Imagine being able to speak a language that has been in existence for thousands of years and will allow you to converse with more than a billion people instantly. Imagine yourself as someone who can speak a language that takes a great departure from your own. Learning Chinese is a very rewarding experience because Chinese is not just one of the official languages of the United Nations, it is a language that bridges cultures from the Vietnam to Japan.
Did you know that the Japanese and Korean writing systems are based on the Chinese writing system of characters? Chinese is actually a family of languages that consists of several dialects, some of which are unintelligible to one another due to the phonetics and tones of Chinese. Nevertheless, today Chinese has achieved a form of standardization and most Chinese and foreigners use the Chinese dialect, Mandarin, to communicate effectively in all walks of life.
Aside from Mandarin, other dialects remain in popular use today such as Cantonese which can often be heard in the Chinatowns across the world. Mandarin though, will serve you best in learning Chinese due to its prevalence and adoption as the standard form of Chinese. Today, Mandarin is spoken by about 850 million in China while the Wu dialect is spoken by nearly 90 million followed closely by Cantonese (70 million).
Learning Chinese will prove challenging for those who are learning it as a second language. The challenge of speaking Chinese is that it takes quite a departure from the phonetics of Western languages. With Chinese the tone and inflection of syllables, vowels, and all manner of sounds can create whole new meanings for a word. Take your time learning Chinese. It is fun and always remember that challenges are windows of opportunity.
But first, know that there are three aspects of the Chinese language that you will need in order to be well on your way to mastering the language. They are:
1.Tones
2.Characters
3.Sentence Order
Tones - Focus your time and energy most on learning the tones of the Chinese language. Believe it or not the tones are the fundamental aspect of learning Chinese. Learning the tones can mean the difference between wanting to kiss someone or asking them a question. The Chinese family of languages is distinguished by its "tonal" element. Remember that tones are super important. Why? Did you know that Mandarin speaking Chinese people are nearly unintelligible to Cantonese speaking people due to the variance in tones?
Characters - There are thousands of character for the Chinese language. Find out which ones are in use today and focus on those. The older characters are best learned as stepping stones to a complete understanding of Chinese. Nevertheless, your time will be best spent o learning the characters that are in use today.
Sentence order - Chinese is a pretty flexible language. Yet, the order of sentence construction is still important. One of the noticeable mistakes that learners make is placing numeric values such as time in the wrong order in their sentences. Remember that Chinese is primarily spoken by native speakers so they are used to hearing a certain order within a sentence. Practice makes perfect.
Have fun learning Chinese. Know what you want to get out of the language. Why do you want to learn Chinese? Do you want to learn Chinese to converse with a friend, for business or to master one of the world's great languages?
Marcus Lloyd is well traveled traveler and currently learning Chinese in Shanghai. Want some more tips on learning Chinese. Check out 10 Ways to Learn Chinese or get started with a great course at LEARNCHINESETODAYSITE.INFO
0 comments:
Post a Comment