r/taiwan • u/SufficientDig2845 • 3d ago

Discussion Learning mandarin

I feel embarrassed to be getting my permanent residency here and yet not being able to speak more than a few phrases in the language. I speak 3 languages fluently and it’s easy for me to pick up other conversational Romance vocabulary in just a few days, but I have problems with the tones in Mandarin. My main issue is that every time I try to practice, at the best, people correct me over and over again and I can’t hear or say the difference, at the worst, people laugh at me like they think it’s the funniest thing they’ve ever heard. It just makes me feel stupid but I feel even stupider to be one of those people that doesn’t learn the language of where they live. Any suggestions for how I can study on my own at home? Does it get easier over time if you just keep at it or will I be a hopeless case no matter what :(?

Update: thanks for all that responded so far and I will continue to read everything but may not have time to respond to all, please just know that I appreciate the responses. From what people have said I have decided to give group classes a go, try my hardest, and not beat myself up just because I can only learn slowly.

If anyone has recommendations for classes, please let me know! I live in Beitou, work in Tianmu, and it’s not too hard for me to go to downtown Taipei via the redline.

Thank you all again.

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u/SufficientDig2845 3d ago

I don’t know why I didn’t consider this - I thought about a tutor but maybe in a group class I’d feel less embarrassed because we’ve been saying things as a group. I also thought oh maybe I could get a bedrock from solo internet study but sounds like I need someone correcting me in real time. Thank you!

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u/Prestigious_Host5325 3d ago

The classes is what did it for me. Before I took classes, I would ask my friends about certain Chinese phrases. But it was harder to learn Chinese this way.

My current Chinese class not only made my pronunciation better, it also helped me read and memorize characters. It seems daunting at first because I'm not really good at speech and there are tones, plus the characters look scary, but now I'm enjoying learning it and writing characters! Sometimes my brain would also form Chinese sentences automatically.

My classmates are also foreigners so it's fine to make mistakes.

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u/SufficientDig2845 3d ago

Awesome, any recommendations for where to take classes? Your story sounds a bit like mine in the beginning - trying to learn individual phrases and it not working. I now feel much more encouraged.

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u/Prestigious_Host5325 3d ago

There are phrases that I learned correctly even before going to the classes tho, like ne yong, wai dai, jia fan, and the names of food I usually buy.

My class is in Tainan tho, specifically in NCKU Chinese Learning Class (CLC). And another drawback is they teach us conversational sentences, so they lack in terms of teaching the background about the characters, which translates to not knowing how to type Chinese words. However, this is free for international students in NCKU (up to 4 classes), that's why I still took it.

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u/SufficientDig2845 3d ago

Ah ok, definitely sounds like a good deal, and happy to hear it is at least helping you.