7 Tips you need to learn in Chinese language

Before, good students took German to please their parents. But that was before. Nowadays, place in Mandarin Chinese. The best schools offer it as an optional living language from high school, sometimes even in intensive mode or "international section". Recruitment firms favor candidates with Sinophone profiles. And of course, China and its 2-digit growth remains the Eldorado of expatriates.

For those who have passed the age of "going in perm", where to learn Chinese in Paris? Whether by curiosity, to spend your DIF credits or knowing how to order food on a future trip to China, the Chinese language attracts more and more fans. Evening classes or weekends, offers abound. So, to learn Chinese.

Here are 10 tips from a friend who has learned Chinese (almost) all his life. I hear my mother scream from where she is "I had told you it would serve you".

1. Go for a class near you, easily accessible, with schedules adapted to your schedule ... to hold on over time. Because the language course is like the gym, there are days when you drag your feet Especially in January, cold and hollow period where your true motivation is revealed naked.

2. Test a course as an observer to rub the teacher's method, feel the level and the atmosphere of the class Prefer courses taught by natives of the language and trust your feelings.

3. Do your homework! Because, be forewarned, he will have a lot, a lot of homework. No miracle recipe. Forget the time you studied English listening to Beatles songs. Besides, you do not really speak English. To learn Chinese effectively, regular, even daily, personal work is essential. In the best of all worlds, practice "30 minutes a day, every day". Like the abs, what. Plan to memorize tricks and recopy miles of characters. Yeah, it's an investment in the longer term.

4. The time is for learning in 2.0 mode with many digital tools: familiarize yourself with dictionaries on smart phones and tablets word processing on computer, writing on touch screen (on Mac, by adding to the keyboard the function "Chinese Simplified handwriting input"), applications that test your pronunciation.

5. Try to calligraphy, writing Chinese characters with soft brush and Chinese ink. It is relaxing, it requires a lot of precision and allows you to practice drawing the lines perfectly to form the characters. Concentrate and imagine yourself as Master Kung-fu inscribing the secrets of the most devastating catches on a sacred parchment.

6. Put your children in Chinese. Many schools offer courses from 3 years old to familiarize them with the sounds of the language. It is well known that children develop facilities for foreign languages when they are exposed to it from an early age.

7. Plan a trip to China for total immersion. But be careful, whatever your level in Chinese language, expect a real culture shock on arrival. At first, you will not understand anything the locals say. It's like when you think you speak English and then you come across a London taxi (Oddly, the Beatles do not approach that point).