Started learning Mandarin on June 28. Planned my learning using the 5M tool to learn anything. My purpose is to communicate better with my girlfriend Li ("hao mei") and her family, who are back home in China.
Before describing the method and tools, here are a few initial results after my first week:
- By day two, I’d already had a 30-second conversation about food.
- By the end of week one, I’d already learned 40 common radicals, had a 5-minute conversation with Li, her Mom and nephew in China via phone video chat!
This is with 2 ~30 minute sessions with Li (native speaker and certified translator) and some simple practice in everyday conversations that naturally happened. My initial method involved only parts 1, 3, and 4. Thanks to Li (and her kindness) I formed this better method:
The beginning of my method focused on a few parts at the same time:
1. Learn how to make and hear the sounds (phonemes: consonants/vowels a.k.a. initials/endings)
2. Learn some common radicals (40)
3. Learn some common words that are meaningful/fun to me (hungry, love, boyfriend, beautiful, fish soup)
4. Practice whenever relevant situations happen
5. Learn grammar naturally, by trying to form sentences using the meaningful words and having Li correct me.
In a sense, this represents a child’s learning method. The first words learned are ones that naturally come up first (mama, dada), and they’ve got native speakers tutoring them as they stumble through forming sentences.
I’m blessed to have Li, not only because she can help me learn the only ancient language still used today, but because she’s patient and kind, even when I try to tell her the best way to learn a language, let alone her native language and one she’s certified to teach!
Stay tuned for more updates as I learn Mandarin!
-David (Jia xin)