards good for character recognition (includes many of the characters needed to pass HSK). I also have three students who visit me once a week each and they help me with useful phrases, grammar, and check my writing for me. In exchange I speak with them in English for awhile and everyone's happy.

Learn to write Chinese. First, it's actually fun making the characters. I liken it to drawing a picture, which is essentially what you're doing. Characters with a lot of strokes look complicated but once broken down into radical/component parts they become easier to write. There's also the added benefit that learning a new writing system exercises parts of the brain that we normally don't use, unlike tapping away on a keyboard which doesn't do a whole lot for you.

Read Chinese. Chinese is everywhere and I find myself trying to translate random signs when I'm out for a walk.

Change your attitude. When I thought of studying Chinese as "hard work" I learned more slowly. When I think of the things I can achieve by knowing more of the language I enjoy it and learn more quickly.

Try to speak at least a few minutes every day. I talk to random kids outside when I see them, talk with some of my students each day, and when I go out and buy something I use Chinese with local vendors. I get about 20 minutes a day on average, more or less depending on the day.

Language learning isn't new to me and I've been doing it on and off most of my life with various languages. My renewed interest in Chinese came about because of something a former student said to me a few years ago. I met her downtown one afternoon (we hadn't seen one another for a few years), and she invited me for dinner with her family the following day. After dinner she commented, to my embarrassment, that my Chinese hadn't improved much since we last met. Sadly she was right, but now I'm doing something about that.