Chinese ....

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Sometimes you ought to learn a bit of trad Chinese to understand ancient texts. Right here it's all in trad, but it's nice to take shortcuts and write in simplified once in a while, especially when taking notes.

I know mainland China uses Simplified in everyday life, but in Taiwan do they teach both Simplified and Traditional, or just Traditional? Whenever I see people from Taiwan writing in Chinese, it's always Traditional. I find all this so interesting for some reason.

Just traditional. We are able to read most simplified characters without extra instruction though. The look similar, basically.
And we type using 注音，which is a set of phonetic letters, not alphabets.

我也會寫普通話。我大喜歡學習傳統漢字。來年11月我去雲南，學習國際發展。
我會寫漢字必會說漢語好。我朋友教給了我一點廣東話。我喜歡聼中國的流行歌。
認識您們，我很高興。

你们好
我也学习汉语。
俺中意学习汉字。
也喜欢流行歌。
特别是FIR。

不过我的汉语语法不太好。

looks like your typing with simplified. do you know that fir are from taiwan??

i like fir too. whats your favorite song?

I do really like learning different foreign languages and the only thing I know how to say in Chinese is "Khong Hee Fatt Choy" (Happy New Year).

Well, FYI that's Cantonese, a dialect used in the pearl river delta. It means may good fortunes and riches come to you

Cool and I am glad to know the literal translation of "khong hee fat choy" and in the past have learned that the two main dialects in China are Mandarin and Cantonese. I cannot recall which one of these is more prevalent and need to google it.

Very!
Had the choice between learning many languages but I chose Chinese. I'm learning it for the next 3 years now.

I only know basic stuff but hopefully I'll learn more =)

DeXo, thanks fr yr input, will you be studying full time or in addition to other subjects??

For someone like myself ie with very little language ability and mediocre IQ it still has a very powerful attraction for me, I've been learning ie self taught for a few years now and just playing around with a few simple words is very satisfying. writing characters I find very relaxing, enjoyable. I get a real thrill when the right movements seems to sort of automatically, for instance duo1 ... many.

I also greatly enjoy learning a few simple tang poems, i have about five to memory from years back, a great ice-breaker when I very occasionally get the opportunity.

zhu ni hao yunqi ! !

我學了六年中文；目前是在大學學習（是我的專業）。

我也很就對中文有了很大興趣。雖然我沒有很多從中國來的朋友，我還有的時候跟《留學美國》的學生用中文說話。

找到了《中文》題目讓我很高興。:)

我很常用中文來寫詩和歌；我卻沒有很高的聊天能力。誰可以吧我寫的訊息看地懂，我會是很愉悅對跟誰有會話。

（好歹知道我高中學的中文老師是從台灣來的，然後我只用繁體字）

I find google translate to be very useful, in my brief study sessions I get sentences that are relevant to me and the font they use is attractive, big and clear, excellent for improving my written work. By means of creating my own relevant dialogue it therefore holds my interest. To niggly purists i couldn't care less, at my beginner stage we need to build on memorised characters and for me it works .... and i prefer simplified characters.

Another hint.... for any beginner or intermediate i recommend the excellent 'Oxford Starter Dictionary' .... by far the best I have ever encountered.

ISBN 0-19-860258-8

Its this relevance and 'holding of interest' that is vital in learning any language or subject; to keep going at it and not drop out.

Really,folks. One word of advice. Don't use google translate to write mandarin Chinese. It's not authentic looking....no offense just a tip from a person with Chinese as mother tongue.

China is such an important country. I think it makes sense to try to better understand the place that supplies a good chunk of what we buy!

I think Chinese is a fascinating, beautiful language. I love the way it sounds- not perhaps the most beautiful-sounding language, but very unique. I don't think it is particularly difficult to learn- it is simply more time consuming than other languages because of the tones, and the individual characters. Other than that it seems doable.

祝拥有美好的一天!

yes, it is do-able.

my progress is ultra slow but I get great joy from the past nine years of learning. i get soooo side-tracked into poems, fables, general Chinese things.

and part of it is devising tricks and methods to keep it fresh and interesting.

i really enjoy working with pen and paper to get a character to look 'right'.