I understood practically everything with 繁體中文subtitles on😁😁 Thank you so much Grace! Please keep posting videos in Mandarin every so often, it’s a great way for us to check our progress!
I liked what he said about understanding first, before being able to have a conversation. He's so right! If you can't follow what someone is saying, then is game over. Thanks Grace!
Many people should just understand that no matter what language you're learning, every language has vocabulary and you just have to listen, read, speak and review a lot. Besides that, there's no secret to learning a language.
Reading and writing is great for learning, I chatter with a Chinese person for a couple of weeks, few days after I started learning it. At first I had to use translate tools all the time, but I learned so many characters and words in a small period of time. Now I'm looking for different reading materials online for better variety of vocab. Unfortunately, listening and speaking are much more difficult to learn, it's a long process of learning. Having listening materials with transcripts is probably the best way to learn.
I agree that writing characters and remembering which tone to use are two of the more difficult aspects of Chinese. I find that memorizing tones is easier if you have two words or phrases that you can compare - for example, I imagine most learners of Mandarin quickly remember the tones for 'buy' (mǎi) and 'sell' (mài), because it's clear to see how mixing them up will cause problems. Finding your own way to learn once to getting to an intermediate and advanced level is also important. I bought a couple of the Chinese volumes of One Piece when I was in China, which made studying more interesting. That's how I know phrases like 旱鸭子, hoho.
This video is so inspiring. I hope that you will have another conversation like this with Mr.Steve. Thank you so so much.✨✨✨🌹🌹🌹 这个视频很帮助，您们帮我维持继续学习中文的动力。谢谢您们。🥰👍
谢谢你的字幕。Finding closed caption on youtube can be quite difficult. And having the characters actually in the youtube subtitle format makes it soo much easier too look them up. Thanks a lot!
I really liked his answers. No "This way, that way, you have to", but more general insight, like the focus on comprehension in the beginning. I hope I can one day also speak 20 languages :D
I have a frustrating experience. Not knowing where to begin or hitting a plateau can feel demoralizing and make it hard to hit the books and study like you know you should…Having friends from other cultures makes me more creative. In fresh ways about space and how people create their own world and environment. It is best way to connect between creative thinking and cross-cultural relationships!
Thank you very much for this very helpful interview !!! I'm even more motivate to learn chinese now thanks to those amazing advices ! And thanks for the subtitles (they're always really useful). ❤
This is a great interview. I was happy to see his emphasis on listening and comprehension which is the hardest part of learning Chinese in my opinion. I tell my Taiwanese friends that I can speak Chinese, but I can’t hear it.
Wow! Thanks a lot, Grace! This video is what I've been looking for♥ Keep making such a good content. I really like the format of listening other people experience
2 года назад
Hey! Just commenting to say that your channel is really helpful. This video idea was creative and really into the matter of learning a new language. Thank you!
Maybe because it's not the first language I'm a "beginner" learner at a lot of this is definitely how I notice myself learning. (I am only focusing on Chinese now). They're tips and tricks I mostly already do, which makes me feel good! But I find having NO common words like I do with French/Italian, in a way, forces me to actually learn and recognize even more than just relying on the similarities and overlap of English with Romance languages. I feel I have learned a lot (but also so little) in a different way than when I was studying Italian. (granted - Italian was also immersion learning)
This was super interesting! I am not sure if you are going to see this comment but perhaps for a future video, you could interview a Taiwanese RU-vidr called 理查老师 (RU-vid name: Richard Chinese Language). He is amazing because EVERY DAY he gives free live Chinese classes on his channel. I would love for him to get more exposure and also to understand why he does what he does. Check him out :)
Hi Grace! This doesn’t really have anything to do with this video, but I was wondering if you know about this accent. So basically I pronounce ‘zh’, ‘ch’, ‘sh’ as ‘z’, ‘c’, ‘s’, which is common. The way I pronounce ‘r’ however is different. I know some people swap it with ‘l’ but I actually pronounce it as ‘s’ (the s like from a bee). I couldn’t find anything on the internet 😅
Nice video +Grace Mandarin Chinese , 谢谢 . Good advice for 'searching to understand more than speaking, at the beginning'. Nevertheless, the time to take and pass through the tones assimilation is very long (but of course possible) and that's probably the main reason that is braking me to go further in Mandarin than discovering, compared with Japanese (tough too).
Thanks Grace and Steve for this very insightful interview! This is all great advice, and the ending showed a funny but valid point about comprehension. Question: When you learned English, at what point did you attain full comprehension? Was it when you learned enough vocabulary to understand everything? I’m just curious how other people overcame this hurdle.
Hi Josh! I wouldn’t say I’ve attained full comprehension in English 😝 But when you reach a certain level, you can start guessing the unknown words from the context! So most of the time it wouldn’t be a problem! (Unless there are too many words I don’t know in a sentence, I would need the other person to say it in another way so I can understand)
@@GraceMandarinChinese Thanks again Grace for your in-depth reply! I now know that I need enough vocabulary to be able to guess words by context. This is always a big obstacle for me, but it’s now much clearer what to aim for. And I think your English comprehension is better than you think it is. Even native English speakers use dictionaries often, or we may even just guess words by context also. I always need to do this when readings texts or literature.😆 Thanks again, Grace!
Grace...you are the most beautiful woman 👩😍❤ in the world! Maybe the best teacher too! How much does it cost to order the whole course? 🤔 I need to buy it because my level is bad,,I'm only like HSK 2 or 3 level, not good enough. I want to become fluent over the next 10 years.
I actually don’t think a polyglot is a good person to ask for tips for people learning a language, many of whom are very intimidated already.... there are many interviews like this, almost a requirement for all online language teachers, it seems...I would prefer to see someone who has really struggled, like most of us mere mortals, but has found a way to make progress, interviewed...
@@suras8849 Sorry, if you are able to speak THAT many languages, it is due to an innate ability...I'm sure he 'struggled,' but many people do and never attain anything close to his level. So, I still think these videos are intimidating for learners, but they seem to be 'de riguer' for online language teachers. Thank you for your feedback, Suras :)
@@Blazjul I agree that it can be intimidating for a newcomer, because he seems to be far off in the distant. I'm not so sure about the 'innate ability thing' though. Considering that he has spent a large part of his life to study languages it should not come as a surprise that it pays off eventually. Especially when you consider that he is only proficient in a handfull of the languages he claims to speak. (No offence! I am impressed with and inspired by him!) Anyways he is an accomplished language learner and I think it is not a bad idea to listen to his thoughts about the subject. What works for people with high ability would probably yield results for less talented as well (Even though I doubt that 'innate ability' matters that much when it comes to language learning.)
@@suras8849 Yes, I agree that others can learn from Mr. Kaufman, and you make some good points. I still disagree about innate ability--some people have more of an 'ear' for language than others (I, myself am tone deaf, musically, which makes Mandarin especially challenging for me because it is a tonal language)...the dirty little secret about language learning for adults, especially someone in later middle age like me, is that you will most likely never achieve anything close to fluency...but that doesn't mean that you can't have a lot of fun studying a language, which I do, and also gain insights into another culture that you wouldn't otherwise obtain. Thank you for your thoughtful feedback, take care.
@@Blazjul Having fun with a language is really one of the most important factors. I don't know whether the ablitity to learn languages or the potential to become 'fluent' declines with age, but I personally value reading and listening comprehension the most anyways and see the ability to speak almost as a byproduct. Listening in Mandarin is indeed tricky, but i would assume that it just takes much more time for the brain to adapt. Either way keep going, maybe you will surprise yourself. Take care and good luck!
