Do any of you speak more than one language?

[Starck]

Hopefully you've learned the difference between 活着 and 或者 by now.

Easy mistype if not paying attention when using pinyin input!

 

[ToxicShocker]

Yo se hablo

 

[rj144]

I speak English and gibberish. I'm fluent in both.

 

[Rjay]

Professional standard Chinese

 

[Oeshon]

Professional standard Chinese

Whats the best resource for learning Mandarin? I've thought about picking up Chinese as a fourth language as it is just so widely spoken and useful.

 

[Takes_Two_To_Tango]

English, Tagalog, Spanish and German.

Thanks for the mention.

Mother tongue: German

Fluently speaking:

Chinese (studied here in Shanghai)
English (moved to the states as a teen)
French (Mother and father both speak it)
Italian (mother taught me)

The saddest part?

I work for a major Japanese car manufacturing company in China and my Japanese is conversational at best

Wow that's impressive indeed.

 

[Lubaolong]

Lol you still bitter about me being drunk and making a mistake?

Better than pretending to be an ex government spy who is now a doctor lol

It wasn’t a simple mistake. You argued about the meaning of a simple word, even after I pointed out and tried to explain it to you. A first year college student would know that. Lol fluent.

I know that you don’t really think I’ve ever lied about anything. You were caught in a lie and are now trying to offer some distraction.

 

[Lubaolong]

Easy mistype if not paying attention when using pinyin input!

I would accept that if he didn’t argue with me about the correctness after his mistake was pointed out. You should read the thread he wrote that in. It’s prettty clear he didn’t know.

 

[Lubaolong]

Whats the best resource for learning Mandarin? I've thought about picking up Chinese as a fourth language as it is just so widely spoken and useful.

Immersion.

 

[Oeshon]

Immersion.

traveling to china or somewhere else isn't an issue. i fly to HK fairly often as my business is registered there (i know its not mandarin there, but i want to learn mandarin)

i'm just wondering if there is a good resource for mandarin specifically.

 

[phoenixikki]

I speak MMA.
Come at me bro.

 

[Lubaolong]

traveling to china or somewhere else isn't an issue. i fly to HK fairly often as my business is registered there (i know its not mandarin there, but i want to learn mandarin)

i'm just wondering if there is a good resource for mandarin specifically.

It’s hard to learn any language quickly or to any degree of fluency unless you are immersed in that environment. If you really want to learn, you could move to Taiwan and enroll in the university there and study and practice all day. There’s no real fast track or hack to becoming fluent. Messing around with some iPhone app and learning some words and phrases is not going to make you fluent.

 

[Lubaolong]

Professional standard Chinese

I remember you saying you worked for some US company in China or something? You study on your own, or did you attend some language program? I always like hearing these stories. Simply showing up in China isn’t enough to learn the language. You put in some serious work.

 

[no fat chicks]

Trying to learn Spanish atm

 

[Oeshon]

It’s hard to learn any language quickly or to any degree of fluency unless you are immersed in that environment. If you really want to learn, you could move to Taiwan and enroll in the university there and study and practice all day. There’s no real fast track or hack to becoming fluent. Messing around with some iPhone app and learning some words and phrases is not going to make you fluent.

i know that already. I've already learned Thai and Spanish. I'm planning to spend time in Chinese speaking countries/areas, but I'm looking for a good resource.

For example, I used DuoLingo to get started with my Spanish and I used Pimsleur to get started with Thai. Considering how widely spoken mandarin is, I'm sure there is a good 'system' or course/app for getting started.

After I've got the basics down, I can just post up in Taipei/Shenzen for a couple months and work on it from there.

 

[Lubaolong]

i know that already. I've already learned Thai and Spanish. I'm planning to spend time in Chinese speaking countries/areas, but I'm looking for a good resource.

For example, I used DuoLingo to get started with my Spanish and I used Pimsleur to get started with Thai. Considering how widely spoken mandarin is, I'm sure there is a good 'system' or course/app for getting started.

After I've got the basics down, I can just post up in Taipei/Shenzen for a couple months and work on it from there.

I’m not really familiar with any good learning resources, sorry, but I suspect no amount of your self studying is going to offer much benefit. Even people who study Chinese at good 4 year universities in the US under guidance never reach any significant level of fluency. The gains you’ll make living in the country, if you put in the work, will far exceed whatever progress you could make self-studying with some computer program imo. It seems like a waste of time trying to first get a base. Time would be better spent in country enrolled in a language program. I’m partial to Taiwan, but if you want to go to the mainland and have a mainland accent, I’m sure there are many great language programs there too.

 

[Oeshon]

I’m not really familiar with any good learning resources, sorry, but I suspect no amount of your self studying is going to offer much benefit. Even people who study Chinese at good 4 year universities in the US under guidance never reach any significant level of fluency. The gains you’ll make living in the country, if you put in the work, will far exceed whatever progress you could make self-studying with some computer program imo. It seems like a waste of time trying to first get a base. Time would be better spent in country enrolled in a language program. I’m partial to Taiwan, but if you want to go to the mainland and have a mainland accent, I’m sure there are many great language programs there too.

Eh, I disagree as I've already done it twice with 2 different languages. I like to build up a vocabulary and a basic foundation so that I can get the most out of my time when I'm immersed. I'm sure Mandarin will be a hell of a lot harder, but I still like my approach to learning as I know it works for me.

 

[FamousSFO]

English and Español (read and write)

Plus Juan here

 

[90 50]

Immersion.

traveling to china or somewhere else isn't an issue. i fly to HK fairly often as my business is registered there (i know its not mandarin there, but i want to learn mandarin)

i'm just wondering if there is a good resource for mandarin specifically.

It’s hard to learn any language quickly or to any degree of fluency unless you are immersed in that environment. If you really want to learn, you could move to Taiwan and enroll in the university there and study and practice all day. There’s no real fast track or hack to becoming fluent. Messing around with some iPhone app and learning some words and phrases is not going to make you fluent.

I’ve learned a lot of languages at different times. Not necessarily fluent but enough to get what I need and the point across.

And done them all fairly quickly.

With true immersion, not in big populated cites where English is prevelemt and you can find people that understand English everywhere. But out in the sticks where only the native language is spoken for the most part.

 

[houjebek]

My motherlanguage is Dutch (well rather Flemish which is kinda 99% the same as Dutch)
English
French (good but not-fluent)
German (weak, only a couple of years at school, forgot most of it)
Italian (some words, I have family in Italy)