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Q: I just dont seem to make it stick how about you?
I have been in China along time and I still cant get the hang of speaking Chinese,I know a little Chinese and many words but not enough to have a conversation with someone.
I just cant make the language stick in my head.
how many of you still have trouble speaking Chinese even though you have been in the country a long time?
the non-phonetic script makes things more difficult. most chinese TV is subtitled nowadays, and this gives Chinese a little writing practice while they watch, but not us.
When you consider how strongly phonetic and accessible the alphabet is, it's astounding how poor the Chinese are at grasping our languages. There's plenty of opportunities to practice, but they keep getting simple stuff wrong.
The average expat doesn't find as many opportunities to practice Chinese. Strangers can be untrustworthy, unpleasant, xenophobic, uninterested. Even friendly talks don't get past basic sentences and giggling. A closed society doesn't make learning easy, so don't feel too bad about your poor language skills.
yongge:
That's why they invented Pinyin, Chinese in Romanised characters. This is how I learned Chinese and I have no problems holding a conversation, even though I studied for a short time only. I focused on speaking and listening, writing down new words in Pinyin. Unfortunately I cannot write at all and struggle to read. Maybe it's one or the other, speaking or writing. As for places to practice, you can't ask for more than being in China. I often go to a mall and just chat with shop attendants; lots of fun when they are embarrassed at first to speak to you, then can't stop when they realise they can understand you.
I find it very difficult. Even though listening to Chinese for hours each day.... naturally a certain amount of that is TV shows with "funny" sound effects
the non-phonetic script makes things more difficult. most chinese TV is subtitled nowadays, and this gives Chinese a little writing practice while they watch, but not us.
When you consider how strongly phonetic and accessible the alphabet is, it's astounding how poor the Chinese are at grasping our languages. There's plenty of opportunities to practice, but they keep getting simple stuff wrong.
The average expat doesn't find as many opportunities to practice Chinese. Strangers can be untrustworthy, unpleasant, xenophobic, uninterested. Even friendly talks don't get past basic sentences and giggling. A closed society doesn't make learning easy, so don't feel too bad about your poor language skills.
yongge:
That's why they invented Pinyin, Chinese in Romanised characters. This is how I learned Chinese and I have no problems holding a conversation, even though I studied for a short time only. I focused on speaking and listening, writing down new words in Pinyin. Unfortunately I cannot write at all and struggle to read. Maybe it's one or the other, speaking or writing. As for places to practice, you can't ask for more than being in China. I often go to a mall and just chat with shop attendants; lots of fun when they are embarrassed at first to speak to you, then can't stop when they realise they can understand you.
I know enough Chinese to make conversation and honestly it's not really a difficult language for me to learn but I am just lazy...
If you are a male, AND grew up in a monolingual family and environment, then learning other languages are quite a challenge. Growing up in a bilingual or multilingual family/environment "hardwires" the brain to learn new languages much easier.
After learning Pingying I started to learn the common grammar and bought an English & Chinese phrase book that was designed for Chinese people learning English, it had the true and normally used Chinese phrases. So I could translate them, understand them, read them and remember how to use them, after using that method of 6 months Chinese became so easy. Try China Pod, its very helpful as well.
