Possible to learn Chinese on the Internet just by yourself?

Discussion in 'General Chat' started by DemonKing, Apr 30, 2016.

  1. DemonKing

    DemonKing Member

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    Is it possible to learn chinese in the Internet just by yourself?
     
  2. NZPIEFACE

    NZPIEFACE Leecher

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    No. Common day to day words are pretty annoying to understand without context and constant use.
     
  3. VixenKiss

    VixenKiss Machiavelli the Princess

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    Rosetta Stone.
     
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  4. RR Vocaloid

    RR Vocaloid RoyalRoad.com Slepragt

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    Yes, it's completely possible to learn it. Become fluent? No. There's hundreds of tutorials and dictionaries at your disposal to learn both how to write and speak Chinese; some free while others not so much. To become truly fluent, you must go to China and live among native speakers.
     
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  5. Llamia

    Llamia Well-Known Member

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    Depends. Time spent and how you spend it. If you're spending money, two useful tools for learning chinese would be Skritter (for character learning) and ChinesePod (audio and talking). Also need to get some live speech opportunities.

    As Vocaloid said, you won't become fluent, but you'll be passable with hard work.
     
  6. kevmasterzoc

    kevmasterzoc Well-Known Member

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    if it is just to read Chinese and not to speak or (properly) write, then it is possible to learn online while slowly memorizing new characters. just be ready for a ton of memorization cause there are thousands of characters in Chinese. Speaking I would strongly recommend a teacher or a Chinese speaker to listen to you to make sure you are saying it correctly with the right tone cause saying a word in the wrong tone changes the meaning of the word..
     
  7. Potatos

    Potatos [Mostly Inactive] [Frozen Ink's Slave #2]

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    It is possible but it does depend on what you want to learn
    If you want to learn how to speak chinese, you definitely need somebody to talk with in chinese or you'll never get better talking to yourself alone. After all, you don't know what you did wrong
    It is possible to learn reading and writing online though it is really hard. So persevere!!!
    I would recommend reading chinese novels and the like so you can learn all though metaphors and stuff like that
    As a bilingual person(grew up in Canada, but parents are chinese), I think that you need somebody to learn with you . It's really hard to know whether or not you've made mistakes when you're learning by yourself.
    Use those online lessons if you want, I've never used them before so I don't know how it woks. I do think that learning directly from a person would be better though
    In short: It's hard, for oral you need somebody else that can speak fluently and you should read those beloved chinese novels all over the internet.

    Edit: btw, although it depends on how old you are and your current exposure to the chinese culture, I do not think it is possible to be completely fluent orally. Learning chinese words should take about 3-5 years if you're trying really hard and dedicating your life, 5-10 years if you're doing it moderately and 10+ if your doing it casually and learning whenever you feel like it
     
  8. ludagad

    ludagad Addicted to escapist novels

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    Seconded. You can learn to read and write, depending on your capacity it might take a few months or a few years. But if you want to speak it fluently as well, you need daily interaction.
     
  9. Raphael

    Raphael Well-Known Member

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    These days seeing a thread that hasn't been done before is rarer than phoenix feathers and qilin horns.......
     
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  10. Random

    Random Well-Known Member

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    Its possible to learn a language in two weeks if you set your mind to it (fluently by the way)...Of course this is generally dependent on the amount of time and effort you are willing to spend...
     
  11. The Darkness

    The Darkness 『False God』

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    Not even close, even if you spent every second learning Chinese, 2 weeks is barely 350 hours. To be fluent in Chinese, it takes about 2000 class hours (if the speakers native language is English, French, Spanish, ETC.)


    In 350 hours you might have the conversational skills of 8 year old. And that is if you solely focus on spoken language in those hours. Can you have a conversation with an 8 year old? Yes. Is an 8 year old considered fluent in any language? Generally no, unless they are one smart kid.
     
  12. ABMAINA

    ABMAINA ★☆☆☆☆

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    Different languages can be learned at different speeds due to it's difficulty. Not to mention if the person them self is a slow learner...
     
  13. Westeller

    Westeller Smokin' Sexy Style!! Staff Member

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    If you want to learn to speak the language, then you have to practice with another person, no matter what. If you want to learn to write.. well.. good luck.

    If you just want to learn to read novels.. then...

    I don't understand chinese, so my opinion is worth approximately nothing, but I'm willing to bet a few body parts on it being technically possible to learn purely to read chinese online.

    If your goal is novels, I don't think you need to know how to speak, or write, chinese.

    A few reasons I believe this:

    First, Mandarin is relatively new. No matter what anyone tells you about it being necessary to pronounce the characters for names and things like that, you have to remember that not so long ago, everyone in china pronounced those same characters completely differently! You do not need to correctly pronounce a name in Mandarin to understand that it's a name. You can absolutely pronounce it your own way. If it's just for your reading pleasure, who cares!?

    Secondly, you don't need to be able to write a character to remember what it means. Yes. It can help cement that character in your mind, but I'm under the impression that writing in chinese is so completely ridiculous that even native chinese speakers have trouble with it. I've read testimonies that state even chinese university students majoring IN THEIR OWN LANGUAGE can easily blank out on COMMON chinese characters. Because that's chinese. Luckily, you don't need to be able to write to read.

    So can you learn to read chinese, on the internet, by brute force memorization (preferably with an SRS application) and reading practice? I totally believe you can. Expect it to take a long time, though. Months. Maybe years. It depends on how you choose to learn it and how long you're willing/able to spend practicing each day.

    This is bologna. You need to memorize too damn much to have a working vocabulary approaching the level of fluency. People advertising 2-week crash-courses usually intend for you to be able to "fluently" utter a few memorized lines at a restaurant.
     
    Last edited: Apr 30, 2016
  14. Yue Er

    Yue Er Well-Known Member

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    I'd say start with books, you know children's books and move on up to watch stuff without english translations. I am fluent in Canto, can speak and stuff cause I've spoken it all my life. My mandarin is a bit lackluster, I can understand but speak is kinda hard. Especially for harder topics. I even went to those Chinese schools for my entire childhood. Reading is passable. I can understand context and meaning but translations are still hard. Really depends on how much time you are willing to put in and how much work you're willing to do.
     
  15. Random

    Random Well-Known Member

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    I only said that learning a language in two weeks was possible...it has actually been done before by a human in this world...
     
  16. The Darkness

    The Darkness 『False God』

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    A human =\= all humans.


    Just because someone else is a freak of nature, doesn't mean we can all do it.
     
  17. akki

    akki [Ani's C☕ffee-mate #3] [Shady Merchant]

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    Sure you could. It would be the wrong way to do it though and you probably will not get the results you were hoping for
     
  18. Yukkuri Oniisan

    Yukkuri Oniisan 『Procrastinator Archwizard Translator and Writer』

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    The only sure way of learning a language is constant exposure in addition to grammar learning.
    I learn English from constant exposure to playstation and pc games for over 15years in addition to receiving constant criticism on my grammar (I weak in tenses and plural, since my native language lack them)
    I learn japanese from constant exposure of JRPG (undub, dual audio, or english patched) games, manga, light novel for over 6 years in addition to learning Japanese grammar.

    Also language learning is continous. You never ever stop learning. Just keep learning without thinking how long it takes and just keep do you best. also watch some Chinese TV drama to increase your exposure....
     
  19. DemonKing

    DemonKing Member

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    Thanks for all the help!
     
  20. tehrealone

    tehrealone 『Lurker』

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    Learning European languages in two weeks is highly possible.
    They all share a common ancestry and use similar words at times