[Chewbacon]

Here's a question for any visible minorities of immigrant stock living in the U.S. I am Chinese and plan on one day actively gaming in China. However, having lived in North America for pretty much my entire life, my mandarin is only so-so. I can get by conversationally, but I am not confident enough in my language skills to flirt, and I don't have a good grasp of nuance, wit, and humor in mandarin. Does anybody know how to go about mastering their native language? I was thinking of outright posting a craigslist ad or something asking for a language tutor (maybe female?) who can specialize in teaching me how to verbally spar with Chinese women.

[FilMor]

(05-30-2011 12:47 AM)SHANbangs Wrote:  

Here's a question for any visible minorities of immigrant stock living in the U.S. I am Chinese and plan on one day actively gaming in China. However, having lived in North America for pretty much my entire life, my mandarin is only so-so. I can get by conversationally, but I am not confident enough in my language skills to flirt, and I don't have a good grasp of nuance, wit, and humor in mandarin. Does anybody know how to go about mastering their native language? I was thinking of outright posting a craigslist ad or something asking for a language tutor (maybe female?) who can specialize in teaching me how to verbally spar with Chinese women.

I would say a combination of Rosetta stone and going to China for 3-6 months should do the trick considering that you understand the language already, basically just go and i'm sure you'll find girl that could help you brush up on your mandarin once you are there?

[Moma]

Hi Shan, I think if you can find a nice girl who speaks Mandarin, it will help. A lot of people keep telling me if I want to learn a language, I should get a girlfriend that speaks that language since women love to talk.

So I need a Brazillian girlfriend, a Spanish girlfriend and a French girlfriend to round off my desired Latin languages.

[Mrs. Chocolate]

Come to BR Moma, and you will get several! hahaha

[Moma]

I just might do that, Chocolatina..I just might do that...

[Sonsowey]

No different than learning any language. Practice speaking.

Speak mandarin with people, you're lucky that you probably have relatives who'd be more than happy to just chat with you in Mandarin as much as you'd like, but I'm sure you as a chinese-american could easily find Chinese cultural events where you could meet Chinese immigrants/tourists and just practice chatting.

If you're at a loss for where to find Chinese people around you, well that's a different story, but there's no way you should pay for any language learning program when the best way to speak Mandarin fluently is to practice speaking it all the time.

Lots of language learning shit is focused more on reading/writing, but I assume you want Mandarin more for talking to people than reading. Either way, whatever you want to do is what you should practice.