How to Learn Chinese
As we all know, learning a foreign language is not easy. Many foreign friends of mine are complaining to me that Chinese is so hard to learn. Is Chinese really that hard to learn? Actually, I don't think so. Chinese grammar is much simpler if compared to that of the European languages. Plus each Chinese character pronounced in one syllable, thatˇŻs why when watching Chinese movies, you find that a few words can be translated into a syllable mapping in the English subtitle.
There's no doubt learning any foreign language requires effort, time and commitment. The best way to learn Chinese is to identify your reason and motivation for learning the language, as this will help you focus on the things. For example, the business owner wanting to learn Chinese has different needs to the traveler going over for a two week trip, and so you have to direct your learning to achieve the best results. Of course, perhaps a combination of methods would work best for you.
Learning Chinese Pinyin should be the first step of learning Chinese language. Pinyin contains all the Chinese phonetic alphabets where they are used in the pronunciation of Chinese characters. To distinguish the different tones, pay close attention to the four types by reading the Pinyin letters, initials, finals, and all possible combinations.
One of the most innovative ways to learn Chinese is by joining a chat room or virtual reality environment. The design of software programs have allowed the use of multi-lingual input and output, along with speech and voice recognition to offer users a much richer learning environment even in the absence of direct human face-to-face contact. Chat programs such as QQ up being rapidly taken up by the Chinese populations, and foreign users always attract curious Chinese locals that want to offer language exchange through the translation and dictionary functions of the program. Virtual reality worlds such as Second Life and HiPiHi have also opened up new communication channels for users to interact with each other, and several linguistic and language interest groups are emerging and embracing the new medium for communication and exchange of ideas/information.
Anyway, which ever way you decide to learn Chinese, the important thing for beginners is to work out your motivation for learning the language.