Time to talk about some big pictures in Mandarin Chinese learning! Like mindset, methods, and priorities. There's something more important than others in different learning phases. And if you struggle with listening to Mandarin clearly and speaking Mandarin naturally, or you have no idea where to start your journey of Chinese learning, JOIN my “Finding Your Mandarin Voice” pronunciation training program on www.ritachinese.com TODAY, HEAR Chinese clearly, and SPEAK crisp Mandarin at the end of this summer🙌

Definitely the “You don’t need to learn Chinese Characters” advice is the worst one I’ve ever heard. I disregarded it immediately lol. I don’t think I’d be able to speak what I know half as well without the characters. Learning the character helps me remember the tone. Idk why, it just does.

@RitaChinese

2 жыл бұрын

The characters make sense of the sounds😄

@QuizmasterLaw

2 жыл бұрын

they are marketing to intellectually undisciplined but wealthy expats living in china ew

@MadelineRose19

2 жыл бұрын

Exactly! The characters can be extremely helpful in figuring out and remembering the meaning of a word. In my personal notes, as soon as I have used a word in more than one sentence or phrase, I write the characters

@benzvd

2 жыл бұрын

Maybe if you are Vietnamese or managed to master Vietnamese language, you can learn Chinese entirely in pinyin.

Thank you for mentioning that TIME is a big factor for adult language learners. We often work full time, and even if (like myself) we live in the country who's language we're trying to learn, we often work in an English speaking environment or team so only have limited time outside that for actual study. I feel like 99.9% of language learning youtubers are just students talking at other students with ample time on their hands and/or who are probably already studying a language.

@RitaChinese

2 жыл бұрын

Time is definitely a huge factor in language learning, and it also makes the efficiency of adult learning even more important. Keeping a consistent learning habit is also essential!

@foxitt2266

6 ай бұрын

Depends. I learned and passed three language exams, every single one on advanced level, having full time job, commuting and of course having domestic chores. Ups...

Talking about grammar, I would love to see more Chinese grammar videos on here! Like the “了” video was fabulous!

@RitaChinese

2 жыл бұрын

Yay glad you like the video, Markus! There's so much about Chinese grammar to talk about haha. What did you find more difficult to learn?

@MarkusBlue

2 жыл бұрын

@@RitaChinese maybe just going through some confused or misunderstood grammar structures, or most commonly used ones. I feel I find the structure the hardest to master when it comes to speaking coz it’s different than English for sure. Anyway, you’re the profesional 🤣

Mandarin Corner is the best channel for learning because Eileen always speaks Chinese and always provides pinyin, characters and English translation. As learners, that is all we need.

非常感谢你帮助我们！ I loved the part where you showed the different Chinese radicals. It's such an interesting and beautiful system. If you completely ignore characters, you're going to miss out!

@RitaChinese

2 жыл бұрын

For sure! And you're very welcome!

Everything you said is exactly what I've recently realized after several years of trying to do self-study and private lessons. I enjoy writing the characters, but it's extremely time consuming and it doesn't really help you in many situations. As long as you can recognize it and correctly select it, it doesn't matter if you know the stroke order perfectly or have the correct proportions.

You are so far best Chinese teacher, and honest that I've had the luck to find!

@RitaChinese

2 жыл бұрын

Thank you!! I'm so happy that you found my channel, too😄

Good, very good, Rita; you are an impressive teacher. I would also add the "spoken language melody and rhythm" to the list of components essential for second language (L2) acquisition. We learn single words, we learn word clusters, even short sentences but we do not SPEAK THE LANGUAGE, the way the native - even uneducated, illiterate - speakers do. 不流利.

@santiagovalencia7709

2 жыл бұрын

I fully agree with you, prosody is essential to sound natural in any language.

@RitaChinese

2 жыл бұрын

You're definitely right! Speaking rhythm and intonations are what I break down and train my students in my pronunciation course following tones and individual sounds! 😊

The point you make about teachers not being qualified to teach pronunciation is very true. I have never had a teacher say tones aren't important, but I have had so many different teachers tell me my pronunciation is already “標準” (when it clearly wasn't) because they just weren't qualified to (or were unwilling to) help in any meaningful way. The best teacher I ever had for Chinese pronunciation was a non-native speaker.

Rita is Mind Blowing Brilliant. Thank You.You Rock.Richard.

I’m so glad to find your channel

GREAT VIDEO! Really useful tips for Chinese learners! Thanks Rita!

@RitaChinese

2 жыл бұрын

Glad you find it helpful! 🙌

谢谢您老师❤️ Yeah you are definitely right about all this Fan Laoshi！It doesnt really make sense why some teachers are giving tips that will just complicate the students learning process from the very start specially for non natives like me。😁 Love your videos 加油！

Fabulous video Rita. Those saying Chinese does not have grammar only show they do not know what grammar is nor how it came into place. To communicate we always need a certain number of agreed rules among those using a language or otherwise they could not communicate effectively using that language. This means that every language has grammar, the difference: how we learn it. In a standard educational system, for every language having a grammar book, someone like Chomsky came in and looked into that language, trying to find and record/represent as many common patterns used in that language as he/she could. At this investigation level that person never identified all the possible rules or patterns in a language, they just did their best with the task they had at hand. Then others picked up that knowledge, learning so about things that can be used to identify the way in which the language operates, books where created and teachers trained on that subset they understood, not all teachers understand 100% of that subset they receive so they have their own subset they know inside out and try to pass it to pupils, then pupils will learn a subset of that subset through their books or teacher so their percentage is much smaller than what was discovered at Chomsky level. Also, they haven´t learned the language, else a number of identified structures...but language is more like arts than it is like maths. And due to this approach pronunciation of the language sounds is also very much treated as a byproduct because the focus of this system in on the structures. In a natural language learning system, a person will absorb the language through proper immersion, sound will be the trigger and engine of all that, and the brain will start identifying patterns regarding what they face/need to express themselves. It is the brain that does the grammar learning, it happens subsconsciously so we learn even those things that contradict any findings present in any grammar book and they end up making sense for our brain regardless of what Chomsky thought about it or even if he never discovered it. When a person using this approach says "I did not study any grammar" they really mean they haven´t learned any pattern consciously (i.e. studying it) but they have learned them by exposure (i.e. subconsciously). Their focus was on speaking the language, driven by sound and the need/desire to communicate. They still can use a grammar book to accelerate their learning process here and there but should still keep being exposed to the language in an as much a natural way as possible. This is the most (the only?) effective way to learn a language, departing from sound and long time regular exposure to it.

@RitaChinese

2 жыл бұрын

Well said, Santiago! Totally agreed! 👏👏

Great video. I can’t believe there are Chinese teachers that say that tones don’t matter and that there is no grammar.

These are lessons I've learned the hard way. People who are new to learning Chinese should definitely heed this advice.

Very amazing video! Thank you so much. The editing was quick and fun, especially with the sound effects. Although most were almost too loud, sometimes it distracted or even drowned out your voice. Wonderful help though!

I've also heard tones aren't important and characters aren't important. But when I get all my tones wrong no one understands me.

I think you hit the point! As for me, at least. I'm 41, began to learn Mandarin 4months ago and I love this journey! I learn more than 4-6-8 hours a day and I love character writing. But, it's definitely the point that makes me slow in progress. I like reading, I can read, recognize characters, can write what I can read but my speaking is soo slow 😔 and I can't go faster because I can't hold the speed of being able to write them down as well. It's a very interesting experience! In other languages I don't have same kind of problems, what I learn, I can read, speak and write. But not in Chinese. I think this is the point when I let writing go, and focus more on listening and speaking. Thank You, Rita! 😊

I loved the practical example of the characters!

@RitaChinese

2 жыл бұрын

🙌🙌

I think the advice on *not* learning characters is only useful for absolute beginners; it's not really omitting characters, but waiting to introduce them at the right stage. When you are starting with Chinese, I think it's important to focus on the pronunciation of the sounds and tones. This has the biggest payoff early on and builds tons of confidence. Pinyin is great for this. Inundating a student with character learning at that stage is overwhelming and can be distracting. The first step should be to have the student be able to say basic phrases and words. However, to omit character learning _after_ that point is as baffling as not learning tones. You miss out on being able to read, which is a fundamental dimension of language learning.

Teachings like these are one of the reasons why I feel I'm so lucky to have started learning Mandarin in kindergarten. At that time, my little brain could just suck up a bunch of grammar and tonal nuances of the language without any conscious effort. Now, more than a decade later, while my vocab bank is surely not as big as so many other adult learners, I am so proud of my unique learning journey and the instinctual way that I understand a bunch of the more structural aspects of the language. I remember being a teacher's assistant for a Mandarin class in high school, and they were being taught how you change 不 and 一 to the second tone when followed by another fourth tone, and I remember thinking. . . wow, how have I never learned that before? Then I muttered a few sentences to myself and realized that I already did it instinctively. It was such an experience listening in on a beginner class to see everything they had to learn that I never did. They spent so much time on tones and sentence structures and things like subject+verb+conjugation+adjective or whatever. I didn't even know what those words meant in English when I initially started learning. However, my young age also meant I could not learn a lot of more advanced vocabulary that is used a lot in everyday speech, such as how the beginner learners I sat in on were doing. It really is amazing what immersion can do for you, as well as what it can't.

Speaking of homophones I remember I was trying to text a friend that I was feeling frustrated and used the word 枉然 instead of 惘然 because I wasn't familiar enough with the characters yet. Funnily enough they both were applicable to the situation. I'm surprised at the advice so many teachers are giving and I'm glad I haven't encountered them. Super thankful for the video so that if I ever do, I'll know they're full of it and avoid them like the plague. 谢谢范老师！

@martinlaoshi

Жыл бұрын

Both of those are not that common in texting however. At least i've never seen them used in texting ever.

I absolutely agree with the tones, I experienced it many times that native speaker would assume that I'm saying totally different initial, because of the wrong tone :))

As a chinese, i totally agree. I am learning another language too, and whatever is said in no.2 is soooo true.

@ Learning tones: Many years ago I had a short "excursion" into Vietnamese. It was a (then still available) ~40 $ Rosetta Stone course. It featured a very good pronunciation check that returned a kind of "metering" of your mastery and was specific sensible for the tones! At that time I already had learned English to fluency. That course however brought my pronunciation and my listening skills to a new level! Indeed, it was after that, that I realised that English, French and my native language German also feature a lot of tone like expressions that go far beyond the 2nd tone for questions or the 4th for imperatives! Tones taught me new things about my own native language! Besides, my motivation to learn Mandarin Chinese is because the tones sound cool and the characters look gorgeous!♥️♥️♥️福♥️♥️♥️智慧

​the worst advice? your grammar and pronunciation must be PERFECT -- they never will be. Much as I truly enjoy your language i will ALWAYS miss parts of it best advice? Best advice is TRY. TRY. Even if you can't say much more than "oui" or "non". People GREATLY APPRECIATE when you at least TRY to speak their language. And now I'm C2 in French

This is so realistic! Debunking those language “myths” or “tips” is so interesting!

This video is so amazing haha and so important to reinforce! Thank you! Question for you… are you familiar with the book “Remember The Hanzi”? It’s a book (2, technically) that is meant to “revolutionize how someone is meant to approach and learn Chinese characters”. Do you have any experience with it? I’ve heard great things but you’ve quickly become my Chinese guru and I’m so curious to see what you think 😂

@RitaChinese

2 жыл бұрын

Hahah I'm so flattered! Appreciate it. I've never heard of the book that you mentioned, but thanks for sharing it with us! I didn't focus on Chinese character teaching so much, but like Ma Laoshi and I discussed in our TikTok reaction video, if you learn the radicals and try to recognize the most commonly used characters in words, sentences, and context, you're very likely to get a hang of it soon!

@chrismartinez5711

2 жыл бұрын

I just commented about this book! I say go for it. There are few more books on the market that have similar approaches now. The book is Remembering Simplified Hanzi by Heisig. i used it for a few months, before I even started learning the actual language. While I can't say I memorized the entire book, I at least went through every chapter, and I found that by the time I started actually learning the language, the characters felt a little more intimate and I had stroke order down. Basically, the approach is to develop an imagination around the most basic components so that you can shoehorn them semantically into a character. I know there is some criticism that a proper approach should notate the phonetic components when they are there, and that there isn't a 1-1 correspondence with English words, but I would recommend it nonetheless if you have time. I will say that I think the second book is less useful. I didn't use it as much, and by the time you're starting to learn properly, there's less of a need for it.

除了第一点（“不用学习声调”那个），我遇到这么叫汉语的很多汉语老师哈哈。我觉得很多学生对HSK词汇表很obsessed。背下来一群生词并不意味着他们真正能够把那些词应用到实际的交流，汉语老师的挑战之一就是打假那些假的想法，对学生说明学习一门语言的主要目的就是交流, communicate。关于书法，你说的太多啦！从小学到高中，中国人花12年学习并书写汉字，一个20岁以上的外国人并不会得到那个经历，也不会得到那个时间。最重要的是学会认出并阅读汉字。上述的都是我自己给其他的汉语学习者分享的小技巧。我从你的视频得到启发！谢谢你的视频。

This was a great video! The first tip about the importance of learning tones was something I thankfully had heard before I started studying chinese. So already from day 1 I've been trying as much as possible to repeat and memorize the tones of every new word I learn. I still mess it up a bit ofcourse, but I have a strong mindset to always pay attention to the tones whenever I encounter a new word. I'm only a little over half a year into my studies though, so I have a long way to go, but I'm glad that I know the tones of a lot of the basic words already, so I won't have to go back and "re-learn" them for this. The second tip about vocabulary is actually encouraging. I always worry that my vocabulary is too low. But in my mind I've always felt it more important to have the most important verbs rather than the nouns. Nouns can be explained much more easily with body language, including pointing at the thing in question. To describe the meaning of verbs in this way is ususally way harder. The third tip about "chinese doesn't have grammar" is something I haven't heard. I mean, no language can have zero grammar, right? I would however say that I don't think chinese grammar is super difficult. At least not so far in my studies. My native language is norwegian and I am very happy that chinese nouns don't have genders like they do in my language. Particularly because most of the genders don't make sense at all (like how "girl" can be a conjugated as a male noun in norwegian and as a neuter noun in german. This is truly frustrating sometimes). It also makes things simpler that you don't have to deal with cases, like accusative, dative and genitive. Also, the sentence structure feels intuitive, and similar to norwegian... unlike for example korean, which is very messy in my brain. When it comes to chinese characters, this was my BIGGEST worry when starting to learn chinese. I do a bit of handwriting because I think it's fun (and I feel like an ancient scholar doing calligraphy whenever I practice). I've also gotten books that explain things like radicals and how the different characters are combined, which helps. But at this early stage, I don't focus too much on writing characters. The most important thing for me right now is to be able to recognize them and tell them apart when reading. But I will increase my efforts into writing once I start feeling a bit more confident. Finally, here's MY best advice, as a learner of multiple languages: experience as much of the language as possible: movies, music, tv dramas and so on. It is by far the best way, for me at least, to passively absorb vocabulary and pronunciation. And it's particularly effective if you enjoy the thing you are watching or listening to. It doesn't feel like "studying" yet the benefits can be huge. I've watched several different chinese dramas online lately, and it's such a great feeling when I suddenly start recognizing words, expressions or even whole sentences. And when that happens I get great joy out of skipping five seconds back, listetning to it again and repeating it. So yes, it's probably best to watch them on your own when using them for learning, at least if you are like me 😊

@renatam.r.6762

2 жыл бұрын

Germanic languages remember me how Mandarin works. I'm learning Norwegian, Icelandic and German (my fourth language - I'm a B1).

@HemanthKumar-ud5em

Жыл бұрын

Can you share the list of books you use, especially for understanding Chinese writing?

My classmates told the students she was teaching that her friends in China told her tones don't matter. I told her they matter a lot, because by not using tones you are basically speaking unclearly and at times saying the completely wrong word. If someone understands you even while you don't use the tones correctly, it's most likely because they guessed your meaning or used that type of unclear speaking. However she still insisted tones doesn't matter too much😐 Luckily she didn't have time to tutor much.

I always found it funny when people just say that tones don't matter, like why are they there then?? Also no grammar? Then how do sentences work ?? As a person who always has been interested in languages and who's making one as well I find those advices silly.

The first "tip" is the one that I was so afraid to hear lol, because I always forget about tones. I write them down, I pronounce them few times and then forget to actually use them. And since nobody is here to control me on that, I just continue to ignore tones, even though I am literally learning a tonal language. I need to do better 😅

I had a friend who took (and subsequently dropped out of a Mandarin class) where the teacher roughly said that grammar doesn't matter and seemed confused that her students just couldn't "pick it up". On another note with regard to writing. I love writing characters. i usually write through my vocab list after breakfast and reflect on the components (which part is semantic, which is phonetic) sometimes I force them to make sense in some absurd way. Writing, I've found, actually helps me a lot.

@cmaven4762

6 ай бұрын

I think you've learned the most important thing, which is that each person's learning process is unique... Doing what works for you matters in the long run. 👍👍

I feel like those ‘tips‘ just aim at simplifying the language so much that you’re barely at the minimal level necessary to be understood by natives, so you get the illusion that you are progressing really quickly even though you’re barely functional in the language

@RitaChinese

2 жыл бұрын

Haha true. Another question is that what is the level to be understood by natives😁

@waterunderthebridge7950

2 жыл бұрын

@@RitaChinese It’s actually pretty lenient, I think. E.g. the tones thing is kinda similar to how songs in Chinese mostly lose the information carried by tonemes, instead relying mostly on context. The human brain is just evolutionarily trained to infer information from very limited input which even modern AI with multiple times the raw professing power has not been able to replicate

@christina.pietri

2 жыл бұрын

It has to do with learning objectives. A two-week traveller who messes up tones and grammar will probably be praised (and rightly so) by native speakers because the point is to make friends and communicate. A person intending to get a job in the country may get away with abysmal tones and grammar at bars, but will get kicked out of the job interview at 'hello".

I've heard that 500 characters is enough to read 80% of commonly found written information.

And about the writing: I also don't make my students handwrite - they can decide, but they have to be able to type and read. I do recommend Skritter, if they commute for example, they can write on their phone on the way to school or work. When I started learning Chinese at university, we were using a textbook ONLY WITH PINYIN. It was so confusing, luckily we were able to persuade the teacher to switch to a textbook with characters.

When I was younger, I used to think all Chinese from Mainland China can speak good Chinese but as I grew older and seen more of this world, I noticed I was wrong. Seems like some Chinese people from the southern Fujian province seems to have some difficulty pronouncing certain words like the word “福” as in "福建“. They pronounce it as "Hu Jian" instead of "Fu Jian". Perhaps it is due to the dialect which they speak. I guess these people primarily speak their own dialect more than they speak 普通话。But as with every language, practice makes perfect. Both my English and Chinese are not good but I am trying to improve everyday.

@RitaChinese

Жыл бұрын

Keep it up, Terry! And yes, Fujian and Hunan dialect speakers typically don't differentiate "f" and "h"😊

谢谢老师的小诀窍!不好意思，我可以推荐您用中文解释吗?谢谢您。~~♡

I think for the issue on tones. Non-tonal language speakers just get scared of getting things wrong and it being just a completely different sentence.

Excellent video I enjoy the information you share with us. I'm from Mexico City我是墨西哥人，我喜欢中国文化然后我在学习普通话。你很棒，谢谢谢

@RitaChinese

2 жыл бұрын

谢谢！祝你学习顺利😄

4:06 确实，认识的单词的数量固然重要，但不是最重要的。单词会的多少跟你说的好不好，能不能写出东西来真的没有直接的关系。就好像一个人学英语会1万个单词也未必有没上过学就认识几千个单词的母语者或者就认识几百个单词的几岁小孩说得流。这就是因为他们会使用这门语言，而你只是知道一堆单词和语法罢了。

What do you think of Yoyo Chinese?🔥

For number 2, I was born overseas so even though I speak fluent mandarin my vocabulary is so bad that I’m like a 3 year old. But finding fancy vocabulary is super difficult, especially the formal kind. Are there any useful resources for that?

@yun1666

2 жыл бұрын

myber watching some Chinese movie，donghua。

Oh waaat? I didn’t know all this 😂

@RitaChinese

2 жыл бұрын

Hahah now you know! Not too late😆

yep tones are very important, sometimes some Hong kong people say Chinese and they use the wrong tones ... and ... it sounds weird so tones are important and also you said that learn more words is wrong, well, i don't know is that right or wrong... well ... Chinese is not that hard so it's ok ehhh ok yes Chinese actually have gramma, but just easier than english thousand times ok the next I think handwriting is important but just not too much practice you look at the word for thousand times and you can remember it

4:04 😎😂

if tones matter, how people understand Chinese songs?

Isn't it possible to become fluent speaking Chinese without learning to write Chinese characters? For example, young children in China have fluent conversations with their parents for years before they go to school and learn how to write their first Chinese characters, right?

As a beginner in chinese what textbooks do you recommend?

@RitaChinese

2 жыл бұрын

I know Integrated Chinese is widely used in American Universities

@jellisawilliams3773

2 жыл бұрын

@@RitaChinese I am currently trying to teach myself and watching your videos however I was thinking of using a book as guidance so I will definitely try that one. Thank you

张朋朋 (Zhang PengPeng) has the easiest book to learn radicals called "The Most Common Chinese Radicals: New Approaches To Learning Chinese". His book called "Rapid Literacy in Chinese" is good for reading.

@RitaChinese

2 жыл бұрын

Thanks for sharing, Jean! 👏

@QuizmasterLaw

2 жыл бұрын

@@RitaChinese I think beginners toughest points are not understanding about abbreviated determinants and also that there are some character components which recur yet which are not radicals. There are at most only 500 glyphs to learn, 214 kangxi, 70 abbeviated forms of kangxi, and then the ones not recorded as kangxi radicals but which are nonetheless important character components like in 载 that splitty bit, or 那 so yeah memorize all your pictograms ideograms and then you can do the combined concept characters and finally pictophones. newbies see pictophones are 80% dive in without the adequate basis and die like soldiers at Omaha Beach on June 6 1944.

My best friend grew up in a Chinese house hold while I didn’t. We’re both Chinese, but she’s most fluent in talking and listening in Mandarin while I’m better in reading and writing. She has NEVER learned tones and she says it doesn’t matter. She says her parents and grandparents understand her, but the tones you will need when we go to China! We’re going in a few years and I really hope she will learn to at least read and understand the tones.

@Cherodar

2 жыл бұрын

I wonder, does your friend maybe speak with correct tones without even realizing that she does so? It's easy not to be very conscious of one's own native language... or does she just genuinely mispronounce most things?

@plmdea

2 жыл бұрын

@@Cherodar No, maybe some words but mostly she speaks in 4th tone. She does pronounce the 3rd tone sometimes like the basic words. She’s even created her own language (she doesn’t do it to be funny but she doesn’t want to learn), but I do find her style of language funny. I know most tones, but i’m not a fluent speaker so she’ll speak for me and i’ll translate the words. Her parents never taught her the grammatically correct way, but she knows three languages which is impressive to other people which i’m glad she knows. I only know two but i’m wanting to learn more and i am.

@Cherodar

2 жыл бұрын

@@plmdea Aha I see! Yeah, knowing lots of languages is great, but thinking her Chinese is good without knowing the tones is definitely going to stand in her way. I hope your learning is going well!

@plmdea

2 жыл бұрын

@@Cherodar It is but i’ve managed to get her to try studying the characters first. She knows haha, hello, good, and bai-bai 😂 anyways thank you so much, i’m trying my hardest in each language.

@Cherodar

2 жыл бұрын

@@plmdea Haha well, that's something! It would be kind of extra sad if she ended up going to China with no characters OR tones...

不好意思，FĀN LAOSHI if when we want to start learning Mandarin/Chinese the best way to learning it is from understanding chinese characters or knowing how to speak Chinese words with the right tones? So maybe just that question from me in this video, 加油！ Laoshi😊

@RitaChinese

2 жыл бұрын

They are two systems - the sound system and the written system. I'd suggest you start with the sound system, form a proper habit for your mouth muscles, so that when you work on the written system, you can make a better connection between the two systems.

Please, I'm so frustrated for not being able to produce chinese tones correctly in the sentence, give me some advice. What can I do to improve my listening skills.😏😏

@na_neh1313

Жыл бұрын

@Rita Mandarin Chinese please, couldn't you help me?

第三個留言 for the algo' ! :D

@RitaChinese

2 жыл бұрын

多謝多謝😄🙌

@QuizmasterLaw

2 жыл бұрын

our friend AL sure has GOt RHYTHM!

@PierreMiniggio

2 жыл бұрын

@@RitaChinese 不客氣！:D

没人说声调不重要！

换发型了啊

主谓宾定状补 了着过 HAHAH I hate linguistics🤣🤣🤣

I've passed HSK5 but never really studied the tones, just picked some up along the way. I think if you say a sentence quickly with the right grammar and vocabulary, tones are pretty unimportant in terms of understanding. It's only an issue if you're trying to say one isolated word to an old person.

@EmilyMarais

2 жыл бұрын

Tones are a vital part of the vocabulary, so without getting them correct, how can you have the correct vocabulary? You have passed HSK5, but I'm curious to hear about your experience speaking with natives?

@remitto8367

2 жыл бұрын

@@EmilyMarais My experience is good, I've lived in China for a few years, never had an issue when speaking in sentences. The only time I encounter an issue is if I'm trying to say one isolated word in a pharmacy or something, especially to an elderly person. I'm not saying they don't matter, but when speaking quickly and in sentences, you don't need to use them all perfectly or even well in my opinion.

@heathcliff4722

2 жыл бұрын

@Remitto I think you probably aquired the tones naturally and say them quite acurately without realizing it, because from my experience, if you speak and most of your tones are off, people will really struggle to understand you. And you will sound like you have a super heavy foreign accent.

@plmdea

2 жыл бұрын

@@remitto8367 Could you help me? I’m very bad at speaking and listening fluently and I really want to go back to my hometown in China. I’m only HSK3 and I really want to improve but it feels useless!

I definitely think being able to read chinese is important - but writing really isn't that necessary unless you plan to use chinese writing for some sort of job or activity (btw I find drawing characters very satisfying and fun - but don't focus on the actual strokes in comparison to being able to recognize the characters or speak)

笔画-strokes. Most foreigners say not important. 很多外国人觉得笔画一点都不重要。

@filipgrkovic5671

2 жыл бұрын

stroke order* 笔画顺序*

@santiagovalencia7709

2 жыл бұрын

Science says they are not so important, too curiously. This is not only because there are different stroke order systems (e.g. Chinese, Japanese) showing that none is so definitory, but also because it has been found that stroke order only serves to reinforce stroke order itself, and that people can come up with their own ones that are equally valid if they are left to it. Surprise, surprise! Do you think I'm lying? If so here it is one of those scientific research studies that I mention so you can see by yourself: "Effect of Stroke-Order Learning and Handwriting Exercises on Recognizing and Writing Chinese Characters by Chinese as a Foreign Language Learners" (Hsiung et al., Computers in Human Behavior 74, 2017, 303-310). Enjoy.

@RitaChinese

2 жыл бұрын

想写的话特别重要，想记住的话也非常有帮助！

@argonwheatbelly637

2 жыл бұрын

I agree. If you're going to learn the characters, learn the stroke order. The common form, not necessarily different stroke orders for older forms seen in classical documents or calligraphy.

Bonjour Hieroglyph

@QuizmasterLaw

2 жыл бұрын

salut les terrestres!

on writing - when chinese children learn to write, they already know many words and have seen characters for many years every day. when foreign adults start to learn, it from ground zero. i think writing some basic characters just to learn stroke order is ok but after that, no one has any business writing, for months, until they start to naturally recognize the elements that constitute characters from all the exposure reading learning materials. i think past intermediate stage, writing might be good tool for helping remember new words ... but writing as a beginner just feels like scribbling a bunch of non sense. once you have experience under the belt, you dont think in terms of stroke order but instead in terms of what radical should be here, was there a phonetic marker, how should the radicals be organized in this character... all stuff that starts to feel natural only AFTER youve had a lot of experience. so yeah writing as a noobie is a complete waste of time in this day and age, and will take time away from learning the basics which make writing even feasible.

Cut sheet 😂

一位朋友告诉我只学拼音 and not character

@RitaChinese

2 жыл бұрын

我希望你没听ta的...😆

People tend to think that because chinese doesn't have conjugation, there is no grammar. There is still very much a grammatical system but it's more logical than most and fairly easy in comparison to other languages. Out of all the languages that I've studied: French, German, Korean, Japanese, Russian, Czech: Chinese grammar was the easiest but that doesn't mean it's easy. It's still difficult to get your head around some of the concepts.

my most hated mandarin learning "tip?" Don't know what the character actually means? Just make something up! This is HORRIBLE and FREQUENT newbie "advice" aka BADVICE. There's literally an entire very famous book deadicated to that wrong idea :/ You are MUCH better off figuring out what the characters really mean rather than just making things up because character components are reused semantically in other characters!

@RitaChinese

2 жыл бұрын

Yeah that's not only about characters, but anything they don't understand😆

@QuizmasterLaw

2 жыл бұрын

@@RitaChinese I'm absolutely shure if i just ushe shuh all the time that will be underxtood no matter how bad my townes are

Wait. Cat vs Cut is obviously and definitely NOT a tonal issue. Instead, that is a pronunciation issue. Likewise, liang nian vs nian nian is also a pronunciation issue, not a tonal issue. Lao shi vs Lao si is again, a pronunciation issue, not a tonal issue. So yup, based on my limited experience, tone is not as it all cracks up to be. If anything you will naturally get the tone as you observe and use the language, just like English or any other languages.

@hezhenbang

Жыл бұрын

Watch the video again, you completely misunderstood what she said. What’s she was saying is that mispronouncing tone in Chinese is as bad as mispronouncing vowels in English because using the wrong Chinese tone changes the meaning of the words.

你多长时间上一次范老师的课看你有多少钱。 你有多少钱看你上一次范老师的课多长时间。

@RitaChinese

2 жыл бұрын

😆