My methods of studying Chinese.
Hi there.
I've been studying Chinese for a little over 3 years now. It seems to be coming along pretty well. The first thing I did was really concentrate on pronunciation. Once you can pronounce all of the pinyin sounds and tones in the language, you will have a solid habit formed for adding words to your brain. I complete a minor in Chinese from my university. I found that was helpful for keeping the pace and some of the discipline present. I think, however, the most important thing to do was find a way to immerse myself in the language. I tried to integrate it into my life by doing the following:
Listen to CDs and MP3s of popular Chinese music. It is easy to find lyrics too.
Import the lyrics into a program like Wenlin (
http://www.wenlin.com) or use PlecoDict to pick through the song and add the words to your flashcard list.
(This gives you context and interesting content.)
Check out excellent sites like:
http://www.newsinchinese.com
The above link gives current news articles from China in such a fashion that you can mouseover the words and get the Character Zoomed with Pinyin and English meaning.
ADSOTrans, a cool free dictionary I found recently that 'annotates' Chinese text that you feed it. It is a free download and is MySQL compatible, which opens all kinds of possibilities.
http://www.adsotrans.com
Google for a program called "CoolStreaming". It is about 3 MB and allows you to view live streams of TV out of China free. Quality has generally been good. It seems to be a Bittorrent kind of streaming video client. (FREE)
http://www.asiamoviechannel.com
This is a pay site that I use to watch some Chinese videos and TV series, (When my friends don't just burn me discs or loan me their series sets). It is pretty cheap to rent movies ($1) or $0.40 in most cases and you can check it out for 30days. Their site is in English, Simplified and Traditional characters. (This is my most recent gander into video stuff)
http://www.baidu.com
This is a MP3 and Lyric + other search engine. You can find more songs from an artist that you come across or hear your Chinese friends mention. The links it digs up are very reliable.
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I also read children?s books that have pinyin in them. Working through those is much easier than books without, although I picked some fun Harry Potter books and a few more serious business books to pick through.
Find a local Chinese Christian church. Often the sermons may have Chinese then English translating or something similar. If they are in straight Chinese, just enjoy it. You will notice people with English/Chinese Bibles and can find verses easily. It is very Rosetta Stone like to have a verse in English right next to a verse in Chinese. You will be able to learn a lot that way. People will often discuss a verse in Sunday school too and elaborate on the meaning.
I go to Chinese restaurants from time to time and chat with the workers there. It is good practice to listen to people with all kinds of pronunciation differences. What is nice is if you have a Bubble Tea cafe or something similar in your area where you can plant yourself with some study materials and chat with visitors or workers over time.
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Eating is a big part of Chinese culture and as such, I think it is fun to cook. You can find many Chinese cookbooks that have English and Chinese characters in them. Recipes are short and concise. A good learning source and you have that bonus of entertaining friends and having something uniquely special to eat.