For those of you that have self-taught Mandarin, what resources have you found invaluable to your studies (websites, books, etc?)
I have found MIT’s OpenCourseWare Initiative to have quite a few Chinese language classes:
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Foreign-Languages-and-Literatures/21F-101Spring2005/CourseHome/index.htm
Teach Yourself Series
I tutor a couple of my shi hsiungs in class, and one of them has progressed very quickly with the “Teach Yourself Series”. He started with “Beginner’s Chinese” and is currently on “Chinese” (both by Elizabeth Scurfield, Lianyi Song). I’m sure the accompanying audio help a great deal, especially if you listen and study the vocabulary on a daily basis. It’s important to note that most commercial study aids for Mandarin teach the standard Beijing dialect, but keep in mind if you intend to move to Singapore, Taiwan, or other non-mainland Mandarin speaking countries, there are significant nuances in the accents, vocabulary utilized or expressions heard between mainland and non-mainland people.
If you are comfortable enough with the tones to the point that you no longer need audio help, then http://www.zhongwen.com is a great resource for looking up vocabulary.
I think the quickest way to become conversant (other than moving to Asia) is to practice with someone who already is! You must immerse yourself into speaking naturally and learn the fluidity of the language. 
Hope this helps.
~annibelle~
Pimsleur system.
Used by the FBI and CIA for learning any foreign language for many years.
audio cd’s
the system begins with several steps. the idea is taking a couple thousand of the most commonly used words and phrases in any language and repeating them at specific intervals (the timing is supposed to have been developed according to memory retention based on many studies)
you speak aloud no reading, which helps keep away the accent. check it out. its a great aid for any language.
agreed - pimsleur is also a great tool, i am currently learning Cantonese through Pimsleur and feel the lessons are very thorough.
I second Pang Quan. I have the Pimsleur Cantonese downloaded on my iPod…high quality stuff.
I’m also learning Mandarin from Pimsleur. Its a great method, however, it won’t help you reading anything.
true, but you will learn how to tell people you can speak mandarin even before you can.
PQ,
I thought that was funny. The first thing I learned to say was that I spoke Cantonese…I was like ummm…I don’t yet. But it worked out well, setting me up for some good stuff.
Is anyone trying to learn Mandarin or Cantonese?
I’m trying to learn Mandarin so I can have conversations with the Chinese people (native Chinese speakers) I associate with. I thought it would help with the occasional language barrier… actually it’s more often than occasional. I’m using a CD/Textbook package I got and another book for characters. I also found a Chinese school in my area that offeres Mandarin classes for native English speakers at $5-$10 a lesson… but that doesn’t start until September.
Also, there’s a Mandarin podcast (Chinesepod) which is pretty helpful.
Is anyone else doing something similar? If so, how is it going and what method of learning are you using?
I use the following…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/chinese/real_chinese/
http://www.chinese-lessons.com/
also I have Pimsleuer. Rosetta Stone (Cd’s 1 and 2), Talk Now Deluxe Mandarin, and Instant Immersion Mandarin.
PM me if you want info.
i have the book “Chinese in 10 minutes a day” (Kristine Kershul) & Pimsleur’s Mandarin CD’s, it’s definitely slow going and I don’t work every day with the book like i should.
I have a little CD player on top of the fridge in the kitchen and I will do the Pimsleur lessons while I am washing the dishes (by hand, no dishwasher).
The book “Chinese In 10 minutes A Day” is pretty good but I have to go slow with it, to truely absorb each lesson before going on to the next. If you just stayed on one lesson for a week, that would be about write. You’re not going to be learning and retaining Mandarin from it in say 3 months, by doing a page every day, unless you are already some crazy genius-prodigy type. It is good reference though combined with the Pimsleurs course so that you can see how some of the words are written in pinyin.
My aim is to learn Mandarin for conversational use, and then if I can learn a few ideograms down the road then that is gravy, I already bashed my head against that in Japanese, and just learning how to write the kanji down with the proper stroke order is a whole discipline of its own IMO… you really have to be committed to doing that. i’m keeping my sights set low…an aspiring illiterate! lol. to my credit I did learn both hiragana and katakana though, memorized all of them and can read and write like a Japanese first grader lol.
I started with Power Chinese CD-ROM from Transparent Language, which gives the basics of grammar, tones and pronunciation. Only bad thing about this program is that it only has simplified characters.
I then moved on to Rosetta Stone Mandarin level 1&2 set. The advantage to Rosetta Stone is that it has pinyin, traditional and simplified characters in the workbook and on the CD-ROMs.
I use Rosetta Stone along with Easy Chinese Mandarin Level 1 by Edward C. Chang to learn to read and write the characacters. This CD-Rom gives the stroke orders and pronunciations of characters.
I just got Reading and Writing Chinese Traditional Character Edition by William McNaughton and Li Ying.
Chizica-thanks for that link, the BBC one seems pretty good.
Banjos Dad-I know what you mean, I’ve been doing my lessons for a week or two each, then I ended up going back over them. Lesson 1 in the book I have is easy, I nailed that after practicing it for a week straight.. but for obvious reasons, as I progressed through the book I had more trouble. I haven’t done it in a while, but I’ve been using other methods to at least learn some things I’ll really need to say until I get a better grasp on the conversational.
As far as Rosetta Stone, I borrowed that from a friend. I didn’t really like it as much as my Living Language set. It was confusing too because everything seemed different. I also learn better from text books while taking notes… so that might have been the problem.
I’m also hoping that by being surrounded by native Mandarin speakers 4 days+ every week, I’ll begin to pick things up.
I’m also hoping that by being surrounded by native Mandarin speakers 4 days+ every week, I’ll begin to pick things up.
The total immersion method!! That will definitely accelerate your progress, and improve your accent.
Yeah, have you ever seen that Simpsons episode when Bart goes to France, and he just starts speaking French out of nowhere? That’s what I’m hoping for.
when that happens, you actually form the thoughts in the target language. When you begin to achieve fluency, your brain will translate its thoughts into that language, and you will be thinking in Chinese with no effort. IMO that is fluency more than the sum total of your vocabulary. of course, the greater the amount of vocabulary you have, the more detail you will express yourself with and the scope of your conversations is greater. This was my experience with Spanish anyway.
Keep at it, you will have dreams in Mandarin. I am not kidding.
I have seen that episode of the Simpsons…that’s a great one. The gendarme does not care about his tales of abuse at the hands of his wine making captors, but once he mentions that they are putting antifreeze in the wine, that gets his attention immediately!
I had trouble with French… there are so many silent letters, and even with the non silent ones, for the most part it is hard to pronounce a word properly having read it but not heard it spoken aloud! Chinese is a little like that to me but not as bad. Japanese was really great in that regard. The word has to be stressed on the right accent but other than that, what you see is what you get lol. like: hana can mean nose, or it can mean flower. one is haNA and one is HAna.
good luck with the Mandarin lessons, i envy you a little with the classes and also proximity to native Mandarin speakers. My kung fu teacher and his wife are from Taiwan and it seems like their accent is different from what i hear on the CDs but not so much.
From Taiwan? That brings up another subject… I’ve heard people speak of “Taiwanese” and “Shanghainese”. I heard some of it, I’m told that if you speak Shanghainese, it impresses people. I guess it means you’re down with China if you can speak Shanghainese. I don’t know, that’s what they say on ChinesePod anyway.
Pimsleur is the only decent Cantonese course out there. It is conversational, layers its teaching, and uses proper grammer, rather than colloquialisms.
I have a few Cantonese friends, one who was schooled in Hong Kong, and she is helping me alot. So far, I can do great ordering food, cursing, and going to the bathroom. So I can eat,get sick,run to the bathroom and then curse the waiters when I get out.
I find that Chinese folks are extremely receptive when I clumsily attempt to speak their language. Many are glad that Iwould actually take the time to learn about the language and culture to that extent, and are extremely patient and helpful. The elderly especially are enthusiastic. I hang out in a park in Chinatown and train with a group of people, and it really helped me “get in” with the group and gain acceptance.
Spanish is the only one of the European languages I kept up with, but here there are multitudes of Spanish speakers so I just have to keep my ears open to keep the rust off. Usually I listen first to hear if they are saying anything bad about me (which is almost never, like .1% of the time anyway) if someone needs help (lost, or need directions or instruction) and can’t speak English I will help, I don’t ‘butt in’ or anything but it is good karma to help when help is needed…
When you are in a foreign country or a community with a lot of immigrants, speaking the language really tends to open a lot of doors, because it shows that you are at least trying to make the effort. I’m not surprised that you find a receptive audience 
It is a sign of respect to make that attempt I believe.
There was a poster in my Spanish class bearing the slogan, “Hablando dos idiomas, vales dos personas.” : Speaking two languages, you are worth two people.(my translation) And to this day I really believe that.