I’ve given some thought to the issue of speaking practice over the last couple of weeks and written up some guidelines. I’ll post them in installments.
Here’s the first one:
Speaking Practice
Guidelines for Mandarin learnersDefining your objectives
Most people approach the study Mandarin in one of two ways:
1. As an object of study and analysis. If you want to analyze Mandarin and learn about how it works, the most efficient approach is the analytic approach. Here you focus on sets of words, rules, and structures. During speaking practice, try to focus on accuracy, rehearsing structures, and producing correct sentences. You could probably spend as much time talking about the target language, as actually talking in it, because your objective is to know about it, and analyze its workings. Traditional teaching is based on this type of approach. This is fine if your objective is to answer questions on a test, rather than to speak the language. Most teachers of Mandarin still use some variation on this approach.
2. As a tool for communication with other speakers of the language. The experiential approach treats language learning as a form of skill development. It seeks to enable communication, through immersion, fluency development, and trial and error. As a ‘message centered’ (as opposed to ‘medium centered’.) approach, accuracy is considered desirable, but subordinate to fluency where speaking practice is concerned. The experiential approach is similar to the approach we take at ChinesePod.
It would be nice if we could all focus on both goals (accuracy and fluency) in the normal course of study. The fact is, however, that that would require full-time study. To speak and write Chinese with great accuracy would require a tremendous time commitment. Spoken fluency then, requires a wholly different set of strategies. Time restraints usually force part-time learners to choose one or the other.
Either way, a clear focus is essential if you are to manage your time and pursue realistic goals.
I always like to suggest a note of realism here: Very few adult learners of Mandarin ever achieve anything like native speaker fluency. It is very often not a realistic goal. By contrast, however, many, many adult learners can and do develop a good deal of skill in communicating in Chinese. This is almost certainly a more manageable goal for most people.
Feedback if youv’e got it, please!
Ken Carroll
Good tips, particularly the point about defining your objectives and fluency.
Personally, I think it is essential (particularly for the ‘experiential approach’) to immerse oneself in the language somehow. For me, anything ’synchronous’ is currently out the question - i.e. anything that requires me to co-ordinate my time with anyone else, or do things at particular times. That is one of the reasons the ChinesePod podcasts (once I found out about them) are now a central plank of my learning.
Another is immersion through watching Mandarin-language television series on DVD/VCD with English subtitles… not for active study, but for entertainment (I can then study them/break them down later). This seems to work as I find that more and more bits of sentences jump out at me, and the context in which things are said is provided automatically, e.g. the use of wei (4th tone?) when answering the phone, or the oft heard 来来来… (at least, I assume it’s 来 I hear).
I’d be interested if you have any ideas for those of us who want something more like your approach 2, but cannot (at least for a period) engage in anything ’synchronous’, underwhich I include things like phones, meeting people, instant messaging etc…
All the best,
Carl
I think that part of the solution is knowing what sort of person you are. I feel most comfortable with the 1st approach because I am a very analytical person and also in other fields I leave very little room for improvisation. So communication is not easy for me as long as I have to rely on improvisation. Even when I try to say something, in the early stages of learning a language, the words and sentences are just nog there…so I keep quiet. I have experienced this when I studied French, English, German and Spanish and I feel the same with Chinese. I believe in getting a lot of input and trying to reproduce by repeating set sentences and by reading aloud. For input my approach has always been to read a lot. But in Chinese this may be a bit more difficult and hence further away in time than with another European language. But I believe that there will be a moment, probably in a year or two, where I will be able to read some stuff, even if it is with the aid of one of these computer readers.
In the mean time I think that CP for me is very useful because it gives me practical input with sentences that really work, that I can memorize and repeat a zillion times. I will travel to China in September and I’m conviced that by then I will have acquired quite a lot of useful Chinese. I will be some sort of test I believe. As I’m not an easy communicator I’m very curious to see if I will be able to make myself understood and to understand the others.
Carl - Like you I listen to CPod and Chinese movies for most of my “immersion”. I’ve found a new strategy, which is to go to a Chinese (or surprisingly often a Japanese) restaurant and listen. If I hear Chinese being spoken, then I pulll out a CPod dialog printout and study it. Multiple times I’ve had the waiter ask me if I am learning Chinese, which is followed by many impromptu Chinese lessons during the meal and a warm feeling of friendship and more Chinese dialog whenever I return.
Marc - I went to China 8 months ago and perhaps knew about 30-40 words. When I attempted to speak Chinese, especially in the more remote places, sometimes people would look at me as if I was a talking dog! Like…how did Chinese come out of that blue-eyed woman’s mouth? I was pleasantly surprised at how often I was understood. I found it hard to understand what people were saying unless they spoke very slowly for my benefit.
Ken - I find myself using a blending of the two approaches you mentioned. I am by nature analytical and I like to know the details and the “why” behind things. So my comfort zone is the first approach you lsted. CPod has pushed me more towards the 2nd approach you listed, which is escalating my ability to undestand spoken Chinese and my bravery in speaking it!
Okey in an effort to start keeping posts here short I’ve written most of what I’ve got to say on my blog http://chinesewithease.blogspot.com/
Here I shall summarise
1. Most people I believe are “in” neither group having being perhaps at MOST 70% one or the other (closer to 60-55%.)
2. Focusing your self into one of the two groups is a cause of the low fluency rate in adults.
3. Your goal should to be flaunt but you should realistically set the time span to achieve that goal based on how much time you have to study Chinese.
4. Spoken fluency with out knowing the structures is impossible. If you say “I’m going to Cat catch.” you’ve broken a structure and no longer sound flaunt (even though people will still understand you).
5. Flip side focusing primarily on structure will mean you will sound ridged and fake what you say will sound perfect but out of place go up to a good friend and say “Hello how do you do” to a friend and watch the strange look the give you. You will also find it difficult to adapt when people talk to you outside of those structures.
Set you goal as high as possible just understand and accept how much time it will take. Most importantly be happy with every step you take. If you learnt 10 new words this week never think you “only” learnt 10 new words, I’ve seen more people drop out because of this thinking than anything. Recognize your progress no matter “how” much it is, it’s better than nothing.
Comments on the failure of a total focus on group 1.
My sister was studying German at school and at the age of 15 went on a language exchange with another school, she was a very diligent student but was still only able to utter the most basic German phrases with any confidence. However all of the English kids there performed very well in the German ‘German’ lesson which focused on German grammar. So much so they were allowed to take that months grammar test and my sister got top marks, beating all the native german speaking kids. Maybe not too surprisingly the English kids performed relatively poorly in the German ‘English’ lesson, they understood the language of course but could’nt easily describe the grammar.
Rather dissapointing if you travel to China and have to explain to your friends that the reason you couldn’t undertand the taxi driver was that his grammar was poor and the locals tones were a bit off.
I seem to remember that in the old English comedy series Fawlty Towers the English hotel owner Basil couldn’t understand his Spanish waiter Manuel because Basil had done a degree in classical Spanish. Basil blamed Manuel for this!
As far as I am concerned the most critical part of making progress when studying this language part-time is keeping the motivation up over the course of several years. Therefore I found it to be the best approach for myself to switch my approach in a regular fashion, just to keep things interesting. Sometimes you reach points where different “pieces fall together” and you reach a new level. You just have to pursue this longterm.
I also found out that if you are just concentrating on spoken Chinese you very soon run into a big black wall. To learn independently of others (even my Chinese wife gets tired after the 100th question “How would you say…in German”), to be able to soundly memorize the vocabulary, and to really understand the nature behind this language you have to learn to read it. From what I have seen so far I got the impression that most Chinese *think* and *dream* in those characters. Right now I also practice a lot with Chinese comic books (Tin Tin, “Tim und Struppi”) which is actually really rewarding as those pictures give you clues.
Ken, I like your analysis. There is room for both styles in the world, and they work for different people, but we can’t do both here. Only last week you were in my kitchen telling me in emphatic tones that it was about speaking and listening, not grammar and reading and writing, and that at first I wouldn’t even speak, just listen. I wonder if the others heard you, or if it’s changed at all since “last week’s” podcast1.
When there is argument as to which is better, people tend to become extreme in their preference to the point of cutting off elements of the other style from their range of opportunities. That turns both valid styles into ineffective extremes. Knowing that both exist and are valid, we are free to choose, and to dabble for fun without injury.
I see it not as a two-way category, but as a 2 by 3 table of methods and content. I wonder if I can type this here…
METHOD |…TeachMe….|..I-Experience..|…Curiosity…|
CONTENT
1.Analysis |…………A1…………|…………B1…………|……….C1…………..|
2.Spoken |…………A2…………|………..B2………….|………C2……………|
The traditional approach would be mainly A1, supplemented by A2 and B1.
Our approach uses A2 as a means to the main focus B2, with bits of C2 and B1.
It is risky to incorporate so many contents and methods that it blurs the focus, or to restrict them too rigidly. If and only if we are confident in our chosen pathway, we become free to dabble in all six types of learning as required without getting fixated and losing our main focus on the main style.
But while we are doing a single activity such as speaking practice, we need to stay strictly within one box, here B2, for the duration of that activity. That doesn’t restrict our whole learning, just focuses the one activity onto its objectives.
Haha, sprung! Does my last posting make me analytical or WHAT!
But really, I do want the spoken language focus, that’s what I’m here for.
Ken,
Just a quick “thank you” for your note of realism that few adult learners of Mandarin ever achieve native speaker fluency. I know English, Greek, and Spanish with a little bit of French and German. Mandarin has been a HUGE challenge for me (which is part of why I like it), but I was starting to wonder if something was wrong with me. I’ve been blessed such that learning has always come very easily to me, so it is a new experience to have things that I thought I learned slip out of my mind if don’t constantly repeat them. I’m going to keep plugging away at Mandarin, but at least I now have some confirmation now that it isn’t just me - this language is a challenge!
A few semi-random thoughts.
I started learning Chinese at the age of 44. My goal is fluency. It may be unattainable, but without a goal, I wouldn’t be motivated to keep studying. My comments are from my experience, so far.
I don’t look Chinese. So, Chinese people assume I don’t speak Chinese. This is a barrier to practice in most casual situations. Its easier and more helpful to cultivate some Chinese friends and/or tutors.
I think understanging the written language is helpful in a number of ways. You can take your time understanding a phrase when you read it. So, it is a self-pased guide to the language. Penpals are useful in language learning. Many aspects of culture and language seem to be revealed through writing. I don’t believe you can know a language completely without knowing its written form. If speaking ability surprises people, writing ability impresses them more.
When I get feedback on a Chinese phrase or sentence, different native speakers will often give me the same feedback. When that happens it seems like there is a “right” way to say things.
Sometimes bad grammar leads to misunderstangings about meaning.
半途而废
Of the various local colleges and univerisities I’ve looked into, Chinese is taught either as Chinese/Mandarin (reading/writing/speaking) or Conversational Chinese/Mandarin (speaking only, maybe pinyin or similar writing). For schools that offer both, many times after the first term, the “Chinese” students become “Conversational Chinses” students. Sounds like the courses lean to either the analytic or expermental approach.
Speaking only for myself, I can’t imaging learning to listen to and speak Chinese without also learning reading and writing.
Realistic goals are important, as are the many smaller intermediate goals needed before reaching the final goal. Even simple goals are important, like: Tomorrow I’m going to a Chinese resturant, will point to a menu item and say “你好我要这个” (ni hao, wo yao zhe ge, Hello, I want this). Although a simple goal, it is much more accessable than “In 5 years I will speak Chinese fluently.”
In time I will achieve a level of fluency for my needs. I accept I will never speak any other language than English without an accent and this is not my goal. Being fluent and accent free are not the same. I also won’t tell my English friends they speak with a strange accent.
Mandarin is a big challenge I will admit however maybe not quite so big as it seems!
To compare my experiance to some others, I probably know less foreign langauage than almost anyone I know, my French teacher used to chuck things at my head and then eventually ignored me. So I speak English only and know virtually no French or German at all.
Some multi-linguists I have encountered that cite the huge difficulty of Mandarin have already learnt a few European langauges so of course it it difficult. They probably learnt a second language as a child and every European language they add is easier (I have been told that if you know German and English, Dutch is easy for example). They remember the ‘relative’ ease of picking up their last language and WHAM they hit Mandarin.
For me any language would be a WHAM event. I concede that I could learn French faster than Mandarin but look at the advantages for me.
Being a mediocre French speaker in England is a non-event but being a mediocre Mandarin speaker will be a bit special.
The characters are a pain but look at the advantages gained from the inetia of developing a new character, I don’t have to learn a word for every day of the week or month. A computer is an electric brain, hey now I know the words for electric and brain as well
etc. etc.
I don’t know how hard Mandarin is to learn compared to any other language and if you all keep quiet about it I never will , so ssssshhhhh
Hi Ken,
I was doing the flip card exercises and the first one looked like ji1 dian3 and that was translated as when and I though when was shenmeshihou and jidian (with the simplified characters as shown on the flash card) is wrong.
However, I might be confused, as I don’t know simplified as well as I know traditional.
Beth
shenme shihou is to me more like “when?”, while jidian is specifically “what time?”. Although you can use 什么时候 for when and what time, 几点 is only what time (literally how many hours?)