posted by pcrimm on December 27, 2013 | 1 comments
Hey Everyone!So I have a somewhat different understanding of Chinese than most beginners. I spent a lot of time learning characters and words a couple years ago, and as a result I can learn how to *read* new words very quickly. I've now lived in China for almost 3 years, so I have learned how to speak a little, but my reading is considerably better than my speaking, which is not yet at a conversational level...more just functional (restaurants, taxis, asking directions, etc). I'm somewhat of a newbie in grammer as well. So far, what I've been doing is taking the "Elementary" lessons (about two a day) and reviewing the new words I don't know. Considering my strengths and weaknesses, what would you suggest I do to get more out of the site?-Phil
fremicourt on January 2, 2014 | reply
Hi, I spent four years in China and although my level in Chinese is not that fluent, I can have a conversation about trivial matters, news, and so on as long as we don't get too specific. This website is great, but to address your issues concerning the learning of Chinese, I am not sure it could help. Surely what you miss is practice. This website is awesome to learn new words, sentences patterns and so on... but in the end, we all need to just speak. At the beginning, I think I was like you: somewhat good abilities to read (relatively) but unable to speak. Well, what I did was to take private lessons with one teacher in face-to-face meeting. It took me a while (maybe one year) to get confident enough to try to speak with Chinese by myself. But the more I speak, the easier it gets.So, yes... I think that what you need is just to leave your computer and go in the streets with Chinese people... 只会说中文的中国人，当然。