Chinese languages

Hello all,I'm a computer program designer in Shanghai, a simple Chinese guy of age 23. Similar as most of young Chinese , I've been learnt English over 13 years since my age of 10. Apparently, the experience of my study is a failure. I can hardly understand oral English on TV,speaked by foreigner. I think ,if thdy speak slower, word by word, I can do better, But so many liaison and some words passed over really make me faint...
How to learn oral English? and how can I get a partner to exchange Language? Give me a hand please.

Hi, Richard. I suggest that you try and get a hold of recordings of speech that have writing. Many DVDs have subtitles (known as "captions" in the USA and Australia) on them, which could be useful if you can manage to follow speech at a normal pace, and there are other ways of doing this too. It may be that you can adjust a media player to play a recording at a slower speed than normal, and then speed up after repeating it. Unfortunately, many media players try to copy tapes by lowering the pitch at the same time. Perhaps your computer programming skills could be useful to adapt or write a new media player that does not change the pitch at different speeds.

Although there is more US English around the world, many recordings of US speech show poor diction, and it may be easier for an English learner to try listening to British speech, especially in older films. (Many more modern British recordings have different regional accents, which would be harder for a learner to understand.)

If you can get formal speech which has the text recorded, that may help to improve your understanding. One solution is to obtain recorded versions of the Bible in English. Although the Bible is a huge book and it is written in very formal language (often very old-fashioned language), many recordings are available and the printed text is available too. Take care to use the same version for both the recorded and the printed language, though. Another method is to use the printed language of newspapers or blogs as the original, and obtain recordings made for people that are deaf or that use podcasts.

Often, having recordings of speech about a topic in which you are interested will help. Sport and other scenarios that vary little can help, because you get to know what to expect. ("X passes down the wing to Y, Y crosses to X who has cut inside; he shoots and scores. It's a goal!")

You have a good basis for further progress: your knowledge of written English shows a high standard, including good spelling, and you can use this skill to build up your knowledge of spoken English. Good luck!

Hi, I'd be glad to help you learn the English language while you can help me teach Mandarin. we can use skype if you like.

actually i dunno think English is difficult thing for anyone,look around any other European language else you'll find so easily language English is!1 year ago I came back from Russia where I have been for 6 years,and have studied Russian for such a period.the complexity of Russian grammar is much more than English,12 ways of adj. n. 's declension,6 verb deflection...
as for speaking skill and listening skill i think the only way is do more exercise,keep to listen broadcast or watch film without subtitle everyday,then read after the broadcast or film and imitate intonation,pronunciation...of native speakers.gradually u 'll get some feeling,actually we 'll find when we r speaking in mother tongue,lots of syllables were omitted either in speaking or listening.so the most crucial thing is to get hold of every most important word in each sentence rather than to listen every word clearly.
this is a little my personal experience,only for 1 year have been I relearning English,so many I have forgotten,and the worst thing is,Russian words often plump out unconsciously when I wanna speak in English...

it depends on different people not all the chinese people think it as a diffcult thing that they can't do
there are many person whose english are very good

Chinese and English are two of the world's most widely spoken languages. English is a more commonly used international language. Many Chinese people are therefore motivated to learn English for educational and financial advancement. However, the very large differences between spoken Chinese and spoken English such as word order and verb tenses can make this task extremely difficult for non-native English speakers. Understanding such differences can help make teaching Chinese students much easier.

Articles
1. In grammar terms an article is a word placed in front of another word used to indicate that the word is a noun. The word is the only definite article used in English. The indefinite nouns in English are "a" and "an." Indefinite nouns are not used in Chinese. Chinese speakers often find usage of articles very confusing. The, "a" and "an" comprise a large percentage of the words used in any English sentence, so they are very important to learn properly.
Tonalities
2. Chinese is primarily a tonal language. Words such as "ma" can have several different meanings depending upon how they are pronounced. English only uses tone to express or emphasize emotion. English speakers do not use tones to give different meanings to words. Chinese speakers must be made aware of this fundamental difference between the two languages.
Sound Differences
3. Chinese speakers do not use certain sounds that English speakers use. For example, most native Chinese speakers have never encountered the sounds made by the letters L and R until they start to study English. These sounds are not only unfamiliar they can easily be confused with each other. "Rake" becomes "lake" to the native Chinese ear. "Low" sounds like "row." This can make distinguishing meaning between words quite difficult.
Singular and Plural
4. Chinese does not distinguish between singular and plural forms. More than one of something is indicated by the use of numbers. A native Chinese speaker would say I have one child or two child or many child.
No No
5. The word no does not exist in China. People use roundabout forms instead. For example they would say "I drink not" rather than say "I do not drink." Learning to use the direct form of the word can be quite confusing to many native Chinese speakers.
Prefixes and Suffixes
6. Prefixes and suffixes are groups of letters placed in front of or at the end of a word to indicate tense. The Chinese do not use these verb forms. This can make it hard for someone from China to understand the difference in meaning between words such as hesitated and hesitating.
No Cognates
7. A cognate is a word that is similar in both languages. The English and Chinese languages do not have any cognates because they have different origins. This can make it difficult for Chinese speakers to acquire a large vocabulary.

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i have this feeling that it is really difficult at the beginning of learning a foreign language when i started to learn english i felt it is so diffcult for me but after two months of studying i felt it is very interesting

Thanks for informative post!

Hi Richard
I had the same problem with Russian Language.
I think the best way to learn language is to talk to native speaker alot.

I visited Chine and had very big problem coz Chinese don't speak English. Remember our manager advised to start learn chenese language

Kate