Self learning made easy

 

“Develop into a lifelong self-learner through voracious reading; cultivate curiosity and strive to become a little wiser every day.”

— Charlie Munger

There are two main places we can learn from: our own experience or the experience of others. This blog is about my experience learning Mandarin. I hope it will encourage my readers to learn it as well.

I have heard a number of teachers from China who say that they cannot teach foreigners to learn to speak in Chinese without them learning Chinese characters. This is false information. Foreigners not only can learn to speak but they will be able to read anything written in Pinyin. Along the way they will learn the Chinese characters. 

Many Americans learned to speak perfect Mandarin from Yale University which taught them to speak Mandarin using romanised words. The book from Yale University, Speak Chinese, teaches 750 words in the first year using the book Speak Chinese. In the second year the students continue learning to speak Mandarin using the second book Chinese Dialogues.

My pastor, an American, taught me Mandarin using the book Speak Chinese which uses the Yale translation. Although the Yale system is seldom used today it nevertheless remain the least confusing and the most accurate method of spelling Chinese words for Western readers, because they conform more closely to standard English phonetics.

More than 50 years ago I was taught to learn to speak Mandarin using the first book, Speak Chinese. I was given the book Chinese Dialogues when my pastor was transferred to Sibu, Sarawak. I had no problem learning by myself as I already knew how to pronounce any new word I came across. I can read any word known or unknown to me if it is written in Yale romanisation.

I stopped learning because there were no books after Chinese Dialogues to learn to speak Mandarin.

I have started learning to read in Pinyin - self taught. Today, I can read any word, known or unknown to me, written in Pinyin as accurately as anyone else in the world.

Anyone who wants to learn to speak in Mandarin can easily learn to speak using Pinyin with tone marks.