Wyclef on 21/2/2006 at 23:38
I will be in Nanjing for the month of May, and I'd like to have at least a rudimentary understanding of everyday Chinese so that I can order lunch, insult the locals, etc. Does anyone (Subjective Effect?) have a recommendation as to audio CDs and books for beginning Chinese?
SubJeff on 22/2/2006 at 00:21
A month? Nice. Unfortunately the only books I have were purchased in Taiwan and they are useless unless you are taught the 1st few chapters by a Chinese teacher (pronouncing the phonetic alphabet essentially). Wish I could help you but I can't. The only advice I can give you is to get bupamufa instead of pinying based books, but that may well be personal since I have difficulty in divorcing and then re-associating the sounds of the alphabet with Chinese. And it is not like reading other European languages that use the same characters because, well you'll see. May be hard to find though. It might be an idea for you to pay for some beginner level classes locally.
Scots Taffer on 22/2/2006 at 00:23
Linguaphone is one of the big ones, right? I know someone who got the Mandarin one of these and said it was good, but they didn't have the patience for it. At least, I think it was Linguaphone. It definitely had CDs.
SubJeff on 22/2/2006 at 00:46
I tried that before I went to Taiwan. It sucked. Badly. Unfortunately.
Lhet on 22/2/2006 at 17:53
It you could, it might be nice to find somebody who can practice with you. That helps a lot on the understanding.
Sinister Handed on 22/2/2006 at 23:09
You're going to have a hard time learning Chinese from books. See if you can dig up some of the Pimsleur CDs (or *cough*MP3s). I used them for a short while before I went to Taiwan with pretty decent success.
Ulukai on 22/2/2006 at 23:33
If all else fails, please don't resort to addressing the local inhabitants loudly and slowly in your own language as you might talk to a child with learning difficulties, for it is a truly heinous crime!
Lhet on 23/2/2006 at 02:59
From my experiences; if it's a young person who's educated, they know some english.
For numbers, just write them down and stuff.
And if somebody asks you something in chinese say this
Wo buzhidao
Wo starts low and rises (The tone) and sounds like Woe
The bu starts high and falls, the zhi goes starts high and stays high
the dao starts high and falls
It means "I don't know"
SubJeff on 23/2/2006 at 21:09
Haha. Teaching tones on the internets. I am so convinced at how impossible this is (mainly because I could never learn it that way) that I'd love to hear some recordings of forumites saying that just using your instructions Lhet.
And not to be a pedant by wo does not sound like woe, more like war, "zhi" is a retroflex sound so unless your 1st language is French you will likely mess it up totally, and with the tonal nature of mandarin it's easier to just say "bu dong" (no understand). Sounds like it does in English, especially if you say dong a little like the donging sound of a bell. Seriously. Mandarin is lyrical yo.
to much dong itt
Wyclef on 23/2/2006 at 21:17
Thanks, dudes. The Pimsleur CDs are over $200 on Amazon, but fortunately the library has them and I put in a request. At $50/CD, I'm awfully tempted to burn copies (lol just kidding RIAA/MPAA/FBI)
