Reddit reviews Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar (Modern Grammars)
We found 7 Reddit comments about Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar (Modern Grammars). Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
I'm copying all of this from Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar -- it's really a great book
1. Occurs at the end of the sentence with an adjectival verb to indicate change:
[你高了] You have gotten taller.
2. New information for the addressee:
[他们订昏了！] They got engaged!
[我有两个孩子了] I have two children now.
3. When the main verb of a sentence is stative, indicates change of state：
[东西都贵了] Things have gotten expensive.
[他有女朋友了] He has a girlfriend now.
4. Actions that continue into the future: double -了 sentences：
[他已经睡了是个钟头了] He has already slept for ten hours.
5. Situations that do not exist anymore:
[他不吃肉了] He doesn't eat meat anymore.
[太阳出来了。 不冷了] The sun has come out. (It) isn't cold anymore.
6. Imminent occurrences and imminent change:
[我们快到了] We will be arriving soon.
[我快要做晚了] I'm just about done.
7. Examples -- Comparing sentences with and without -了.
[我会看中文报] // [我会看中文报了]
I can read Chinese newspapers. // I can read Chinese newspapers now.
[汽油很贵] // [汽油很贵了]
Gasoline is very expensive. // Gasoline has become very expensive.
[我不喜欢吃肉] // [我不喜欢吃肉了]
I don't like to eat meat. // I don't like to eat meat anymore.
8. Using -了 with resultative verbs to indicate completion.
[我做完了功课] I finished my homework.
[我吃饱了] I am full.
Note: 了 never occurs between the action verb and the resultative ending.
YES: [你找到了你的皮包吗？] Have you found your wallet?
NO: [你找了到你的皮包吗？]
9. Completion - Mandarin uses 了 to mark an action as complete.
This indicates the action happened in the past. Only action verbs can be marked as complete. If a stative verb, adjectival verb, or modal verb is followed by 了, the meaning is one of change rather than completion.
[你跟谁看了电影？] With whom did you see the movie?
[我跟我女朋友看了电影] I saw the movie with my girlfriend.
Notice these sentences refer to situations that are both completed and past. If the verb takes an object and the object is only one syllable in length, 了 may occur after the verb + object. Some speakers prefer to put 了 after the object regardless of the length of the object noun phrase.
[我昨天晚上八点种回家了] Last night I returned home at 8pm.
No paid app/program/website suggestion is going to satisfy you. Things like ninchanese are designed for sales, and satisfying customers, not providing the best result. Studying is hard work, there's no escaping that. No manner of cute cat animation or ipad software is going to do better than traditional methods that beat the information into your head, paired with the motivation to study it.
The way it becomes more tolerable is for you to find some motivation to do it. If there's no stories you want to read, or friends you want to talk to, or teachers you want to impress, shows you want to watch, then you're going to have a slow, difficult time.
There's a near definitive grammar book in English that can answer all of the questions that even your Chinese teachers cannot. It's here
More beginner grammar rules that everyone should know are located here
There's graded readers you can check out which are very good called Chinese Breeze. Get the physical copies and they have audio CD's in multiple speeds. The back covers of the books have a paragraph that shows the difficulty of the book. If you can more or less read it, then it's maybe too easy, or just right. They cost like $6, and literally pennies if you buy them in China.
Put together an anki deck of your own with all your vocabulary. This software will help you manage it all. I started out with single words in a big anki deck, adding to it as I learned 10-20 words each week. Once the deck became over 2000 cards or so, I took a few days to go through the whole thing and turn them into sentences. Then I added new vocabulary in the form of sentences as I found them "in the wild" so to speak.
If you want to be able to write, you need to put pen to paper and write. As you review the anki deck, write it out each time as well. Yes it sucks. But it works. It sucks less if you're motivated to learn.
How do you get motivated to learn? Make friends. If you don't have any Mandarin speaking friends, or put yourself into an environment where you "need" to speak, you won't. Someone else in the comments here mentioned "girls" and got downvoted into oblivion. But I don't think anyone can deny that it's not a good form of motivation to learn. If you go out seeking a partner based on language, well, that's a different problem not suitable for addressing here. But the idea is sound, make good friends with common interests. You play the drums? Great, meet other people that play the drums. Join a local meetup. Volunteer at some Mandarin Language event or community center.
Language partners are valuable. I've talked to maybe 200 or more people that I met on sites like this which I highly recommend. Most of them, I spoke with once, and never again. A handful lasted a few weeks of regular talk/study. 4 or 5 of them turned out to be amazing people, teachers, friends. After making 2 very long term friends through that site, my skill level improved drastically. But overall, I learned something valuable from everyone, save for the odd student trying to get a good toefl score and just looking for a free English teacher.
I would also recommend [Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar: A Practical Guide] (http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Mandarin-Chinese-Grammar-Practical/dp/0415700108)
Don't get this
https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Mandarin-Chinese-Grammar-Practical/dp/0415700108
It contains major errors.
I've gotten a lot out of Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar but I'm not sure if you'll see that as a "textbook" or not.
French
Well, I gave up French after a whopping six or so months studying it. What a shame. However, my time studying it wasn't completely wasted, as I learned many efficient study habits and also got to enjoy a lot of material. I was surprised that I worked up the ability to read French literature and news (with the frequent help of a dictionary) in this time frame. I do believe my study plan was a bit bizarre, as I spent way too much time on grammar in the beginning, thus neglecting writing, speaking, and listening skills.
Why did I give up French? The reason I took up French in the first place was arbitrary; I liked the aesthetics of the written language and how it sounded. However, as time moved on, I couldn't find anything interesting enough about the language or its culture, to keep me motivated any longer. Biggest complaint about the language? The sheer number of false cognates to English and/or words that have similar, but not equivalent, meanings to their English counterparts (of a more or less equivalent spelling). Believe it or not, I had a harder time learning these types of words than words that did not resemble their English counterparts at all.
Mandarin Chinese
I'm just working through words on Memrise (currently at the end of HSK2), and studying a grammar book. The grammar is deceptively simple. I'm relatively new to this language, so there's not much to say for now.
Cool! So I found that a huge problem for me was that I spent way too long searching and reading about different methods/apps/books/audiotapes/ etc and looking for the "best" one, rather than just actually using one and sticking to it.
I'm trying to develop a learning schedule that fits comfortably around my work schedule, and use the following:
I'm also going to a Meetup group every Sunday to practice (more like listen at this stage). I'd highly recommend seeing if there's a similar group in your area. I felt kinda awkward about going but its fantastic exposure.