What (or how) is the fastest way to learn how to speak Mandarin Chinese?

Answer 1

It is possible to teach yourself, believe it or not. I started out with 'Modern Chinese: A Basic Course' by The Faculty of Peking University. It's put out by Dover and has a CD with native speakers, both male and female, to accompany the text. Quite old, so kind of 'communist', but describes the sound system in detail, gives you a good foundation for the grammar - the basic sentence patterns.

And a nice book on the writing system: Teach Yourself Beginner's Chinese Script, put out by Teach Yourself Books.

Later on, I found a very nice (and free!) course on the Internet. Here's the URL: www.hanyu.com.cn/en/default.asp

This will give you more modern vocabulary, how to use it in conversation.

Also if you want you can learn Chinese characters, they have very nice animations which slowly take you through each character, like an invisible hand drawing them for you so you know the order and direction of the strokes (every detail IS important - if you don't get it right and you learn with the wrong order or direction, it'll come back to haunt you when you are writing the characters fast and they just 'don't look Chinese'...).

I believe they also have a Japanese and a Korean version of this site - don't have the URL for it handy.

Finally, a nice dictionary for beginners: Oxford Starter Chinese Dictionary.

祝你好运气！Zhu4 ni3 hao3 yun4 qi! Good luck!

Answer 2

It isn't easy, but it can by done. There are 'self-instruction' courses that can help you with the written language, but for pronounciation and etiquette, you're better enrolling yourself in a language class. If you live near a community college or university, check out their course offerings. if you live in a community that has a chinese population, check out the after-school and saturday classes that are held for Chinese students. They may let you take part if you are a serious student.
Good luck!

Answer 3

Hello,

~~~~well see it as a challenge..i will break it down first you have to master the tones, which are four when you have done that it will be smooth sailing from there.~~~~all languages is hard at first give it time

Answer 4

The best way is to go to China