Comments on: Ni Hao Ma? Learning Chinese (Not On A Budget)

By: vera

vera — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 09:17:05 +0000

I studied Chinese for a years. I can speak basic Chinese. Now I want to study German and Spanish.

By: vera

vera — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 08:41:30 +0000

I studied Mandarin for 6 months when I was in US. When I moved to China, I realized what I learned in US didn't work well. I tried to hire a tutor to give me one-on-one private lessons. Honestly my Chinese is much better ,but my schedule is alway not available for my tutor, coz I have to go somewhere for business trip quite often . It goes slow. Hopefully I can find a better and more convenient way to learn language.

By: Phoebe

Phoebe — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 04:34:40 +0000

I speak Mandarin and Taiwanese and took French in HS. However, I don’t know if that counts since I was too embarrassed to actually speak much French when I visited France (and Belgium). I also really need to learn how to read more than 500 Chinese words (why is there no alphabet?)

By: Marisol

Marisol — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 06:12:23 +0000

I speak both English & Spanish fluently. When I was in high school I took French all 4 years but didn’t really retain anything. Ideally, I would like to take up that language again.

By: SP

SP — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 01:25:19 +0000

Also just English. I took some German and can say some phrases and might be able to learn it. I took some cantonese when i was on study abroad, but I only took 3 hrs a week — not much to do anything with.

Languages are \difficult for me. Honestly, most things that I did in school came pretty easily to me (or I enjoyed the challenge once at the college level), but languages were never easy or enjoyable to learn. But I bet it would be very enjoyable to know!

I want to take conversational french or Italian for fun — just a community group class or something. I’m hoping to go next summer!

By: When To Pay For Private Lessons? | Well-Heeled, with a mission

When To Pay For Private Lessons? | Well-Heeled, with a mission — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 01:13:24 +0000

[...] « Ni Hao Ma? Learning Chinese (Not On A Budget) Blog > School > When To Pay For Private [...]

By: The Everyday Minimalist

The Everyday Minimalist — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 23:54:47 +0000

Holy mother. Everyone is freaking amazing at languages.

By: Melissa

Melissa — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 23:42:34 +0000

Good Luck! My daughter’s school requires Mandarin classes from 1st grade through 8th grade with it being optional in the high school. They have 2 hours of instruction a week. The kids seem to love it, I know my daughter and her friends are up to no good when they speak in Mandarin to each other.

I can understand Spanish but I have a harder time speaking it.

By: Wellheeled

Wellheeled — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 22:32:01 +0000

@MoneyMateKate
My instructor has a Masters in Education, is a native speaker, and has taught at the Monterey Institute of International Studies as well as a few other private language institutes. She also has good references and experience teaching business Mandarin to professioanals (very important to me). I don’t know if $67/hour is *too* high, I think it’s certainly high compared to some other tutors I can get, but we’ll see if it’s worth it.

By: MoneyMateKate

MoneyMateKate — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 22:18:20 +0000

I have a master’s in linguistics, but most of my actual languages are so rusty that I’m embarrassed to admit to having such a high falutin’ degree. Italian and French are the strongest, Spanish is tolerable, German is better than I think it is (been there several times in the last 10 years and am always surprised at what I come out with), and I’ve lost most of my survival-level Japanese and Thai. I can sing most of the Philippine national anthem in Tagalog

I would love to take language classes again, but not one-on-one. I grasp things very quickly, move on without a lot of repetition, and then it doesn’t sink in. So private tutoring doesn’t work well for me.

Here in NYC, state certified teachers make on average $50-60/hr for private tutoring. If your tutor isn’t a fully trained language teacher (as a former EFL teacher, I promise you, the methodology is different) and simply an expert because it’s her native tongue, you are paying about 3x what she’s worth. I’ve used both kinds of private tutors, and the difference is enormous.

By: Jess

Jess — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 22:09:25 +0000

Other than English (obviously), I speak French fluently. I used to be proficient in Wolof but I’ve pretty much lost that entirely by now. Now I’m working on learning German so I can communicate with my husband’s family.

By: thisisbeth

thisisbeth — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 22:07:21 +0000

I took German in high school and French in college, which I jokingly say makes me illiterate in three languages!

I debate between French, Spanish, and German (and then all sorts of odd languages like Finnish, Dutch, Greek, Latin, etc.). I’m the least interested in Spanish, but it would also be the most useful language to learn, so I keep debating about it.

By: kelly

kelly — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 21:18:04 +0000

English (native) German (fluent; lived in D during childhood and mother is from Wiesbaden) Russian (conversational) and Czech (conversational). I studied Slavic linguistics/Russian at Karlova in Prague as an undergrad. Not exactly marketable linguistic skills, however, if I were to join the Peace Corps, I’d had my pick of the Central Asian republics!

By: Michele

Michele — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 19:44:12 +0000

I can read French and Spanish very well, but as far as speaking each, I’m stuck at what I’d call “travel proficiency.” I can get around any Spanish or French speaking country with no problem, but I certainly can’t sit down and have a conversation about current affairs, or anything more complicated than the weather.

I could have helped you out in Prague though, because I can read, write, speak and understand Czech quite well (a little rusty at the moment due to absolute non-use). I’d really love to achieve fluency though, more for myself than anything else, as it’s not exactly the most marketable language. But, as a 2nd generation American of Czech descent, it’s important to me.

I’d love to be able to speak Spanish, Chinese or Arabic for professional reasons though.

By: Chère

Chère — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 19:20:37 +0000

English and (nearly) fluent in French. I go back and forth on what language #3 will be. I’m a language nut, so I’d love to learn them all! It will probably be Arabic, although I’d like to learn Spanish and Mandarin as well. My French gets me by a little ways with Spanish…I can usually get the “gist” of a conversation, but obviously cannot respond!

By: Sarah

Sarah — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 17:39:52 +0000

My first language was English, and not too long after, I learned Hebrew and Spanish, though I’ve pretty much forgotten most of both. In addition to refreshing my Hebrew and Spanish skills, I’d like to learn Turkish (….and Russian, and French, and German), though I’m not sure I can shell out any money to do so.

By: L.A. Daze

L.A. Daze — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 16:47:18 +0000

I used to be fluent in the following, until I moved to the US and since nobody here speaks anything but English and Spanish, I don’t have anybody to practice with: Dutch, German, French, Indonesian.

I’m pretty sure if I take a few lessons here and there, it will all come back to me, since I still have the accents, and I can still understand, I just have issues expressing myself in those languages.

By: The Everyday Minimalist

The Everyday Minimalist — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 15:27:26 +0000

Only English and French (which helps with a lot of countries in Europe), and very little words or sentences in Cantonese, Japanese and Spanish.
We’re talking like one or two.
Would like to learn more Cantonese, but like Krystal said, most are Mandarin tutors.
I think Mandarin would be the next language of business to learn because many find it difficult to learn.
Kudos!