Practical Tips on How You Can Learn Mandarin Online

Wanting to learn Mandarin online is not a unique desire these days. Ever since China began to allow the outside world to begin sharing the beauty the nation has to offer the desire to learn Mandarin has increased. There are two main dialects spoken in China. One is Mandarin and the other is Cantonese. These two dialects are not identical. If someone speaking Mandarin talks to someone who speaks Cantonese they will not understand each other. The Mandarin language is not easy to learn. However, with China boasting one of the fastest growing economies on the globe learning Mandarin is a smart thing to do.

Many people choose to learn Mandarin online because of the convenience. With so many people enjoying a hectic lifestyle it is quite beneficial to learn at your own pace and at the time of your choosing. Here is the thing; everyone learns differently and at a different pace so there is no guaranteed length of time it will take you to learn how to speak this language. In order to help you a long in the process we have put together 5 tips on how you can learn the Mandarin language online:

1. The Course - Obviously if you are going to learn Mandarin online you have to find the right course for you. You want to choose something that will be comfortable for you and is budget friendly as well. This is vital to long term success. This is true because if the price is too high or you are not comfortable with the course set up you will end up dropping out. By searching online you will find a variety of options at your disposal.

2. The Method - As we mentioned earlier everyone learns differently. Some do very well through books. They can read it; retain it and typically they can pick things up by writing it over and over. Still others learn faster when listening to audio tapes. The sound of the words flows easily into their minds and are then retained with ease. You have to know what will work better for you.

3. Use It Or Lose It - You have heard the old expression that practice makes perfect. So once you start learning put it to good use. Visit your neighborhood Chinese Restaurant and try it out on the employees. They will be more than willing to help you because you are making the attempt to learn their language. So when you learn Mandarin online try to use it often.

4. Go Slow And Easy - When it comes to the Mandarin language there are complex and simple characters. It is better to learn the simple characters first. There are 4 basic tones utilized and they are flat, rising, lowering and dipping. It is vital that you pronounce these correctly. You want to study in a well lit room as well. If you can learn a dozen new words per week you will have picked up 624 in a year.

5. Read And Read Some More - Once you have begun to learn Mandarin online it would be best to begin reading Chinese magazines and other literature to keep what you have learned. The Mandarin language will be like anything other foreign tongue. If you don't use it you will lose it.

If you are planning to learn Mandarin online we hope these tips were helpful. Remember that nothing worth having is easy. In the end your reward will far exceed the effort administered and you will have learned a valuable second language.

If you are really serious in trying to learn mandarin then you should visit the world's greatest resource - learn mandarin online.

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3 Reasons to Learn Mandarin

Mandarin is one of the major dialects in China with over seventy percent of the population speaking the tongue. Across the globe, Mandarin is the most spoken language, with over one billion people communicating using this language. Apart from China, some of the countries where a considerable part of the population knows how to speak the language include Taiwan, Singapore, Mongolia, Thailand, the Philippines, Cambodia, Indonesia, Brunei, Malaysia and South Africa. Indeed Mandarin is becoming one of the most influential and important international languages.

If this is not enough of a reason to convince you to learn Mandarin, then the following might change your mind.

· Commerce and business

The Chinese economy is growing steadily at a relatively rapid pace. There are plenty of businesses and job opportunities in China. Likewise, many nations throughout the world have established good trading and working relations with China. For instance the U.S. has, for some time now, been importing Chinese goods which are much more affordable. It has also been outsourcing services from China and establishing businesses in China. In other words, the Chinese economy is becoming a woken giant.

If you want to succeed in dealing with Chinese business counterparts or work for an international company with offices in Asia, knowing Mandarin is one of the best steps you can take. Mandarin is the business language, hence, knowing how to communicate in Mandarin will not only let you convey your ideas properly, but also help you get the confidence of your Mandarin-speaking colleagues. Learning how to speak Mandarin gives you the edge to take on numerous commercial and financial opportunities.

· Sharpens the mind

It has been proven in many scientific studies that knowing more than one language is beneficial to the intelligence as it stimulates the brain and improves comprehension and learning skills. It has been demonstrated time and again that people who are bilingual do better in standardized tests than individuals who only speak a single language. Furthermore, the development of dementia, like Alzheimer's disease, is slow or not present at all in persons who study different languages; more so when learning Mandarin. Some say that Mandarin is a difficult and complex language with its thousands of characters, tones that give different meanings to the same words and different rules in grammar. However, this complexity may just be the reason why the brain is honed to its optimum capability.

· Beneficial to future generations

If you do not want to do it for yourself, then do it for your children or grandchildren. With the population of Mandarin-speaking people continuously ballooning and the Chinese economy and power constantly growing in strength, knowing Mandarin is more important now more than ever. You would want to prepare your children for the future. When you know Mandarin, you can teach them the language, hence, giving them the advantage of knowing a language that might just be the next most language of the world.

There are many more benefits from learning Mandarin. These should be enough reasons to overcome any reluctance in tackling the language. You may find it hard at first, but that is only in the initial stages. Besides, Mandarin is not really difficult, it is just different.

Daniel C Howard is a language teacher living in Asia. He has over a decade of experience teaching all ages a variety of subjects. For free info and lessons on Mandarin Chinese, please visit his blog here.

You can also sign up for a newsletter full of free language tips from Daniel's many hours in a class. And as a bonus, stay updated on all the new information on www.learnmagnificentmandarin.com.

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Learn Mandarin Online - The Easiest Way to Learn Mandarin

So you want learn Mandarin online? These days the best way to learn a new language is using the power of the internet! The Information Super Highway has so many advantages in education. Think of the pre-internet era, to find out about anything the first port of call would probably the library. Maybe you'd rent a Mandarin learning package with a few CDs and a load of books? its either that or pay ridiculous prices to have lessons.

These days the internet has a bought a new level to the learning experience. Unlike with the old tape/CD packs you get from the library, the internet allows you to instantly access all sorts of multimedia to enhance your learning experience. If you want to learn Mandarin online you can download audio, video, interactive lessons, tests and grammar sheets all with the click of a mouse and all designed in a way that links together to teach you mandarin in the quickest and most efficient way possible.

These great packages greatly trump the tape/CD packages but what about the price, and surely nothing can beat good old one on one tuition? Well, a lot of these online packages also include access to a members forum where you can ask questions to students and teachers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week! Thats lifetime tuition! And the price? Well a lot of these packages go for under $100 where as a one hours lesson will cost you around $40.

Thats under $100 for instant access to everything you need to learn mandarin online fluently and quickly, including support from other students and teachers whenever you need it! So you've got 3 options - Get down to the local library and rent an outdated tape pack, pay through the nose for tuition OR learn mandarin online, getting instant access to everything you need to start and finish your learning experience!

To find out more about how you can Learn Mandarin Online take a look at a review of Rocket Chinese by going to http://www.squidoo.com/learn-mandarin-online

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Learning Mandarin In a Large Chinese University

Learning mandarin is difficult to say the least. Or so popular opinion has it. There are however many techniques available to make it easier. The worst way to approach the task is to try to study it in your home country. You need to element of natural communication in order to succeed. The second worst way is to go to China but attend a public university. This may seem counter intuitive. It would make more sense that a Chinese public university is a great place to learn Standard Mandarin. There is however certain barriers that students need to overcome to begin communication that is very difficult to handle in the classroom environment of a large university.

When I write about a Chinese classroom environment I am describing a situation in which there are around thirty students for every teacher. This leaves the teacher with very few options other than to stick to the pre prescribed curriculum no matter what. Individual questions are simply not possible to address in the time frame that the teacher has to teach such a large group.

This issue is problematic in two ways. The first is the shear difficulty in the initial introduction to Chinese language studies. Chinese Mandarin differs in mainly two ways, which can be categorized as pronunciation and characters. Standard Mandarin pronunciation, like all other dialects and other Chinese languages, is tonal. That means that the pitch matters in a way that no Germanic or Latin language speaker is familiar with. The same syllables have multiple meanings, which are without a doubt one of the hardest matters of confusion to address by the teacher. For a student to be able to wrap their tongue around this new concept individual attention is necessary. A large classroom environment is unable to provide students with this crucial component.

The second facet that constitutes a problem for people that are just beginning to learn mandarin is the concept of characters. These are very difficult to learn in an efficient way until you have a few hundred firmly logged in your mind. Most classes need to include new characters in the normal day-to-day curriculum; this makes the first few months the hardest for mandarin learners being taught in a thirty students per teacher classroom. Total focus is necessary to understand the new grammar and the confusing nature of tones. To simultaneously focus on the procedure for writing characters is too much for most people.

Individual attention is therefore, clearly, of immense benefit in Chinese studies, like it is for most educational procedures. However, for a Mandarin curriculum I would go further and say that it is actually a necessity. You can argue that of course it possible to teach in this way as there are many universities that teach mandarin in just such a way.

To that I can only answer that the results of such studies are moderately successful. The gap in basic knowledge of tones, characters and grammar, that the over charged brains are unable to assimilate is such that it creates a very poor foundation for future studies.

It can be that the student is able to learn many new words but unable to pronounce them in natural communication in an intelligible way because the tones have not registered. It can be that student is has learned lots of words, has been able to learn how to pronounce them, but in this case there would be very little focus left on actually understanding Chinese Mandarin syntax, which is also difficult. There will also in that scenario most likely is the case that the student is unable to read and write Chinese Mandarin at the same level as she or he can speak the language.

Without giving students the time to ask individual questions, no teacher, however good, can hope to impart a holistic and consistent level of proficiency. Mandarin language studies are too difficult initially to be taught in a thirty student to one teacher environment.

Rui Ming works for a Chinese Language School that is a great option for those that want to learn Mandarin in China.

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Learning Mandarin and Determination

To learn Mandarin takes a fair amount of determination. It is not so much the level of difficulty that makes people falter as the mountain of easy stuff. The thing is that the mountain exists for all languages: a language is basically comprised of 99% words and 1% syntax. What makes the Chinese mountain seem so difficult is the fact that its shape is so different. It is however crucial to make a distinction between difficulty and newness. Once you get past that initial confusion you see that learning Mandarin is not that much harder than learning another language.

At that point learning Mandarin will seem like an even better idea; the alien shape of the mountain as viewed from afar will continue to look intimidating to your peers, but armed with the basic knowledge of the structure of the language you can pursue proficiency alone. The thing about languages and mountains is that the benefits attributed to conquering them are inversely proportioned to how many people that set out to do so. If something seems harder than it is, the cost-benefit analysis of actually doing it works in your favor. Learning Mandarin is a 100% sure way of standing out in any future job interview, learning a different foreign language just simply does not have nearly the same status attributed to it - this comes in part because so few people do it and part because it makes you seem like a pretty clever person that can learn other complicated things.

What makes all languages hard though, not only Mandarin, is that a mountain is still a mountain and even people that realize that it is not as daunting as it first seems fail at learning Mandarin. That is not special for Mandarin; it is true for all languages. The people that manage to learn a language do so because they have a purpose in mind when they start of on their trip to the summit, or they find one on the way. Having a clear objective is very important. Meandering about on a foothill odyssey will not take you all the way to the top.

With this notion in mind it is really hard to understand that even a language like Mandarin is mostly taught with textbooks. Textbooks are great to teach people in en economical way - it is terrible to teach them in an efficient way. What makes me say even a language like Mandarin is the fact that economics enter into the equation on a very different scale than for example French. China owes its growth miracle to the fact that there are many people in China that are keen on working for smaller wages than elsewhere. From a economic standpoint that should mean that there are much greater opportunity to teach in a more efficient way - in other words relying on people instructing other people as opposed to textbooks teaching people.

The reason that textbooks are apt at making language studies cheap is that you can create one that can teach millions of people the same stuff and then just stick it into a copy machine and you are done. The reason that this way of teaching a language will never be efficient is that the content of such a book needs to fit millions, or at least thousands. This is not done elsewhere in society. We normally recognize that people come in different sizes and flavors. When someone designs a shoe they make it in different sizes. When we make cars they come in different colors and specs to fit individual preferences. Why then do we try to teach something so inherently personal as a mode of communication with the one shoe fits all principle in mind?

The number one way to ensure that a student has the determination to finish the job is to give them the good stuff; the soul food they need in order to realize their objectives. Personal content (personal textbooks) is one way of finding a balance between economics and efficiency as it can be taught in small classes but retain the benefits of private ones.

Rui Ming works for a Chinese language school in China that is a great option for those that want to learn Mandarin. See the program overview page for more information about learning Mandarin.

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