Any tips for learning Mandarin Chinese?

Parent Cafe
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<p>The title pretty much says it…anybody (either themselves or their children) learn Mandarin Chinese?</p>

<p>If so, what is a good strategy to teach myself the language? I know it is probably best to hold off on learning character writing to a later date. </p>

<p>A bit of background…</p>

<p>I have a langauge requirement for my PhD (I’m unsure of the stipulations as of yet, but I’d like to learn a little Mandarin anyway) and I haven’t taken language since high school (11th grade). My high school language was Spanish (4 years), and I retain basic conversational skills. It is clear that I don’t pick up languages very easily (unless you consider math a language). The good thing is once I truely learn something in language, I won’t forget it. It’s just getting it in there and understanding it the first time that is the hard part.</p>

<p>Ok. Now that you know a little bit about my language abilities (or lack thereof), what strategies would you suggest for me? I was thinking a combo of CDs and a good book. </p>

<p>Oh yeah, I also think I convinced my fiance to learn with me to have a conversational partner. I’ll have a native speaker to practice with at my PhD institution (someone likely to be on my dissertation committee).</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

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<p>u could initially use this site …
the technique used here was most helpful to me.
<a href=“http://www.csulb.edu/~txie/ccol/content.htm[/url]”>http://www.csulb.edu/~txie/ccol/content.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>If the Mandarin product is as good as the German, French, and Spanish (we’ve used all three), I give Rosetta Stone from Fairfield Language Technologies a very enthusiastic endorsement. My experience is mostly with my teenager using the program, but I’ve played around with the German and I like it (all of our experience is with a known alphabet, though). I was pleasantly surprised to see the software available at shopping mall kiosks the last time I was in the states.</p>