Best Way to Learn a Foreign Language

I have a friend who's a Chinese major and has lived in China for a year. He's not fluent. I wouldn't get my hopes up.

Yeah, Mandarin is hard enough, but there are all sorts of dialects, which is why immersion can be confusing at best.

It's a cool language though, I learnt a little with the Rosetta Stone PC program. I can say "The old lady has white hair" fluently. One day I'll learn some more.

Your best bet is to live in China for more than a couple of years.

It's hard to learn another language when you are older. The best time is when you are a little kid (kindergarden, 1st-6th grade), that's why I don't understand why in the US they start teaching other languages in senior high.

Still you can at least get started with this Chinese podcast (I've been using it on and off)

http://www.chinesepod.com/

For me, listening to a number of CDs and music in that language, then speaking it with native speakers as often as possible helps. Immersion is best, but I can't go to another country at the moment. Chinese, though, is REALLY hard to learn. Too bad something easy, like German or Afrikaans, wouldn't be useful to you.

3 years of German classes were not as useful as a month in Germany, but the month in Germany wouldn't have been useful if I didn't already have decent conversational skills. (Although trying to debate the finer points of why Texas uses the death penalty when you don't know legal system or criminal words is definitely difficult, regardless.)

Spanish I've been learning slowly through my clients and books/tapes. I find repeating things verbally and writing things out over and over (at least twice per word, ideally four or six times) and then using it with native speakers helps. My Spanish has been much more gradual but the words are more solid in my vocabulary (unlike German where I feel like I'm always tentative that the word is correct).

For me, reading and writing it is important because with audio tools I don't always know where the individual words start and finish on a long sentence, and seeing the words helps me associate words with meanings and use them in other situations/contexts. Plus, I need to give my clients written instructions. Again, this is part of why asian languages can be so difficult to learn.

One of the other handy things with Spanish, and this is true of any language if you're in an area where it's commonly spoken and therefore on the signs, is reading it on signs and packaging which are also in English. You can learn a lot of common words and phrases that way.

The problem with that is depending on where you are, you'll learn a different language. If you're in Beijing, everyone speaks Mandarin, but in Shanghai they speak Wu (or Shanghainese). And in southern China and Hong Kong everyone speaks Cantonese. These 3 languages have little to nothing in common. A person from Beijing can't understand Shanghainese at all. Mandarin is the official language, and 70% of Chinese speak it, but regional accents make even that hard to handle.

I knew a girl from Tianjin (near Beijing) who told me if you plan to come to China, don't count on picking up the language through just being there.

The good news is, the written language is the same throughout China. Bad news: there are THOUSANDS of characters to learn.

The answer, as presented by others, is simple: go live/study in China for a year (or more). But not in a dorm full of English speakers. Staying with a Chinese family or in a primarily Chinese dorm would be best. If you hear the language 24/7 and are forced to use it for daily activities you'll pick it up much quicker. To this end a Chinese girlfriend would certainly be a great help.

Slice of life Chinese TV shows/films would also be good for exposure to common expressions. Also Hollywood films, which you can watch in English and study the Chinese subtitles.

Reading/writing is definitely going to be tricky. Thankfully the Internet has simplified the process (to a degree).

I think we had a thread on this before (and I posted in that one too I think). But I kind of had a similar idea when I was in college. I took 5 semesters of Chinese language and then spent 4 months living in China afterwards (my major was Computer Science though). While my Chinese did improve a TON from living over there, it still wasn't anything close to fluent.

My cousin, who still lives in Shanghai, took a year or two of Chinese, spent a summer studying there, and then moved there after graduation. I'd say he was pretty fluent by about the end of his first full year there.

My brother, who spent a year living in China teaching English, took two semesters of Chinese his senior year in college and then lived over there for a year. While his language skills did improve dramatically, I wouldn't say he was anything close to fluent when he left.

The thing to keep in mind is that learning Chinese is very different from learning a phonetically spelled language. You're essentially learning twice as much because even if you know how to say a word, there's no guarantee that you could actually write it. Of course, what makes speaking Chinese slightly easier is the lack of conjugation. Good times.

So yeah, good luck studying the language but you'd probably want at least two semesters of language experience and then definitely over a year of living in the country to even attempt to use your language skills as an attribute.

You also have to keep in mind that in China, any successful business student will have been studying English for far longer than you've been studying Chinese, so not only would they be cheaper to hire in China or the US, they'd also probably be better at handling the multiple languages.

Yeah, I know a few people who've been to china many times- they aren't the least bit fluent. It's a really difficult language to learn mostly because the stress on words makes so much difference- a simple word, pronounced slightly differently can mean 4 different things.

But immersion's always the way to go if you're going to learn a language.

There's no instant way to fluency in another language--not even a quick one. Truth is, learning another language well is going to take a lot of time. My advice would be to look at combining different approaches--each has its advantages and disadvantages. I'd spend some time in a good formal class--intensive would be the best if you can do it. After you've finished that, get to the country and spend some time there. Again, if you can, keep some kind of formal lessons going while you're there.

I spent a year taking an intensive Japanese course, then another couple years of taking advanced classes. During that time, I went to Japan in the summers. After that, I lived in Japan for a couple of years when I was in a situation where I really didn't speak any English (I had already lived in Japan for a couple of years before this all started, but my Japanese was pretty much nil in those days). Although that was a few years ago, I still keep up with my reading and I speak Japanese most every day. But I feel like I'm far from fluent.

What I mean is that a couple of years of formal and practical study would let you claim that you're proficient on a resume. But if you were in a position where you had to do specialized work or complicated interpretation, it would still be a challenge.

Watch kung-fu flicks with subtitles instead of dub.

With the size of their population, China could take over the world... if they could only undestand what each other was saying (over 80 dialects! jeesh!).

Don't waste your time trying to get fluent in any language for business reasons. Anyone who you would deal with already knows enough English to get by. It does help to be able to understand when someone else is speaking and some of them will be impressed if you are able to speak a little bit, but the time it would take to get fluent in any language would be better spent learning about the actual business you are in (or plan to be in).

I picked up a few Swedish words in Stockholm but have forgotten it all.

I'll have to partially disagree here. If you were an American executive in China being able to speak the language would definitely be a big advantage. Business studies should come first though.

i'd pick an easier language.


but from a business standpoint. speaking arabic can open a LOT of doors at the moment.


and immersion is the best way to learn. I took german for 6 years in school and was lucky enough to spend 5 of those years living in the country.

It's not really so communist these days (though some unfortunate traditions remain). I've never been there, but I had a friend who really enjoyed studying there for a few years and from what I could tell became fluent in the language.

Immersion, immersion, immersion

Dammit, sorry to put you off, but you should definitely do it. Chinese is set to become a very important language in the future and it's much cooler (IMO) than any European language. I plan to learn it eventually, 'cos Chinese girls are so awesome.

I'm thinking of planning a trip to China at the end of next year with a friend of mine.

I suppose the question is how much do you really want to learn the language. If it isn't something you're genuinely interested in, it might prove difficult in keeping up the effort.

Download Chinese(Mandarin) Pimsluer and Rosetta off a torrent, neither will make you fluent but it'll give a leg in, and help give you an ear for the language and some practice speaking it.


If you look at the bottom right you'll see little audio markers, the bottom one is the news feed. It'll give you exposure to the language:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/chinese/simp/hi/default.stm

More from the BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/chinese/real_chinese/

These two can give a short introduction into the language, and they have links at the bottom you could check out:
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/chinese.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_language

China would like you to learn Chinese:
http://www.linese.com/model/english/pub/index.jsp
http://www.china.org.cn/english/feat...son/183276.htm
http://www.chinaculture.org/gb/en_learning/node_316.htm

Here is a Chinese forum, but not in Chinese: http://www.chinaculture.org/gb/en/node_2.htm

For products in the language:
http://www.audioforum.com/index.php?...mode=cat_click

Misc:
http://www.csulb.edu/~txie/online.htm
http://www.chinese-forums.com/archive/index.php/
http://www.chinaculture.org/gb/en/node_2.htm
http://www.omniglot.com/language/how.htm

And this a pretty active self learning site you'd be able ask for advice in: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/default.asp

A section from that site on Mandarin: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com...ese/index.html

And an overview of learning a language on your own:
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com...ese/index.html

Find a Chinese pen pal:
http://www.polyglot-learn-language.com/

And I guess, above all, actually want to learn the language.