هذا موقعة استطاع تصرّفت ك [ا] عكس ال "صينيّة حقّا أنّ يستعصي?" موقعة. كان واحدة مظهر الصينيّ أنّ هو أخذ ي بعض وقت أن يمسك أنّ معان في صينيّة واللغة الانجليزية لا دائما يعرضون واحدة [تو] واحدة علاقة. في البداية, [إش تيم] تصادف أنا كلمة جديدة في صينيّ, أنا فتّشت المعادلة إنجليزيّة. أنّ يعمل بشكل جيّد ل [كمّون نوون] - بدأ فتى, بنت, الصين, أمريكا, غير أنّ بعد ذلك أنا أن يكتشف أنّ بعض كلمات تلقّوا يتراكب معان بين صينيّة وإنجليزيّة.

يتلقّى كثير كلمات يتعدّد معان. أنا علمت [إرلي ون] أنّ [ينغّي] [منس] "سوفت." بسيطة بكفاية أنا فكرة, حتّى واحدة يوم عندما أحد ما ينظر في ي ويقال [ن] [ينغّي] [شنغبنغ] [ل]. "أنت سوفت كنت مريضة"? أنا فكّرت. لماذا سوفت أنا كنت مريضة?? أنّ عندما أنا علمت أنّ يتلقّى هو أيضا معنى من "ينبغي" بما أنّ في "أنت ينبغي كنت مريضة." [أك], يتيح أن يسبر - يتلقّى هو يتعدّد معان, فقط مثل كثير كلمة في إنجليزيّة.

أنا بعد ذلك تصادفت كلمات أنّ يصف مستويات مختلفة شدة من نظائرهم معادلة إنجليزيّة. واحدة من الكلمة أولى أنا علمت - [هن] كان علمت إلى ي كمعنى "جدّا" في إنجليزيّة. هكذا أن يجيب [ن] [هو] [ما]? أنت تجيب [و] [هن] [هو] بما أنّ في "أنا جدّا جيّدة." غير أنّ ماذا إن أنا [ب] لم جدّا جيّدة? ماذا إن أنا فقط أردت أن يجيب "أنا أكون جيّدة"? منطقيّا أنّ سوفت كنت [و] [هو]. غير أنّ كان أنّ خاطئة. أنت اضطرّ يتلقّى ال [هن] في هناك, بما أنّ هو واقعيّا يكون أقلّ شديدة "جدّا" من نظائره إنجليزيّة. أن حقّا أجبت "أنا جدّا جيّدة" أنت قال [و] [فيشنغ] [هو]. أبدا باليت أنّ يصف المعجم [فيشنغ] كمعنى "جدّا" بما أنّ شدته حقيقيّة يكذب في مكان ما بين "جدّا" و" جدّا" في إنجليزيّة.

هذا يخلق حالة ممتعة حيث هو يكون يمكن أن يصف حالات في درجات مختلفة في صينيّ من في إنجليزيّة. مثلا وصفت كثير معلمات بما أنّ يكون [هن] [إكسينغ]. مع ذلك إن أنت تنظر فوق أنّ يحصل كلمة في المعجم أنت معنى من يكون "عنيفة" أو "رهيبة." بصعوبة كلمات أنا استعملت أن يصف معلمة عاديّة (رغم أنّ هناك دون شكّ يكون مثل متطرّفة الذي استطاع لاءمت أنّ صنف). At first I assumed “strict” or “stern” might be a better definition but there are other words in Chinese to describe those terms, so at some point you have to give up on looking for an exact definition since there isn’t one.

For an exercise in futility, you can skim through words in a Chinese-English dictionary to look at all the extraneous definitions (great way to pass the time). Take a look at the variety of definitions for the following words:

Jiāo - to deliver / to turn over / to make friends / to intersect (lines) / to pay (money)
Dōu - both / all / even / already
Jiù - at once / then / only / to approach / to undertake / already
Dài - band / belt / ribbon / tire / area / zone / region / to wear / to carry / to lead / to look after / to raise
Sòng - to deliver / to carry / to present / to see off / to send

So what is the solution to this mess? Learn new characters within context. Don’t worry about extraneous meanings. Learn to use new words within the context you discovered them and master those current definitions before moving on to other usages. While the English meaning is great for getting your foot in the door, rely on examples in different contexts before being satisfied with a definition.

Many people regard Chinese as being one of the toughest languages to learn. That in itself might be reason enough to learn it, since many like the challenge that comes with it and relish the looks of amazement that passers by give when they hear that you can speak Chinese! In my personal experience however, I found that many of the reasons given for Chinese being so hard weren’t actually that hard when broken down. This meant that I was learning a language that others thought was very hard, when actually that wasn’t necessarily the case (much better than learning something that others think is easy but actually isn’t!) Here are some of the main obstacles that people encounter when trying to learn Chinese, and my personal solutions to overcoming then.

The Tones
This is the initial challenge that most beginners face. How can mài mean “to sell” while mǎi mean “to buy”? So now, not only do you have to remember that shuì jiào means “sleep”, you better remember that there are two fourth tones there or you risk talking about “dumplings” instead of “sleep.” Surely having to memorize the extra tone element on top of each new vocabulary word would drive any learner crazy?

My solution: This issue here is usually enough to weed out most beginners, which is great for the rest of us (less people to share the stage with!). The trick here is that this is only a problem in the beginning. The more you expose yourself to the language, the more your brain will automatically fuse this element into your language learning until you get to the point where you unconsciously start recognizing the tones for new vocabulary. Compare these two scenarios:

Student: How do you say “United Nations” in Chinese?
Teacher: Lián hé guó
Student: “Lian he guo”, ok. And what tones does that use?
Teacher: Three second tones.
Student: Got it, thanks!

Student: How do you say “United Nations” in Chinese?
Teacher: Lián hé guó
Student: Lián hé guó. Got it, thanks!

In the second scenario the student has automatically learned to associate tones with new vocabulary. If you were to ask him what the tones were, he would have to repeat the words in his mind first and pull the tones out from there, since the tones and the words are already associated together.

A great exercise to get to this level is mindless repetition of sentences from native speakers, so that you start to develop the ebb and flow of the language by yourself. As you listen to the podcasts in this course, use the pauses provided to repeat after the speaker, even with vocabulary you are already familiar with to get yourself in this mode.

The Writing System
This is of course a challenge for many, including native speakers themselves. One of the reasons given for the slowness in progression of Chinese learners is that because reading and writing takes so long to learn, we learners lose out from the experience of learning from reading. In English, if we come across a word we don’t understand we can easily write it down and look it up later. How do we do that in Chinese when you come across a word you don’t know that uses characters that are equally unfamiliar? How do Chinese speakers look up unfamiliar characters in a dictionary?

My solution:There are a couple of separate issues here. If it’s just learning new vocabulary and language usage from reading you are looking for, there are plenty of pinyin resources out there, including on this website. Similarly, if you come across a new word in your learning, it’s easy enough to write it down in pinyin and look it up in a pinyin dictionary. Learning characters of course is another story, and one that has been touched upon in other categories.

Grammar: This is an aspect of Chinese that is often neglected because it actually is much simpler than in other languages. The extra time put in learning to read and write is offset by the time you don’t have to put in learning conjugations of verbs, tenses and other issues present in other languages. This can be a problem in itself since the lack of grammar rules makes Chinese very context sensitive. Sentences can have multiple meanings that may seem to contradict each other with only subtle clues to distinguish between them.

My solution: The answer here is the same as the answer for tones. Fortunately (or unfortunately for some), it’s not something you consciously study or memorize to understand. You learn by getting the feel for the language from experience. Listen to enough podcasts, and get yourself experienced with enough dialogues and you’ll slowly start to gather a “feel” for the language. You’ll find yourself instinctively responding with the right expressions without even knowing how or why.

The road to fluency: When learning any language, you will find some aspects easier than others. This is a result of usage patterns. In my daily life, I find myself listening to a lot more Chinese than I speak. As a result my listening skills are greater than my speaking skills. Similarly my reading skills are more advanced than my writing skills. The nice thing about all of this though is that my fluency matches my level of requirement. My listening skills are greater because I have to do a lot more listening than speaking in my daily life. Similarly I rarely have to physically write anything in my daily routine (especially in this age of computers), whereas reading is more useful for me, so the latter skill is more developed.

There’s no rule that says all skills have to be equal. Focus on the areas of importance for you and improve those areas first. Learning any language (or any skill for that matter) is only as hard as you make it out to be. Take advantage of the many tools available in this course and on the web to focus on your areas of weakness. Then gloat that you are able to do what so many others have failed or given up on doing. Jiāyóu!