Questions for English speaking students of Mandarin Chinese?
I am currently in the ‘beginning’ phase of learning Mandarin. Although it took a while to get it going, I am now studying Mandarin for at least one hour a day. I’m hoping to crank it up to 2 hours or even 3 to speed up the process.
1) What level are you on (Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced… I know there are more levels) and how long did it take for you to get there
2) How has the language helped you in your life?
3) How do you study it yourself? Time and method
4) Do you know any useful programmes or books? I have the first books of Volume 1 in the ‘Contemporary Chinese’ series. I was wondering if there were any decently priced programmes online or other useful book (series)
Thanks.
1. Beginner, and I studied for a year.
2. It hasn’t had a direct impact on my life, but learning how they structure their sentences and characters was interesting and I think beneficial if I continue learning more Asian languages. I just love learning languages, so dabbling in anything is beneficial by default. 
3. I took a class, actually. My university provided four semesters of Mandarin, and I enrolled in the first two semesters. We met five days a week for four months each semester. I did have to study a lot outside of class though (probably a good hour a day when I was dedicated), and I found making flashcards really helped. Both for memorizing characters, and so I could practice constructing my own sentences (I’m a visual learner, so seeing sentences instead of speaking them helped me). Learning radicals on my own also helped immensely when faced with a bunch of new vocabulary. Our class also set up weekly “tutorials” with the TAs, so we could practice conversation with them and ask questions about anything we weren’t understanding; I think that was the most valuable asset to taking a class instead of learning it on my own, having a native to help me.
4. The book we had for class was called Integrated Chinese, and it was a pretty decent textbook. There are also Integrated Chinese character workbooks (in either traditional, simplified, or both). You might also want to try looking for podcasts in the iTunes store, I believe there’s one called ChinesePod that really helps with your listening skills. I also hear Rosetta Stone and Pimsleur are great language programs, but they cost quite a bit.
You might find these dictionaries useful:
MDBG: http://us.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict
nciku: http://www.nciku.com/
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