A system for learning Chinese on your own. How to learn Chinese from scratch? Difficulties in learning Chinese

Translation of the article by Lingholic

When I started learning Chinese in 2009, I followed the “traditional” path of learning a foreign language. I attended classes, took notes, sat in a cramped apartment in downtown Taipei, sketching out hundreds of characters. The training was progressing, but I was exhausted and bored. I lacked the motivation to go to class, knowing that each of them ended with a homework assignment consisting of many written exercises. Common situation?

I was getting ready to quit studying when one day I accidentally overheard my classmates talking about an online podcast they were listening to. It turned out that there are 3 or 4 programs that are used to createvirtual classrooms.Those who want to learn Chinese gather there. I tested these programs and liked them so much that after 2-3 years I created a virtual Chinese class for myself.

Now I will share with you some ways to create such virtual training rooms. I hope this will help you regain your motivation, optimize your learning, and have fun on your journey to becoming fluent in Chinese. Agreed?

8 sites and programs for learning Chinese - learn Chinese yourself from scratch

In a world where smartphones are everywhere and high-speed Internet is just a click away, learning foreign languages ​​has changed radically. Today it is not necessary to study in classrooms; Mobile applications and websites make it possible to study anytime and anywhere. So no more excuses about lack of time!

I used the following eight methods on my way from knowing no Chinese to being almost fluent in Chinese within a year. Why don't you try them out and form your own opinion about them?

So, let's begin.

1. ChinesePod

If you're serious about learning Chinese and still haven't used this portal, you're missing out. ChinesePod started out as a regular podcast, but has grown into a popular platform that features a variety of content. The ChinesePod archive contains 3500+ lessons with dialogues and grammar comments, vocabulary and grammar exercises. Online teaching available. Among so many lessons, it’s easy to find the one you need. It’s nice that they are all based on real-life situations - buying a SIM card in a store, booking hotels.

Listening to podcasts in Chinese will greatly improve your understanding of it. In addition, this is a great option to fill the time on the way to work or school.

1. ABCs of Chinese

ABCs of Chinese is a site that uses a method of memorizing characters using pictures. This method is an alternative to cramming and endless hours of calligraphy on paper.

Here's how ABCs of Chinese talks about itself:

“The fundamental idea of ​​the ABC of Chinese curriculum is that hieroglyphs are pictures (images). When you look at , you realize that this is not a random set of lines. It is a stylized pictogram or symbol. Master the basic elements (building blocks) that make up most hieroglyphs, and then move on.”

Check out their YouTube channel - there's a lot of cool stuff there.

1. Pleco

A foreign language learner needs a dictionary. This is vital for Chinese learners. The Pleco app is a favorite among dictionaries. The number of settings and functions in it is head and shoulders above its competitors. Best of all, it's free on Android and iOS.

Pleco dictionary entries provide the following information: a range of word meanings, examples of use in context, spelling order. The user saves the word as a card if he wants to repeat it later. Pleco has another great thing - it can recognize a hieroglyph when you point the camera and gives an instant translation.

1. Nciku

Next on the list of cool dictionaries is Nciku.com. It's a simple online dictionary, but here's what caught my attention: when searching for a word, it gave an example of its use. This was very useful to me when I was learning Chinese, because I often got confused in the contexts of using a certain word. I prefer to use Nciku on my computer and Pleco on my smartphone when traveling.

Some of us have amazing memory skills, but most people don't. This is where Anki comes to the rescue. These are applications for remembering information on cards. Anki analyzes the user's responses and decides which cards should be shown more often.

In Anki, you create a set of flashcards by topic, language, and so on. I had topics on names of animals, fish, food, slang, and words that I had difficulty using in my life. You can add pictures, sound and articles to cards. Such a useful application, available on computer, Android and iOS.

1. Language Exchange

The more spoken language, the better the knowledge of a foreign language. Facebook constantly hosts events called “language exchange” - a place where native speakers talk to foreign language learners. So use social media to find the event you're looking for and get going!

Except Facebook There are a couple other platforms for communication. LiveMocha presents learning in levels that represent the stages of learning a foreign language.

My Language Exchange- my favorite site. 1 million people from all countries have registered on it.

Are you looking for a cool app to communicate in a foreign language? Try it HelloTalk.

Tip: Don't forget about ChinesePod lessons when communicating with Chinese people. Print 2 copies of the lesson and learn it together! This will be great practice, and you won’t have to sit through boring textbooks.

1. TV shows and films

I won't tell you how many hours I spent watching Chinese cartoons, women's talk shows and other mind-numbing TV programs. No matter how boring and unpleasant these TV shows are, watching them increases your vocabulary, improves grammar without memorizing the rules, improves your listening skills and gives you an order of magnitude better understanding of the language.

There's a nuance here. You probably don't want to watch a technical video. Choose videos with dialogues. If you encounter an unfamiliar word, pause the video and look up the translation from the dictionary. Memorize frequently used phrases.

Find videos and films on Youku And Tudou, these are two large portals. This is how I search for videos:

1. Perapera

With this plugin, I was able to confidently use Chinese websites and even pay bills (remember, I live in Taiwan).

I hope that the sites, programs and applications I offer will be useful to you in your studies. Even if you study with a teacher, these methods will speed up your learning of Chinese.

Video

Watch a video about ways to learn Chinese.

Learn pinyin. This is a system for recording sounds in the Chinese language using Latin letters.

• This system is very suitable for beginners to learn Chinese. This way, less time is spent studying traditional hieroglyphs. Using Pinyin, you can learn to read and write Chinese without using characters. There are a lot of materials and textbooks on Pinyin.
• However, it should be noted that not all Latin letters can convey the true pronunciation. Therefore, you should learn Pinyin with the help of a teacher or appropriate video and audio materials.

When starting to study the Chinese language, you should immediately accept the fact that you will have to form a completely new one, which is significantly different from the usual system of thinking. However, thanks to sufficient motivation, properly selected learning materials, as well as diligence and hard work, it is quite possible to master the Chinese language from scratch on your own.

Hieroglyphs

There are about 80 thousand characters in the Chinese language. To freely understand the press, it is enough to master 4 thousand, and to read fiction in the original you will need at least 6-8 thousand.

There is a clear order in which traits and keys are written. A key is a kind of simple hieroglyph that has a certain semantic meaning. Some of them are used in their pure form, but in most cases the keys are part of the whole hieroglyph. When starting to learn Chinese from scratch on your own, you need to remember them. A good base will allow you to continue successfully mastering this system.

According to certain rules for writing hieroglyphs, each line is written from left to right and from top to bottom. In order for learning the Chinese language from scratch (on your own) to be successful, it is important to memorize the correct order of writing from the very beginning. This will help you navigate the dictionary, since Asian languages ​​do not have the alphabet we are used to; words are arranged in a certain order of appearance of hieroglyphic elements.

Of course, in order to remember Chinese words, you need to spend a lot of time writing characters. But there are also original ways of memorizing. Chinese words are not just a code, they are an image. Many hieroglyphs depict an object or phenomenon whose meaning they hide within themselves.

The translation is as follows: first line - fire, tree, sun, moon; second line - man, mouth, doors, mountain.

Sound system

Learning Chinese from scratch (on your own) will require much more effort than when working with a Romano-Germanic group. One of the features that distinguishes the Chinese language from the rest: intonation does not have an emotional function, but a semantic one. There are four tones plus one neutral:

• 1st tone is pronounced with high, even and drawn-out intonation;
• 2nd tone resembles a questioning intonation, pronounced from bottom to top;
• 3rd tone is also called low: the intonation first decreases, then increases;
• 4th tone falls, starting from a high note;
• neutral is also called light and usually falls on unstressed vowels.

In some cases, the tones may change. For example, if two third tones are located next to each other, then the first syllable acquires the intonation of the second tone. For example, in the word níhǎo (hello).

The same combination of sounds, pronounced with each of the above tones, carries a different meaning. To get used to such a system, it is important to listen to the speech of native speakers as much as possible and try to repeat it out loud. For this reason, learning Chinese from scratch on your own is quite difficult. The best option would be immersion in a language environment combined with intensive training (many hours of daily classes with representatives of the PRC). Such a study would bring tangible results within two years.

Grammar

Anyone who begins to learn Chinese from scratch on their own has to deal with a completely new system. This language does not have the usual conjugations or declensions. And the line between times is not always perceptible. However, syntax plays a very important role. The same word can take on the role of different parts of speech depending on its location in a sentence.

Dialects

Chinese, like many others, has many dialects. Each of them has its own characteristics. And the differences are sometimes so significant that representatives of different regions of China may have difficulty understanding each other’s speech. If your goal is not to move to a specific city, then the best option would be to study a common literary dialect called Putonghua (普通话).

Pinyin

Anyone who wants to learn Chinese from scratch on their own will encounter a system called pinyin (拼音). This is a transcription in Latin, which was created to make hieroglyphs easier to read. In addition, the corresponding tone is written above each syllable. Over time, you will learn to read the original texts without pinyin, but at the beginning of the training, transcription is essential.

Learn Chinese from scratch on your own

• Some of the important principles of successful learning are willpower, diligence and regularity of study. There are simply no secrets on how to learn Chinese on your own from scratch without much difficulty. This goal can be achieved only through sincere interest in the subject being studied and hard work.
• Another tip: knowledge is better recorded in memory with intensive training. A couple of lessons a week will not give good results. This also applies to other languages.
• To get used to speech, in addition to working with textbooks, you also need to watch TV series and listen to audiobooks and songs in the original. Don't worry that some phrases remain unclear. It is very important to get used to the sound.
• Don't be afraid to ask the Chinese for help. Many of them are happy to help foreigners master the language.
• To test yourself, it is recommended to take the international exam for foreigners called HSK (Hànyǔ Shuǐpíng Kǎoshì). The exam is divided into six levels. To successfully complete the first level, knowledge of 150 words is required, and the sixth level requires knowledge of 5 thousand words.

Anyone who decides to learn Chinese from scratch on their own will have to put in a lot of effort. However, this is a great opportunity to plunge into an amazing world, different from what we are used to.

Learning Chinese is an ambitious task in itself and will require a lot of effort. And for independent development it will take an iron will and self-discipline. In this article we will give some recommendations for those who are wondering “how to learn Chinese on their own” without resorting to the help of tutors and special courses.

In contact with

Chinese language tutorial from scratch

For independent mastery of a subject, a self-instruction manual is a necessary element in organizing the educational process. Where to start learning Chinese?

Today you can find on the Internet many types of tutorials. All of them can be divided into the following subgroups:

• Study sites. This is a fairly convenient form for self-study. On such sites, in addition to lessons and assignments, reviews and comments from those who use the portal are collected. Many different training formats can be used - text information, audio recordings, video recordings.
• Video lessons. Videos that are not part of the courses on various sites are posted on the Youtube video hosting site. The convenience of this format is that you can see and hear teacher.
• Audio courses. They are aimed at developing oral perception and pronunciation, but listening must always be supplemented by communication with native speakers, since the pronunciation on the recordings does not always fully correspond to free speech.
• Tutorials on paper. This is the oldest format for self-study, and it is still in demand. There are several textbooks that are still popular. This is, for example, Kondrashevsky’s Practical Course, “Fundamentals of the Chinese Language” by T.P. Zadoenko and H. Shuin. They will help lay the basic foundations for the learner.

Important! When studying a subject on your own, you should not concentrate on one type of aid; it is better to combine them, making the most of the advantages of each.

Difficulties in learning Chinese

Is it difficult to learn Chinese at home? The answer to this question is clear - Chinese from scratch difficult to learn, especially for those people who are accustomed to the alphabet. The following factors contribute to this:

• If in languages ​​based on alphabets, words are formed from individual letters, and the letter itself rarely carries meaning, then with hieroglyphic languages ​​everything is different. Chinese characters can mean a whole word, and depending on the context, they can change the meaning. Also, the spelling is important for the hieroglyph.
• Pronunciation is quite difficult. Firstly, it has different tones, and depending on how the vowel is pronounced, the meaning can change. Secondly, there are many dialects, and the pronunciation can also change depending on the dialect. Therefore, when learning, it is necessary to choose The official dialect is Mandarin.

Attention! Despite the complexity, you can learn the subject, for this you need to show enough persistence and patience.

How to quickly learn Chinese on your own

The question of language learning speed is very subjective. In any case, it cannot be learned in a week or a month. Success depends on the number, regularity and duration of classes.

If you spend 3-4 hours studying every day, approach the issue comprehensively and have the opportunity to communicate with native speakers, you can easily grasp the basics of Chinese in a couple of months. However, if you practice from time to time, you will have to wait much longer for the results.

How do some teachers answer the question “How long can it take to learn Chinese?” daily classes for an hour:

• In about 3-4 months you can learn simple everyday phrases, ask a simple question and carry on a simple conversation.
• In 1-2 years, you can begin to speak more freely, express your thoughts on more complex topics and maintain a conversation, but there will still be topics on which it will be difficult to communicate;
• After 2-3 years of study, you can already say that you speak the language. You will be able to communicate more freely on various topics, and your pronunciation will be close to natural.

In any case, the key to quick learning is regular classes.

Where to start learning Chinese on your own

To learn Chinese on your own, you need to set a clear goal and make a lesson plan. Even before they start, you can chat on forums or read stories of people who independently studied the subject. This way you can understand in advance what difficulties and pitfalls there may be.

The sound structure is the main feature, and its difference from European ones. To begin successful mastery, you need to understand the principle of syllable construction. The number of syllables in Putonghua is limited, there are only 414 of them, and each syllable has its own character. Latin spelling of Chinese syllables called pinyin. Therefore, it is recommended to start studying by becoming familiar with the sound structure and memorizing it.

An important point is the tones - 4 tones that can be applied to each of the 414 syllables, expanding the phonetic composition. The strict limitation of syllables leads to the fact that homonyms are very common. And because of this, context is very important because it largely determines the meaning of a word.

Chinese characters for beginners

The second point to study is study of written language. The character is the basis of Chinese. Most words consist of one or two hieroglyphs. Only complex terms or foreign words require symbols of three or more hieroglyphs.

The total number of hieroglyphs is very large, and it is difficult to learn them all. But for ordinary communication it is enough to know 3 thousand. This is the basis of the language, the most common for use.

Testing for beginners as a form of training

Tests, as an element of learning, are a fairly effective way to assess the mastery of material. They can be used in training as follows:

• to assess the memorization of keys and hieroglyphs;
• to assess the perception of hieroglyphs in context;
• using audio materials to assess the acquisition of pronunciation features.

Today you can find many different sites on the Internet, but the quality of tests on these portals is not always equally good. It is difficult for a beginner to assess how well or correctly a test is designed. But in general, you can focus on standard materials.

HSK is State exam. It is taken by foreigners to confirm their knowledge of Chinese. Therefore, any other test that can be found on many sites must meet its standards.

The state test, unlike many others, is divided into oral and written, and they can be taken separately. However, the oral exam can also be taken at the entry level.

How to teach a child Chinese

For children, learning any language occurs easier and faster. Despite the misconceptions, children quite clearly distinguish between different language structures and pronunciation. Especially before the age of two, babies learn new information very easily.

The main condition for successful learning is child's interest. Therefore, for him, classes should be held in a playful way. The game additionally stimulates the child’s imagination and thinking, promoting better memorization, since while playing, he does not just mechanically memorize words and expressions. During the game, memorization occurs in context, which means that in the future he will be able to more easily reproduce words and phrases in similar situations.

It will take at least two years of regular training. When studying on your own, without resorting to Chinese language courses, much will depend on your ability to quickly memorize and learn.

Do you know how many characters there are in the Chinese language?
And why does the hieroglyph for “mother” consist of “woman” and “horse”?
What is the most common name in China?

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