I've decided to learn Chinese.

[HuangYushi]

That's not necessarily true. I'm learning Chinese because I want to, for the sheer enjoyment of learning a new language and all the cultural issues that go with it (I don't think one can properly learn a language without understanding something about the culture it comes from). But I'll admit I'm probably not a typical student.

Your reasons compel you to learn. That's why you've been making good progress!

My comment referred to individuals who pay for a term of the course, attend the first 2-3 classes (at the most) and quickly decide that they don't like it because it's just too much work, even at such an early stage. Then, it's just a sheer waste of money/time on their part (no refunds).

[Guo Xiang]

I am learning how to read and write Mandarin right now. I'm taking a beginner's course at a local college. I enjoy it very much. It is easy to recognize characters but writing them is challenging. It seems like when I learn new characters, I forget the old ones.

You just need to practise alot. That's what you have to do with languages - practice and put it to frequent use. Otherwise you will just forget.

[jiang bao]

Wah, mandarin sounds feminine. Stay away from mandarin, all you macho guys. It will totally ruin your manly image.

Agree with Cesare. Choose what suits you. Don't stereotype. Linda Chung sounds very feminine speaking cantonese. It's depends on how you say it, your voice quality, your intonation etc.

But, I do agree with Huang Rong that mandarin is a better choice for a newbie who ' don't know an ounce of chinese'. This is because there are more study materials to help you. Most dictionaries pinyin are in mandarin, most chinese learning books are in mandarin and I believe most chinese classes taught mandarin.

I agree about the relative difficulties of cantonese vs. mandarin. I don't recommend any newbie trying to learn Cantonese unless he's being exposed to the language constantly, such as living in HK (I've seen videos of westerners speaking perfect cantonese on Youtube, great stuff... but I digress)

Not even touching upon the more standard teaching material available for mandarin, Cantonese is simply very difficult to learn because there's so much slang. I am a native cantonese speaker and sometimes I have trouble grasping the meanings of all the HK slangs. Written Catonese, such as the stuff that appears in some sections of HK newspapers, is a disaster full of made up words. That's not even touching upon the extra tones and the more difficult sounds in relation to English.

For me, I also have trouble with mandarin slang, but learning mandarin was quite easy for me. It's just a matter of knowing the pinyin of vocabulary. Sometimes I also "mandarinize" Cantonese terms which lead to confusion from mandarin speaking friends. E.g. Cantonese say "fang gong" (fong gung) for leaving work, but it should be "xia ban" in mandarin.

PS, please don't learn the Taiwanese accent. It's terrible. Also, try to avoid lazy Cantonese. It's bad also. Also x2, it would really help if you have good friends fluent in mandarin who can help you practice regularly.

[Linda]

my reasons are very basic. i just like to be able to watch a movie or read those books tat are only available in chinese.

i'm viet and have always watched with viet dubbed it wasn't untill recently tat i began to notice if i watched the films in their natural language that the actor or actress becomes so much better. easier to judge wether or not their good or not.

i'm leaning more towards mando as it seems to be more widely used and i have friends who speaks it.

however, the lady that teaches mando near my house has terrible english, i can't understand her.

do u think its possible to teach myself mando without help from a teacher?

[HuangYushi]

do u think its possible to teach myself mando without help from a teacher?

Yes, it is, if there is a sustained interest and effort.
You might want to PM sniffles about this, as her initial learning of Mandarin was done without the assistance of a teacher/class. Her experience might just encourage you to persevere and learn.

[Cesare]

Linda: If you want to learn writing and reading Chinese, then Mandarin is a more reasonable choice I think.

[sniffles]

my reasons are very basic. i just like to be able to watch a movie or read those books tat are only available in chinese.

do u think its possible to teach myself mando without help from a teacher?

I started learning Mandarin for the same reasons. I was tired of always having to read the subtitles on tv shows and movies instead of watching the actors. And then I discovered all these wonderful books that haven't been published in English. Even though there are wonderful translations available here, I'd really like to read them in the original language.

I started trying to teach myself using audio lessons, but there's no feedback doing it that way. It's a lot easier to learn when you can practice with someone else and they can give you pointers. I'm really enjoying my class.

[Huang Rong]

Wah, mandarin sounds feminine. Stay away from mandarin, all you macho guys. It will totally ruin your manly image.

Agree with Cesare. Choose what suits you. Don't stereotype. Linda Chung sounds very feminine speaking cantonese. It's depends on how you say it, your voice quality, your intonation etc.

Hey hey, I only said (in my humble opinion) Mandarin sounds more feminine, that does not means I said it makes men sound effeminate. If Linda Chung speaks Mando it's likely she'd sound sweeter to the majority of people.

I have never leant Cantonese so I don't know exactly what makes Canto accent different from Mando one. Because Mando is spoken with a higher pitch? Well, I'm not sure. I only think that because my Cantonese speaking friends don't have as gentle, high, or clear voices as the friends of mine who are from Shanghai or Taiwan do. God, speaking of Taiwan, I have to say I love Taiwanese accent. My housemate is a girl from Taiwan, her voice sounds so cute to me that I'm trying to imitate her accent. ^^

[Linda]

i learnt how to say i love you today...from alot of films.

i said so much to my friend she told me to shut up.

wo ai ni everyone!

maybe i should learn a rude word tomorrow and try it on her. wonder how tat would turn out like.

i went to buy some audio books 2day. so expensive...there goes next batch of dvds.

i wish i had a friend like doremon and have those bread tat when you eat you can speak any language u desire.

do we always have to start with you, me, i's? is there an alphabet in chinese?

[HuangYushi]

do we always have to start with you, me, i's? is there an alphabet in chinese?

1. Not necessarily. Common topics to start learning Chinese in include numbers (i.e. how to count), social greetings and small talk (i.e. how to have a simple polite conversation with another person, along the lines of 'How are you? I am fine. Isn't the weather good today?' You get the picture), and everyday encounters (i.e. situational role-playing where you learn new vocabulary that you can actually use).

2. No, there is no alphabet in Chinese. Chinese is basically a language of symbols, so its most basic form, each ideograph or character [called zi 字] can actually be meaningful in itself. Here's an excerpt of a note I sent to a friend recently:

Character 字
This is the smallest unit in Chinese, consisting of only one single ideograph. Most ideographs have meanings in themselves, but some don't make sense unless paired with another ideograph (either before or after it).

Word 词
Consisting of at least 2 字, 词 adds to and expands the vocabulary range of the single-unit 字. My students learn "Word Construction" 配词 after learning single 字.
Examples:
1. 火 (fire) + 车 (vehicle; usu. car) = 火车 (train).
2. 西 (west) + 瓜 (gourd; squash) = 西瓜 (watermelon).

---

HYS

[sniffles]

i learnt how to say i love you today...from alot of films.

i said so much to my friend she told me to shut up.

wo ai ni everyone!

The audio lessons I listened to didn't start with counting, but my classroom lessons did. We've also gone over the same kinds of things Huang Yushi describes.

I'm starting to find that I can recognize lots of individual common words in the dialogue when watching wuxia tv shows. I can also tell one word from another even if I don't know what it means, so the dialogue no longer just sounds like a lot of gibberish noise to me, even though I still can only understand about one word in twenty.

Practicing speaking is helping me a lot with learning new vocabulary. It's also helping me to practice with my husband. He didn't listen to the audio lessons and hasn't watched as many tv shows as I have, so it's all new to him. I get to practice my pronunciation and explain things to him, which is a good way to learn. One of my classmates said it was very helpful to him to teach the words to his daughter.

[jiang bao]

Hey hey, I only said (in my humble opinion) Mandarin sounds more feminine, that does not means I said it makes men sound effeminate. If Linda Chung speaks Mando it's likely she'd sound sweeter to the majority of people.

I have never leant Cantonese so I don't know exactly what makes Canto accent different from Mando one. Because Mando is spoken with a higher pitch? Well, I'm not sure. I only think that because my Cantonese speaking friends don't have as gentle, high, or clear voices as the friends of mine who are from Shanghai or Taiwan do. God, speaking of Taiwan, I have to say I love Taiwanese accent. My housemate is a girl from Taiwan, her voice sounds so cute to me that I'm trying to imitate her accent. ^^

My voice is deeper in Cantonese. I can't really explain it in linguistic terms, but it has to do with intonation for sure.

Nooooooooooo, say it ain't so! The Taiwanese accent is bad IMO. I'm talking about the way they pronounce words. I can't evn understand what they are saying half the time (those whose mandarin doesn't resemble mandarin too much) Butchered the language. Much like lazy Cantonese.

ch, zh, sh becomes c, z, s. -ing, -ong, -eng becomes -in, -on, -en.

[sniffles]

My voice is deeper in Cantonese. I can't really explain it in linguistic terms, but it has to do with intonation for sure.

Nooooooooooo, say it ain't so! The Taiwanese accent is bad IMO. I'm talking about the way they pronounce words. I can't evn understand what they are saying half the time (those whose mandarin doesn't resemble mandarin too much) Butchered the language. Much like lazy Cantonese.

ch, zh, sh becomes c, z, s. -ing, -ong, -eng becomes -in, -on, -en.

Cantonese has lots of nasal sounds that seem to me like they'd be hard for an English speaker to learn.

But different accents aren't bad or wrong - they're just different.

[jiang bao]

What the Taiwanese and lazy Cantonese accents do is merge a bunch of sounds together. Usually by context you can tell what they mean, but it just doesn't sound right.

It's like it's you mixed the L and R sounds in English.

Look to the l(r)ight. Is that look to the light or look to the right?

[Linda]

i always thought the canto speakers sound like they were arguing.

mando sounds polite somehow.

i can't tell which is the taiwanese accent.

[Han Solo]

Pleeeasezzz,

Hokkien dialect obviously the best, unlike the smelly honky cantonese, or the cold common mando.

Han Solo

[HuangYushi]

Hokkien dialect obviously the best, ....
Han Solo

North (as in Penang-type) or South (as in Klang Valley/Johor-type)?

[sniffles]

What the Taiwanese and lazy Cantonese accents do is merge a bunch of sounds together. Usually by context you can tell what they mean, but it just doesn't sound right.

It's like it's you mixed the L and R sounds in English.

Look to the l(r)ight. Is that look to the light or look to the right?

There's plenty of that sort of thing going on in English accents too. It isn't laziness, it's just a different way of speaking. If their cultural/ethnic group was the dominant one, you'd talk that way too.

Years ago I had a friend who came originally from Manchester, England. One day we were having a conversation and he kept saying something about "luck", except it didn't make any sense in the context of the discussion. Finally I realized he was actually saying "look".

[pemberly]

i'm hopping on the bandwagon, i guess. i took some mandarin classes in college, and now that it's been a few years, i've decided to take some intensive mandarin tutoring to boost my skills. also, i was very insistent before that i only learn traditional characters. now, after i've been at work for a few years, i guess learning some simplified would be practical.

[jiang bao]

There's plenty of that sort of thing going on in English accents too. It isn't laziness, it's just a different way of speaking. If their cultural/ethnic group was the dominant one, you'd talk that way too.

Years ago I had a friend who came originally from Manchester, England. One day we were having a conversation and he kept saying something about "luck", except it didn't make any sense in the context of the discussion. Finally I realized he was actually saying "look".

That's not the same thing. WIth the accent you mentioned, he only changed the vowel part, he didn't change the consonant part (Any linguists out there know the proper terms to use to describe the two parts of the word?)

In the TW and lazy Can accents, the consonant part gets murdered.

So in your example, it would be equivalent to him saying "rook" or "dook" or "wook."