Learning a second language

[ats200]

I recently read a statistic that about 66% of people worldwide can at least communicate reasonably in more than one language, pretty interesting.

It has been a goal of mine for quite some time to learn Mandarin Chinese but just recently I've decided to actually begin. Does anyone have experience learning this as a second language? What are the best options to learn?

A classroom setting would sort of be un-doable so I'm thinking along the lines of software. Has anyone tried Rosetta Stone or L-lingo? I hear Rosetta Stone is good for most languages but L Lingo is slightly better for Asian languages. Any thoughts on why they might be different? Does anyone have experience with either program?

Any info would help.

[JimR]

Learning a second language should be absolutely required for all Americans. It opens your head in so many useful ways. So good on you!

I did some work with Rosetta stone when learning Japanese. It was ok, but once I started actually using Japanese I found it hadn't been all that accurate. For beginners, it was good because the spoken and written language are connected right away, but once you move higher, it is not as useful.

I can't really say much about Chinese, except that if you ever want to be literate, START FAST. Those Chinese characters are not easy to take on.

[ChesterCopperpot]

I'm somewhat fluent in Chinese, but I took classes in college and lived in China for a little over a year. I never used any software, just mounds of flashcards and hundreds of hours of study. It's one of those languages that you have to throw yourself into, as it's not the easiest language in the world. People learning English have it somewhat easy since English is all over the place and around every corner, not so much with Chinese. Finding someone to help you with conversational Chinese would be a good bet if you're serious about learning it. Getting a Chinese girlfriend helps even more. It's a tonal language, so even a slight mispronunciation will make it difficult for a Chinese person to understand you. I've done a few lectures here and there, and I always use my 'Chinese tongue twister' to show what speaking Chinese is like. 'Ma ma ma ma ma' means 'Is mother chastising the horse?' (does mother chastise the horse being a more accurate translation) if you speak the tones correctly. 'hua hua hua hua' means 'paint a picture of a flower'. So, get a language coach if for no other reason than to make sure your intonation is perfect. Reading and writing is a whole different story. That's what the flashcards are for. Learn a character, write it a hundred times in a notebook to hardwire it into your brain, and test yourself regularly. Chinese grammar is somewhat easy, fortunately.

It's a pretty big undertaking, I salute you if you make it past the first few months. But it does get easier once you're familiar with the mechanics of the language. Plus you'll find you develop super memory from practice. It's brain lube.

As far as Rosetta Stone, I couldn't say as I've never used it.

[Goggles]

One of these days I'll expand my French into usefulness, or so I keep telling myself.

[ats200]

Very insightful. The 'tongue twister' is pretty amusing. I do remember reading that it is a tonal language which makes me a bit nervous but hopefully everything turns out well. I do work with quite a few people who speak Mandarin are their primary language so hopefully I can practice a bit on my own time then hone my skills through practice dialogue with others. (strange to say hone here and not be referring to a smooth rock)

And I do agree with Jim, it should be required. I'm always so impressed during work that people from EVERY country speak English but I can't understand a word of most languages. (I've picked up a bit of Spanish and German... but only a few words related to travel and hospitality)

[ChesterCopperpot]

Very insightful. The 'tongue twister' is pretty amusing. I do remember reading that it is a tonal language which makes me a bit nervous but hopefully everything turns out well. I do work with quite a few people who speak Mandarin are their primary language so hopefully I can practice a bit on my own time then hone my skills through practice dialogue with others. (strange to say hone here and not be referring to a smooth rock)

And I do agree with Jim, it should be required. I'm always so impressed during work that people from EVERY country speak English but I can't understand a word of most languages. (I've picked up a bit of Spanish and German... but only a few words related to travel and hospitality)

The tones aren't actually that bad, really, if you look at them in a more pragmatic way. Focus more on the sound of the word, not on consciously trying to create the tones. All languages are tonal to a certain degree, such as how, in English, we say HOSpital, not hosPITal, or hospitAL (like in Spanish). You just have to remember how the word sounds. You have to be a good mimic, like a parrot.

Chinese people also have regional accents, like anyone else, some being more easy to understand than others. Chinese learners learn a Beijing accent, although I lived in Henan province so I speak with a Henan accent. Most immigrants to the US are I think primarily from southern China, and their accents are a little difficult for me to understand. Not to mention that they randomly switch from Mandarin to whatever their local dialect is. Most Chinese are bilingual, peasants sometimes can't speak Mandarin.

[Caledonian]

Esperanto was a marvelous idea, and deserved to take off once the United Nations got under way, and yet it is practically dead nowadays. Maybe that is because nobody loves it as his own, and I'm sure few people, even among Esperanto speakers, ever got into the habit of thinking directly in it. Look at the way Shakespeare, the Bible, Churchill, Billy Connolly and a host of other sources creep into our daily words. I don't believe that would happen with Esperanto.

Idiomatic shades of meaning are usually specific to languages. "I'm sure" often means you aren't sure, and "no doubt" can mean there is no doubt, in England, but in Scotland means "I'm not at all sure of that." In Arabic "helas", literally "it is finished", can mean "All is complete", "Don't mention it", or "The situation has deteriorated beyond remedy". Probably that would came into Esperanto if a lot of people used it routinely for a few centuries, but we aren't going to.

I had a friend who worked in Hong Kong in the 1960s, when the level of refugees arriving from the mainland was high. He used to see Chinese taking out notebooks and discussing how to spell words, when they didn't understand each other, because the script spans a number of dialects. Similarity can even be seen in some of the Japanese traditional characters.

There is a marvelous story about Japanese script, because they realised that military signalling in morse was a non-starter with their traditional script. So they produced a new phonetic alphabet, with characters similar in number to our own. But in wartime it promoted laxity in ciphering, for they relied on the fact that a Japanese-speaking British, Inidian or American signaller was unlikely to be within range of their tactical communications. What they didn't realise, when they sent out encrypted groups of Japanese characters, is that with only two or three morse dots and dashes per letter, they were sending random groups of English letters without knowing it. Any signaller could take those down, and relay them to the specialist decryption unit in Ceylon.

[decraew]

Learning a second language should be absolutely required for all Americans. It opens your head in so many useful ways. So good on you!

I agree it's good for everyone's personal development to learn a second language (or a third, or a fourth ... ).
Although I do not think that something like Chinese or Japanese is meant for every one given the huge difference between Asian languages and Roman languages.

[Bruno]

I second Jim. If you want to learn Chinese or Japanese, start now. Apart from the fact that it is a different language, learning the kanji is a major undertaking. I am learning Japanese. The effort is measured in years of dedication. And get a coach to help you with the tonal angle because otherwise you will get lost. It is my first non-roman language so I am struggling with it.

Learning a second language is something that everyone should do. It gives you a much better understanding of the rest of the world, as well as help you talk to other people. this is easy to say for me of course. In Belgium you generally learn 3 languages before you graduate high school, not including optional languages like Latin and German.

After Japanese (hah. in 10 years or so ) I'd like to add Spanish, Arabic or Hebrew. Or somethign else. Learning languages is fun and really broadens your world.
Go for it. You will never regret it. Even if you drop out after the basics, you'll have something you can use for life. And if you ever have to interact with someone who speaks that language, just saying 'good morning' in their native language is a huge goodwill gesture.

[welshwizard]

Depends whether you want to learn a language to actually use it, or just for brain exercise to stave-off dementia.
You can learn what the Army School of languages calls a 'pop' language, French,Spanish, etc., and aims to have you speaking it after six weeks of intensive everday immersion or one of the more difficult ones such as Russian or Chinese where they reckon it takes two years of intensive everyday study.
I'm just coming to the end of Open University French (4yrs), where you learn more than just the language, but a awful lot about the country and it's people. I think that unless you spend some time living in the country of your target language it's nigh on impossible to become fluent.

There is the old joke "What do you call someone who speaks three languages?"..Tri-lingual, "two languages".. bi-lingual, "one language".. English.