[TravelerKai]

(07-12-2014 09:41 PM)G_global Wrote:  

From my standpoint, I saw very little progress with Pimsleur, Rosetta etc until I started to incorporate a few one-on-one classes and more importantly, character study at the same time. I feel like, for me, and this may not translate to others, by learning all three Ive finally now begun to triangulate it and make the connections between written and spoken Chinese. I think that many of these tools bring something to the table, but by themselves, they are all vastly insufficient. Even college courses appear to merely provide a good base more than anything else. A Russian friend who was heavily trained as a translator in a military university in Russia told me that until he got here, he really still didn't know anything, though he was tops in his class.

Submersion is going to be best, learning here, being forced to speak it. That means not only making the leap, but also not living in an expat area and shopping/getting by only around English speakers. And don't do Guangzhou, in my opinion, to learn Mandarin. I'm not a big fan of the city anyway (Kai might have a different opinion) but regardless, its heavily Cantonese dominated. You can certainly learn Mandarin there, but might as well simplify things.

Learning Mandarin in Guangzhou in some ways is no worse than learning it in Beijing. If you take a college-level course in the US, often times it is Taiwanese style. Hurr Hurr Can't support the Commies.....rah rah.

Beijing people speak to god damned fast. They have STRONG rrrr sounds after words. They speak Beijinghua. Chengdu people talk too fast too. Shanghai people speak Shanghainese. The thing is, every single area of China has a localism dialect. If you speak standard Mandarin kinda slowly to some Cantonese in Guangzhou, they will reply back in Mandarin. Their Mandarin accent is kinda shitty sounding, barely better than yours, but they can still speak Mandarin. They learn it in school. It's probably better than yours. You just wouldn't know it by walking through a street filled with people shouting and talking in Cantonese. If you stopped them to chat, they can at bare minimum understand your Mandarin. Shenzhen is a business city just like Guangzhou. The locals know that too. People from all over China live in both places. My wife is from Hunan but always worked out of Guangzhou or Dongguan. All 3 cities are full of outsiders and foreigners.

If you go out to the countryside, all bets are off regardless of where in China just about. Some dialects are not far off from standard Mandarin and some are night and day. They all watch CCTV in Mandarin so regardless if their dialect is different, they can direct you to something if you speak standard mandarin.

Simplified Mandarin was created by Mao because there are over 300 different spoken versions or Chinese and he took strokes out of many characters in order to speed up writing. All this was to unify China from a communication standard. The Taiwanese kept the Traditional writing.

Pick a city you like and visit other ones when you get free time or a weekend. Better yet, let girls you meet that are from other places take you there to introduce you to other parts of China.