A few things to keep in mind before you learn Chinese
Dr. Janice Yu, Chinese Learning 101, TutorChinese, June 11, 2009
To the westerners, Chinese is a language as different as words from the Mars. In
order to learn it, you have to be informed of the major differences between Chinese
and your mother tongue.
Unlike most occidental languages, Chinese is constituted by single-syllable characters.
And each character carries up to five different tones. So for each character you
pronounce, there is meaning to it.
One does not have to know how to write Chinese first in order to learn how to speak
the language. If you have good ear, you can just pick up the sound and the tone
directly and mimic the way Chinese is presented.
As learning any other language, vocabulary is a key factor towards commanding the
language. The more Chinese characters you have in your head, the better Chinese
you can speak.
You do not have to be afraid of making mistakes. Sometimes, you also slip in your
native tongue. Be sure to finish what you have in mind because little error can be
ignored when you try really hard to make yourself understood.
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Biography
Dr. Janice Yu, is a senior e-learning analyst of TutorChinese with focus
on online language education research. She is also a news editor of the
Government Information Office in Taiwan. Previously she wrote columns
on international politics and economy in the Central Daily News. In 1998,
Yu was a Jefferson Fellow at the East-West Center in Hawaii and she won
the 1999 Distinguished Women Journalist Award from Friends of the East-West
Center Foundation. Yu completed her PhD at the University of Iowa and served as a
news editor at the China Television Company. Yu has published around 30 books.