<p>My friend told me that knowing some Chinese is great for business, so I started thinking that maybe I should do some self studying on my own of Chinese. I could get Rosetta-Stone (does that work?) and I could study and learn when I have free time. I'm thinking I could do a lot of studying over the summer, too.
I could put down for college how I self studied Chinese on my own as an extracurricular.</p>
<p>What do you guys think? Is it worth it?</p>
<p>Sure, if you don’t suck at foreign languages like I do.
You could also take a community college class over the summer.</p>
<p>I would, but I have a summer job so I wouldn’t have time. I’m definitely going to try it out and see.</p>
<p>Good luck, buddy. </p>
<p>I’m learning Mandarin at school and despite having had some prior spoken knowledge it still is a pain. </p>
<p>Do you have any experience with other Asian languages?Maybe experience with another Asian language would help but I doubt it. I’m trying to pick up some Korean and my Chinese helps only minimally.</p>
<p>If you are determined, go for it.</p>
<p>I’m going to try. I doubt I’ll be successful, but it’s worth a shot</p>
<p>cheer up~~</p>
<p>I bought Interactive Chinese, a multimedia software with 8 books included on vocabulary, phonetics, etc. I haven’t tried Rosetta Stone myself but I’ve heard that it’s better for romanic languages. In my area, there’s a lot of Chinese courses that run on Saturdays in different high schools by different organizations. There might be something similar in your area. For me, pronunciation is a challenge because English isn’t reliant on tones to differentiate words. You might want to get a private tutor if you can afford one.</p>
<p>Mandarin is great for business, but remember that whenever someone asks “What’s a good business language?” Mandarin will probably be the answer. There will be more business people who speak it (most likely) compared to other languages. Just something to think about. </p>
<p>Go for it! I’ve never used Rosetta Stone, but I have heard that it isn’t that good for its price. Rosetta Stone won’t really teach you the characters, too. Classes are okay, but remember: the real learning is outside the classroom. Classes don’t seem to work; one can progress further in one year of self-study compared to 4+ years in the classroom. </p>
<p>I’d suggest you search “how to learn any language forum” on Google. The website is full of helpful and intelligent language learners. On the forum you will find language learning resources, discussion, and a lot more. </p>
<p>I wish you the best of luck!</p>
<p>I used Chinese through Rosetta Stone last year - it doesn’t work too well. You’ll get the basic grasp of vocabulary, but much of how Rosetta Stone works is going through the same few things over a couple of times, then moving onto to something new, coming back to what you learned first, and going through the same few things when you learned something new. It’s just an endless cycle that, IMO, wasn’t too successful.
If you would still like to Self-Study with Rosetta, make sure to partner it with a Chinese textbook or something. Rosetta Stone will only show you the pinyin and won’t explain the tones or anything. Learning the Chinese characters and how to read the tones in pinyin is pretty important.</p>
<p>Other than that, good luck.</p>