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Learning Mandarin Chinese has become an increasingly popular endeavor in recent years, with more people undertaking the challenge every day.

There are as many different reasons to learn Mandarin Chinese as there are people who take up the language.  Some people learn Mandarin Chinese in order to get a new job, a promotion, or a raise.  Some are planning a trip to China or another area where the language is widely spoken.  Some people take up Mandarin Chinese just because they love learning new languages, or perhaps because they enjoy the sound of Mandarin.  Many people take up learning Mandarin Chinese for a combination of reasons.

Just as there are many different reasons for learning Mandarin Chinese, there are many different ways to go about it.  Some people like the flexibility of online classes, while some like the personal interaction of traditional classes.  Some people choose tutoring, while others learn on the go from audio files.

Our mission is to help you learn to speak better Chinese.  We hope these ten do’s and don’ts will help you familiarize yourself with the Chinese culture and provide you some insight into how the culture shapes the language.

It is our opinion that gaining some insight into the Chinese culture will help you deepen your understanding of the Chinese language.  We hope that a greater understanding of the issues relevant to Chinese culture will help improve your understanding of the language.

We hope these tips will spark your interest and get you looking for more tips on how to learn Chinese, or to talk with someone who has been down the road you are now travelling.

Happy learning!

Profile: Yang is a serial web entrepreneur whose latest website is www.learnmandarinnow.com. Yang is passionate about learning new languages and cultures.

The post Improve Your Mandarin Chinese with These 10 Cultural Tips appeared first on Learn a new language while having fun and exploring the world | Runaway Daydreamer.

Beyond a doubt, it is a complex language to tackle, but it’s not as hard as you think, especially if you get off on the right foot.

You’ll certainly have a jump-start in learning Mandarin if you don’t waste your time with ineffective materials and tools.

That’s why I decided to share with you this infographic created by LearnMandarinNow.com. Here’s what they have to say about it:

“Using our blog, we contacted 50+ bloggers and asked them about the resources they prefer to use when learning Chinese. The results of all of these ideas and suggestions can now be found in our colourful, informative Infographic and, now, we are happy to share details with you on Runaway Daydreamer.
Please take some time to review our Infographic as you can find out the most popular resources over 50 other bloggers use when learning Chinese, plus how many votes each resource received. You can also read: How to learn Chinese: amazing tips from 50+ top bloggers, one of our other articles.”

Don’t get sucked into the idea that Mandarin is an impossible language to master. It is far more different to English than most European languages are, but you’ll get great results as long as you are persistent, constant and motivated.  Try to increase your language and culture exposure until you get to the basic and become familiar with Mandarin Chinese and its characters. It is all downhill from here. You’ll just need to keep going.

Your turn: What are your top resources for learning Mandarin? Have you got any other suggestion for websites or apps that you like and use regularly? Share in the comments below!

The post What’s the best way to learn Chinese? appeared first on Learn a new language while having fun and exploring the world | Runaway Daydreamer.

Today’s post is by Yang who will give you the encouragement you need to pursue your language learning goals. 

Enjoy!

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Many people think that learning Chinese has to be incredibly difficult for Westerners. This is a misconception that has spread by both native speakers and others. In fact, it may well be easier for a native English speaker to learn proper Chinese that it is for a native Chinese speaker to learn to proper English.

Before we talk about the reasons why learning Mandarin is relatively easy, there are two main issues that many people encounter when learning the language.

Pronunciation

When learning any new language, you need to learn how to pronounce the words.  But learning to pronounce words in Spanish or French is fairly straightforward as they use many of the same sounds as are used in English.  This is not the case with Chinese.  The Chinese language uses many sounds that are difficult for the ear of the Westerner to distinguish.  Add to this, the tonal nature of the language, and it’s not really surprising that Mandarin seems hard to learn.

Vocabulary

Just like with pronunciation, there are many words that are very similar between English and other Germanic and Romance languages.  There are no words in Chinese that are similar enough to their English equivalent to help simplify your vocabulary building.  Learning Chinese vocabulary must be done from scratch, it’s impossible to learn Chinese by focusing on similarities with English.

But it still doesn’t have to be all that tough!

Hong Kong

Pronunciation and vocabulary are basic building blocks of any language, so what exactly makes Chinese easy to learn?  One word: Grammar.  Simply put, when learning most languages, you have to learn to conjugate verbs, decline nouns, and learn noun genders, essentially learning several different forms of most words.  Chinese grammar is so much easier to learn that it makes up for the difficulties with pronunciation and vocabulary.

The easiest thing about Chinese grammar is the lack of inflections.  A verb is expressed the same way in the past, present, or future, singular or plural, and nouns are not gendered.

To make things even easier, the line between parts of speech is fuzzy.  Most words can be used appropriately as noun, verb, or adjective without changing the word in any way.  This makes your new vocabulary quite flexible.  The same is true for written Chinese.

Don’t take this as meaning that Chinese is easy, it is quite difficult.  The difficulties just happen to be different than the difficulties you might encounter learning many other languages.  Don’t feel inadequate if you have trouble learning the language, or if it doesn’t click into place right away.

Reading and writing Chinese present their own unique challenges, and it can take much longer to learn than speaking and listening.  Still, the Chinese language isn’t necessarily all that much harder to learn than many other languages.

You are welcome to visit Learn Mandarin Now to find out more tips to learn the language.

Niaochao National Stadium in Beijing

The post Mandarin Chinese is easier to learn than you think appeared first on Learn a new language while having fun and exploring the world | Runaway Daydreamer.

ChineseCubes, a new language education system, is committed to teaching you Chinese.  Here’s how.

Since the beginning of time we have learned through stories. That’s why we made CUBEBooks, so that learning can be more fun, more contextual, more natural.
Even if you have never read a word of Chinese in your life, CUBEBooks will get you started as soon as you download one. See Chinese characters in the context of stories. Touch the characters and they come to life, teaching the meaning of each, how to pronounce them, how to write them, how to translate them, or just sit back and let the stories be read to you. Each book comes with learning activities and games to practice what you learned and test your learning in a fun way!

You can learn both simplified  and traditional (Taiwan) characters.  You can even learn characters in group, with your friends or family. Like the website says:  “Don’t just read, interact!”

There is a big difference between passive reading and active use of the language.

Watch the video below and then discover more by browsing their website.

What do you think? It sounds like a brilliant idea to me!

The post Learn Chinese Characters The Easy Way! appeared first on Learn a new language while having fun and exploring the world | Runaway Daydreamer.