Thread: Tell me about learning Languages

Originally Posted by MischiefManaged

My first language is Russian, second English, third Chinese.
From my experience the most important thing is not even to speak the language, but rather listen to it a lot. That's how all of you learnt you native language (in the most of the cases). You get into the language in no time by doing this.

Sorry, but I've got to go there. "Chinese" is not a language.

I took 3 years of German in high school and now I have forgotten most of it. Though the few basic things I do remember, I think I will always remember. Which goes to show that if you learn something really well it will stick with you forever. On the other hand all that stuff you 'kind of' know, you will start to forget if you don't practice or use it often.

I just finished(this week actually) taking a semester of Japense in collage. I did not do all that great in the class, but I do feel that I learned a ton from it. Vocabulary has always been my weakness when it comes to learning languages, so its hard for me to take classes some times. Especially in that class where we had to learn like 30 new words every week or two.

I think collage language classes are a lot more difficult, though you also learn more quicker if you manage to stay in it.

Originally Posted by mindwanderer

Sorry, but I've got to go there. "Chinese" is not a language.

Ok, Mandarin Chinese then. Putonghua...Hanyu...

First Language: Mandarin Chinese - I'm a Chinese.

Second Language: English - I'm a Chinese born in a bilingual country.

Third Language: Hokkien (It's a dialect) - I'm a Chinese born in a bilingual country however my grandma is unable to understand both languages, thus I picked up her language to communicate with her.

I'm thinking of picking up Cantonese, it's another dialect and uses almost the same words as Mandarin Chinese, so I'd probably need to just work on the listening, speaking and some slight reading.

Originally Posted by MischiefManaged

Ok, Mandarin Chinese then. Putonghua...Hanyu...

Does Mandarin or Chinese makes a difference? I've read up that it actually meant the same thing.

Edit: Thanks for all the replies folks!

Originally Posted by Carrot

Does Mandarin or Chinese makes a difference? I've read up that it actually meant the same thing.

I'd imagine that you, being Chinese, would know the answer to that.... but if you don't, the answer is no.

That's like saying "Isn't Canadian and English the same thing?" Well of course not, because Canada is a country... and both English and French are it's languages. Thus, "Chinese" is not a language as China is a country and Mandarin, Wu, Cantonese etc are it's languages. The other thing to note is that the "major" languages in China (Mandarin, Wu, Cantonese etc), as in Canada (English and French), are largely mutually unintelligible.

There is "Standard Chinese", which is Nation wide and based off of a single Dialect of Mandarin... but it mostly came to be to simplify political interactions and the like since there are so many languages (or variations of several languages) spoken in China.

Originally Posted by mindwanderer

I'd imagine that you, being Chinese, would know the answer to that.... but if you don't, the answer is no.

That's like saying "Isn't Canadian and English the same thing?" Well of course not, because Canada is a country... and both English and French are it's languages. Thus, "Chinese" is not a language as China is a country and Mandarin, Wu, Cantonese etc are it's languages. The other thing to note is that the "major" languages in China (Mandarin, Wu, Cantonese etc), as in Canada (English and French), are largely mutually unintelligible.

There is "Standard Chinese", which is Nation wide and based off of a single Dialect of Mandarin... but it mostly came to be to simplify political interactions and the like since there are so many languages (or variations of several languages) spoken in China.

I see the loophole in your explanation now. Canadian is a nationality whereas Chinese is a race not a nationality. If you were to put it that way, English would mean a race too. So how can English be both a language and a race at the same time? The same goes for Chinese. So theoretically using Chinese and Mandarin implies the same thing and it's only dependent on your sentence structure. Besides, Chinese is more understandable as compared to the usage of the word "Mandarin".

References:
Chinese | Define Chinese at Dictionary.com
Mandarin | Define Mandarin at Dictionary.com
English | Define English at Dictionary.com