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Learn and Understand Tones

The Chinese language is centered on the usage of tones. If you do not produce the tones that are associated with each word correctly, then you will not be able to communicate in the language effectively. The Mandarin dialect has 5 tones, which are neutral, first, second, third, and fourth tone. For people who are use to speaking and learning one of the romance languages, then it may be difficult to adjust to the major differences between Chinese and a language like English. The main difference between a language like Chinese and the romance languages is that Chinese is a tonal language and Chinese does not use an alphabet.

Practice your Pronunciation

When one begins to learn the sounds that compose the Chinese language they may become confused because certain sounds in the language actually sound similar, and to an untrained ear they may sound exactly alike. Beside similar sounding sounds, the language has sounds that are difficult for some non-native Chinese speakers simply because those sounds may not present in their native tongue. The key is to listen to an audio file with Chinese words and try to repeat what you hear exactly as it is said. If you continue to do this then your pronunciation of the characters will drastically improve.

Learn Pinyin

Taking the time out to learning pinyin is essential to having a well-round Chinese learning experience. Pinyin is simply the romanized form of the sounds that compose the Chinese language. Pinyin put a Chinese character into the alphabet by using the characters sounds. Pinyin is used in mandarin speaking homes to assist children connect spoken words that they know with characters they don’t. Pinyin is an effective tool to help people who are not native Chinese speakers learn the language.

Practice Speaking

Simply put, if you do not vocalize what you are learning then you will never completely be comfortable with the language. It will even become difficult for you to speak the language when you need to because you won’t be use to it, so do yourself a favor now and become comfortable speaking. The best way to practice the language is to speak with people that know Chinese. If you do not know any then politely ask people you do not know if you and them can speak in Chinese when you around each other. Even if you don’t know a lot of words in Chinese that is fine, the trick is just to speak and the person you are communicating with will fill in the blanks. Communicating in Chinese will allow to remember your new word and pick up the language faster. Another way to communicate while you are a beginner learning Chinese is to be crafty and try to express yourself despite the fact that you may not know the exact word for something.

For example: (You don’t know how to say table)

Instead of saying: I put the glass on top of the table.

You could say: I put the glass on top of the thing/ I put the glass on top of that.

In doing this you are setting up the other person to fill in the blanks for you allowing you to retain the word because you are actually speaking and know how to apply it.

Practice Writing

Writing in Chinese is not as difficult as one may think. There are a set of rules, stroke order, that one must follow, and once those rules are learned writing using characters becomes a lot easier. It just becomes a matter of memorizing characters in order to be able to express your thought in writing, which is not too difficult.

If you don’t know how to begin journey to learning Chinese or just want addition information to help you become proficient in the language then Rocket Chinese is a great program to help you accomplish that. If you would like more information on Rocket Chinese then click the link below to learn more about this great program.

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If you have any question feel free to email me at info@languagelyon.com