# Advice on tools for learning Mandarin Chinese **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 18, 2004, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/advice-on-tools-for-learning-mandarin-chinese/269926 "2004-10-18T23:11:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Burnt\_Sugar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee59a6/32.png) [@Burnt\_Sugar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Burnt_Sugar)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2004, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/advice-on-tools-for-learning-mandarin-chinese/269926/1 "2004-10-18T23:11:26Z")
I’ve decided I need a book on Chinese grammar and an extensive Chinese dictionary. My Mum is learning French and she just bought herself a huge dictionary, and I’m in love with it. It’s got example sentences, grammar hints, you name it. It’s a _Collins_, she tells me. We went to the shop she bought it from, but they didn’t have a Chinese version. Regarding the book on grammar, I’m sick of trying to remember when to use _le_ and when not to. I’m forever forgetting the _ba_ structure, and I can never find where I’ve written the details down. [Aside] If you’ve got any tips and trips that help(ed) you learn Chinese grammar, my ears are wide open. [/Aside] So, I’d like some recommendations. I’ve borrowed a couple of books on grammar from the library, namely _A Reference of Mandarin Chinese_ and _A Practical Chinese Grammar_. I’m finding these quite useful, so I want one of my own! I’m going to ask my lecturer what he recommends, but I’m sure there are some knowledgable types here! Please note I’m not after a Chinese textbook here; I have several already. ---
**Author:** ![Medea\_s\_Child](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Medea\_s\_Child](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Medea_s_Child)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2004, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/advice-on-tools-for-learning-mandarin-chinese/269926/2 "2004-10-19T04:37:04Z")
I’m currently in Shanghai studying Chinese, but I’m a rank beginner. I’ll ask some others here what they suggest and get back to you. Its such a cool language, though I currently suck at it. (being asked to learn 100+ words a week may be part of my seeming inability to keep up with the teachers. The rest of my class is similarly “behind”.) ---
**Author:** ![Burnt\_Sugar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee59a6/32.png) [@Burnt\_Sugar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Burnt_Sugar)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2004, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/advice-on-tools-for-learning-mandarin-chinese/269926/3 "2004-10-19T04:43:07Z")
Yay! A reply! That would be lovely if you could ask around. 100 is a lot of words per week. We usually have around 15 - 25 characters to learn a week, which is pretty easy. How many hours of classes do you do? I’m only doing written Chinese at the moment so I’m only doing 3 hours a week. ---
**Author:** ![Burnt\_Sugar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee59a6/32.png) [@Burnt\_Sugar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Burnt_Sugar)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2004, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/advice-on-tools-for-learning-mandarin-chinese/269926/4 "2004-10-19T04:44:43Z")
> [@Medea's Child](#): > > Its such a cool language, though I currently suck at it. Yeah, I love it, but I’ve got a looooong way to go. Character writing is fun, like drawing lots of little pictures. ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2004, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/advice-on-tools-for-learning-mandarin-chinese/269926/5 "2004-10-19T04:56:49Z")
John Minford wrote or co-wrote an excellent grammar guide when he was at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. It also includes the common mistakes that foreigners make. Pretty useful for any level from beginner to an advanced refreasher. It was published about 15 years ago, so no idea if it’s still in print or if you can find it. 100 words a week is a lot if you expect to retain the previous characters. My favorite dictionary is pretty much pocket sized. The Concise English-Chinese Chinese-English Dictionary. I’ve got a lot of Chinese dictionaries, but this one is by far the most useful. It’s got the character and pinyin (also the long form character) plus common combinations. Just remember Chinese grammer is really logical. “le” and “ba” and all the rest works the same way every time. The other thing since you’re focusing on characters, is to work on combinations. You know the word “dian” for electricity, then you can learn common useful words associated with it like “dianhua” for electric speech or the telephone. You probably already know “hua” or speech. So you can mix and match your characters to really increase your vocabulary. Chinese is a pretty logical language. If you don’t learn it that way, it’s going to be a lot harder. Jiayou ---
**Author:** ![Burnt\_Sugar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee59a6/32.png) [@Burnt\_Sugar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Burnt_Sugar)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2004, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/advice-on-tools-for-learning-mandarin-chinese/269926/6 "2004-10-19T21:22:15Z")
> [@China Guy](#): > > John Minford wrote or co-wrote an excellent grammar guide when he was at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. It also includes the common mistakes that foreigners make. Pretty useful for any level from beginner to an advanced refreasher. It was published about 15 years ago, so no idea if it’s still in print or if you can find it. I’ll see if I can find it. I checked my library and it’s not there, which would have been good. > [@China Guy](#): > > My favorite dictionary is pretty much pocket sized. The Concise English-Chinese Chinese-English Dictionary. I’ve got a lot of Chinese dictionaries, but this one is by far the most useful. It’s got the character and pinyin (also the long form character) plus common combinations. I have a nice little dictionary that’s great for taking to class. It’s probably the one you have too; I got it in China. It’s red and it’s called Jingxuan Hanying Yinghan Cidian. But, I’m after a chunky big one for reference at home. Like I said, I’m in love with my Mum’s french one. It’d be nice for the characters to be a bit bigger too… > [@China Guy](#): > > The other thing since you’re focusing on characters, is to work on combinations. You know the word “dian” for electricity, then you can learn common useful words associated with it like “dianhua” for electric speech or the telephone. You probably already know “hua” or speech. So you can mix and match your characters to really increase your vocabulary. We actually do this as part of our homework, and it’s really helping me build up my vocab. > [@China Guy](#): > > Jiayou As in “make an extra effort”? I will! 🙂 Just for fun, I’ll put in one of the hardest translation sentences I’ve had to do: “I want to find out more about the cultural exchange between China and Australia 40 years before 1949.” Nasty! (For me at this level anyway.) ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2004, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/advice-on-tools-for-learning-mandarin-chinese/269926/7 "2004-10-20T02:13:14Z")
> [@Burnt Sugar](#): > > Just for fun, I’ll put in one of the hardest translation sentences I’ve had to do: > “I want to find out more about the cultural exchange between China and Australia 40 years before 1949.” > > Nasty! (For me at this level anyway.) 我想多了解中澳文化交流关于40年之前到1949年之内。 That’s a mouthful and pretty awkward. I would certainly phrase it differently but you want an equivalent translation. For spoken, I would also say it differently, and that’s part of the trouble of learning only textbook Mandarin. If you are writing this from memory you’re doing pretty well. A dictionary you should look for sometime for fun is a “reverse” dictionary. It gives the second character of a di-syllabicised (sp? 2 syllable word), and then all the different combinations of matching first syllable words. For example, you could look up deer, and the dictionary would then list Musk-deer, brown tailed-deer, mule-deer, etc. It comes in handy on occaision and provides bragging rights 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Burnt\_Sugar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee59a6/32.png) [@Burnt\_Sugar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Burnt_Sugar)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2004, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/advice-on-tools-for-learning-mandarin-chinese/269926/8 "2004-10-20T21:43:10Z")
> [@China Guy](#): > > That’s a mouthful and pretty awkward. I would certainly phrase it differently but you want an equivalent translation. Yeah, that’s what we told our lecturer, but he doesn’t want to make it easy for us! > [@China Guy](#): > > A dictionary you should look for sometime for fun is a “reverse” dictionary. It gives the second character of a di-syllabicised (sp? 2 syllable word), and then all the different combinations of matching first syllable words. For example, you could look up deer, and the dictionary would then list Musk-deer, brown tailed-deer, mule-deer, etc. It comes in handy on occaision and provides bragging rights 🆒 I had a look and I think my library may have one of those, I’ll check it out when I go into uni next. Does sound very useful. Here is the translation I was given by my lecturer: 我想详细了解在1949年前40年的中国和澳洲的文化交流。(I hope those characters show up!) I tried, but I totally butchered it! (Word order etc.) Yours is nicer than my lecturer’s I think! Although, he was trying to include some of our vocab words such as “详细”. I’ve got my exam next week, so wish me luck! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Medea\_s\_Child](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Medea\_s\_Child](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Medea_s_Child)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2004, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/advice-on-tools-for-learning-mandarin-chinese/269926/9 "2004-10-20T23:06:43Z")
100 words a week will kill me. We’ve mentioned to the teachers that this pace isn’t conducive for…oh, learning the language. They’ve taken a book written for western students, and are running it at twice the pace (half the number of class periods suggested for the material.) Which explains why their Western students get high scores of 60 on the exams :rolleyes: . (And its so not comforting to hear that the Japanese students always do much better.) I’m in an intensive language course at Fudan University in Shanghai - so I have about 20 hours a week of class. Including two completely useless hours of writing class that I dearly want to skip today. (The teacher is a maroon. He tells us how we can’t possibly understand the deep, rich history of the chinese character and that knowing the parts won’t help us learn them and then proceeds to hit on every girl in the class like his sexual harrassment licence is about to be revoked. We spent 8 hours of class time going over how to write the names of the people in class, of which there are 12.) I need a Chinese-English English- Chinese dicionary with both pinyin and hanzi. The reverse dictionary sounds kick ass. Where do you think I could find a good one? (of either?) I’ve been tromping around Shanghai and can’t seem to find the first. (I haven’t looked for the second, but I will.) ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/advice-on-tools-for-learning-mandarin-chinese/269926/10 "2004-10-21T11:40:45Z")
Try a few bookstores. Either on Fuzhou Road or Xujiahui. Fuzhou Rd (runs parallel to East Nanjing Rd, a couple of blocks south) has a lot of bookstores. The biggest, Book City, has an impressive selection of imported titles (go up to the top floor and there’s a couple of rooms of them). The Foreign Languages Bookstore is also nearby on 390 Fuzhou Rd and probably also has some titles of interest. The Scholar Book store in Mei Luo Cheng (Metro City) in Xujiahui has dictionaries. There is a very good book store in Xu Jia Hui. It is on Hong Qiao Rd. right beside Orient Shopping Center (go past kentuky fried chicken). I don t know the exact address, but it should be around 2-6, Hong Qiao Rd. (By Wangjianshuo) Thing to remember is that Chinese really are poor at teaching Chinese to foreigners. Of course, it really doesn’t help to have Japanese classmates that already know most of the characters. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/advice-on-tools-for-learning-mandarin-chinese/269926/11 "2004-10-21T13:37:25Z")
> [@Burnt Sugar](#): > > So, I’d like some recommendations. I really, really tried to study as much Chinese as possible from textbooks when I was in college. For me, it just didn’t work. I learned things in such an overly technical way that I felt like my sentences were made out of heavy bricks. This really didn’t change until I went to China and just had to use what Chinese I knew. I finally gained an appreciation for the balance needed in the language. My advice: do a study-away in China as soon as you can. It’ll be the best thing you ever do. Incidentally, I’m reminded of how it seemed that many of the Chinese students I taught seemed to have learned English by reading a dictionary, starting at “a” and working their way up. Beware of too much book study. ---
**Author:** ![Burnt\_Sugar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee59a6/32.png) [@Burnt\_Sugar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Burnt_Sugar)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/advice-on-tools-for-learning-mandarin-chinese/269926/12 "2004-10-21T21:13:34Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > This really didn’t change until I went to China and just had to use what Chinese I knew. I finally gained an appreciation for the balance needed in the language. > > My advice: do a study-away in China as soon as you can. It’ll be the best thing you ever do. I plan on working in China when I graduate, in some form or another, which I’m hoping will result in gaining fluency! I spent a few days in Singapore, and a couple of weeks in China, and it’s amazing how much more comfortable with the language I became even in that short time. **Medea’s Child** , I got my dictionary from Shanghai airport (Trying to get rid of money!), but I can see **China Guy** has given you the lowdown on the places to buy! ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2004, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/advice-on-tools-for-learning-mandarin-chinese/269926/13 "2004-10-22T00:30:21Z")
My Chinese professor in the US always advised doing 2 years of study and then a year abroad. That gives one the necessary base to really be productive and fully leverage your time. Of course, I you can come to china more often that would be good. I have to agree with my old prof, if you’re only going to be able to do one summer or take one year off from University, the end result will be much much much greater if you do two years study first. Of course, those two years will suck big time speaking from experience.