Reading stories

If the whole textbook is full of conversations, dialogs which are supposedly very useful but actually are not (people are not scripted when they are speaking), what can you do?

My suggestion is: start reading interesting stories.

Mandarin Songs

Last night I went to a Turkish restaurant for dinner. There had live music. I guess they could be from Philippines, Mexico, or some other tropical countries since they have this nice brown skin.

They sang a lot of English songs. Since it was a small restaurant and also I was sitting right in front of them, they asked me where I was from. After learned I am from China, they smiled and said "ni hao" to me. That was really nice of them. And then, they did something even nicer - they sang two Chinese songs.

One was Qi Qin's "da yue zai dong ji", the other one was Deng Lijun's "yueliang daibiao wo de xin". They did really well, and I was very happy sitting there and listening. Later on they told me it had been a long time since they sang Chinese songs, but they really loved it.

How far can good memory go?

Not very far. I have seen people with excellent memory. Quite often, once they see a new word, or hear a new word, they will remember it for as long as a day. That's all there is. If they don't review, or practice in one form or another, they will forget what they have learned.

It's a great advantage for people who have excellent memory, but also a great pit fall. This type of people tend to be over confident and neglect the fact that learning a language requires more than just memory. Learning a language is a journey with commitment.

Object vs Context

Richard Nisbett's The Geography of Thought is a very interesting read. Asians and Westerners are so different in so many ways, and they live in literally a very different world.

He discussed the language effects which I find really intriguing.
Western languages force a preoccupation with focal objects as opposed to context. English is a "subject-prominent" language. There must be a subject even in the sentence "It is raining." Japanese, Chinese, and Korean, in contrast, are "topic-prominent" languages.

I don't know Japanese or Korean, but I do know "It is raining" in Chinese is "xia yu le!"

It's indeed very different. It shows that to learn Chinese, at least for English speaking people, it's much better to learn through context than to memorize a dictionary. And be prepared, learning Chinese can change your world, literally!!

Learning a language is too expensive to waste

Learning a language can be very expensive. Not only the money you paid to school or your tutor, but also the time and energy you committed.

If you started with two weeks program, and four weeks later you forgot everything, all the effort your have made is wasted! It's better that you didn't start it at all. You can use the money, the time and the energy to do something more beneficial, like go hiking or read a book.

My advice is that if you are not sure, don't start. If you have committed, you should carry on for more than one year to not waste anything.

Workbook Basic Level B Available Online Now

Workbook Basic Level B now is available at online store front www.msllearningcenter.com/catalog.
It is good for people who have had 150 - 200 hours of Mandarin instructions, and in need of more good exercises, especially listening exercises.

Have fun!

Workbook Basic Level B

The production of Workbook Basic Level B is finished!
This one is loaded with listening exercises.

I always say that listening exercises are crucial and I can't stress more on how important it is to language development. This is good news for anybody who is on Basic Level B, loads and loads of listening exercises are right there! 74 listening exercises out of 120 exercises in total.

This book will hit our online store front soon!

Learn a New Language, Delay Dementia

This article is interesting, or at least to anyone who is learning a new language:

By knowing more than one language, researchers from Toronto say you can delay the onset of dementia symptoms.

The new study suggests that the mental agility required to speak two or more languages may actually stave off mental decline.

The Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care in Toronto looked at 184 Toronto-area people.

Researchers found that in people who only spoke one language, symptoms of dementia showed up on average at the age of 70 in men and 71 in women.

For those who knew two or more languages, the study found that dementia didn’t appear until age 76 in men and 75 for women.

The study will be published in the February issue of Neuropsychologia.

This article is from newsmax.com, you can read editor's note here:
http://www.newsmax.com/blaylock/2.cfm?s=sp&promo_code=2C19-1

So, happy learning!

Who had a great New Year?

If you ate, drank, watched a lot of TV, it's time to shake up now!

Did you put exercises into your daily schedule? Did you put your study plan into your daily schedule?

If you did, great! If you haven't, do it today!

As a long New Year celebration and gift, from Jan 1 to Feb 28, right after Chinese New Year, all Intro level audio lessons have 20% discount. Check them out here.

A very fair and reasonable comment

A Mandarin Student Chris in UK discussed about my Learning Mandarin Podcast in his blog.

I run into his blog and delightedly read through his fair and reasonable comment. It's really nice since he obviously sated very clear and accurate of the purpose of my setting up this podcast.

you can read it here.

The use of a dictionary

Have you ever thought about that if you remember all the words in a dictionary, you will speak fluent Mandarin?

Well, if you are like me 20 years ago when I was learning English, I guarantee that you will fail.

20 years ago, I thought the reason that I couldn't speak English was I didn't have enough vocabulary. So I bought a dictionary like book English Vocabulary 10000. This book guaranteed me that after remembered all the words there, I could speak great English.

It took me four to five months to get through the book from cover to cover. I learned a lot of interesting words that I don't remember now. But guess what, I still couldn't speak English. And I realized that by just expanding vocabulary doesn't work. I have to try something else.

Diet Chocolate Cake

Christmas is around corner. Holiday season usually means "eat a lot and get fat".

But there was a TV show I watched last week said something different. They invented diet chocolate cake, low calorie pudding, and low calorie cookies. If you want to eat a lot and still be healthy, there is a way now!

Also, treasure this: if you spend 20 minutes a day to review your Mandarin or to listen to an audio lesson track, you will feel even better!

This is this holiday season's keep fit suggestion: diet chocolate cake + 20 minutes Mandarin/day

The habit of accomplish your goals

You enjoy learning Mandarin more when you accomplish more.

But accomplish more doesn't mean that you suddenly speak fluent Mandarin next week or next month. Accomplish more means you set up many many smaller goals and then achieve those small goals. Every step is an achievement, each week is a time to celebrate. Thus you get yourself into a habit of accomplish your goals.

You should feel good about yourself on every small step you made. You should be proud of yourself on every small goal you achieved. The very next small step is all you need to concentrate on, and this small step is very achievable as well.

In doing this, there is only one ultimate result in front of you: success.

The inevitable bump

Learning Mandarin is just like everything else in life. There will be times that you feel terrible about yourself, or you are too distracted by other things.

The way to handle it is also the same way to handle other inevitable bumps: Stick to your road map. Summon your extra strength to put one foot in front of another. Hang in there.

When the dark time is over, you will be happy that you didn't give up. You carried on.

It's time to formulate a road map

If you have decided that in the end of 2007, you want to be able to carry on basic simple conversations in Chinese, you need to formulate a road map NOW.

The importance of the road map is to break down a major task into many many small tasks, into many many smaller goals. So that you can ONLY focus on the next goal.

From my experience, most people can carry on basic simple conversations after they finish Intro level. In Intro Level, there are two books, Intro level A and Intro Level B. Each book has 10 lessons and two reviews. From now till the end of 2007, you have 52 weeks. Here is a basic road map (the assumption is that you are doing self-study):

Week 1 : Listen to Intro A lesson 1 audio lesson every day
Week 2: Finish Intro A workbook lesson 1 (10 exercises in total, so 2 exercises per day).
Week 3: Listen to Intro A lesson 2 audio lesson every day
Week 4: Finish Intro A workbook lesson 2 (2 exercises per day)
Week 5: Listen to Intro A lesson 3 audio lesson every day
Week 6: Finish Intro A workbook lesson 3

...

Week 11: Review lesson 1 - 5 by listening to the audio lessons
Week 12: Finish Intro A workbook review 1-5 exercises

...

Week 23: Review Lesson 6-10 by listening to the audio lessons
Week 24: Finish Intro A workbook review 6-10

...

Week 47: Review Intro B lesson 16-20 by listening to the audio lessons
Week 48: Finish Intro B workbook review 16-20

Week 49 - 52: It's time to celebrate your success and plan for your next road map. Also time for a great Christmas!

The key issue is that you need to set your road map step by step to carry on from where you are now to where you want to be, and make sure you follow your map. Don't rush too fast, neither too slow. Always ONLY focus on your next step!

Shoot for the stars!

Before you set up any plan, it's important to know where you want to end up.
Do you want to:

1. Carry basic conversations
2. Express your self freely
3. Use natural speech when socializing with Chinese people
4. Discuss world issues and all kinds of topics

Where do you want to go? Can you create a picture in your mind? Can you describe your future successful in details?

If you don't know where you want to end up with, you won't go anywhere!

Set a goal! Shoot for the starts!

Make Year 2007 Your Most Successful Year

To make year 2007 your most successful year takes planning. You can plan anything now for the things you want to achieve next year. To narrow our focus, we only discuss learning Chinese here.

This is a borrowed quote:

The best time to learn Chinese is last year. The second best time is this year.

If you started in 2006 and carried on, it's time to appreciate how far you have gone. If you didn't start in 2006 and would like to learn, now is a good time to set a plan!

The Toilets in China

Very often I heard people telling me about their trips to China were very exciting, interesting in many ways except their experience of the public toilets.

I agree that public toilets in most of the places are not great.

If all the public toilets are improved over night, things will be perfect. As life has taught us many times that nothing is perfect, so take this as part of the package of your China trip and enjoy more with talking to people, eating great Gong Bao chicken.

This is for those who have made amazing results.

There are success stories happening everyday around me.

Henry started his Mandarin lesson in Nov 2005. In a year time, despite all the trips, travels and work load, Henry made very impressive results by finishing Pre-intermediate B.

Tim and Wantanee started their lesson during mid 2004. During this one year and half, they had some very long breaks. They are really amazing people. They made the commitment, and they carried on.

Nathan started his lesson during the summer last year. He consistently studies and the result is amazing.

Doron started his lesson early this year. He completes all the exercises and will do more. This is what gives Doron an edge.

And there are always more.

One common trait of them is consistent and self-discipline.

I feel lucky that I can witness their success, or in some cases, be part of it.

Priceless Moment

This is a story of a student. AT the time he was half way through Intro Level A, he went to Shanghai to do business. He was talking to his Chinese supplier on the phone and trying to set up an appointment at 6pm. But English didn't carry him very far. He found his supplier didn't understand "six o'clock pm". Then he tried "xia wu liu dian". And it worked! He was very excited!

Things like that are priceless for a language learner. It justified every effort you made.

What is the priceless moment you had?

What if you never had a chance to use Chinese

What if you never had a chance, and probably never will have a chance to use Chinese you have learned or are learning, would you want to commit yourself into this learning journey?

How many of you out there are putting 30 mins everyday for learning Mandarin and know you would probably never use it?

This reminds me that there are many people learning English in China. Some of them probably won't have any chance to use it, but they are happy to take a new adventure in an English speaking world. Why do they do this? What is the incentive?

My answer is that it's a self-satisfaction experience there. It happens when you are listening to radios, watching movies, reading books or newspapers. It's something out there that not so easy to master but ultimately satisfying to us humans.

Tips On How To Use Workbooks

To use workbooks effectively will save you lots of trouble and sweat in the future.

Before you start doing all the exercises in your workbook, make sure you have learned the corresponding lessons in your students book, then you can:

1. Do all the written exercises first. In this way, you will see all the target words again and again, and this visual impact is important for further task.

2. Do 2-3 listening exercises. Make sure you understand 98%. If you have questions, go back to your book or ask your teacher, do a short revision

3. Finish the remaining listening exercises.

4. Review and further exercises.

MSL Featured Photo

Take a look at recently updated pictures here!

http://www.msllearningcenter.com/our_students.htm

Also, if you have a great photo and would like to share with us, send it to me.
After all, it's sharing makes a good photo great!

Learning Mandarin is a Commitment

Provide the right materials, the right environment, the right method, learning Mandarin can be fast, but not that fast like you can master this language in one month.

Using the same materials in different ways is a very good way to speed up the process. That is why I made students book, CDs, workbook, audio lessons. But still you need a year to finish Intro Level and Basic Level to develop into a relatively good proficiency.

My definition of advanced learners is near native. They can THINK in Mandarin. Anywhere less than that is not advanced. There is middle point between beginning to near native. At this point, you can communicate in any topics and can understand most of what other native speakers said. You can understand 50-60% of movies without subtitles, or 90% with subtitles, and maybe 30% of news. This point is Intermediate.

If you study consistently using Mandarin Express series, from beginning to intermediate it will take about 1.5 to 2 years. From there to advanced level may take another five to ten years. And after that, you are still learning as the language is a living thing.

So, learning Mandarin is a life long commitment.

10 New Pre-Intermediate B Online Lessons Released!

These set of new audio lessons are based on Mandarin Express Pre-Intermediate Level B.
The ten lessons are about:

11. Past event, present and future
12. Abilities, skills, careers
13. Personality traits and job preference
14. Aspects of countries, world knowledge
15. Describing recent experiences
16. Describing movies, actors/actresses, and movie directors. Oscar Awards.
17. Gestures and culture shock
18. Sleep and dreams
19. Predicament and dilemmas
20. Excuses and white lies

Check the lessons out at our online store.

Learning Mandarin is not confined to the classroom

It's on the street;
It's in restaurant;
It's in taxies;
It's talking to people;
It's reaching;
It's communicating.

The Tones Are Important, But Not Essencial

You should not worry too much if you can't get tones perfect. Context is way more important than tones.

For example, below is a text written in pinyin with no tone markers. You still can understand everything, can't you?

ni men hao. wo jiao dawei, wo shi mei guo ren. wo zhu zai shanghai, wo de nv peng you hen piao liang.

The Terracotta Warriors

The Terracotta Warriors in Xi'an have been there since 250 BC. It's a must see if you ever plan a trip around China.

More over, in Xi'an, there is exellent hand made noodles, dumplings, and other great fabulous food!

A Chinese Idiom for Today

It takes more than one cold day for the river to freeze.

冰冻三尺, 非一日之寒
bing dong san chi, fei yi ri zhi han

Why there is NO English translation in podcast transcripts?

In fact, not only podcast transcript has no translation, but also no translation in speaking and listening Mandarin Express series and Chinese Reading and Writing books. Not even in the vocabulary list.

The reason is simple: To force you remember. And when you do that, it's more likely that you will remember.

This is from my personal experience. Whenever there is Chinese text and English text both available, I find myself only read Chinese part. If there is a new English word listed there with Chinese translation, I would remember the Chinese part better. Later on I remember I learned a new word and the meaning is such and such. But I can not remember what that word is.

If I learned a new word through guessing, or through English text, that word is staying with me.

To draw a conclusion, for all the Mandarin Chinese learner there, try to use something with no translation in your first language.

april

It's the motivation that gets you start...

It's the habit that keeps you going on.

This is what I see every time I go to my gym. I can see this motto printed on T shirts, or on the board. I totally agree with it, and can even use the same anology in learning Mandarin.

To form a good habit of learning certainly helps greatly.

If you go to gym two or three times a week, use that time listen to some Mandarin. In this way, you get double benefits!

(When I go to gym, I listen to English business news. I used to think business news is too fast for me. Now I am a lot better now.)

april

si And shi

To be able to speak "si" and "shi" clearly is certainly great. But if you can't, there's no need to sweat too much about it.

Many Chinese people can't. People from the south, including Shanghai, Taiwan, and Guangdong, they can't different "si" and "shi" very clearly in their speech. But that doesn't stop people are communicating with one another in Putonghua. In fact, I enjoy speaking to Taiwan people, and I quite like their soft accent.

Therefore, context is far more important than constant drills of "zi, ci, si, zhi, chi, shi".

april

Proficient and Fluent

There are some differences between these two terms.

Any body can get fluent when they are answering the questions like, “what is your name?” or “how are you?”

But that doesn’t count when we refer to proficiency. A good degree in proficiency should lift you up from day to day functional conversation, for example, setting up an appointment, or bargaining in a market. Intro Level students can do that very well already. They are fluent in certain areas. However, they are not proficient.

Once you get to a certain proficiency level, you can discuss your life changes, the biggest achievement you had in your career, etc. People who finished Basic Level usually feel they have turned a corner. That corner is a transaction point to shift you from fluent to proficient.

april

Guess work

Guess work is VERY important, only when you are NOT talking to your teacher! A good guess work keeps conversation flow and the satisfaction you feel is priceless.

But when you are talking to your teacher in a class, it's better to understand every word there is. That is the education part in the word "educated guess". Random guss is not as good as educated one. Only after you chewed, analyzed, and digested all the words, sentences with your teacherduring a meaningful conversation, you can produce really good guess work when you are outside of a classroom.

april

3.5 hours a week

How much time do you need to spend in practicing Mandarin at home, or in a taxi, or anywhere else other than in a classroom with your teacher?

I recommend 3.5 hours a week. The best version is 0.5 hours each day for 7 days. The worst version is 3.5 hours in one day and nothing for the rest of the week.

april

Input, Output and Audio Lessons

How to learn Mandarin Chinese effectively is about how to balance input and output. If you are paying a private tutor, it's also about how to make the most of it when you are with your tutor.

The basic input is sounds, words, patterns, meanings, sentences, or conversations, stories, etc. The basic output is your ability to carry on the conversations. How long you can carry on a meaningful conversation should determine your level.

Let's say the input part. It's a necessary stage. Without input, you will never speak the language, unless one day we are all like those people in Matrix, just load it up! Traditionally, lots of class time is spent on the basic input. Pronunciation, meaning, and repeat after teacher to try to get things right. Necessary guidance from teachers is essential, but sometimes things got stuck in one place and wasted too much time. This is where audio lessons fit the best. They can solve most of the problems in getting the pronunciation, pattern and meaning right. And they can also prepare you to speak to other people by first speaking to yourself. This alone will lift tremendous stress from students. If you have questions, ask your teacher. It's time saving.

The second part is output. Output requires practice. The first safe ground is to practice with your teacher. Teacher is patient, teacher knows how much you learned and therefore limits her/his language, teacher encourages you to speak even when you are not sure, teacher designs special activities to focus on your weak spots. Outside of classroom, things will get bumpy. Natural speech speed is the most difficult part to adapt, although many people believe that it is their vocabulary isn't enough. Most of the time, vocabulary is enough, it's the lightening speed that kills you. The excellent thing is that you have your teacher. The more meaningful practice you had with your teacher, the better you are in the real world.

If you do the basic input at home or at the airport, you will have a lot more time to practice with your teacher, also smile all the way in a class!

April

How to use podcast transcript

You spend a $ and get a podcast transcript. You can:

1. read aloud
2. look up the dictionary for the new words
3. write pinyin on top of the characters
4. listen to that podcast again and check your understanding
5. translate into your own language and translate back to Chinese
6. discuss the topics with your Chinese speaking friends

Workbook Basic Level A available on line!

Workbook Basic Level A is up online!
It is best used with Students Book Baisc Level A.

This Workbook has total 120 exercises, including 61 listening exercises in different forms and focuses. Here's some recommended steps on how to use all these materials:

Step 1: listen to Basic Level A audio lessons
Step 2: complete Basic Level A workbook
Step 3: practice speaking with people

Check everything out in www.msllearningcenter.com

A Great Breakthrough In Technology

We recently solved a very critical technology problem in online learning. That reduced our cost in providing you the same quality online lessons with less money! Technology is a very important part of our future. It makes learning more efficient, and also save the planet.

For example, if everybody downloads e books, it will save massive trees being chopped down just to print hundreds of books sitting in a warehouse.

Here's some changes on the cost we made:

Online Lessons Subscriptin (per month): before HKD1950, now HKD1050
Class/Net Fast Mandarin group lesson (10 weeks): before HKD6000, now HKD5000
Private lessons + Online Lessons (per month): before HKD4000, now HKD3500

Techonology saves money. To find out more on different classes or lessons, click www.msllearningcenter.com

Three Donts in Learning Speaking Mandarin

The first one: DO NOT learn a lot of vocabulary. Too many vocab alone won't improve your speaking ability. On the contratry, they will defeat your confidence, and make you vernurable in learning.

The second one: DO NOT learn new lesson everyday if you have a hard time trying to keep up with what you learned on previous days.

The third one: DO NOT only speak Mandarin, also write it. Write something, essays, journals, etc. in Mandarin helps, even when you are the only reader.

A New Look of Our Website

www.msllearningcenter.com has a new look now! It's tidier, cleaner, and prettier. The more important is that it is easier to read and browse. Check it out!

For you who had sent emails, thank you!

The Nineth Day in The Nineth Month

Next Monday, in lunar calendar is the 9th day in the 9th month, jiu yue jiu hao. It's a special day. Chinese people regard these two 9 line together as a significant time. It is "chong yang jie" (重阳节). It's good time to go hiking, also take care of elderly people.

Podcast is added to iTunes

Now you can find Learning Mandarin Podcast at iTunes:


http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=202027833

Class/Net Fast Mandarin

After the success of the first four students who tried our private lessons + online lessons, I decided to make it more affordable.

In general, online lessons can save a student 25%-50% of time in achieving the same goal as the students who only rely on teacher's teaching in a class. It's really efficient. The next best thing will be you take a pill and start talking Mandarin.

The most important part is that online lessons shift the focus of learning from the school to home, and from driven by teachers to driven by students. This shift will lead to more productive time when learning either on their own or practicing with teachers. And therefore it leads to great satisfaction for both sides.

It's a marvelous experience, for both students and teachers!

Mid- Autumn Festival - zhong qiu jie

Tomorrow, Oct 6, is in lunar calenda the eighth month the fifteenth day. That is zhong qiu jie (Mid-Autumn Festival).

Tomorrow, it will be full moon and it's time to eat moon cakes, fruits with family and appreciate the beautiful moon. There are different custom and festivities going on in different part of China. Some places like to have lanterns, some places like to have fire works, etc.

Have you had moon cakes ready for tomorrow?

Pre-intermediate A audio lessons

There are more audio lessons available online!
Total 10 new Pre-intermediate lessons were just added up online.

Confucius philosoph

Confucius taught his students: 温故而知新. (wen gu er zhi xin). That means you know new things through reviewing old.

It's the same with learning Mandarin. Don't always forge ahead. Take some time to review the old stuff. You will not only find that you are learning new things, but also find things a lot easier and friendlier.

天气

今天天气有点不好，下很大雨。风也很大。
路上有很多车。人也很多。明天可能还下雨。

40% Chinese can not speak Putonghua

This is interesting:

While increasing numbers of foreign students grapple with the challenges of learning Chinese putonghua, or Mandarin, a senior official has said at least 40 per cent of China's own population is unable to communicate in the country's official language.

A national survey released in 2004 found that only 53 per cent of the country's 1.3 billion people could speak putonghua.

That leaves how many people who can? To read more, click here.

Beijing Opera

Beijing opera (Jing Ju) is a purely Chinese opera form which dates back to the year 1790. Jing Ju absorbed the tunes of Kun Qu, Qin Qiang, Bang Zi and other local operas.
	For the roles, different colors of the faces represent different characters and personality. Yellow and white represent cunning, red stands for uprightness and loyalty, black means valor and wisdom, blue and green indicate the vigorous and enterprising character of rebellious heroes and gold and silver represent mystic or super-natural power.
	In general, there are four different roles. positive male role, positive female role, supporting male role and clown. Jing Ju fans call themselves "piao you". Everybody loves Jing Ju, rich people and poor people. In Chen Kai Ge's movie "Ba Wang Bie Ji"(Farewell My Concubine), you can see how hot Jing Ju is among fans. In China, especially in Beijing, sometimes you come across with people singing in a street corner.

The Fifth Week

We entered the fifth week of Mag's Mandarin lessons. She had one two hours lesson per week and study on her own the rest of the time through online lessons. She travels quite some time and has heavy work load.

It works out really well. We have done eight weeks work in five weeks, and judging from her pronunciation, her vacabulary pool, and the ability to use what she has learned, the over all result is really good.

A new member of Mandarin Express Family

Basic Level A Work Book finally rolled out.

From the first scratch to the finial production, it took about nine months. Grace did the most writing and I added some and did the editing. E book version will be available probably next month.

So now I feel pretty good.

'A' Stands for Arabic

I have come across this interesting article in Newsweek. Americans have been urged to take up the language. For many, it's a lucrative choice. (of course, the article is talking about Arabic)

You can read the whole article here.


There are other talks about an increasing number of high paying jobs in China or in Chinese companies. It might be another lucrative choice.

wo shi xin huiyuan

jintian wo ganggang canjia le zhe ge boke, hen gaoxing.
shangge zhoumo wo ganggang cong Nanjing hui Xianggang, Nanjing shi wo de laojia, wo yijing chabuduo sannian meiyou huiqu le, zhe ci huiqu, wo faxian le yi ge xin de wanyir. wo de pengyou dai wo qu le yi ge difang, jiao QingQiuYu, women zhi fu le 40 kuai RenMinBi.
Jinqu yihou, keyi xizao, chi zizhucan, shangwang, kan dianshi huozhe dianying, da pingpang qiu, baoling qiu, jianshen, da MaJiang dengdeng. Wo de pengyou shuo , 40 kuai qian keyi dai zai limian 12 ge xiaoshi, birushuo, zaoshang 9 dian jinqu, keyi zai wanshang 9 dian huozhe yiqian chulai jiu keyi le, ruguo wanshang 6 dian jinqu, name di'ertian zaoshang 6 dian huozhe yiqian chulai jiu keyi le. suoyi you yitian, wo he wo de jiaren ye qu le, women zaoshang 8 dian jinqu xile zao, ranhou yi qi qu chi zaofan, ranhou yiqi qu da majiang,ranhou.... yizhi dao wanshang 8 dian women cai huijia, nage shihou, women yijing chi le wanfan, xile zao, huijia jiu keyi shuijiao huozhe zuo shenme bie de le. zhen shi ting you yisi!
ni zhidao shenzhen huozhe xianggang you zheyang de difang ma?

A good start

Mag is a busy person. Recently she started her Mandarin lessons with the new option: private lessons + online lessons. She is the first to do this. Let's see some facts:

We have had two lessons, total 4 hours. And she spent time listening to the audio lessons at home or on the ferry and learn the meaning of the words and pronunciation. So when we were in our lesson, the focus is on maximum practice. So, in these 4 hours, she has accomplished at least 6 hours of usual class time.

I shall say it's a good start!


www.msllearningcenter.com

Learning through songs

Learning songs are a great way in learning a new language.

I remember when I was learning English, I learned lots of Carpenters songs. I really like Yesterday Once More. For people who know me, they all know I can't sing. But that doesn't stop me learning quite a few English songs for self entertaining and for a better pronunciation. I tried some rock stuff, but that really doesn't work for me at all.

Now in my lessons, sometimes I used Deng Li Jun's songs. Her slow while clear and beautiful singing is really perfect for learning Mandarin. That's probably why her Yueliang Daibiao Wo de Xin is super popular among Mandarin learners.

Although Deng Li Jun is long gone, her beautiful voice remains.

What to learn first?

There are lots of (a lot more than before) kids are taking Mandarin at school. Lucky them! They won't have as much difficulty as grown ups do. For adult learners, a great deal effort need to be made, especially when they don't have as much time and energy as children do.

Some people are willing to quit their jobs and take full time program, while some people take lessons after work. No matter which way you go, it's good to have some basic guidelines when you first start, and some dos and donts.

Here's the donts:
1. At the beginning, don't learn too many new structures (or grammar rules).
Learn too many new rules only make you choke and too self-concious. Know some general rules, and maximumly use them can boost confident. People tend to understand confident speakers more.

2. At the beginning, don't jump start to listen to news.
You really don't get much out of listening to news at the beginning. It's really waste of time. The experiment goes that even baby couldn't learn anything from watching TV. Listen to something approperiate. You can ditch anything contains more than 10% new vacab or new structure.

Here's the dos:
1. Learn relevant stuff.
It makes more sense if you learn "zhe tai diannao bi na tai diannao gui." (This computer is more expensive than that computer.) than "zhe gen qianbi bi na gen qianbi jian." (This pencil is sharper than that pencil.)

2. Be resourceful.
It works better if you can maximumly use what you have learned than constantly adding new vocabulary to your flash card. For example, you want to ask "how did you meet Susan?". But you don't know how to say "how". Instead, you have learned "when" and "where". So you can voice you question this way: ni zai nar renshi le Susan? ni shen me shihou renshi le Susan? (where did you meet Susan? When did you meet Susan?) You can quickly develop fluency only by being resourceful.

Practice with Children

If you are around with some children aged between 5 to 10 years old and their native language is Mandarin Chinese, you should practice your Manarin with them.

They are really good pals, and will never laugh at you if you make a mistake. They will be all heartedly trying to communicate with you! Real communications, and it's fun and you get to know more about Chinese people.

Once I was at a beach in Hainan , (there are many beautiful beaches there, by the way.) and saw a family of three, dad, mum and their about 7 or 8 years old daughter, sitting there. There was a white man walking on the beach, and was passing them. And this little girl saw him and she handed a sea shell to him and ask:" ni cong nali lai a?" This white man took the shell, but didn't answer the little girl for a very obvious reason: he didn't understand her at all! So this sweet little girl kept asking the same question several times until the white man murmured something back. Eventually they had a nice little conversation using two languages. The little girl's parents sitting there, also joined the conversation. But it didn't last long, and the white man's friend came and got him away.

Next time, be prepared. If there is a sweet little Chinese girl handing you a sea shell, talk to her and practice your Mandarin!

They are not only demo lessons; they are real stuff.

After several weeks of harding working, I am pleased to complete the last test for Chinese Reading and Writing 2. That means, there are over 60 lessons available for Chinese Reading and Writing 1 and 2.

That, for a complete new beginner in Chinese reading and writing field, means three to six months study.

Now time will tell if this can be truely helpful for people who take interests in Chinese characters and show them some very interesting and exciting part of being able to read and write. The real exciting part is the first two books only deal with 120 characters, however, these amazing 120 characters are extremely powerful to form passages.

It has been fun doing it. I hope people will have fun learning it!

New Feature! - online demo lessons

I am putting lessons together with a really cool software, and the result is some cool online lessons. Now you can watch two short demo lessons on how to set up Chinese input method in Windows XP operating system, and how to use pinyin to input Chinese characters.

These two demo lessons are available at Freebie Center.

The technology is indeed advancing fast!

Seminar: Learning Chinese Characters Using eStoke.

Learning Chinese Reading and Writing is fanscinating. It's also challenging.

The first task is to get familiar with Chinese characters system and stroke orders. Then to proceed to words, sentences and paragraph will be quite easy.

With the new software eStroke, learning Chinese characters has never been easier! This software is designed for non-Chinese people. The features include:

• Animated characters stroke order.

• Support copy and past; drag and drop; and other Chinese input system.

• Show Pinyin and English meaning of each character.

• Produce speech.

• Displaying radical stroke.

• Pronouncing strokes name.

• Support both simplified characters and traditional characters.

• Control animation speed.

• Thousands of registered users.

• Free upgrade.

• Free technical support.

We invite you to come to our seminar to see the demonstration of how to use this software!

Schedle: June 16, 2005 (Friday)
Time: 6:30pm - 7:30pm
Admission: HKD50 per person

Please register by or before June 13 at MSL Learning Center.

Summer Great Fun - Party On The Boat

It’s time to dip into the water, avoid city stress, relax yourself, and refresh yourself! Bring someone!!

Our next activity is a boat trip:

Date: June 4, 2006 (Sunday)

Time: 10 am – 5pm

Sign up Fee: HKD 300 / person

Including:

Boat trip! Water skiing!! Speed boat!!! Banana boat!!!

Buffet Lunch and more!

Come on, seat limited, register in a hurry!!!

Register before May 30 (Tuesday) at MSL Learning Center.

* We must have at least five participants.

The Freebies

A new page was recently published to the site www.msllearningcenter.com . This page contains some free stuff that you hardly come across in your mandarin lessons. Not that you will use it often, but sometimes it's good to know! It's free! So feel free to download!

Here's the link freebies.

Easter Weekend

A fantasic view from Kowloon.
This is about everywhere in Hong Kong, isn't it?





Lantau's misty mountain. The weather during Easter is actually quite cold and wet.



Lantau's crowded, busy and fun camp site.

Trip to Yunnan

I recently spent a week in Yunnan. The first place I visited was Kunming, which is known as the "Spring City" because of its year-round warm weather. Kunming is a modern city, with a friendly and relaxed feel to it.

My hotel in Kunming was next to a lake (the Green Lake) where the locals like to hang out on the weekends. Around the edge of the lake were cafes and bars, and various hawkers selling food and other things. It is a great place to wander around.

From Kunming, I took the train to Dali. The train trip usually takes about 7 hours. Dali is an old town surrounded by city walls. Inside, many of the traditional buildings have been converted to shops, guest houses and cafes. At night, the town is lit up with lights, giving it a festive atmosphere. The major ethnic group of the Dali region are the Baizu people, who have their own language, traditional dress and dance. They are very friendly people.

From Dali, I headed off to Lijiang (about 3 hours away by bus). Like Dali, Lijiang retains its traditional buildings. The old town is, however, much bigger than Dali and is a maze of winding streets and canals. It is very pretty.

The major ethnic group of the Lijiang area are the Naxi people. Like the Baizu people, the Naxi have their own traditional language, dress and dance, and are very friendly. In the main town square, the old people gather each day and perform dances for the tourists. At night, the town lights up with red lanterns and many of the restaurants and bars have performers singing Naxi songs and dancing Naxi dances.

There are a variety of short trips that can be done from Lijiang. These include visits to Baisha and Shuhe (both old Naxi villages), Yulong Xueshan (a nearby mountain) and Tiger Leaping Gorge. From Lijiang, it is a short 40 minute flight back to Kunming.

If you are ever contemplating a trip to Yunnan province, I would seriously recommend you go!

Learning for living

Aygul Keyoumu has come a long way to earn her doctorate in Moscow.
Aygul is originally from Ürümqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Province in China. Located in the middle of the Eurasian continent, Ürümqi is the most inland city in the world, located 1,400 miles from the nearest coastline.

Read more on The University of Idaho Argonaut.

A Great Night

Winning team's drawing when we were playing pictionary. Did you know what these things are?











Only these two people didn't like the movie much.







Mar 25th was such a fun night.

The only problem was that it was kind of difficult to find Gloria's bar at the first time, at least for me and Tim. But once you know where it is, it's just right there.

We watched the movie Yi Yi. It was a nice movie. You can listen to how people liked it through our podcast. We had a drink, and later on played a board game Pictionary. It was hilarious. What you see here was the drawing from the winning team, Paul, Tim and me.

It was such a great time! The plan for the future is that we will have a Mandarin night every Monday. Gloria will be your host and she is very happy to speak Mandarin with you!

Please pass around the words. Let's help each other and creat more opportunities to practice your Mandarin outside of classroom, and also meet some interesting people.

Basic Level B Audio Lessons Now Available!

Check out our online catalog for the newly released Basic Level B Audio Lessons!

Basic Level A audio lessons now available

There are ten audio lessons in total covering the entire Basic Level A.

If you are interested, check it out at our online catalog.

A Movie Night

A couple of days ago, I was planning our next gathering but didn't know what to do was the best. And soon the answer appeared right in front of my eyes. I met Gloria. She is the owner of a pub Ren (yes, that means person.) So naturally our next gathering will be a movie night!

Here's the details:

Date: Saturday, 25^th March, 2006

Time: 5 – 8 pm

Venue: REN

Address: Unit C, 6/F, 8-12 Wo On Lane, Central (On the street of Ben & Jerry in LKF, next to OYSTERS. Alternatively, you can come out from the back entrance of Pacific Coffee on Wellington Street) Call 6055 0638 if you need direction . A map is attached here .

About the movie: It is a Chinese movie (of course), and has lots of good things said about it. The name is Yi Yi (one one). You can read some more about his movie here.

See you there and enjoy the movie!

wu wei - Taoist concept

In an article in Fortune, Making Your Work Working For you, by Jerry Useem, he gave a very clear and easy to understand defination of wu-wei. I really liked his explanation, and wonder if he can speak, read and write Chinese, and if he read Laozi's Dao De Jing.

Here's the quote:

Wu-wei, which translates literally as 'non doing'. A better translation would be more like 'effortless effort'; wu-wei describes a state in which the world seems to be working for us. We feel calm yet alert, focused yet receptive, drawing force from the storm while standing in its eye. Like the marathoner whol feels pulled forward, we accomplish the most with the minimum of energy. In this state hard work does not feel like hard labor. Nor does it feel like play. It feels a lot like the Aristotelian concept of hapiness: the full exercises of the thing we are meant to be doing.

Have you achieved wu-wei in learning Mandarin? In Chinese character wu wei is 无为.

Transcript of podcast

This is a new experiment.

For podcast 11 - About Oscar Winner Li An, the transcript in pinyin and simplified characters is available on the online catalog at the cost of US$1. If you find it interesting and also helpful to read the transcript after you listen to the podcast, let me know.

And if you got any suggestions, do let me know. So I can do future improvement.

Learning Language Enhances (Or Motivates) Trip Abroad

Below is an article from Los Angeles Times. After reading it, you will agree with me that MSL Learning Center students did a far better job in learning Mandarin, quicker and therefore better. If you take lessoons twice a week, and 2 hours each lesson, 30 weeks is what you need to achieve a modest level of proficiency.

"Prior knowledge does seem to help activate the brain," said Renee Jourdenais, an assistant professor in the Graduate School of Language & Educational Linguistics at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.

Of course, some languages are more difficult than others for native English-speakers to learn, because their writing and sounds differ so widely, Jourdenais said.

At the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center in Monterey, Calif., which is dedicated to getting U.S. diplomatic personnel up to speed before a foreign posting, basic French and Spanish courses designed to give students a modest level of proficiency last 25 weeks. Czech and Russian programs run for 47 weeks; beginner Mandarin Chinese and Arabic courses take 63 weeks.

Read the whole articel here.

Saying 'nihao' to Mandarin

China's emergence as a world economic power has prompted the teaching of Mandarin in American schools; the Virginia-based American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages estimates between 30,000 and 50,000 American students are studying Mandarin.

Many of those students reside not just in cities with significant Chinese populations, but in the suburbs. Sharon, Milton, Hingham, and -- perhaps more predictably -- Quincy all offer Mandarin instruction, and Norwell may yet join them. But whether the programs continue is less certain than their success to date.

Read more in The Boston Globe.

An eye opening experience

Last Saturday, I went to attend the Chinese calligraphy and brush painting presentation given by Li Slough. It was really an amazing experience!

Here's the artist.


She has been learning and practicing this art for almost five years. she shared with us her understaning and experience of this art and showed us her work.

She uses Chinese idioms and traditional Chinese blessings on her painting. The background paintings are all her work. Also, we had the opportunity to do a bit of bamboo leaves and brush strokes!


Li was doing demonstration.





Try!



Li Slough can be reached at 2547-7100. She loves to share her art with people and would like to meet more people who have the similar interests.

Call for pupils to learn Mandarin

Pupils should be taught other languages such as Mandarin in school, a report for the British Council says.

he current dominance of the English language poses "serious" economic and political disadvantages for the UK, the study claims.

UK graduates who speak only English will lose out to multi-lingual workers from other countries, the council says.

Read the full story here: BBC NEWS

Online Intro audio lessons available

All the idea started with a simple fact that intro students sometimes just didn't get enough practice, especially listening and speaking.

So the whole purpuse of creating audio lessons is based on that. To learn Mandarin anytime and anywhere!

Now you can take a look at our online learning page, and get a general idea of how it works. Also I have made purchasing Mandarin Express ebooks version possible. I hope this will help any many people as possible, because learning Mandarin should be fun!

Chinese Brush Painting

Would you like to know a bit about Chinese Brush Painting or Chinese Calligraphy?

Li Slough has been studying both art forms for 5 years and invite you to come to her home and experience them in a new way. She will give a short talk on them and give a demonstration.

The schedule is set at 4 p.m. on February 18th.
If you would like to attend, please write to mslinfo@netvigator.com for the details!

Year of the Dog "good for marriage"

Couples across China are rushing to get married shortly after the Year of the Dog starts on Jan. 29 --a year considered by the elderly to be auspicious for weddings.

Read more from Xinhua.

In FTChinese.com

If you read Chinese, you can read this from Fianacial Times Chinese website:

全球兴起中文热

Type Pinyin

Here I found somebody did a great job in typing Pinyin. Check it out here: http://toshuo.com/?page_id=50

How is language naturally acquired?

A quote from Derek Bickerton, PhD

Languages are naturally acquired by people listening to language. The human brain is built to analyze it. You know, there are a lot of places in the world-not in America-but in supposedly "backwards" places like West Africa, New Guinea, where it is commonplace to find people who speak half a dozen languages. How do they do that? There are no language schools. So, they do it because it's part of their lives. They go down to the market, they find people talking in 4 or 5 languages and if they're going to do any trade-or buy anything-they have to know just enough of the other language to get by. So, this is how languages are learned, whether by adults or by children-by listening and interacting with real people in real-life situations.

Cantonese Is Losing Its Voice

Speakers of the spicy tongue that can make words of love sound like a fight are having to learn its linguistic kin, the mellower Mandarin.

Read more here: LA Times

On line bookstore is ready

Mandarin Express Basic Level B was recently completed and printed!! What a relief! Now the first two levels are nicely put together.

I also discovered Paypal system. That is the reason that the online Mandarin bookstore is ready. So far I have listed Intro Level A and B, Basic Level A and B, and a workbook.

If you want to take a look, click here: http://www.msllearningcenter.com/online_bookstore.htm

New Year's Resolutions

New year - new you!

"New Year's Resolutions" is definitely a western term for me. What do you want to change or improve upon the New Year? Change jobs, better dieting, or learn Mandarin?

In China, traditionally New Year alone isn't the most critical point to make changes. The season spring is. Here I try to compare the differences.

Point one: Time span is different when it comes to making decisions.
Western: New Year's Resolutions
Chinese: A year's plan is made in spring.

Point two: When it's the end of it.
Western: And every year, many people discover that January's best-laid plans are easily broken by March. "People have really great intentions, and then ... resolutions start to become less important," says Lavalife.com's Ms. Miller.
Chinese: Since spring is the season to make plans, if by Summer you haven't got anywhere, you know your year plan isn't working any more.

But maybe this time is different. You made plan and you carry on and you achieve it. So by the next New Year, you will be very satisfied with yourself.

I can't say other things like better dieting, exercises (I am still gaining weight after four years work out.), but if you want to set a plan on learning Mandarin, here's a achievable plan:

If the only thing you can say is hello and thank you now, by next New Year you can easily have a nice little talk with Chinese people by finishing Intro Level A and B. No need to do more than that.

A three and half hours hiking!

A break through thousands of staircases .

A nice view.
Smile the roses.

A group photo.

The Emeselles

Hiking?

We plan to go hiking at Dragon's Back near Shek'O this coming Sunday, 11 December. Please join us if you have time. So far we have about 8 people who have confirmed.

The plan is: we all meet at Shau Kei Wan station, exit A2 at 10:00 am and then either take a bus or share a taxi to the trail which is not too far from the Shau Kei Wan station. The hike will be roughly 3 hours, depending on how strong your legs are. As the weather has gotten pretty cool, I assume that we will walk pretty fast. After we complete the Dragon's Back trail, we will catch a bus to Shek'O to have lunch at a restaurant.

Please let us know if you have any preference for a restaurant. There is a famous Thai-Chinese restaurant there. If you agree with that choice, we will try to book a table for all of us.

Please let me know by this coming Friday, whether you can come. Please make sure you bring suitable gear for walking. Dragon's Back can get pretty windy, so make sure you bring a jacket with you and water.

If you have any question, please write to wantanee@gmail.com or post your comments on this blog. Hope to see you guys there.

Holiday Spirit

圣诞快乐!
sheng dan kuai le!
Christmas Happy!

We set up a Christmas tree (圣诞树 shengdan shu) yesterday. Holiday spirit came together with it. :-)

Before we had a 2 feet small tree because there wasn't enough room for a big tree. This time, this tree is 6 feet tall and will beautifully stand here for this whole season. Enjoy the holiday season!

KISS

This stands for Keep It Simple, you Stupid! Lots of engineers use this principle when they design a new product. It also applies well for beginners when they just start learning Mandarin. We can dub it into Keep It Simple, Student!

It happens very often that people want to say this and want to say that, but they could not say it. The reason is they try to translate everything from English to Mandarin word by word, and therefore they find they don’t have the necessary vocabulary. In fact, for most of people, in most of cases, vocabulary is not what they really need. They already have what they really need. Lots of things can be expressed differently. If you think of some other words to express the same thing, you probably can do it!

It is very important for students (of all levels) to use what they learned to express themselves, to stretch what they learned to a maximum point.

The fast track to fluent speaking is not accumulating more vocabulary. It is practice, practice and practice! Practice makes perfect.

www.msllearningcenter.com

Oct 29, it was a cool night...

Focus, focus and focus

As an adult learner, the greatest advantage is the ability to focus. And that holds the key to be a fluent Mandarin speaker.

In fact, most of the time, the ability to focus is the only thing that can be controlled by you. So use it wise.

There are a number of things you need to pay attention to when comes to learning Mandarin (conversational Mandarin):

1. vocabulary ( quote: When I want to express something, I found I don't have the words. I want to learn lots of new words.)

2. tones (quote: I don't want to address mother as horse. I want my teacher to correct my tones on each word.)

3. grammar (quote: I need to learn more grammar.)

ATTENTION! You certainly need to spend some time to learn these, but DO NOT FOCUS ON THEM!! I can't stress more on this point. The reason is simple, focusing on these three points will never make you a Mandarin speaker, let alone a fluent one. If you have already spent lots of time on these, and in the real time situation you still find yourself unable to speak, you should try a different approach.

You want to communicate with Mandarin speaking people, the real effective approach is to focus on listening to proper texts and practicing speaking. Do not jump. Do not run before you can walk.

Carefully select a listening text which contains less than 3% new words for you, and listen to it again and again until you understand every word without translating them into another languge in your head. Then use your own words retell what you have heard till your expression is quite fluent. The next is go on to the next listening exercise. Do the same thing.

In this process, you are practicing extensively the grammar and the vocab you learned before, and moreover, your brain subconciously picked up the tones. The tones come to you naturally.

This is the power of focus. Focus on the pounds, and the pennies will take care of themselves!
If next time, you read something about a man who wanted to order dumpling, but got slaped on his face, laughted at it. It is a good joke, but it hardly ever happened.

Learning Mandarin Podcast

I recently created and published the first podcast. For anybody who is interested in listening, go to: http://learningmandarinpod.blogspot.com/

It should be fun!

Beer and Mandarin

Many people have shared this experience. It is that when they had a beer, their Mandarin speaking fluency suddenly got a lot better. The beer somehow lifts up the pressure and things get better with their Mandarin.

Thanks to Maya and Sayuri for their effort of organizing numerous get-togethers. And, our next get together, guess from the beginning of this page, should be in a bar, where everybody can have a drink and some fun!

First who it is for:
- The students who have graduated from MSL
- The current students
- The future students
- Their friends, and friends’ friends
All are welcome!

The second is when:
The plan is on Oct 29 (Saturday) late afternoon around 4-7pm.

The next is where and how much:
There are two bars in Wanchai offering a good deal for a group of people. It is a cash bar. The cost will be on each person.

- Choice 1: Coyote, the deal is $198 per person (incl. snacks and ½ jug Margarita.).

- Choice 2: Chinatown, the deal is $100 per person (incl. snacks and 2 drinks, could be all the house spirits, house wine and house champagne, and all the bottles beer).

Which one do you want to go for?

Then we get to the most important what:
Remember the saying somebody’s junk is someone else’s treasure? Donate some of your unwanted stuff for an auction sale! This auction (hopefully) will be conducted in Chinese! And the money will be the initial fund to our next get together, like going to Disney Land Hong Kong! If at the end nobody thinks your junk is treasure, you can take it home.

Mark the date on your calendar, start thinking what stuff you want to get rid of, and fresh ideas and suggestions are welcome!

Finally it’s time to ask you: Are you in?


You can tell your friends this message.

MSL Learning Center
www.msllearningcenter.com

Culture Clash in Classroom

In one of my textbooks I included a lesson discussing on cluture clash. I gathered some well known information, such as Thai people don't like other people touching their heads, and if you want to eat something using your hand in Malaysia, do not use left hand, etc. In the class, students and I would discuss personal experience related to this topic, and exchange stories and learn some new words and expressions.

This type of culture clash in the textbook is so obvious. And just recently I realized culture clash is an everyday experience for all the teachers who are teaching somebody from other countries.

Most Chinese people are direct, and Chinese language is a direct language. English is quite a hidden language compare to Chinese. Now direct Chinese speaking teachers are teaching not-so-direct English speaking students. I can understand better why this culture clash can have a deep impact on one's learning a new and so different language.

Chinese teachers say:"This is wrong. You should do this. I have corrected you before." Students might get a bit hurt (thinking this is the interpretation of you're stupid) and sometimes would lose interests completely. The result is teachers won't have any job satisfaction and students didn't learn anything. To avoid this problem, it is good for teachers to say:"It's quite good. If you do this, it will be very good." It will encourage students to work some more and be self motivated. And that is very important in eventually achieving the desired results. For good Chinese teachers who are teaching other countries folks, I do urge them to know their students well. Only if they know well of their students culture (not only what they eat and drink, but also the way of speaking and choice of words they use and much more), can they be good at teaching them a new language, and help them know more about a different culture, to built understanding and trust.

However, to only rely on teachers' part is not a good idea for students. The fundemental key of learning a new language well still lies within. I will discuss about this at another time.

A Madarin Study Blog
MSL Learning Center
www.msllearningcenter.com

How Fast Can You Learn?

" I want to learn fast and be able to talk to Chinese people when I travel around China." This is what most people's wish when they start their first lesson. I have kept a record of how fast a person can learn, let's say from zero or near zero till finish Intro Level A. There are people who have taken lessons before they came to MSL, but I put them into Intro Level A. The reason is that after initial level assessment, I found out that their knowledge is all scaterred quite randomly and couldn't build up a decent small talk, and therefore, they couldn't start higher.

Now let me get back to the record. Most people finish Intro Level A in 28 hours. Some people think it's just right, some people think they need a bit more time, and some people think they can finish in 24 hours. Then this year April, Wantanee and Tim started their Intro Level A, then they finished Intro Level A in 12 hours. It's not like going through the motion of knowing the meaning of different words, it is that they can talk quite decently in Mandarin and can use what they know quite well. The most amazing part is that they are very busy people, they travelled around and had many trips. So these the lessons were all conducted quite randomly and they can still retain what they had and used it very well. They came back from a trip in Sichuan and Yunnan in China last week, and when they were in China they spoke nothing but Mandarin.

But last month came Paul. He set this record in a new height. He did a wonderful part on studying before the lesson and spent hours and hours in doing assignment. So the record is he finished his Intro Level A in 8 hours! The last 2 hours of these 8 hours were reviewing and checking and making sure he got everything right. And he did. He is so dedicated and determined and fast.

So next time, if you are going to ask "how fast can I learn?" , you know the answer now is 8 hours to complete Intro Level A. I seriously doubt if anybody can do any faster. But I never know.

MSL Learning Center
www.msllearningcenter.com

Being Practical Pays

I am quite a fan of Bill Bryson (except his The Lost Continent, which I think is quite mean.). I recently read his Neither Here Nor There where he talked about travelling around Europe. It has some very funny part.

Here I would like to quote (on page 76) his words on talking about his experience in learning French. He was in Wallonia, France. And,

"... hardly anyone in Wallonia speaks English. I began to regret that I didn't understand French well enough to eavesdrop. I took three years of French in school, but learned next to nothing. The trouble was that the textbooks were so amazingly useless. ... at no point did they intersect with the real world. ... They were always tediously preoccupied with classroom activities,... How often on a visit to France do you need to tell someone you want to clean a blackboard? How frequently do you wish to say, "It is winter. Soon it will be spriing"? In my experience, people know this already"

What a laugh!
It shows for all the purpose of learning a new language, being practical is quite important. At least you can eavesdrop!

MSL Learning Center
www.msllearningcenter.com

The Benefit of Learning

There are great benefit in learning. I read this before: learning is the greatest investment you ever made to yourself. But when it comes to Chinese, I heard some different stories. One of them is very convincing at first.

Quote: And don't you watch the news? According to CCTV, all foreigners want to learn Chinese. Well, you can't exactly believe what you see on CCTV. There are some people who wish to learn Chinese, but it's more for something to improve themselves rather than to help with their career or something. So, the people who want to learn Chinese are usually students. There are a lot of Russians up here in Harbin who want to learn Chinese to help them with their careers, and some Koreans and Japanese. But when you compare the number of Chinese people studying English to the number of foreigners studying Chinese, it's a miniscule percent. Usually western business men don't want to bother to learn Chinese. They figure Chinese should learn English to do business with them. And some people think that China will become the next economic powerhouse. Once the standard of living goes up in China and things start to become a little expensive, the foreign companies will pull out of China and find someone else who is cheaper to exploit, thus crushing the Chinese economy. Nope, I'm sorry to say this, but I doubt if there will ever be a large number of people who wish to learn Chinese. Mostly because the written language is too difficult and the tones make it an almost unpronounceable language.

So, if things really come true as my friend predicted, there will be vast number of people who will learn. Think if a Chinese person is the big boss of IBM, don't you think at least half of the company will learn his native language?

As the rate of Chinese company are buying foreign companies going, maybe in the next twenty years to forty years, speaking Chinese will be a ticket to get a job.

MSL Learning Center
www.msllearningcenter.com

The power of listening

When learning Mandarin, many people are facing these two common problem:

1. When they read a text, they understand. When they listen to it, they don't or not as well as when they read.

2. They are always afraid that their pronuciation isn't good enough. The joke of addressing mother as horse seems has a greater impact on people than I though of. (It actually never happened. I guarantee you!) There was a girl I met last year. She told me she took some Mandarin lessons before. I said that was good and asked if she liked it. Then she told me that at the end she hated it because she was so afraid to speak because her teacher corected her pronuciations of every word when she was trying to speak. It was like setting up a mental block that she will never be able to say those tones right or pronuce 'j, q, x, zh, ch, sh, r' in the teacher's way (the pefect way). She cried once or twice and eventually gave up learning. That was really sad. I told her it really was the teacher's fault. That teacher has no teaching ability but to demonstrate perfect pronuciations.

These two problems can actually be traced to the same source: Students probably didn't do enough listening exercises. This is a very transparent answer to the first problem, but seldom do people realize that listening can help (truely help) their pronunciations and their understanding of this language in general.

Most of the time, students are very vulnerable because they really rely on teachers to guide them and help them. So how can teachers truely help them?

Over the time, I have developed a theroy in regarding the above two mentioned problems. It worked remarkablly well with my students: increasing their listening exercises.

There are certain things teachers need to pay attention to is:
1. Don't let the students listen to TV all the time, especially not Intro or Basic level students.
2. Listening script must contain no new words or a maximum one or two new words to students.

With the help of Grace, we have pull the resources together and published Mandarin Express Intro Level A workbook. It has 55 compatible listening exercises. It's available now at MSL Learning Center. The cost is HKD132 (incl. 2 CDs).

After a certain amount of listening exercises, I found my students not only improved their pronunciations, but also more confident in speaking, and as a bonus to me, they have greater faith in me as well.

MSL Learning Center
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3 mis-conceptions in learning Mandarin

To learn a new language is always rewarding. I have met people who speak 5 or more languages! I would think they don't have time for other things except learning new languages one after another one. But amazingly, all of them have other more focused careers, like sales and marketing, architect, researcher, etc. Learning actually accelarated their careers!

More and more people start taking Mandarin lessons. So many people approached me and asked,"I want to speak Mandarin as fast as possible. I want to have conversations with Chinese people. "

This goal is very attainable as long as you are aware of these 3 mis-conceptions:

1. If I go to Beijing, I will learn very fast.

I have met many people who went to China for 3 to 6 months, and came back with fluent inappropriate Mandarin. And many mistakes are fossilized and very hard to correct. I don't understand why their teachers didn't correct them!! Although all Chinese people will figure out the meaning, they all know it's bad Chinese. Make sure you don't learn 20 - 30 new words or characters everyday, five days a week! It's a pity to see so many people tried so hard capturing so many new things, and eventually only a very small portion learned. Both time and money are wasted.

2. If I listen to Mandarin everyday, I will understand it.

You should listen to Mandarin at an appropiate level to you everyday, then you will understand and improve. There was a study that put babies in front of TV sets for months to see if they can speak the target language. The result is NO. By immersing yourself to the sound of Mandarin won't help you understand it better. The most effective way is to listen to tailored listening exercises. The process is gradual. One day you will find you can understand Mandarin TV programs, Chinese movies etc., effortlessly.


3. If I learn 1000 characters, I will be able to read.

It will be true if given a condition: the extensive usage of these 1000 characters. I have seen people are learning characters by flash cards, one by one. But this is the most inefficient way to learn reading Chinese. Only one tenth of your effort can produce some substantial result. For example, Japanese use around 1500 Chinese characters in Japanese language. But if give a text written purely withing these 1500 characters, Japenese people wouldn't understand it.

Be aware these pitfalls. Study smarter is better than study hard. Follow a good structured program, and follow good skillful teachers, are proven the fastest way to speak Mandarin.



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The Inside and Outside of Mandarin Express

Mandarin Express Intro Level A was out by the end of May, and now Intro Level B will be out soon in about one week. By then Intro Level Student's Book (published version) will be completed. Intro Level A Work Book is on its way, and it will be ready next month or in early September.

Once in a while, there will be a student ask me why there is no English translations in our textbooks.

As the entire Mandarin Express series is classroom textbooks, English translations can have more negative effects than positive ones. (Classroom textbooks are different from referrence books, like dictionaries, or grammar books etc. ) The plan is only Intro Level books have some English instruction, and the other levels all leave English out.

But as this subject is raised from time to time by different people, maybe what they really need is a students manuel or guidebook. This will be a referrence book, using English to explain everything in the textbook.

Upon this, it's good to hear some other opinions.

www.msllearningcenter.com