Vanessa Said:

How do I stay motivated to learn Chinese(Mandarin)?

We Answered:

Chinese is an easy language...
as easy as English...
motivation is your aim to learn it...
if you need it -- it's very easy to remain motivated...

Brenda Said:

What is the best way to learn Mandarin Chinese? Any Tips?

We Answered:

(Copied from my other answers, as I do not feel like writing a huge block of text again. Hope you don't mind =) )

Learn to speak and to write separately. Chinese is a visual language (the only major surviving one to the best of my knowledge) and does not have an alphabet. Learning pinyin and, of course, the associated pronunciation rules would help you tremendously. Most children's books have pinyin alongside the characters, and are extremely helpful when you decide that you have learnt enough spoken Chinese to begin learning to write.

For writing:

Begin with familiarization of the different components of writing, not the characters. Know how to draw heng (horizontal line), shu (vertical), pie (leftward & downward... curve?), na, dian, zhe, gou, ti. Start with those simpler ones, move on to the more complex compound ones, such as heng-zhe-gou, shu-wan-gou, etc. etc.

Do NOT skip this step (if you do, I can guarantee you your writing will look horrific in the future, and your speed of learning will take quite a toll). Once you have learnt that, the characters should begin to look like writings to you, not just pictures.

When you actually learn the characters, start with the pictograms (ones that come from ancient drawings) and ideograms (ones that represent an idea), as many of these are extremely simple (relative to the rest of the characters), and, due to their antiquity, are often components of more complex characters. Examples of pictograms and ideograms:

? (comes from the drawing of a mountain), ? (comes from the drawing of water flow), ? (farm), ? (sun), ? (person), ? ? ? (self-explanatory...), ? (up), ? (down) ... ...

Also pick up anything else that consists of few strokes, like ? and ?, as they would be easy to remember and are very likely to be a part of more complex characters. In fact, ? + ? = ? (good).

Then familiarize yourself with the abbreviated radicals, usually found on either side, top, bottom, or enclosed in the middle of a complex character. Example: ? becomes ?, which goes on the left side of a great number of character that have something to do with water, such as ?? (shower), ? (to flow), ?? (to swim), ?? (bathe), etc.

By the time you get past that stage, you probably would have already learnt some phono-semantic compound characters (complex characters that consist of parts, some responsible for meaning, some for sound, hence 'phono-semantic'). These make up more than 90% of all Chinese characters today. At this stage, you should have a sufficient repertoire of more basic characters to be able to make educated guesses on your own, and your pace of learning will begin to increase dramatically (even exponentially).

Marjorie Said:

What is the best computer program to learn Mandarin Chinese?

We Answered:

I tried Rosetta Stone for Spanish. It does not have any translation, grammar or conjugation instructions though so it will be very hard to go beyond the basics with it. There is no way to be fluent with it. Their program is based on the same thing where you see these 4 pictures over and over again. I was disappointed especially for the price I paid.

My college uses a software called TeLL me More, by Auralog. It covers not only the basics, but also intermediate or advanced level. It is also a lot less repetitive. My goal was to become fluent so it was perfect for me. It has a lot of different activities: picture/word association, videos, dialogues,..., includes also grammar and conjugation. It has also more content than any other language software. Their speech recognition is great so you can have a dialogue with the computer. You can check out their website at http://www.auralog.com for a free demo and compare too. You can check out independent reviews on the web too http://www.toptenreviews.com or about.com websites.

The best way to learn a language would be through immersion, visiting these countries. Learning a language will require some time. In addition to software, you can have books which are useful as well. Audio CDs like Pimsleur for instance might help you out but you cannot get any feedback on your pronunciation so I did not like it so much

Warren Said:

If I want to go to a country and learn Chinese (Mandarin) what country should I go to besides China?

We Answered:

Definitely Taiwan. But I'd still recommend China - because you can choose to study it anywhere from Shanghai to Beijing. And if you're learning to write in Chinese, China uses simplifed Chinese (like most other countries) whereas Taiwan still uses traditional Chinese (much more difficult to master).

Singapore is another option. But do know that while the majority of the people in Singapore are Chinese, English is more commonly spoken as it is the language used to teach subjects in school.

Dianne Said:

What's the best Mandarin Chinese CD to learn from?

We Answered:

Pimsleur Mandarin Chinese is good, teaches you effective conversational chinese.

Christian Said:

Do you think it is possible for a 14 year old girl to learn mandarin chinese in 3 months?

We Answered:

I think three months is quite unrealistic. You can try of course, and there are tons of great resources available on the web, but I feel as though you're setting yourself up for disappointment. Even native speakers who learn as children don't become fluent that fast in their native languages; it'll be even harder for you since neither English nor Urdu is related to any Chinese language and I'm assuming you aren't going to be immersed in it.

Hector Said:

who offers best online course to learn mandarin chinese?

We Answered:

You can try Beijing Chinese School who was built in 2003. All teachers are from Beijing who can speak standard mandarin and are bilingual with perfect Mandarin/English.
If you want to look for lower tuition, I suggest you can choose online tutors. All of the classes are flexible based on your schedule. You can adjust class time with tutors through mobile SMS in schedule system. Free Conversation Practice and Library is also very helpful and cost-saving.
You can try to reserve a free trial class on http://www.hellomandarin.com/freetrial/f…