Decided To Learn Chinese

[SonOfZeus]

Hello guys. This is my first post. So I'll jump righ into it...

As much as I would like, I won't be able to travel to the holy lands of SEA in the near future, due to some personal complications. I will have to compensate with small eurocuck trips, in order break monotony of everyday life.

Thus, I've decided to start studying chinese (mandarin) in preparation for my campaign to the East. At first, I wanted to give japanese a shot, but after searching through forum posts and taking into consideration the opinions of notable users, I've decided to try chinese. I plan on starting my studies based on free online resources ( provided by the user @Rance ), and after I exhaust those I'll probably have to attend a language school. If I'm lucky though, it's highly likely that the local university will resume its collaboration with a chinese institute and I'll be able to take lessons for free from professors associated with beijing university.

I am currently fluent in greek (native), english (C2 level) and french (C1 level), though I haven't used the last one in ages. If I ever decide to unlock the LatAm domain of geomaxia, I think spanish will be a breeze.

What are your thoughts about my plan? I believe it will allow me to reap better results among chinese speaking populations.

 

[Orientalist]

Nothing you do in a language school will compare to consistent intensive immersion, especially for something as semantically ambiguous/polysemic as Mandarin. Plus they'll probably make you physically write the characters, fuck that 那个

 

[Mafumofu]

read and watch shit and mine anki

 

[SonOfZeus]

Nothing you do in a language school will compare to consistent intensive immersion, especially for something as semantically ambiguous/polysemic as Mandarin. Plus they'll probably make you physically write the characters, fuck that 那个

Since I don't live in China I'll do my best by consuming chinese content of different kinds and use apps to speak with chinese people, in order to achieve a sufficient level of immersion. Do you think writting won't help me get used to and learn the ideograms faster?

 

[SonOfZeus]

read and watch shit and mine anki

Thanks for the tips. I'll definitely give flashcards a shot.

 

[Orientalist]

Since I don't live in China I'll do my best by consuming chinese content of different kinds and use apps to speak with chinese people, in order to achieve a sufficient level of immersion. Do you think writting won't help me get used to and learn the ideograms faster?

Some people say it helps with memorization, and sure, time spent doing anything technically does, but I dunno if it's anything magical. I just think in this day and age we're lucky that you can pretty easily get by doing everything digital (so long as you're not going to a pen-and-paper environment like a school) so we can spend our time focusing on other things
But yeah I've been using the Migaku browser extension with Youtube videos and their pre-made flashcard deck, and mining any i+1 sentences to another deck. You can watch videos with both English and Mandarin subtitles until you get to ~100 words known or so and then start adding in mandarin-only videos into the mix in order to test comprehension. Occasional brushing up on grammar points here and there. For pronunciation I don't know what I'm gonna do yet lol

 

[AlexBrown84]

look into doing a language program in china. they’re generally free after applying for scholarships

For pronunciation I don't know what I'm gonna do yet lol

do mouth exercises

 

[Orientalist]

do mouth exercises

Do primal screaming to make voice deeper

 

[AlexBrown84]

Do primal screaming to make voice deeper

‘describing his own study of the chinese language, he remarks that by a year’s concentrated work, he acquired fluency in the spoken language’

 

[Marco Pumpo]

‘describing his own study of the chinese language, he remarks that by a year’s concentrated work, he acquired fluency in the spoken language’
View attachment 10683

The diagrams are nice.

the second tongue position doesn‘t exist in euro languages, that’s why it sounds weird to us and is not so intuitive to copy.

 

[Orientalist]

‘describing his own study of the chinese language, he remarks that by a year’s concentrated work, he acquired fluency in the spoken language’
View attachment 10683

Very helpful actually. By 'mouth exercises' I thought you were talking about looksmaxxing

 

[Chud_in_CHINA]

Since I don't live in China I'll do my best by consuming chinese content of different kinds and use apps to speak with chinese people, in order to achieve a sufficient level of immersion. Do you think writting won't help me get used to and learn the ideograms faster?

Set your "google play" payment to China, and download the Chinese version of Tiktok called douyin. You can speak directly to random people live streaming. They will invite you to their "live" and have a chat with you. Great practice. Also if you're brave enough, upload your own tiktoks on the Chinese tiktok speaking Chinese and sure enough people will point out the mistakes you made and how to correct them.

 

[Rance]

Set your "google play" payment to China, and download the Chinese version of Tiktok called douyin. You can speak directly to random people live streaming. They will invite you to their "live" and have a chat with you. Great practice. Also if you're brave enough, upload your own tiktoks on the Chinese tiktok speaking Chinese and sure enough people will point out the mistakes you made and how to correct them.

小红书/rednote is particularly good for this. It's available on Western app stores without needing to change your payment method. The translation to English is pretty much complete as well. And generally I prefer the instagram/pinterest hybrid style of xiaohongshu more than the short-form content of douyin. People have longer form discussions and it's always interesting.

Wheter you use douyin or xiaohongshu, it will not only help you use the language in a fun way, but give you a glimpse into how Chinese people think and behave. You can learn casual speech patterns, slang, online social etiquette, what they find funny, etc.

Of course, I'm not sure either app has any direct usage for getting girls. I have gotten a handful of horny messages over the course of a year, but even on these rare occasions, the girls are always located too far from where I live in China to make any moves.

 

[Jamesothy]

Hello guys. This is my first post. So I'll jump righ into it...

As much as I would like, I won't be able to travel to the holy lands of SEA in the near future, due to some personal complications. I will have to compensate with small eurocuck trips, in order break monotony of everyday life.

Thus, I've decided to start studying chinese (mandarin) in preparation for my campaign to the East. At first, I wanted to give japanese a shot, but after searching through forum posts and taking into consideration the opinions of notable users, I've decided to try chinese. I plan on starting my studies based on free online resources ( provided by the user @Rance ), and after I exhaust those I'll probably have to attend a language school. If I'm lucky though, it's highly likely that the local university will resume its collaboration with a chinese institute and I'll be able to take lessons for free from professors associated with beijing university.

I am currently fluent in greek (native), english (C2 level) and french (C1 level), though I haven't used the last one in ages. If I ever decide to unlock the LatAm domain of geomaxia, I think spanish will be a breeze.

What are your thoughts about my plan? I believe it will allow me to reap better results among chinese speaking populations.

Why would you go to a language school if you are already fluent in all of those languages? You know all you gotta do it's pick up some vocabulary with audio and start consuming media in Chinese.

Why do people try to learn languages in a classroom? You didn't learn Greek in a classroom. You just got used to Greek. And I'm willing to bet it was the same deal with English or French.

Just get used to a language the same way you did your native one. You don't need to sit in a classroom and "learn it".

 

[Rance]

Why would you go to a language school if you are already fluent in all of those languages? You know all you gotta do it's pick up some vocabulary with audio and start consuming media in Chinese.

Why do people try to learn languages in a classroom? You didn't learn Greek in a classroom. You just got used to Greek. And I'm willing to bet it was the same deal with English or French.

Just get used to a language the same way you did your native one. You don't need to sit in a classroom and "learn it".

Language school helps you learn faster. It's a good option if you really want to learn particularly quickly for some reason, like passing a high-level test for a work visa. The other minor benefits are that it's often the easiest way to get a long-term visa, it gives you an instant social circle, and the school will often help you with "life issues" like dealing with the bank, immigration, police, etc.

 

[Chud_in_CHINA]

Let's use this as the Chinese learning thread.

So far we have:
- Rednote, Douyin for speaking and listening
- Mining Anki flash cards for vocab and reading
- Migaku browser extension with Youtube videos

 

[Exutoire]

Let's use this as the Chinese learning thread.

So far we have:
- Rednote, Douyin for speaking and listening
- Mining Anki flash cards for vocab and reading
- Migaku browser extension with Youtube videos

@Rance ’s HanziHero is also very good to learn vocabulary and reading/writing

 

[Orientalist]

@Rance ’s HanziHero is also very good to learn vocabulary and reading/writing

Cool in theory but I found myself basically never using their mnemonics, especially due to the fact you can't even customize them. Mnemonics is a legit method (see Mandarin Blueprint, which is pretty overpriced but that's another story) but the fact you have to conform to the ones they pre-made and use their whack ass mnemonics is no bueno
The last straw for me though was the fact they give you meanings that have liittle to do with the components or any context they're used in, like calling 艮 'silver' or 行 'sandal'.
To me that doesn't sit right because it feels like you're slowly bastardizing your understanding of various words' actual etymologies, which in my opinion is one of the most fascinating and rewarding aspects of the language, not chuck norris hanging himself in your bathroom or whatever
https://rtega.be/chmn/ is much more my style, and https://hanzicraft.com is nice as well
(行 as sandals isn't that bad - there were weirder ones - but like I said I didn't really use them. If it's just a component and its true etymology is ambiguous, then sure, I guess it's fair game. It's definitely appropriate for the characters it's in. But according to https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/行 it's in fact depicting a street intersection - why would you lie to yourself and say it's sandals??? Can your memory not rest easy and place its trust in thousands of years of linguistic development? Hubris!)

 

[practicaleagle]

Nothing you do in a language school will compare to consistent intensive immersion, especially for something as semantically ambiguous/polysemic as Mandarin. Plus they'll probably make you physically write the characters, fuck that 那个

Imo writing characters over and over is legit one of the best ways to learn hanzi, and it's practically free, just pen and paper, just do it whenever you have free time and make sure to keep doing it for a year or so.
That was how I learned and I got 2900+300 hanzi on this test hanzishan.com

 

[Exutoire]

Imo writing characters over and over is legit one of the best ways to learn hanzi, and it's practically free, just pen and paper, just do it whenever you have free time and make sure to keep doing it for a year or so.
That was how I learned and I got 2900+300 hanzi on this test hanzishan.com

It definitely works but I found it to be rather slow. It develops the ability to hand write characters, which is not really useful nowadays, since you can just type everything with pinyin on electronic devices.
It just seems like a grind to write the characters over and over again.
However, I won’t deny that it can be fun. Calligraphy is actually a relaxing and fun way to learn Chinese, just not the most efficient at all.

 

[practicaleagle]

It definitely works but I found it to be rather slow. It develops the ability to hand write characters, which is not really useful nowadays, since you can just type everything with pinyin on electronic devices.
It just seems like a grind to write the characters over and over again.
However, I won’t deny that it can be fun. Calligraphy is actually a relaxing and fun way to learn Chinese, just not the most efficient at all.

I mean language learning in general is a huge grind, even chinese kids take years to learn characters, hand writing at least for me made it much easier to not only learn the shape of them, but also kinda get a feeling for them. Anyhow no matter what method you use language learning is more of a marathon than a sprint, consistency is the most important thing

 

[Exutoire]

I mean language learning in general is a huge grind, even chinese kids take years to learn characters, hand writing at least for me made it much easier to not only learn the shape of them, but also kinda get a feeling for them. Anyhow no matter what method you use language learning is more of a marathon than a sprint, consistency is the most important thing

Agreed