Learning mandarin

Joule

I'm hoping to start learning mandarin (speaking and writing) but I have little idea as to what books/aids are good and well priced. Only one requirement is audio supplements are simply a must.

I can speak Cantonese but not a lick of Mandarin and I'm very illiterate in Chinese. I was hoping to down the basics and then move on learning bit by bit after that. I just need a starting point for it all.

So go ahead and unload your suggestions.

Fantasma

Learning to speak Mandarin is one thing, learning to write and read is another, the symbols are very hard. A friend of mine moved to China to study the language, have not heard from him in a long time. I am not saying that it is impossible to study using a method such as Rosetta Stone, but a native speaker would be very handy.

IreneDAdler

In terms of speaking, you're probably going to have trouble with the inflections. Most Westerners can't differentiate the 4 different inflections that are placed on vowels in Chinese, and changing the inflection can vastly alter the meaning of the word. A lot of times when Non-chinese actors are supposed to be speaking Chinese in a movie or TV show, I can't understand them at all, between the garbled annunciation and the obliteration of the inflections.

I've never really been a fan of language kits. I think it's far better to take a class taught by someone with a clue. Especially when you need to learn a whole new system of writing. There are rules on writing Chinese characters, just like there are rules on how to write letters, and I imagine that those rules could be very confusing if you didn't have someone showing you in the beginning. Though, being a native speaker, I can't really give you tips on the best way to learn Chinese, because I was just kind of... you know, born into it.

Joule

Ah. I suppose I should given a bit more context about myself. I can speak Cantonese but not a lick of Mandarin and I'm very illiterate in Chinese. I was hoping to down the basics and then move on learning bit by bit after that. I just need a starting point for it all.

I wasn't very exposed to Mandarin very much as child as my family and region was mostly Cantonese.

IreneDAdler

Oh, in that case, if I were you, I'd just get a hold of a bunch of TV shows. I think lots of shows made in China are close-captioned, so if you can find Cantonese shows and just read the text along with the dialogue, that should help improve your reading vocabulary. Then you can just get some Mandarin shows and listen to the dialogue as you read to get used to the Mandarin pronunciations. And if you have relatives in China I'm sure it'd be pretty easy to get a hold of some Chinese text books.