I just started watching 奋斗 and think it’s going to make a nice little learning project to get through. Immediately, I noticed that it appears to be quite realistic, a trait not commonly found in Chinese TV. Specifically, it is the first Chinese TV show I’ve ever watched where you can look at the surroundings (streets, living rooms, net bars, etc.) and say “That really looks like typical Chinese city life.” Also, the lead character getting addicted to CS and killing himself ten minutes into the first episode, didn’t hurt either. I’m excited to keep watching. Thanks for the recommendation.

Now on the other hand, if you already speak some Chinese, and can find a girlfriend who a) doesn’t speak any English and b) doesn’t have any desire to speak English, you are totally in business.

Colleagues, ordinary friends, and drinking buddies, on the other hand, do tend to be very good for the language learning.

Parents in law are great for local dialects and swear words (at least, in my experience).

However, I am going to disagree with you on your point that Chinese people disagree on how to mispronounce words, and that occasionally you need to use the local pronunciation to be understood. While the pronunciation of Mandarin varies widely across the country, all Chinese learn standard Putonghua in elementary school. Whether they retain what they learn or put it into practice is an entirely different matter. So for example, while a Fuzhou local will probably pronounce Fuzhou as “huzou,” they would never argue that that is the “correct” pronunciation. Also, regardless of local pronunciation variation (and in this arena Fujian is king) standard Putonghua pronunciation will be understood virtually anywhere in China. And this in large part has to do with the proliferation of television and radio. Even in rural mountainous areas of Fujian, speak with either a CCTV or a Beijing accent, and people will understand you (assuming your tones are spot on), unless they are part of that small part of the elderly population who doesn’t speak putonghua to begin with. I have experienced the “it’s not Fuzhou, it’s huzou” phenomenon as well, and I think it had to do more with me subconsciously mispronouncing the tones, than not pronouncing it in the “local” way.

@canrun
Weeaboo是什么东西？

@chriswaugh_bj
I would disagree that you need a classroom to roll play. Here’s an example. Say I wanted to learn how to talk about digital cameras in Chinese. I would have a friend write all the vocabulary in my notebook. Then I would go to an electronics mall as if I were buying a camera, talk to a sales rep, asking all the questions about a digital camera using the vocabulary I just learned. Once I had exhausted all my new words, I would go next door to the next electronics shop and repeat. The beauty of China is that often similar stores are all right next to each other. Whether it’s a camera, a leather belt, or a Hello Kitty cell phone cover, chances are there are at least 6 or 7 sellers all within immediate proximity. The other advantage of this method is that I never picked up any laowaisms from other Chinese language learners, and from the get go I had to acclimate to the regular rhythms and speed of native speakers. As to your comments about pronunciation, I agree 100%

I also want to suggest a TV show: 奋斗 fen4dou4, a recently popular TV show about recent college graduates and their life pursuits.

The other (11) that I would add to this list is to go out and read comic books. I bought the entire 42 book Dragonball series (七龙珠) , and have been slowly reading them over the years. At first I had to look up 300 words in the first book, then it dropped to about 180, then 120, and so on until now at book 29, I only have to look up about 20 words per book. I can read one book a month to keep characters cemented in my brain, or power through them to up the rate of my learning. Once I finish this series, I might try and read 红楼梦, but these old books tend to be littered with old jargon that is hard to learn/retain.

http://pinyinpractice.com/wangzhi/2009/08/05/10-video-sites-to-entertain-and-practice-chinese/

Good luck and great post Ben!

I do think a useful lesson to be drawn from Ben’s post is that not studying in a classroom doesn’t preclude you from learning Chinese. All of the methods Ben describes are employable in your free time, and that the excuse that you don’t have time to learn the language because of work really doesn’t fly