NJCanuk Posted April 24, 2008 Share Posted April 24, 2008 Do anyone's kids study Mandarin at home? What materials did/do you use? Do you know the language, do you have a tutor or do you figure out the tonal pronunciation on your own? Thanks for any info :001_smile: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanna Posted April 24, 2008 Share Posted April 24, 2008 ...we know of two local families that do. They have a tutor and I think this is the best way to learn it if it's not your native language (if you have the time and financial resources for a tutor). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quiver0f10 Posted April 24, 2008 Share Posted April 24, 2008 My son did a year of mandarin at a charter school and we looked into doing it at home using http://www.chinasoft.com.au/nihao.html. I think this program looks really good, but I would probably still get a tutor. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
langfam Posted April 24, 2008 Share Posted April 24, 2008 We did Easy Chinese by Edward Chang. Now using Rosetta, but I have to teach every lesson because DC would not be able to match the characters to their meanings. Chinese grammatical structure is just so different from the romance languages. For example, they'll say: "That riding horse man wearing one (they'll have a measure word with no English equivalent) white color hat." We'd say in English, "That man who is riding the horse is wearing a white hat" There are also other abstract words that have no English translation like "ba" which puts the object before the verb. I think Chinese would be a very difficult language to learn especially if you do not have a native speaker to help you. HTHs Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pata Posted April 24, 2008 Share Posted April 24, 2008 My dd uses Better Chinese in her class and we listen to the cd at home. Mandarin is very difficult due to the tonal aspect of the language. If you want to study it, I highly reccommend a tutor or a class, as a cd is just not enough. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NJCanuk Posted April 25, 2008 Author Share Posted April 25, 2008 Thanks everyone. I do have DD signed up for a program once a week starting in September, but I was wondering if anyone's doing this alone... Guess I made the right decision... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
plansrme Posted April 25, 2008 Share Posted April 25, 2008 We're about 8 weeks into it. Our tutor is a graduate student from Beijing (found her on Craigslist). She comes for 2 hours, once a week, and charges $30 for the session. She printed off her own materials from the internet, but I'm also looking at Better Chinese to give them something to do for a bit during the week. We have really enjoyed getting to know our tutor and getting her perspective on Chinese and American society. Terri Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NJCanuk Posted April 25, 2008 Author Share Posted April 25, 2008 Quick question for those with tutors... how do you evaluate them if you don't know Chinese? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laura Corin Posted April 25, 2008 Share Posted April 25, 2008 Do anyone's kids study Mandarin at home? What materials did/do you use? Do you know the language, do you have a tutor or do you figure out the tonal pronunciation on your own? Thanks for any info :001_smile: Although I speak Mandarin myself, I wouldn't teach my boys myself - the tones are so important and I don't want to teach them any mistakes that I have developed. If I couldn't get a tutor, I would choose another language. Best wishes Laura Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
plansrme Posted April 25, 2008 Share Posted April 25, 2008 Good question. Our tutor's undergraduate degree in China is in mechanical engineering, and she is in a master's program here in the U.S. I figured if she had that kind of educational background, she could teach my girls something. She had never even tutored before, but she is motivated (she really needs the money--always a good thing in an employee) and energetic, and my impression is that she is doing a good job. If I had not found someone with a solid educational background, we have some friends from Taiwan who own a Chinese restaurant. I was going to interview prospective tutors at their restaurant and have them weigh in on whether she was really speaking Chinese or making it up. My Chinese daughter isn't terribly interested in or focused on her Chinese lessons, while my older daughter (our biological child--blonde-haired, blue-eyed) is, so our tutor tells her friends that when my girls go to China, the native-born American is going to have to interpret for her Chinese sister. She finds this very funny. Hope that's helpful. Terri Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sahamamama Posted April 25, 2008 Share Posted April 25, 2008 We are not teaching Mandarin, BUT we did do a mini-unit study on The Story About Ping (our oldest is three years old, so she was REALLY into the ducks and boat boy and the little bridge...). ANYWAY, just to introduce Chinese culture, cooking, and language, we used resources from www.earlystartmandarin.com. We obtained the cooking video (nicely done) from our library. We like that the video shows the cooking being done by real-life children, and the ingredients are explained in Mandarin. We like the fact that the video explains Chinese culinary terms, such as wok, stir fry, and chop sticks. It may sound basic, but the video does a good job of actually teaching something! I wish there were more like it, in other languages. We also like that the video shows the young "chef" marketing in Chinatown (San Francisco) -- makes us wish we were there! The website offers more helps and information. There are articles to motivate you -- the authors talk about the growing demand for speakers of Mandarin, and how parents can facilitate their child's learning of this amazing language. Good luck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Makita Posted April 25, 2008 Share Posted April 25, 2008 What a great thread! I'm a newbie and I'm so glad that I came across this tread. My DD loves China and wants to learn to speak Mandarin. I've tried a few inexpensive CDs I found at Costco and we borrowed Muzzy from the library but nothing really clicked. We like Mango Languages but haven't checked into Rosetta or others yet - thank you for the suggestions here. We'll look into them. :D We know a Chinese family in our co-op and they have been very helpful with pronunciation, etc. However, they are unschoolers and their approach is much different than ours so we haven't set up tutoring or anything yet. Maybe soon. :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reya Posted April 25, 2008 Share Posted April 25, 2008 Do anyone's kids study Mandarin at home? What materials did/do you use? Do you know the language, do you have a tutor or do you figure out the tonal pronunciation on your own? Thanks for any info :001_smile: I'm studying it. DH is a native speaker, though he remembers more Cantonese now, and HE'S going to be responsible for teaching the boys, not me! (HA!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KSGrace Posted April 25, 2008 Share Posted April 25, 2008 My friend, who speaks Mandarin, says that there are a lot of free lessons available on itunes. He suggested I start there to see if my son would actually be interested in it before spending a lot of money on Rosetta Stone Mandarin (which was my previous plan). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hsmom Posted April 25, 2008 Share Posted April 25, 2008 For Chinese start with www.betterchinese.com. They offer fantastic curriculum for any age staring point. We use it in K grade, and my daughter learns it like a charm. It is interactive, books, audio CDs, interactive CD-rom with animation, all step by step, with parent guides, workbooks teaching to write and read Chinese characters. Takes you from Pre-K to High school and proficiency levels. Plus lots of interactive animation on online subscription. Second curriculum we use in Learnables Chinese. It is good to supplement, but only for spoken language, writing and reading are not included at all. Rosetta Stone only for supplement. I came across which Japanese somewhere, but I have to check it out, have some bookmarks. It was for middle or high school, not for kids. Chinese Ni Hao curriculum is also complete and very good for middle and high school student. Chinese is tremendously hard for me, so I started it with Pimsleur just for encouragement. Immersion method is not for me. I have to first learn vocabulary, and understand all the grammar rules, then drill it, and then only to immerse. My daughter at 5 remembers about 10 new words in a day and forever. Please try BetterChinese.com. You almost don't hear about it, but it is a charm. I am going to start it with Grown-ups curriculum as soon as have extra money. The children's one is too hard for me, too much immersion. Also they allow a month of free access to 12 lessons out of first 36 for level PreK-K (don't be fooled with K, it is plenty to learn for adult). This was posted to me when I asked about this. I have talked to her a few times about this, she has answer every question I have ask wonderfully. Maybe you could pm her also for some advice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Sara18 Posted June 10, 2008 Share Posted June 10, 2008 There is a new language program out there to learn Mandarin that takes a similar audio-visual approach to language learning like Rosetta Stone but is much cheaper. It is called L-Ceps Personaltrainer Chinese Mandarin. My son likes the program a lot because it starts with basic dialogues and therefore he was quite quickly able to speak some sentences. Then the program continues with a very systematic vocabulary build-up. The program also offers to print-out learning cards (in the fullversion) and therefore my kid does not have to sit in front of the computer all the time. On their homepage is a demo version that you can download and have a look: http://www.l-ceps.com/en/chinese-mandarin/learn-chinese-mandarin-ptrainer.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colleen in NS Posted June 10, 2008 Share Posted June 10, 2008 but I couldn't help noticing your board name - are you a Canadian in NJ? I'm a Canadian/American who used to live in NJ. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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