The Basics

Where to begin...a language that is thousands of years old, has transformed itself, and is spoken by more people in the world than any other by more than double the closest langauge (which happens to be English, so we already have one of the top-2 most widely spoken languages...let's go get the mantle-piece mom!) http://www.photius.com/rankings/languages2.html <------check that link for proof of what I just wrote about it being by FAR the most widely used language on Earth.

Well...I have studied four languages during my short lifetime: English-31 years, Spanish-3 years, Vietnamese-1 year, and of course Korean-5 years. (a little previous knowledge of Chinese also...but, that hardly counts) In my opinion we should build our Chinese language knowledge like a sturdy and solid skyscraper that will never topple. Think about Jimi Hendrix's song, 'Castles Made of Sand'...let's not let our hard work now wash away into the sea, eventually. :)

I propose we spend a lot of time up front really drilling the Pinyin system and acquiring a deep understanding of the phonetics. There isn't an alphabet such as we use in English, but there are sounds that are used repeatedly, let's become masters at these finite sounds, then we could read anything we ever encounter, we learn it once, we master it, and we never have to do it again. (In Mandarin anyways, next we can learn Spanish or Arabic...or French or Russian...) Let's really drill these basic sounds, reading the pinyin, knowing the four tones, and get ready for some basic vocabulary and our first sentences.

Building our Mandarin this way is the most time-consuming initially, but I'd rather ride to the top of a skyscraper that I knew would never falter, rather than rush to the top of a building that had been built over night. I also think this way we can mark more precisely our progress and give us some real toe-holds to hang our proverbial hats on each night. Say, you master three or two or just one new sound today, you now have that knowledge for your eternity, not bad..incredibly actually!

Ready...set...let's go!!