Baby steps/getting started.

[ttwjr32]

Roy,

just follow your heart in this. not knowing what the two of you are
writing but it does seem to be working out well for the 2 of you as
you seem to be happy with her. and your correct learning the language
does show that your serious about it and she will notice this and very
much appreciate that.successful relationships take a lot of work on both
sides of the equation.

[trwme]

Roy,

just follow your heart in this. not knowing what the two of you are
writing but it does seem to be working out well for the 2 of you as
you seem to be happy with her. and your correct learning the language does show that your serious about it and she will notice this and very much appreciate that. successful relationships take a lot of work on both sides of the equation.

Thanks Ted, I always appreciate the encouragement you give to me, and others here. At some point love involves following the heart and taking the risks that come with that. She had a bad experience with someone who made promises and never followed through on them, and I want to show her that's not the case with me. And I can't sit back and let her do all the work of learning my language while I don't do the same for her-we are in this together, wherever it leads in the end. My learning will help her learn, and help me be able to help her learn, and help me understand her better as well. Hopefully this will help build her trust in me for the future.

And yes, I am very happy with her:icon_cool:

[ttwjr32]

i just hope you do better with the chinese than i am doing i
feel stupid hahaha as i have a very hard time retaining it and
i never had this problem learning anything except for calculus

[trwme]

Well, I have learned a little, some basic things like hello, goodbye, thank you, what time is it, stuff like that...trying to push past that...but it'll take me a while before I can distinguish the words and be able to identify them by hearing it spoken, beyond the simple things I've already learned. I work on it for a while every night before bed (after writing Xin) and for a bit in the mornings before work. But it ain't easy, lol. Trying to get some of the word orders down.

[Lee357]

Mandarin was the hardest thing I have ever learned. It took me two years of study to just get the "words" down to speak them then I found out that is not the same as hearing a person say them in a dynamic conversation. I knew the words and the structure of the language but could not communicate what I knew with a native speaker. It took almost a full 120 days and 3 trips to China before I could hold simple dynamic conversations that made any sense at all to the person I was trying to talk with. I like to think that Mandarin is a conceptual language. the words and sentences convey a concept. English it is not the words or the sentence that conveys the meaning but the context that they are used that convey it. In mandarin each word conveys a concept and when these concepts are put together only then does the meaning make sense. Very difficult to learn.

[odysseus007]

Mandarin was the hardest thing I have ever learned. It took me two years of study to just get the "words" down to speak them then I found out that is not the same as hearing a person say them in a dynamic conversation. I knew the words and the structure of the language but could not communicate what I knew with a native speaker. It took almost a full 120 days and 3 trips to China before I could hold simple dynamic conversations that made any sense at all to the person I was trying to talk with. I like to think that Mandarin is a conceptual language. the words and sentences convey a concept. English it is not the words or the sentence that conveys the meaning but the context that they are used that convey it. In mandarin each word conveys a concept and when these concepts are put together only then does the meaning make sense. Very difficult to learn.

Nicely put Lee.... and it seems you have a Chinese name too, like Bruce Lee? hehe... maybe it helps you "get the language" faster? :icon_cheesygrin:

It is a combo of 2-4 words that sometimes give a "concept" that has meaning beyond the individual words, sometimes the meaning comes from cultural or historical anecdotes.... English too has this, it is called idioms, or proverbs.

P/S - when in China keep your eyes peeled for a "fast food joint" called "Mr Lee's beef noodles" or similar.... its logo looks helluva lot like Col Sanders' good ol Kentucky Fried haha :icon_cheesygrin:

[ttwjr32]

no its not easy and i cant do with my mandarin lessons like i did
with calculus classes which i dropped as fast as i could get into another
class for the credits. just boggles my mind that i cannot seem to retain
everything at this rate i will be 100 when i could talk normal sentences
and not have anyone fill in the blanks for me.

but i must admit i am entertaining sometimes as it reminds me of playing
charades as they all try to figure out what the hell i am saying lol

[trwme]

well, my best lessons are the ones she gives me on the phone, lol. But then that probably has more to do with hearing her voice and her constant laughter and giggling!

I've started writing down what she teaches me as it sounds to me, rather than worrying about the pinyan spelling, which makes no sense to me.