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Re: Best Method to Learn a Language?

banned — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 05:58:49 GMT

krazy kaju:
Rosetta Stone seems the way to go but it's also expensive.

Not that I would EVER condone anything illegal.

Re: Best Method to Learn a Language?

ayrnieu — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 05:54:55 GMT

I've learned Mandarin.

I recommend http://comics.kukudm.com/ for reading material -- mostly scans of HK/TW manga or else scanlations of the original Japanese -- and ChinesePod for listening material. http://www.mdbg.net has great tools: javascript input methods, wenlin-style annotation. http://www.baidu.com/ rocks for everything -- check out its forums and its blogs.

Get at least two dictionaries: a normal CN/EN EN/CN (indexed by pinyin of the first character and then of words starting with that character, with separate indexes by radical, stroke number, and these-chars-are-particularly-hard) and also the ABC (Alphabetically Based Computerized) dictionary, which sorts strictly by the pinyin of entire words, so that e.g. 'deng' comes before 'de yu'. You'll want the first one for reading and the second one for listening. http://www.pleco.com/ has an excellent dictionary with handwriting recognition, wildcard lookup, all kinds of stuff -- it's worth buying and also worth buying a PDA to put it on.

Write characters over and over again, drill yourself on recognizing them over and over again. Find someone to be bewildered by your spoken mandarin. Argue with people online.

To find material or odd names, http://www.google.tw/ has options for 'search the entire web', 'search only chinese pages', etc. You can also look up something on Wikipedia and then see if it has a Chinese entry.

Warning: online, knowing Chinese is a bit like knowing 'pirate'. Avast, have ye any free PDFs of the Economist? Arr, that be last month's.

Re: Best Method to Learn a Language?

katja328 — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 21:18:32 GMT

I used Rosetta Stone when I learned Spanish.....and it really, really worked.

Re: Best Method to Learn a Language?

Niccolò — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 20:46:38 GMT

Well, I'm on my sixth language right now and I'll tell you, the best method is to move to the place where you want to learn the language (or at least spend a couple of weeks there) and try your damndest not to speak one word of English while there.

As impractical as that sounds, it's the best way to do it.

However, the other two methods I have found helpful are to either find someone who already speaks the language and learn from regularly conversating with them in it, and/or to use a language course like Living Language or teach yourself.

I don't like Rosetta stone personally. Too much cost for too little gain.

Re: Best Method to Learn a Language?

krazy kaju — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 18:52:45 GMT

Dunno, but Rosetta Stone does look good. Supposedly, it teaches you via pictures and whatnot which makes sense. Rosetta Stone seems the way to go but it's also expensive.

I'm already bilingual so... HAH!

Best Method to Learn a Language?

Sentinel — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 18:48:33 GMT

I am looking into possibly learning Mandarin. I currently know no Mandarin whatsoever, so which method/s would be best to start with? I have seen the Rosetta Stone commercials, and that seems to be the way to go. But does Rosetta Stone actually live up to all the claims?