Six Tips for Beginner Who Want to Learn Chinese

Six tips for beginners who want to learn Chinese, Chinese can be a complex language for speakers of European languages to learn. Especially for beginners learner! A few tips to help beginners to  Chinese at a faster rate.

1) Tips for beginners who want to learn Chinese – Master Pinyin

Pinyin or Hanyu pinyin (Chinese: 拼音) literally means “spelled-out sounds”, it is the official phonetics system for transcribing the Mandarin pronunciations of Chinese characters into the Latin alphabet. Once you have mastered Pinyin, you will be able to pronounce every spoken sound in the Chinese language. Especially pay attention to Zh, Ch, Sh, R ;  Z, C, S and J, Q, X, those are the most difficult pronunciations. If you add the he Pinyin option to your computer’s or mobile’s language settings or , you can type in any Pinyin word and a list of characters with that sound will appear. Typing with Pinyin helps you improve your character recognition and provides extra motivation to continue studying.

2) Tips for beginners who want to learn Chinese – Master Tones

Chinese is a tonal language, which means that the same word can mean different things depending on the tone used to express them. This can be difficult for English speakers to grasp.

The first tone is a high, flat tone. Your voice stays flat, with no rise or dip in the way it sounds.
The second tone is a rising tone. Your voice rises from a low to middle pitch, like”what?”
The third tone is a dipping tone.The pitch goes from middle to low to high.
The fourth tone is a lowering tone. The pitch goes rapidly from high to low, as if giving a command e.g. stop!

For example, “mā” 妈 indicates mum; “má” 麻indicates hemp; “mǎ ” 马 indicates horse,  “mà” 骂 indicates curse.

A good way to learn is to practice speaking them aloud to a recording every day for five minutes. After a few months of dedicated practice, tones will become second nature. But learning the tones is essential, no matter beginner, Intermediate and advanced levels. For beginners, the pronunciation is little bit boring, however, it is crucial practice. It will lay a good foundation for your Chinese language. You can learn slowly, but try to make correct pronunciation. Nobody wants to talk with a person without correct pronunciation.

 3) Tips for beginners who want to learn Chinese – Learn how to read

Some beginners who prefer to focus on speaking rather than reading, this could be a good idea if you just want to master the basics- but it isn’t good for long term study.

Lets take one example, in Chinese “ta”, it means He,’ ‘She,’ and ‘It’. the character for ‘he’ is 他(tā), for ‘she’ is 她 (tā), and for ‘it’ is它(tā) .If you can only read Pinyin, you will miss out on some very important details. The average Chinese reader will need to be familiar with about 2000 different characters for reading a newspaper.

4) Tips for beginners who want to learn Chinese – Go to China

Because of everything – road signs, restaurant menu, social media, product labeling in the supermarket, public transportation, all the local people around you (even foreigners) conversing in Chinese…, basically all the aspects that you will be in touch with when living in China – they are all in Chinese. Experiencing these things gives you a deeper understanding – its beyond textbooks or online learning. Being in a Chinese environment and culture, will make you immerse yourself in the culture and use Chinese language effectively; thus all the effort and time you put in for learning and understanding Chinese, will be put to use, and not wasted. In fact, you will be surprised at how quickly you can catch up. By the time you realize it, you are already making an order for kungpao chicken and tell the cab driver where you intend to go – completely in Chinese.

 5) Tips for beginners who want to learn Chinese – Find a Chinese language partner

There may be a Chinese Language club in a nearby city or university. There are also free sites on the internet that can help set you up with a language exchange using SKYPE or othe VIP programs.

6) Tips for beginners who want to learn Chinese – Watch children’s TV and read children’s books.

Children’s book with simple storyline, basic expressions and pictures that help you understand plot development. A wide variety of multimedia options exist for exposing your ears to native Chinese speaking. Download as much audio as you can from these sites to your MP3 player and start listening. Your goal is to listen to Chinese audio whenever you’re in the car, or commuting, or doing other mechanical tasks.

Teachers’ recommendations for Beginners
Children’s TV: Huitailang yu Xiyangyang,  Xiongchumo;
Children’s Books: xiaohongmao;
Children’s Songs: wo de pengyou zai nali?(where is my friend);

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