User talk:Huang Laoshi (Avinmt)

How to learn Mandarin Chinese?
Got to bring Chinese back to a common language.

In nearly 2,400 years (from 475 BC to 1912 AC) of Chinese feudal dynasty, classical Chinese was the tool to filtrate talents by setting up exams within Four Books and Five Classics. But a language should be the tool to carry education and spread culture for common people. The biggest barrier to spread Chinese culture was that the culture only belonged to elite class, who dominated knowledge, all books were written in classical Chinese, that only the elite class can read and write. Culture and be educated? Not for common people. The elite class needed to keep their advantages, so they needed to keep adding barriers in exams, to keep away the common people, while the kings were so happy to let all the smart people be fooled to take exams all year long, so there won't be smart people fighting against them.

So Chinese education system is focus on exams, it has the tradition to always make things harder and harder, and Chinese-the language, is the tool to carry this system. If you are going to learn Chinese, no matter classical Chinese, traditional Chinese or Mandarin, in most situations, you are probably involved in this system, taking exams and challenging the language difficulties, more or less. And for most of those struggle learners, would be scared away before starting. Where is the way out? Bring Chinese back to be just a common language, to speak, to listen, to read, to type. If you are smart enough, you would reach the academic level, then you could enjoy challenging those freaky difficulties.

Five points on how to learn Mandarin Chinese.

1. Simple. Put it the 1st principle, to fight against "too hard to learn". Make it easy, make it systematic, make it effective. 1) Base on English. Make it easy to start, easy to keep learning on. Speak 50/50 English and Mandarin to start, as time goes by, speak more and more Mandarin, less and less English.There are a lot of common Mandarin sharing with English, such as grammar and pronunciation, even the tones.  2) Abandon hand writing, learn typing. It's a digital world now, even Chinese people doesn't do hand-writing much. 3) Make good use of smartphone and online service. To learn Mandarin anytime, anywhere.

2. Focus on Mandarin character. Mandarin is a language all about character. The 3,000 most using characters, which take up the using frequency rate more than 99% of all. Think about it, if you could totally learn the 3,000 characters, you could cover 99% of Mandarin using frequency. That's the most special feature of Mandarin.

3. To train, not just to teach. To bring Mandarin back to just a language. Forget about academics and certification, forget about the school-way, because we all know it doesn't do a good job and should be improved. Chinese characteristic teaching ways, memorizing everything and taking exams, are not that satisfied even for Chinese people, not even mention for non-Chinese.

4. People to people. Because Mandarin is a language, so you should always count on people to people. Don't just rely on online APP, which could be an assistant, teaching low level and dead language, can't compare with people to people at all. Don't just learn it with a friend kind of, which could be a good assist, but a friend who is just a passive practice partner, does not have the patience and professional to lead you and train you.

5. Practice, practice and practice. Open your mouth to talk, go to Chinese websites to read, watch Chinese movies, listen to Chinese music, put yourself in the targeted language's environment and make positive communication. Do remember, there is nothing to lose if you make mistakes, it's normal for you to improve by making mistakes. During conversation with Chinese, because you are a language learner, native speakers should have obligation to make you be understood.

Why to learn Mandarin? Figure out why first, you'll get a solid motivation inside.

For Mandarin, must we learn? No, not at all. To some extent, China, Chinese stuffs, according to the western media, represents the bad sides, no religion, no democracy, no human right, no freedom.

Even though, let's see some figures of China.

1 Culture. Chinese culture is a consecutive culture lasting more than 5,000 years.

2 People. 1) 1.4 billions population. 2) More than 40 millions Chinese migrates all over the world. 3) 300 millions middle class, heading to more than 600 millions. 4) More than 150 millions Chinese travel abroad every year. 5) Had lifted more than 700 millions people out of poverty.

3 Business. 1) No.2 economy by GDP, heading to No.1. 2) No.2 domestic consumption market, heading to No.1. 3) No.1 in international cargo trading. 4) No.1 in economic developing contribution, >30%. 5) No.1 in e-commerce, No.1 in online payment system. I have to stress the online payment system (QR-code scanning) in China, it's a great thing. If you live in China, you'll find from big cities to small villages, from big business to unlicensed street seller, from grandpa to kid, from rich to poor... All just carries a smartphone to buy to sell, to pay to gain. In my opinion, it's the greatest invention and application in modern China, it changes totally the financial concept and the consumption habit of the billion Chinese people. 6) Will import total USD 8 trillions in the coming five years. 7) The growing 600 millions middle class is going to reshape the map of the world economy.

Why? Why the bad side has some unexpected good results? Figure it out by yourself, China is not that bad as western media told, China is not that good as Chinese official media told. Don't just fed passively by them, learn Chinese, figure that out yourself. China has culture, China has people, China has business. If we learn Chinese, we open a window, to a whole new culture, to the billion people, to the biggest business opportunities.

Why SIMPLE?

Learning Mandarin, HARD is the biggest point to start and go further. Too hard to learn, be scared away before getting start, be frustrated to fail keep learning on. So, for this exact biggest point, "SIMPLE" should be the No.1 training principle. Just likes "简" the Chinese meaning of "simple", first makes complicated issue simple, then makes simple issue systematized. First level of simple makes it easy, second level of simple makes it effective.

What is the point in learning Mandarin?

The point?? Character, exactly, it's Mandarin character.

Chinese Mandarin is a pictograph and ideograph, is all about character. Don't just focus on Pinyin, which is a tool to read new characters. But Pinyin is not real Mandarin, it won't be written on the common reading materials.

There are more than 90,000 characters totally, but luckily for common Chinese people 3,000 is enough, and more luckily the most using and most useful characters are just few hundreds. The QTY  The Using Frequency Rate 90,000  100%       7,000   99.8%      3,000    99%       1,000    90%        200    65%     No matter you use English to mark Mandarin, or just learn Pinyin as Mandarin, the most important attention you should always pay to Mandarin character. Probably you thought character would be difficult, but actually it's the best way to really learn Mandarin, and it's not hard at all. Not for academic purpose, if you totally learn 200 something Mandarin characters, you could cover 65% of the Mandarin using frequency, that's much better than those who just memorizes few sentences, those who just learn Pinyin.

In China, why you still could not learn Mandarin well?

Work, live, study in China, you have the biggest advantage, but why you could not learn Mandarin well? Why? I list 6 points. 1 - You don't have a Mandarin foundation, you have no way to join conversations with Chinese people, even sometimes you tried but others would feel impatient or annoyed, so you stay away from Chinese speaking people unconsciously. 2 - Chinese people around you, could speak English well, at least much better than your Mandarin. They want to practice their English much more than you do Mandarin. 3 - Chinese around you, all speaks Mandarin, but none of them a Mandarin trainer, does not have the professional and patience to practice with you. 4 - You rely on only Online App to learn Mandarin. It could just teach you low level and dead language, it could be an assistant, but far not can compare with people to people, especially in Mandarin learning. 5 - Even you go with the Mandarin school Mandarin teacher, most of them is using the wrong teaching methods, to teach the wrong materials. Those methods are based on Chinese Education System, which is to filtrate talents by setting exams. Those materials are based on textbooks used to teach Chinese kids, too stupid naive for adults, ineffective. All through these materials, there is high percentage of patriotism and nationalism, necessary for Chinese kids, but not for foreigner, it’ll make it much harder for you to keep learning on. 6 - You count on finding a boyfriend or girlfriend. It's a perfect way to practice oral Mandarin, you should pick a Mandarin teacher who has the professional and patience, but I bet you'll always pick the most good-looking ones. The big barrier is that there are so much fun stuffs to do, how possible could a intimated couple turned into a Mandarin learning partners? If a relationship is a Mandarin teaching-and-learning, especially in school-way, how boring could it be? How long could it last? One week? One month? It could be the best way to assist, but could not be the leading part.

That's why.

What is the difference of Simplified and Traditional Chinese?

They are both different versions of Chinese, spoken the same, written differently.

Chinese had been evolving all through thousands of years, general speaking, from Oracle Bone Character to Classical Chinese to Traditional Chinese to Simplified Chinese. So traditional Chinese is the old version Chinese, Simplified Chinese is the newest version Chinese.

General speaking, Simplified Chinese is equal to Mandarin, is the official language of China, is one of the official languages of United Nations. Cantonese is one of the spoken Chinese languages, which is spoken at areas around Pearl River Delta Zone, it shares the same written Chinese with Mandarin. Traditional Chinese is still used at Hongkong, Taiwan and Macao, which I think should be updated to Simplified Chinese sooner or later.

Because Simplified Chinese is from Traditional Chinese, so in this generation of Chinese people, they write, speak, read with Simplified Chinese, but they could also read with the old version. In many traditional areas of China, people still love to use Traditional Chinese, such as in New Year Couplet, in Company Logo, among those Chinese artists, academics and scholars.

The tones 声调

In English, we don't make tones as a separate language part, but actually we put tones on some words. In Chinese, we have four tones, and a neutral tone, I call them 1st tone, 2nd tone, 3rd tone, 4th tone and light tone.

I type them as below. tone    Pinyin   type 1st tone  ā      a1 2nd tone   á      a2 3rd tone   ǎ      a3 4th tone   à      a4 Light tone  a     a

Read them as below. 1st tone  a b c d 2nd tone  a? b? c? d? 3rd tone   apple baby candy doctor 4th tone  @ 1st tone is as most of English words, 2nd tone the first half when you ask a question, 3rd tone the last half of "apple" "baby" "candy" "doctor", 4th tone when you read "@" you are using it.

We can put the 4 tones on each every sounds not only in Chinese, but also in English. When we learn Mandarin characters, we should practice the tones every now and then, to build up your muscle memory and get used to it.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 120.84.11.78 (talk) 11:01, 13 October 2018 (UTC)