@Kariannshea,

欢迎你来到泡泡中文。

You're absolutely going to love learning Chinese! If you have any questions, you can always ask me, I've been learning for a while so I can always help. I also recommend that you just take the plunge into learning characters right away, because it will be a tremendous help to learning the spoken language, in addition, if you plan on moving to China it will be an absolute necessity to learn to read and write in order to really make the most of living in the country.

Good luck to you!

小虎

@XiaoHu, i agree if Kariannshea is planning to visit or live in China learning 'Hanzi' is necessary. i'm 6months 'chabuduo' into my learning the pinyin chart, pinying chuck expressions and pronunciation and doing quite well. i think trying to plunge immediately as a beginner into 'Hanzi' would have discourage me.

@Richard,

I agree that "Hanzi" is rather daunting, but don't let that stop you from learning Chinese characters from day one. Characters can be such a tremendous assistance later on that the sooner you begin learning them, the sooner you can begin mastering Chinese. Later on you might want to use Chinese texts to learn or improve your Chinese and it will be imperitive to know them in order to get to the next level.

Pinyin is a great help, but it can never replace the real thing.

Next time I post Chinese on a beginner forum, I'll put in translations and pinyin to assist learners.

祝你学中文学得很开心哦！

Zhu4 ni3 xue2 zhong1 wen2 xue2 de hen3 kai1 xin1 o!

Happy Chinese learning!

小虎

@Richard,

I actually started exactly the way you have, with no contact with Chinese people outside of occassional trips to the Chinese community, just textbooks and CD's to listen to (no Chinesepod or Popup Chinese then) and a will to learn.

I remember my ex-girlfriend (an American girl obviously), after I had been studying for about 6 months she and I went to the local 中国餐厅 zhong1 guo2 can1 ting1 (Chinese Restaurant) and grabbed a newspaper to see how many characters I could read, the waiter came up to me and said in Chinese “你会说一点汉语吗？”ni3 hui4 shuo1 yi1 dian3 han4 yu3 ma? (can you speak a little Chinese) I replied, "会". He then curiously asked, “那你可以看得懂中文字吗？”na4 ni3 ke3 yi3 kan4 de dong3 zhong1 wen2 zi4 ma? (then can you read Chinese characters?)

I replied, "可以看得懂一些." ke3 yi3 kan4 de dong3 yi1 xie1 (I can read some)

He asked me to point out the characters I recognized and read them off to him. I read off a good 12 or 13 characters randomly and thought that was pretty good, considering it was through self-study (with little focus on actually reading characters mind you).

My ex-girlfriend jeered at me and said, "you should just give up on this Chinese thing, you've been learning for 6 months and still can't read at all!"

Of course explaining that the nature of the Chinese written language in non-phonetic and much more difficult than any western or phonetic script was completely lost on her and she just maintained that it would be in my best interest to give it up, that I just didn't have the knack for languages.

Another incident occured years later when, after I could ready Chinese well, of course still wasn't up to speed on every character, a coworkers girlfriend asked me to tell her what two characters on my phone's homescreen (which was set to unsimplified Chinese) said. The characters in question were 多媒体 duo1 mei2 ti3 (multimedia), which at the time, I recognized all the characters on the phone except for that one that she asked about. I told her I wasn't sure and she replied, "You SHOULD know, I mean, after all the time you've been learning the language. How can you not know?"

To which the same explanation as with my ex-girlfriend was given and was then rendered completely moot.

My point is, no matter how hard it seems, if you really want to learn characters even 自学 zi4 xue2, then you CAN do it!

@Richard,

Back in the day I knew a 71 year old woman who was a great friend of my Chinese professor. She liked Chinese, obviously because she was a tremendous fan of the people and culture, but also because it kept her mind active.

I'm a firm believer that the best way to exercise one's 记性 ji4 xing4 (memory) is to learn another language.

Chinese in particular, with its tones, characters, sonorant quality and great challenge can exercise so many perts of the brain and aspects of the thinking process, both right and left brain receive benefits.

The best way to maintain youth is to learn Chinese!

@richard,

Hahaha, you may want to try our one-on-one lessons (University Program) :)

About "why bother with that", it has many different ways to translate it depending on the context. Something like "wei4shen2me5 fei4shi4" is close, but really it depends on the specific situation.

"As far as I know" is "ju4 wo3 suo3 zhi1". It's not really "kou3yu3", but it's the only best way to say it.

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com

@Echo , drummerboy, wo zhidao

PUchinese as been helpful and generous to me and i don't hesitate to recommend the site every chance i get. i'm not comfortable to say i can't afford any extra. i'm living month to month on can. old age and supplement pensions and certainly an 'ayi' in my mind 'wo kai wanxiao le' and 'buyong zizhao mafan' . the taichi and exercise lessons for seniors are free community services here. the 1 on 1 package must be a successful tool then again the set-up is not convenient at the senior bld. i'm now living at.

i'm gradually moving up to study elementary lessons it's fun!

Also worth mentioning for anyone looking for speaking practice -- there are a number of sites that act as free intermediary for language exchange partners. One of the decent-sized ones for Chinese is italki.com. If anyone is looking for conversation practice and doesn't mind spending some time teaching a Chinese student English, it's not a bad deal.

no need for you'all to be concern (nimen beng keqi)

i even have Echo,David and Brendan on CC101 also an efficient site for learning mandarin.

@drummerboy, ya i have been to a local chinese community center. it's for chinese people(cantonese/mandarin in my city) who need to integrate, learn english and french . no mandarin courses but always the possibllity to meet a senior willing to converse.

@trevelyan, tks for the language exchange option

@Echo, grammar time: 'zhengzai' is sometimes use before the verb . does this compare to the complement 'dao' after a verb > is this another way to indicate a beginning/continuing action?

Heyas all ;)

I have a small question about 差远了. I know that Brendan said 差远的那个差 is pronounced 1st tone, and I know that 差 can be both 1st and 4th, but when I listen to it, it sounds like sometimes it slips to 4th tone? Admittedly, my 听力 probably sucks....which is "correct"? Or at least, which one should I use when I say 差远了? Was I hearing it right, that there were two different pronunciations, or was I hallucinating?

Thanks!

--李波

@Amber

Thanks Amber, especially for the swift response. That clears up my confusion ;)

--李波