What is the Best way to learn Mandarin Chinese?

Question

Is Mandarin the most popular form of Chinese used around the world? Besides living there, what is the best way to learn?

Answer 1

According to the article below:

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-12/26/content_403419.htm

Mandarin IS the most widely used version of Chinese, despite different dialects.

I and many of my friends studied it in college (they went on with it, but I only took a year). It's a VERY easy language to learn to speak, if you're linguistically inclined. Reading it is more difficult. The best way to study is "Immersion" (get a class that focuses on conversation and pronunciation, since the "tones" have to be correct or you sound like a loony!). Also, get ready to memorize 'til you drop, as each character stands for a word!

There are several links below, including some that offer on-line courses.

If you don't want to go to China, here's a software pkg. using immersion. It's pricey, but less expensive than a trip to Taiwan!

http://www.rosettastone.com/en/individuals/languages/chinese/level-1?a=b

Have fun and

告別 ! (good-bye) (translated at mandarintools.com)

Addendum: To teeveebee: blame mandarintools for the translation! I thought it was odd too. I would have just written "tsai -chyen"...I think that's good-bye, but it's been a long time!

Still I can watch a film like "House of Flying Daggers and understand a lot of what they say. (good thing they don't say too much! :)

Answer 2

Mandarin without question,is the most popular form of Chinese used around the world. The easiest and most convenient way to learn Mandarin is living with it during your daily life. For every object or something you see,check it up with the dictionary and find out what it is in Chinese. As time passes by,you'll gain a much better command of Mandarin. Besides,taking up language lessons to learn Mandarin is also a good way to start with professional help.

Answer 3

Best Way To Learn Mandarin

Answer 4

Yes,Mandarin is the most popular foam of Chinese used around the world.The best method to learn Mandarin is to buy the preschool Chinese Han Yu Pin Yin books.The Han Yu Pin Yin helps young learners and new learners to pronounce the Chinese word properly.Now days primary school Chinese textbooks are still providing Han Yu Pin Yin for there are 1000 over pupils that can't pronounce the Chinese word properly.Even though there are some Chinese songs in the music books in my school but my Malay and Indian friends still can sing them because with the help of the Han Yu Pin Yin written below each Chinese word on every Chinese songs.When you improve your Chinese,you may go on to more challenging books to learn more challenging Chinese words.
As for writing,you may want to copy the Chinese words for 10 to 20 times.This will help you remember how to write the words but remember to know the meaning and to write the correct Chinese word and not the wrong one!
Good Luck!

Answer 5

Buy books on tapes or attend a Chinese class in your community. Listen to the recordings EVERY DAY and repeat after it. Also, as what Mr. Palaniappa says, you need to try to talk to native speakers. You have to be very careful about the tones in Chinese, because if you say the tones wrong you might get the word that you didn't mean to say.

Try to have radio programs in Chinese on all day is a way to accellerate your listening skill. In the beginning you can try to listen for the words you know already. You can also talk to yourself in the Chinese you know or have learned, and try to think in Chinese.

As for the writing, I think the only way to master it is simpily work hard. I remember when I was in elementary school in Taiwan (where I come from), my teachers used to make us look up for the 部首 (something that indicates what the meaning of the word might be related to) count the strokes of each new words we've learned, compare several similar Traditional Chinese characters we have learned already and ask us to write the same Traditional Chinese character more than twenty times and the same Chinese words about two to four times almost every day, (I'm not boasting!) and this is how we remember how to write the characters properly. Also, reading as many easy Chinese books as possible would help.

Answer 6

For learning a foreign language, rather than buying a grammar book, or one of those books full of the most used phrases, it's better if you get a full fledged course, with cds or dvds you can use to listen to the spoken language and get used to it. Learning the grammar it's very difficult if you only try to memorize every rule you can find in a grammar book; the grammar constructs must be learned by seeing them used in the real world, in many different phrases.
The best language courses are those of Assimil, even if they cost quite a lot more than a normal book, they are good and they work.

Here you can find the Assimil course for learning Chinese:

http://goo.gl/36v3cZ

Answer 7

First, learn han yu pin yin and some basic words like: hello-嗨/你好
goodbye-再见
My name is-我的名叫(your name)
Thank you-谢谢
you are welcome-不客气
sorry-对不起
I love you-我爱你

Sorry for the words...It's not really very clear
Now, if you want to improve your chinese, I would reccomend you to go for classes. There are teachers whom you can seek help from and can learn more as u ask more, so be inquisitive.
But if u are reluctant to do so, I would reccomend you to read more books.
If you are more of a couch potato, listen or watch more mandrain movies or movies with chinese subtittles so that you can look at the chinese subtittles nad learn from there. (You might want to have your remote control by your side and a notebook or so, so that you can pause the movie when you find a nice/good word/phrase and copy it down in your notebook. Don't forget your pencil/pen!!!)
You will also have to write more chinese characters.For example, you can write essays,letters...and so on and so forth.
Next, speak more fluently mandrain.
Last but not least, have fun! You can never do a good job if you are not interested. And don't be afraid to make mistakes! I mean everyone makes mistakes and it's no big deal as long as you learn from there. (By the way, it's also one of the learning tips/points!!! So make mistakes!! I mean feel free to do so! )

Answer 8

Start learning Mandarin when you're still a kid . That's the easiest and the best way to learn Mandarin.

Answer 9

Imersion is the best way to learn, If you don't want to move to China or Taiwan, and have no Chinese friends you can room with, tape courses are the next best thing.

http://www.chinesepod.com is an online mandarin course for English speakers.

Answer 10

I learnt my mandarin chinese by han yu pin yin. its just like japanese romanji. its very easy as you don't actually have to write or recognise the characters, but its difficult for beginners as each diff words pronounced differently can end up into another word. and even so, there are numerous words which are pronounced the same. so there are gazillions of chinese words as you can see. For me, i think the best way to learn is just to get exposed to it. Maybe watch chinese shows with english subtitles?