Learning Chinese but need to practice orally?

Recently, I’ve been getting back into learning Chinese. I find that mandarin Chinese is an extremely important and useful language in this world if you’re going into business, since China’s economy is booming. As time passes, the language will only get more and more important. After all, the most commonly spoken language is mandarin Chinese.

One problem that I face while trying to learn mostly on my own right now is the lack of practice in speaking Chinese. Yes, I have Chinese parents, but I find that they speak to me mostly in Chinglish, which results in my lack of Chinese vocabulary. Many times, a sentence would go, “我想去看movie.” At the end of the day, I only practice the simplest Chinese vocabulary with my parents. So, a great alternative is the Internet.

Once again, similar to practicing my French, I sought out people online to interact with: I help others with their English, while they help me in Chinese. I’ll save you the trouble of finding a nice forum. I found many contacts at Chinese Tools. This is an English forum, so for those who can’t read Chinese characters that well, this forum is made for you! You only have to post a small message in the Language and cultural exchange forum, wait a day, and there should be a few people contacting you for exchange.

I definitely recommend contacting people online in order to help your Chinese. However, I also suggest that you can speak at least some Chinese before seeking practice online. In my experience, not being able to speak or listen to another language too well resulted in more time wasted than in actually practicing anything. Also, remember that the person on the other end doesn’t want to be wasting their time listening to you utter words at one word per every twenty seconds. That becomes immensely frustrating because a conversation can’t even be carried on. Just try to think quick, because that’s how we normally think in our native languages, and try to immerse yourself in the language rather than translating English into Chinese first and then speaking.

Also, don’t be afraid to ask your language partner to type out a word. You can build up your word bank that way.

I’ve found that the plugin Chinese Perapera-Kun is immensely helpful in building up your Chinese word bank as well. This plugin for Firefox provides the Pin Yin and definition of characters as you hover your mouse over them. It’s even better than an online translator, and I highly recommend this plugin for any person who’s trying to learn Chinese.

I hope this post helps your endeavors in learning a new language. If you’re a native speaker of mandarin Chinese and need someone to chat with, feel free to contact me. I would love to help you in English, if in return you can help me in Chinese.