So, on Thursday my order for Fluenz Manadarin 1+2+3 came in and I started it yesterday. So far, it's pretty interesting, but I'm only on lesson 3 so far. This is the first long (2hr) lesson and the first two were relatively short. It's a bit expensive at $358, but I purchased it thanks to a rather large reward I got at work. I had to do a bit of deciding between it and Rosetta Stone, but the reviews were hands down in Fluenz's favor.
One rather big difference between Fluenz approach and Rosetta Stone's approach is that Rosetta Stone teaches by the immersion method, which seems to be good for children. However, Fluenz believes (from indications in neurological science) that adults lose the "plasticity" of the brain that makes children such rapid language learners. Unfortunately, when I was growing up, the prevailing attitude was that it was harmful to teach a child multiple languages as it may confuse them. This is entirely backwards, and the best time to learn a language is as a child. So Fluenz took a different approach which for lack of a better term is the "explanation" approach. Rather than lots of memorization or showing lots of pictures (immersion method), basically things are explained to you as you go along. So far, I've found their approach fairly easy.
The biggest criticism of the Fluenz program is it's lack of teaching of Chinese ideograms. I remember when I took Japanese in college, by far the hardest part was learning the Kanji (the Japanese version of Chinese ideograms). Learning the stroke order and radicals was no fun and could literally take up 2+ hrs a day in homework. In Fluenz, everything is in Pin Yin, which is a romanization and phoneticization of the characters. In other words, it is teaching you to speak and understand, but not really read or write. But I think that's ok for now.
I probably should have learned Japanese or even Tagalog, but I think Mandarin is going to be a very important language in the next few decades. And who knows, maybe I can find a job in Hong Kong or Singapore. You never know, maybe I could even work in Shanghai or somewhere in Taiwan (yeah yeah, I know, Taiwanese mostly speak Hokkien, and most people in HK speak Cantonese). Regardless, knowing Chinese will open up some opportunities in my career.
It may even open up some possibilities in my understanding of Buddhism. Many Buddhist sutras were only saved in Chinese when Buddhism was essentially chased out of India. It's unfortunate that many people don't understand how much of the meanings of their religious scripture(s) has changed due to elements being lost in translation. This is especially bad for the Bible, which went from Aramaic to Hebrew to Greek to Latin to English. You almost have to wonder how much of the translation is left. For Buddhism, I'd like to re-read some of the Sutras in the Chinese form and see what it is like. Of course, that will require reading comprehension which this program doesn't teach. Still though, it'd be cool if I could read Buddhist sutras in Chinese (and from what I understand, even though Cantonese and Mandarin are pronounced differently, they can each read and write the same).
I consider myself pretty good at learning new computer languages, so let's see if this applies to human languages as well. The one thing that worries me is that I don't consider myself all that good at memorization. In fact, I have a pretty horrible (short term) memory. I've always said I was extremely grateful that almost all the classes in my Computer Science curricula were open note. I think I am pretty decent at learning new concepts, but my memory is not so hot. And of course, learning new vocabulary is essentially 100% memorization. The thing with human languages is that you can't think like you do in a programming language. In a human language, you don't translate from one language to another. I always used to say in French, "Je dois traduire les mots francais dans les mots anglais. Je ne pense pas vraiment en francais". Basically, you shouldn't translate the words in your head from english to the other language and vice versa. It has to come naturally and without an internal translation. That requires more than memorization, it requires making it a part of yourself...and for me, that's difficult.
The other thing I am a little fearful of is pronunciation. Mandarin is a tonal language with 4 tones. Basically this means that the meaning of a word changes by how it is pronounced. I have been complimented before on my french pronunciation, so I am hoping I have a good ear for understanding. However, speaking the proper tones back might be a little harder.
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