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Post by Ganbare! on Mar 30, 2010 21:10:21 GMT -5
What language(s) do you speak, which one(s) are you currently learning? It think it's an interesting opportunity to share tips, to define the best environments to learn, work materials or simply to encourage and keep track of our progress.
I've taken formal classes to learn Chinese writing system, the basic methodology in to read pinyin and kanjis and to write the 500 most common characters. For the past couple of months, I've been self-learning more vocabulary and grammar nevertheless all this feels a little artificial therefore I believe that a 100% Mandarin environment would accelerate my fluency tremendously.
I've been advised to use local Chinatown resources but is it really effective?
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Post by jefe on Mar 30, 2010 21:59:53 GMT -5
We used to share tips on this a few years ago, but after Proboard banned the use of non-English langugages, all those threads eventually died out.
Anyhow, I used Mandarin almost daily when I lived in New York City (is that where you are)? In fact, I used it more there than after I moved to HK. In HK, it is NOW being used more often, but still, I found it easier to find Mandarin speaking people in NY than in HK. IT is because most Chinese speaking people in NY (whether ethnic Chinese or not) use Mandarin as a Lingua Franca rather than other dialects.
I think more effective -- participate in several social circles which communicate with each other in Mandarin. This does not have to be in Chinatown (could be, but not necessary). Actually, this is true whether you are in a western country or in Asia.
I advise those EAs living in HK to use Mandarin more on a daily basis to improve. That is the same advice I would give people living in New York or Paris.
Do you have groups of friends who communicate in Mandarin with each other. In NY, I had not only ethnic Chinese friends, I even had Caucasian / Black / Japanese / Filipino friends that used Mandarin regularly with me, and NO, I didn't think it was artificial at all.
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Post by Ganbare! on Mar 30, 2010 22:35:08 GMT -5
Thank you for the advice, I'll definitely look into such groups in the five months I'm in New York. Nevertheless at some point I know I'll need a prolonged stay in mainland China because one, two or even three hours of conversation a day is not as productive as a complete immersion where you can't fall back on another language.
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Post by jefe on Mar 31, 2010 3:53:21 GMT -5
I think even if you lived in Mainland China, you might not get 1, 2, 3 hrs. of conversation every day and you still might find people that allow you to fall back on another language.
I was just thinking -- you are in New York City which has the largest absolute number of Chinese speakers in any city outside Asia (more in numerical terms than even SF, Toronto, LA and Vancouver and Sydney, Melbourne, etc.) -- and even compared to cities like Penang, Malaysia (which is majority ethnic Chinese) -- there are more Chinese speakers in New York than compared to there. If you want the "most bang for your buck", then you are in the best place now.
I didn't even have to look specifically for Mandarin speaking groups or people in NY. They seemed to be everywhere -- almost as ubiquitous as Spanish.
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Post by Ganbare! on Mar 31, 2010 4:32:21 GMT -5
You're probably right, I might be overestimating the whole prospect. Anyway, it's true, I heard a lot of Spanglish across the city.
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Post by toyomansi on Apr 8, 2010 1:39:45 GMT -5
I'm now learning Mandarin in HK. Even though people here can understand it, it would be different if I was in a place were I would hear it being spoken more around me, so that I could listen and understand a bit in everyday life. At least when being surrounded by kanjis, my curiousity makes me want to learn what they mean (at least the simpler ones). But I'll definitely practice wherever in the world I get the opportunity to listen to and speak Mandarin (also when travelling to Mandarin speaking countries).
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Post by davidbleo on Apr 8, 2010 4:21:52 GMT -5
Spanish... currently improving it every day since I changed my major from computer science to sociology and literature, English... I use it every day at work... German, I'm planning to spend a semester in Germany to start as a teacher and leave the living hell call centers are... Mandarin, I took 7 semesters before starting to work, right now I have no time to practice it...
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Post by Ganbare! on Apr 8, 2010 5:09:54 GMT -5
I'm now learning Mandarin in HK. Even though people here can understand it, it would be different if I was in a place were I would hear it being spoken more around me, so that I could listen and understand a bit in everyday life. At least when being surrounded by kanjis, my curiousity makes me want to learn what they mean (at least the simpler ones). But I'll definitely practice wherever in the world I get the opportunity to listen to and speak Mandarin (also when travelling to Mandarin speaking countries). Not many countries to practice Mandarin, Taiwan, China, Singapore and a few enclaves here and there. I'm starting to think it's not the international language prophesied considering many ethnic Chinese rarely ever use it outside of formal settings. You're half filipina right, what was your motivation to learn Mandarin ?
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Post by toyomansi on Apr 8, 2010 8:22:25 GMT -5
^ Those countries were the ones I was referring to. My motivation to learn Mandarin? I'm not exactly sure, I just know that I really like learning it ^^
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Post by jefe on Apr 8, 2010 13:09:34 GMT -5
Not many countries to practice Mandarin, Taiwan, China, Singapore and a few enclaves here and there. I respect your opinion, but this was totally NOT my experience. I have used Mandarin in every country I have ever been in, including almost daily in places like Brazil, Argentina, Japan, USA, Belgium, Philippines, Canada, Australia, Thailand, Indonesia, etc. I don't know - I seemed to keep on running into them and found the opportunity to use it in each place. For example, on my flight in Argentina from Buenos Aires to Ushuaia in Tierra del Fuego, there were about 25-30 mainland Chinese tourists on the plane, and we (my friend and I) talked to them about their travel through south America. Then, on the same day in Ushuaia, we went to the Chinese restaurant there and talked to the people working there for a couple hours too -- they seemed to LOVE to be able to ramble on about their experiences living there. In Sao Paulo, Brazil, I stayed in a hotel owned and run by people from Taiwan. Again, spoke Mandarin every day there. Then went to Little Tokyo and ordered dinner in Japanese. In Boracay, the dive shop I used had Mandarin speaking instructors working there -- we talked extensively (in Mandarin) about dive courses they have taken and about dive sites in Boracay. Of course, in each of these places, I would use Spanish, Portuguese and Tagalog as well as English, but Chinese is quite ubiquitous. I think opportunities are everywhere, you just have to seize them (or at least recognize them) when they occur. In NYC, there is no problem or inconvenience to speak Mandarin daily -- speakers are literally everywhere. @t, let's speak Mandarin next time, or agree to rotate between it, Tagalog and Spanish. I used to organize the Mandarin and Cantonese tables for the American Chamber of Commerce here in HK, so it was my duty to encourage non-native speakers to speak them more. There is Mandarin TV, radio here 24 hrs a day and I hear Mandarin on the street every single day, sometimes having to use it. I think that the barrier here in HK is that about 35% of the people speak fair to good English, perhaps better than Mandarin, so it is difficult to force EVERYONE to speak Mandarin to you. But you don't need everyone -- a few per day is fine already.
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Post by toyomansi on Apr 10, 2010 0:26:33 GMT -5
^ I'm still pretty much a beginner in mandarin, but am progressing very quickly, so I think I can start making simple conversations already ^^ You know a lot of Tagalog, it would be fun to practice and switch between languages. How is your Spanish?
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Post by jefe on Apr 14, 2010 12:25:55 GMT -5
In the USA, there were daily opportunities to speak Spanish, but in HK, I am lucky if I get to do it once a month. I do have a couple of Spanish-Speaking friends in HK, but I rarely see them, and if I do, there may non-Spanish speakers around, so I can't do it too much.
I would love to be around people who are willing to switch between English, Tagalog, Spanish, Mandarin and anything else in the same meeting conversation. Did you want to pick up Cantonese too while you are in HK?
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Post by toyomansi on Apr 25, 2010 20:18:08 GMT -5
I didn't really think about learning Cantonese at the same time, thought maybe I would get the two languages mixed up with each other. And Cantonese even has 9 tones? ^^ But I could have picked up a bit more than I did, I think I only know how to greet, say thank you, count to 10 and ask "have you eaten?"...
Is it true that EAs easily learn other languages, if they grew up hearing more than only one language spoken? Someone once told me that people who have grown up always hearing two or more languages, are better at learning languages as adults...
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Post by jefe on Apr 26, 2010 22:41:26 GMT -5
Don't worry about mixing up Cantonese and Mandarin any more than worrying about mixing up French and Spanish or mixing up Tagalog and Ilonggo. Life is WAY too short to worry about these things and you can leave HK with the confidence that you have acquired another language. Cantonese has almost twice as many speakers as Tagalog and has a very wide global spread. I have used it across SE Asia, in South America, Europe, Australia and North America and met people from Seychelles, Mauritius, the Caribbean, South Africa, etc. who speak it.
I don't think EAs have any more talent / opportunity than others. Look at immigrant families -- Children of immigrant families will get educated in the local language and use their immigrant language at home. They certainly do not have to be EA.
Do agree that children growing up with several languages probably do learn languages more easily as adults, but this does not have to do with being EA.
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Post by toyomansi on Apr 27, 2010 10:03:48 GMT -5
^ I didn't mean EAs exclusively, just anyone who grows up hearing more languages I just thought EAs, like immigrants too, would more often grow up with more than one language... Yes, I know Mandarin and Cantonese aren't that different from each other. If I had (or will have later) more time here in HK would definitely pick up Cantonese too, but in this period of time I have mostly focused on learning as much Mandarin as possible.
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