I’m at the very beginning stages of mandarin, just with apps and some audio lessons I found. Honestly outside of the written part, its the easiest, most well constructed language I’ve ever seen. Despite being an old language it seems like someone sat down and eliminated all cruft that most languages seem to get.
I’ve also learned Mandarin, or rather, I used to learn it. Now I’m learning Turkish in order to live in Turkey, but afterwards, I plan to hop right back in. Honestly, don’t be daunted by the number of hanzi you have to remember; just keep in mind that many non-Chinese learn thousands of hanzi just fine eventually. You will too.
Pinyin is not that intuitive. Stuff like Bo is more like Buo while stuff like Zhuo is correctly Zhuo and not Zho. Zho is actually Zhou. The ‘i’ sound has an extended consonant sound, unlike the ‘i’ that we’re familiar with in English which would sound like ‘ee’ or ‘ai’.
Also, Mandarin was my first language, grew up speaking it predominantly and I doubt I’m even close to knowing a thousand characters let alone be able to write them. In exchange for a stunted Mandarin, my English fundamentals are better than many of my peers. I’ve had colleagues who used to joke that I’m probably better than most USians and would ask me for help on words they were unfamiliar with.
I’m also learning mandarin, and I have to agree. Being a native English/Korean speaker, it’s nice knowing how much easier it is grammatically and logically. 是， 了， 不， 都，etc. aren’t riddled with exceptions and conjugations. If I have to sit through another test of figuring out if a sentence is present perfect continuous tense I will lose my shit. Getting the tones right and internalizing pinyin is definitely its own set of challenges however.
Lol no worries, I’d rather someone point out stuff than not at all. Looking back on my textbook I found that subchapters use ”第一节“ and “第二节” format, so its main usage would be exclusively for listings and ordinal numbers?
Yes that is it’s main usage. There’s another exception though that breaks this rule. You place a 十 in front of 二 and you can link the character in the same way as 两.
Ha, I’d like to see the day when people here get better than me at the language. I’m perpetually stuck at like a middle school (to you USians) level. Now that I think about it, standards have probably risen across the board from when I was last in school, so I’d guess I’m barely past elementary level right now. I used to suck (still do) at writing essays since my fundamentals were dogshit. I could get away with the comprehension tests by utilizing contextual clues to piece together meanings.
I plan to learn Mandarin after I learn Turkish myself.
I’m at the very beginning stages of mandarin, just with apps and some audio lessons I found. Honestly outside of the written part, its the easiest, most well constructed language I’ve ever seen. Despite being an old language it seems like someone sat down and eliminated all cruft that most languages seem to get.
It helps that Pinyin is really intuitive.
I’ve also learned Mandarin, or rather, I used to learn it. Now I’m learning Turkish in order to live in Turkey, but afterwards, I plan to hop right back in. Honestly, don’t be daunted by the number of hanzi you have to remember; just keep in mind that many non-Chinese learn thousands of hanzi just fine eventually. You will too.
Pinyin is not that intuitive. Stuff like Bo is more like Buo while stuff like Zhuo is correctly Zhuo and not Zho. Zho is actually Zhou. The ‘i’ sound has an extended consonant sound, unlike the ‘i’ that we’re familiar with in English which would sound like ‘ee’ or ‘ai’.
Also, Mandarin was my first language, grew up speaking it predominantly and I doubt I’m even close to knowing a thousand characters let alone be able to write them. In exchange for a stunted Mandarin, my English fundamentals are better than many of my peers. I’ve had colleagues who used to joke that I’m probably better than most USians and would ask me for help on words they were unfamiliar with.
Pinyin is very intuitive.
Well, be a good scientific socialist and demonstrate.
No
Then like the Xinjiang bullshit, i think it’s prudent that your assessment be dismissed.
No, because you didn’t’ prove anything either.
I’m also learning mandarin, and I have to agree. Being a native English/Korean speaker, it’s nice knowing how much easier it is grammatically and logically. 是， 了， 不， 都，etc. aren’t riddled with exceptions and conjugations. If I have to sit through another test of figuring out if a sentence is present perfect continuous tense I will lose my shit. Getting the tones right and internalizing pinyin is definitely its own set of challenges however.
You actually chose 2 rather bad examples in 了 and 都. Example: 了不起 vs 吃饱了 and 都是 vs 成都. 是and 不 are at least consistent.
I’m on numbers, days of the week, and like holy shit, math nerds could not have come up with a simpler system.
LOL I know what you mean. I stumble with the measure words here and there, like apparently saying "二个。。。“ is incorrect as it should be "两个。。。“ .
Ha, sorry to disappoint you, but 二个 is not incorrect exactly. Exception incoming. Example: 第二个 would be correct over 第两个.
Lol no worries, I’d rather someone point out stuff than not at all. Looking back on my textbook I found that subchapters use ”第一节“ and “第二节” format, so its main usage would be exclusively for listings and ordinal numbers?
Yes that is it’s main usage. There’s another exception though that breaks this rule. You place a 十 in front of 二 and you can link the character in the same way as 两.
Ha, I’d like to see the day when people here get better than me at the language. I’m perpetually stuck at like a middle school (to you USians) level. Now that I think about it, standards have probably risen across the board from when I was last in school, so I’d guess I’m barely past elementary level right now. I used to suck (still do) at writing essays since my fundamentals were dogshit. I could get away with the comprehension tests by utilizing contextual clues to piece together meanings.