What is the best way to learn Chinese?

Question

The Chinese Language has 3500+ characters and four tones, what is the best way to learn this languager

Answer 1

I have been trying to learn Mandarin for 1 year.
(I have a private teacher, but my lack of learning is my fault)

The most important thing is you MUST practice, and practice with people that will speak the same dialect as you are learning.
I live in Singapore, but my teacher is from Beijing. Beijing Chinese is more perfect than the Singapore Chinese.. so the locals are always correcting me and it gets frustrating for me.

Do you have to learn to read characters? It's not like English...

One thing that helps me is I got CD's... learn Mandarin in your car... Its a listen and repeat... But thats only good for the correct pronunciation.

The order of the words is also different than English, so maybe take a class to get you going...

Answer 2

Go to China. That's the best way to learn Chinese. At least find a native speaker. The number of Chinese character is much smaller than English words. With 1000 characters you can communicate well. 2000 characters can make you read almost every Chinese book. The difficult part is how to use it. You have to learn more about the oral Chinese and the slangs.

Answer 3

Come on! Who knows 3500+ words? That's like saying you have to memorize the dictionary to know English. You should know that you'll only need to know few hundred Chinese characters to be fluent in the language (as in 50 thousand in English!) It might seem very hard to start, but you'll excel once your brain has addressed the pattern. And a lot of them are homophone, so you shouldn't worry about pronounciation either.

I advice that you take an entry level class with a teacher in a trusty school. After a few month, you get the hang of the style of the language, you may choose to study by yourself.

Confucius Institute is the authority in Chinese language like the British Council for English.
http://english.hanban.edu.cn/
Software used by several Conficius Institutes, free trial download:
http://www.monkeykingsoft.com/

You can try BBC languages, it offers extensive resources on multiple languages.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/......
What's impressive about this site is that it's not just basic grammar and vocab. There are slang guides, info on using the languages in the workplace, and monthly audio magazines with articles on the various countries' culture and news. They've even got a "Your Say" section, where other students share their common mistakes, learning tips, and blogs from abroad, and tips on improving at languages in general.

Good luck and have fun! :)

Answer 4

Maybe you can try the books the native Chinese use.
We Taiwaneses also learn Chinese as so since we were children.
So why not give it a try?
Beside, the Chinese books with CDs is important for you, too.
The most important thing is that understand every Chinese character you usually read very well.
It's hard, but it does you good.

Good luck with your Chinese-studying!
Hope I help.

Answer 5

Immersion.

The DoD teaches Chinese to students who do nothing except study the language all day long. They only speak Chinese to one another, read Chinese and write Chinese.

Answer 6

If you are young enough, maybe you should consider take an internship or a semester abroad in a Chinese speaking country.

No one uses all of those characters, it is impossible. Learn the common ones.

Answer 7

If you want to understand Mandarin but you have no clue in which to start off then a program for Mandarin is the best on-line course for the beginners simply because it genuinely commences with the basis.

Answer 8

first,u should find out why u want to it.
then u may watch some chinese tv program and listen to some chinese pop songs everyday.
www.tudou.com
good luck.