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What's the best way to start learning Chinese?
I'm a native English speaker and I started learning Chinese when I was 19 years old. I'm definitely no expert but I can give you some pointers about starting out.
First, I will address the simplified/traditional debate (jenti zi/fanti zi). To me it's this simple. If someone is from a country that uses simplified characters they will tell you it's best to learn simplified. If they are from one that uses traditional characters they will tell you you must learn traditional. There are arguments to be made for both sides and it kind of makes my head hurt if you want to know the truth : )
I would think of it this way. Is there a Mandarin program that you can get into in the college you plan to go to? What do they use? Choose that. OR where are you more likely planning to visit in the future - China or Taiwan? If China, choose simplified. If Taiwan, choose traditional. Or do you have a Chinese friend or tutor to learn from? Then choose whatever they use (taking the above into account).
I first learned traditional (in Taiwan), but in college (later) I had the choice to use either, I chose traditional because that's what I had started with. Now I've been trying to become more familiar with typing in Chinese and also recognizing simplified characters. I find it's pretty simple to switch back and forth. If you know pinyin, you can have the program you are using show you traditional or simplified characters. Choose one to study and stick with it because learning the characters are difficult! If you want to learn how to write the characters (as opposed to typing them which is much easier), traditional characters are more complicated and more difficult to learn to write. I do find them easier to read in a way, but maybe that's because I learned them first. I'll address writing the characters again later.
So in learning the language, the first phrases I learned were from a friend of mine. She would say the phrase and I would repeat. That was fine but really didn't get me that far because I wasn't breaking it apart. I still remember those phrases. Here's one which was useful in that it taught me how important the tones were.
妈妈骑马，马慢，妈妈骂马
mā mā qí mǎ， mǎ màn，mā mā mà mǎ
Memorizing phrases is great for a brief introduction - Ni hao, Xie Xie, etc. But if you want to be systematic about it, you need to learn the sounds and learn pinyin. In Taiwan, I learned bo po mo pho which is a different system, but you should learn pinyin because it will be most useful to you. But I do like the way bo po mo pho taught me all of the sounds of Chinese. I would repeat them over and over.
Here's a great chart with the bo po mo fo symbols and their equivalents for pinyin.
I would get someone to help you say the sounds and learn them well. Don't bother with the symbols, just learn the pinyin (as below).
bo po mo fo
de te ne le
ge ke he
ji qi xi
zhi chi shi ri
zi ci si
ya o e ye
ai ei ao ou
an en ang eng
er
yi wu yu
When you know these basic sounds and can pronounce them well (watch out for zhi chi shi r - tough ones) then you can begin to learn to put the sounds together and make words. Learning to "spell" them in pinyin as you learn them will be very helpful.
Tones
There are four basic tones and a neutral tone. They are explained well here:
The main thing about tones is to remember to HEAR and REMEMBER the tone as well as the word (for example, "ma" is “scold” when it's fourth tone and “horse” when it's third tone). That is so hard for non-native speakers to do. It took me a while and I was always forgetting the tone of a word. It became comical when I would try to retrieve the right tone as I conversed with a native speaker. They would look quite puzzled as I went through all the tones of ma to try and land on the right one and be understood.
My advice is to not concentrate too much on learning to read the tone (the symbols above the word), but instead try really hard to hear it and copy it when you hear the word spoken by a native (either in person or on tape). If you have a good ear for music it will help. Mimic over and over and hear how words and sentences flow together, copying the tone exactly.
Writing
This has gotten way too long so I won't say much about this. The key to learning to write the characters is stroke order. You need to know the stroke order when you learn the character. You can buy books that will teach you that. Then just copy the character over and over for practice.
Good luck! I hope this helps.
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10/23/2010
Postscript:
I'm now taking Chinese classes again, trying to remember what I learned in the past and also learn some 生词 (new words). I'm really concentrating on learning to read and write in Chinese. I am getting close to abandoning traditional characters - at least when I learn new words. It's just so HARD to remember how to write any Chinese characters, but the traditional ones can be especially tough. I'm old ; ) and need to progress as fast as I can if I want to get anywhere, so simplified it is. (Though I haven't changed the keyboard settings on this laptop yet).
Oh, and I also have an iPad now and I'm searching for the perfect App and/or Chinese-English dictionary to use. Any suggestions? Eventually, I'll be writing up some reviews of what I've tried out so far.
Here are some Pinyin videos from YouTube
