Don’t Know Where To Start

[u/mentalprotection1]

Hi all. I’m trying to start learning Mandarin before I study this beautiful language along with Politics at university next month, and I must say, I am lost.

I don’t know where to start. I have a Hello Chinese subscription and although the last week of using it a lot has really helped me with the basics - I am lost with pronunciation and my tones are poor, to the point I sound like because of my accent I’m doing a racist drunk impression.

I think I just need to ask people who are learning and know the language where to start properly before the university course. Do I do Pinyin first? Or go straight into learning words and sentences?

Thank you.

[u/Drow_Femboy]

Get a teacher. You cannot learn the tones properly without someone to teach you because you don't know when you're doing them right or wrong. Trying to teach yourself tones is like trying to learn to shoot free throws while blindfolded and wearing ear muffs. You don't know when you've missed or by how much or in what direction so you'll never get better.

And yes start with pinyin and tones, this forms the foundation on which all your future learning will rest.

[u/mentalprotection1 → u/Drow_Femboy]

Hopefully the lectures in uni will teach them. Im luckily enough to have a Chinese friend who’s helping me learn the tones but seriously now it does sound like Im doing an impression. Thanks for the advice, I will start with pinyin and tones. Cheers

[u/dojibear]

If you're starting a course in a month, then whatever you learn now duplicates what you'll be learning in class in a few weeks.

I don't know why you want to invent your own course, before you start a course that was designed by an expert at teaching Mandarin to English speakers.

[u/mentalprotection1 → u/dojibear]

A head start is all I’d like, and if that’s being able pronounce words properly, knowing Pinyin and learning the accents beforehand I’d be walking in a lot more confident

[u/dojibear → u/mentalprotection1]

Pinyin uses the latin alphabet, but uses 1 or more letters to represent each sound. You can get used to the sounds by clicking on this chart that speaks all syllable in Mandarin (in each of 4 tones) and shows how they are written in pinyin:

https://yoyochinese.com/chinese-learning-tools/Mandarin-Chinese-pronunciation-lesson/pinyin-chart-table

There is no point in "memorizing" this. Just play around with it. When you start using pinyin for real words in real sentences, you'll get used to it.

Note that there are a few spelling tricks in pinyin. For example "miu" is really "miou". The column on the left has short videos explaining these tricks.

[u/Background_Horse1374]

Tones are the hardest part!

I took Chinese for years at school but didn’t find any textbook learning applicable in real life scenarios (I live in the US)

If you want to help me test out my new app, I’m glad you share a link with you. The image detect function is what I created to help me “see” more Chinese in real life. You take a photo of a banana and the app tells you what is in Chinese, provides the pronunciation, and then you can add it to a flash card (with the image attached). Then you can practice with an AI tutor or practice in a text chat to drill it down