Sunday, August 8, 2010

Learning mandarin with "Ni-hao, Kai-lan!"

YES.
I admit.
I´m learning mandarin with Nickelodeon. lol

I just started learning mandarin, and I will join a chinese language school for some beginner lessons by the end of this summer. =3

This morning, I had some time left to watch TV... while zapping, I heard some chinese words surprisingly - and I they were coming from a kid´s TV series on Nickelodeon, named "Ni-hao, Kai-lan!".


It´s a super cute animation in the style of "Dora, the explorer" or "Go, Diego, go!" - there are always 2 languages spoken - in the case of "Ni-hao, Kai-lan!" it´s chinese! These series are supposed to teach little children (at the age between 5 and 8 years) multi languages.

One of the best learning strategies I`ve ever heard, is the strategy my Honey is using - absolutely NOT learning languages, (Yeees! Sounds great, hum? xD) but experience them like a child.
Remember when you were a child? You were not sitting in front of a vocabulary book to learn your native language. You experienced it like every child does... and it´s working out pretty fine with almost every kid!
Well, there´s so much more to say about this learning system, but let´s stay with this short summary first. xD"

Anyways... this "childish" way of learning works out so fine for me from what I`ve experienced today! It felt really odd to watch kid´s TV again after maybe 12 years... but I learned so many new things! xD"
Most of the vocabulary is spoken very slow first... then repeat faster and with the right pronounciation. Then you´ve got some time to repeat the word yourself. And then... it´s repeated several times during the TV episode, so that you can easily remember it!
Okay... the TV show itself wasn´t that exciting for me, I must admit... xD" But at least I learned some new things... like a child! xD"

YES.
It´s embarrassing.
But it works out well for me! xD
And of course, I will use some other ways of learning as well. But watching "Ni-hao, Kai-lan!" is a very cute exercise for some free time, and I´m very happy I found it. ;D


It´s such a sweet, sweet life, isn´t it?

1 comment:

  1. If you like learning languages in that way, you should invest in Rosetta Stone. They don't even translate the words, they just show you the word or phrase, and show you a picture while saying the word. They do four at once, so you can see the difference, and you start to pick up what word means what. Then they test you in a ton of different ways so that you learn not only what that word means, but how to listen for it in regular conversation.

    It's really expensive though, but I think you can get the free demo and see if you like it.

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