I'm very excited about this latest attempt to study Mandarin.
My first formal attempt to learn Mandarin Chinese lasted for 2 semesters in college. Without consistent practice and use, 2 semesters quickly came undone.
Since I've been in Taiwan, I've had so many stops and starts. I started off overly ambitious, wanting to master speaking, reading and writing skills all at once. What made me think I could do all that at once when I hadn't even mastered the speaking part yet?
Well, this time around it's going to be different. Yes I'm aiming to master all 3 skills, or at least the first 2 of 3 this time around. Now, 3 years later, I have basic conversational and listening skills so, I'm confident that I can approach my study of Chinese in a more whole way. In other words, I'll be focusing on connecting and committing to memory the specific tone placed on the phonetic sound for a particular Chinese character. This is easier said than done because speaking Mandarin is mastered through the use of a phonetic system (Zhuyin or Hanyu Pinyin), so to speak Mandarin, one need not learn how to read Chinese characters. As a result, I've experienced a disconnect between knowing the pronounciation and meaning of a word, yet not being able to recognize the corresponding written Chinese character, and vice versa. This is complicated by the fact that a single sound, such as "ma" has at least 4 different meanings depending on the tone pronounciation and therefore 4 different corresponding written Chinese characters.
My first formal attempt to learn Mandarin Chinese lasted for 2 semesters in college. Without consistent practice and use, 2 semesters quickly came undone.
Since I've been in Taiwan, I've had so many stops and starts. I started off overly ambitious, wanting to master speaking, reading and writing skills all at once. What made me think I could do all that at once when I hadn't even mastered the speaking part yet?
Well, this time around it's going to be different. Yes I'm aiming to master all 3 skills, or at least the first 2 of 3 this time around. Now, 3 years later, I have basic conversational and listening skills so, I'm confident that I can approach my study of Chinese in a more whole way. In other words, I'll be focusing on connecting and committing to memory the specific tone placed on the phonetic sound for a particular Chinese character. This is easier said than done because speaking Mandarin is mastered through the use of a phonetic system (Zhuyin or Hanyu Pinyin), so to speak Mandarin, one need not learn how to read Chinese characters. As a result, I've experienced a disconnect between knowing the pronounciation and meaning of a word, yet not being able to recognize the corresponding written Chinese character, and vice versa. This is complicated by the fact that a single sound, such as "ma" has at least 4 different meanings depending on the tone pronounciation and therefore 4 different corresponding written Chinese characters.
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