Quote:
Originally Posted by intakexhaust
Thanks for the very impressive feedback! Chinese language seems to be extreme challenging but one I'd like to explore. Many moon's ago I had two Chinese roomies (no, not like Kramer from Seinfeld...) but they were very fluent in english. I regret not picking up their language. Just curious if it was worth spending hours of time on youtube and whether the quality of a freebie learning is on par with pricey acclaimed programs or classroom.
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You ain't gonna just pick up Chinese from two roommates. I'm around Mandarin all the time, as in sometimes hours a day at home with the wife on the phone, I took lessons, have been to China plenty. You need a basis before you can pick things up. I can understand a lot more than I can say. There are four basic tones in Mandarin, one used with every syllable and they can vastly change the whole meaning. You need to learn those and then how things are written in pinyin (Mandarin in the Roman alphabet) with tone/accent marks so you know which tone to apply. Once you're in China and surrounded by the writing all day, every day, you can figure out some characters on your own. But you need to be in the environment with the countless street and store signs always around you.
And don't forget, Mandarin has a ton of dialects. You can be an A student and then get totally lost when you're in a place with a tough dialect.