Post: #51

You're going to end up teaching a University team before long.

I bet there are some good online coaching programs out there that you could sign up for and take your coaching skills to the next level if you decided to pursue it. Probably make your day to day job easier if you have a bunch of drills laid out that you can easily reference. A lot of MMA gyms are doing the same with a online striking program that they follow.

Post: #52

(09-20-2015 09:24 AM)Vacancier Permanent Wrote:  Oh and I forgot to mention that even tough as a kid, my dream was to become a professional football player, I never made it as I wasn't good enough. However, now that I'm working and getting paid as a football coach, working in the field I had always dreamed ever since I was a kid, now it makes me think, that if I were to take this coaching seriously and get proper accreditation for it, I am positive that within 5 years in China, I could get a gig as a professional coach at a professional club. First in China and then, who knows where it would take me...

That is the beauty of China. Things you never thought of possible suddenly and by miracle, almost becoming a concrete possibility.

Pursuing the coaching route is yet another option in front of me.

The more options, the more power one has. Always remember that guys!

God Bless China!

Exactly compadre. See where it all takes you. Go with your heart and your passions. Business is there and you still have your online empire to build. If you love football, take it up as far as you can take it. The connections made there can be parlayed into business opportunities. You and I have talked via phone a few times and you always were cool, upbeat and you talked to me about GRN. You still in that? If so, how's it been going? Much success, I will have to come out and check you out one day.

Post: #53

(10-08-2015 09:52 AM)Vacancier Permanent Wrote:  It's been a month that I've been in China.

Things have been very hectic to say the least!

In that one month I've been here, I've met more interesting guys than in 20 years in Canada! Literally, no joking!

In the process I've done things that never even crossed my mind as possible for me as has been the case over the past few days! Many things among which being short listed to potentially appear on a film, yes you read that right, on a MOTHA FUCKING FILM!!! not to mention, after going a few nights in a row to my local KTV with a couple of buddies and becoming like the mascot of the place, being treated like total royalty by the local patrons to the point that almost that it's a concrete possibility that they may hire me and my buddy as entertainers there!

Only in China! China has been blowing my mind and so will yours!

However, THE one major cockblock bas been Chinese. Mind you I'm making progress, I can now speak a grand total of 10 or so words! On a serious note, I really need to get serious about the lingo! This is THE one thing holding me down big time currently, specially girl wise! Sooo many hot girls everywhere, but not being able to say much has been a MAJOR bitch so far! However, I'm starting a course this weekend!

Will write a more comprehensive post as soon as time permits.

God Bless China!

Good luck on everything. You sound like a 49er back in the Gold Rush man. Won't be long before you hit the mother lode over there and strike it rich on every level. So, are your Chinese lessons private, one on one? Are they total immersion style where everything is in Chinese?

Post: #54

Rio,
Yeah I'm going to search for good coaching courses online. One if my good friend in Vancouver is a pro coach and he's very interested in joining me here soon and I'd definitely learn a ton from him. I'm taking the coaching route very seriously especially once dealing with clubs it is very lucrative!

So far as with girls, in my classes my biggest challenge is language barrier. Exercises that would take 1-2 minutes to explain take me 5-10 minutes because I can't speak Chinese and kids don't speak English. Also Chinese teens can be a dick as they take advantage of the fact I don't speak the lingo and can't complain to their parents so at times it can be frustrating. Lots of time wasted running after the boys and the girls who are too shy to participate in excercisio and they just gather in an area and just sit and talk as if it were a picknick. Very frustrating!

PrinceX,
What's going on bro? Good to hear from you! Yeah come check out China! Tons of interesting gigs here not to mention ground 0 for biz! How have you been? How are things for you? Let me know when you come to China!

Post: #55

(10-11-2015 02:04 PM)RioNomad Wrote:  I disagree with Suits. Private tutors are perfect for people who are not self motivated because you have an appointment with someone at a set time each day, so you have pressure to show up and learn. If you don't show you are still paying for the time.

The problem with private tutors is that you are the boss and you can cancel/move classes if you want to.

Most of your Chinese learning will not occur in a class or with a private tutor. Due to the way the Chinese language is structured, most of your productive learning will happen when you sit down by yourself and memorize a bunch of new words.

Your time in a class or with a private tutor will only be productive if you are putting the time in between session to memorize new vocab.

Quote:I found classes horrible for this because they move slow as dogshit and it's a very inefficient use of time. 4 hours in a classroom per day and if there is 4-8 people then you get very little actual speaking time or having your tone corrected. The teacher simply can't correct half a dozen peoples tones without slowing the class to a snail's pace, and group classes are already at the pace of a tortoise. So after 4 hours of inefficient classroom time you have to go home and study an additional 1-2 hours to actually drill the stuff into memory.

This is true. The main advantage I see in class is the motivation to go home and study.

I don't want to be the idiot who always fails dictation. Going to classes has helped motivate me simply because I don't want to look stupid or lazy.

This is the main advantage that I've personally experienced, even though the actual productivity of the classes varies by school and teacher. However, if you ARE prepared for class/tutoring sessions and studying in your own time to be prepared lessons, then absolutely, private tutoring will be more efficient.

Quote:In a one on one setting you will get the repetition that you need to drill a new language into your head, and have a teacher there to make sure your tone is correct. I'd use the last 20-30 minutes of each 2 hour block for just repetition of what you learned that day. Really drill it into your memory.

In my experience with Chinese is that you'll learn words by drilling yourself every day for a smaller amount of time.

Your teacher should just be checking the knowledge you've acquired, confirming that your tones are correct, etc. You're absolutely right about that.

However, while some drilling exercises with a teacher/tutor may be helpful, the hard job of simply memorizing the words is not something someone can do for you. You might as well just sit down with a stack of flash cards. Having a tutor do a job for you that you could do for yourself is a waste of money. You'll be able to drill yourself on remembering how to say each word much more efficiently by yourself than any tutor can.

Quote:I'd actually get a non sexy tutor because if she's cute I'd waste half of each session bullshiting and flirting with her instead of actually learning. Then I'd fuck her and she'd essentially be my hooker since I'm paying her.

Absolutely. I can't stress this enough.




I value Rionomad's input. I'm just sharing what has worked/not worked for me.

Obviously everyone's experience will vary, but classroom learning has a played a big role in getting me to a very decent level of Chinese speaking/reading ability just because of the structure and pressure it offered.

Hiring a private tutor ended up being a huge waste of my money and time. I gained nothing from it.

Post: #56

What's the process of getting a work visa like?
I hear you need an employer to sponsor you beforehand. Does that limit your options?

Post: #57

You guys arguing about tutoring I have found an amazing tutor on italki.com (I am not an affiliate just user).

He is native Colombian in Bogota and it is $8 an hour on Skype he is really good and does share screen, I get to interrupt him when I have questions about casual conversation I can take the lesson wherever my brain wants to learn at the time. He has decent English and I can tell he likes dealing with me because he can improve his English a bit.

Really good for guys on here maybe stuck in another country wanting a cheap Mandarin tutor something to look at. I advise a similar aged man that can speak a good bit of English so that you can dig deeper in questions about context and local slang etc...

In classrooms I always hated that some concepts I understood but the teacher would go over for 10-15 minutes while I day dream. Other times a concept I need work on they skip past in 5 minutes. In one on one I lead to what my brain needs to learn. I constantly think of whatever he is teaching me, on "how would I use this or what spin off would there be if I was in Colombia right now speaking only to Spanish-only speakers". It helps.

Post: #58

So so awesome VP. Congrats on jumping in and making it happen.

Would love to hear more about the lucrative opportunities to help Chinese companies with marketing in the west. What exactly is the value-add here - presumably you're talking about doing more than just translating their marketing materials. Were you thinking about building websites, running their online marketing? Chasing sales/deals with western companies on the phone?

Would love to hear more of your ideas around that, I bet the earning opportunities are phenomenal if you can structure things so you own the client relationships / get big commissions, etc.

Post: #59

VP,

Gonna pop my RVF cherry with this post. Loved going back and reading the first thread of yours, it looks like you had a fantastic time. Really love your attitude about everything.

I'll be going to university in Beijing this coming March (I may start a thread about it, since it seems BJ is less well covered than some of the other Tier 1s). I've already been taking some Mandarin classes but I want to be able to get "conversational", and figured this route will provide me with a visa, a place to live, a relatively "secure" entry into the country, and a nice foot in the door. Plus, as you've said, advancing in the language is huge not only with the women but with business. My friends in-country have said even un poco de chino will raise your status over there.

Will be following this thread eagerly. If I eve get a chance to get out your way/our paths cross, I'd love to buy you a beer.

Best of luck-- here's to the future.

Post: #60

Quick update:

Realized that it's been a while since I last updated my thread about my adventures in China.

Well, lately it's been pretty uneventful. However, here's something that happened earlier today that's worth reporting

On September 22, I reported that there was a piece on the local paper about my school and its football section and about me.
Today, during lunch, the school's principal invited me to join him at his table. He was with 2 other Chinese guys who happened to be journalists from the major local TV station. They were in the school to do a piece about the school's football section and that I was to be featured in it!

We briefly chatted while sitting at the table, but once again, due to language barrier, I couldn't talk much with them.

So in the first training of the afternoon, there were a group of cameramen setting up their cameras near where I was conducting my training. They filmed for a good half an hour, from the first gathering of the students to the warm up and half of the exercises during that hour.

I don't know yet when it will air, but I'm extremely curious as you can imagine, to see it!

So within 10 days of me being in China, I was featured in the local paper. And within 6 weeks of being here, I am now on the local tv news! At this rate, wonder what would be the next step? Being hosted by a radio or tv show?

In other news, a guy I know is going to open his Language Training Centre and is asking me to run it for him, as if it were my own biz. I'm still in the research phase of things, gathering info from people I know about the ins of running an English Training Centre. It is very tempting but I need to really think this through. While I'm sure it could be a lucrative venture, It would also be quite the time pit.

Other than that, things are going good here. I'm slowly getting used to things here and getting a good lay of the land in HZ. Building a cool but reliable nucleus of friends from around the world here. I am feeling more alive than ever before.

Making slow but steady improvements with the language. I'm starting to remember some words more easily than before as I'm being exposed to them constantly every day. My students in my trainings are teaching me basic but very useful words in Chinese.

Girls wise, it's getting better by the week!

Only thing I'm missing from back home are family, good homemade food and not being able to watch football matches due to the time differences with Europe as games start around midnight to 3am China time. Not to mention, not being able to watch the NBA season about to start!

Other than that, so far it's going good and it's reaching cruising speed at this time.

Planning my next trip. My good Italian buddy who lived a few years in East Africa, wants me to join him there for Christmas but I also would like to return home as I miss family big time. Specially my niece and nephew! But there's also the Philippines just a stone's throw away and very cheap flight away from here which would make for a fantastic vacation venue!

Decision time!

Post: #61

To get a work visa, you need to have a Chinese company sponsor your visa before you get to China. Your visa technically allows you to work with only one company officially and legally. As to whether it limits our options, I'd say yes it may since you won't be able to find the best gigs online from overseas. You need to be on the ground for that.

The best way to go would be to get a company to sponsor you, and during your first year of contract, get the lay of the land, understand as much about China, its culture and learn the language as much as you can, while also using your time being on the ground to network and pipeline something better for your 2nd year onward.

(10-16-2015 05:59 AM)dispenser Wrote:  What's the process of getting a work visa like?
I hear you need an employer to sponsor you beforehand. Does that limit your options?

Post: #62

Thanks man!

Yeah the idea is as you wrote, to help these companies not just with the translation, but in my case, help them create those marketing/promotional content in the respective language of the country targeted. As well as helping them with building and creating the sites, content, emails, copy, ads, create and run not only the social media pages of these companies but also run these divisions from day to day operations to expanding the biz, bringing in new clients, hiring staff targeting each market. Of course, an important part of this would involve me personally contacting the contacts in these respective markets and selling them the services of my company and myself.

Since I'd be the one directly in contact with the these overseas contacts, the actual relationship would be between me and them.

While I do have a couple of companies right now wanting to move forward with this, I have a feeling it would be a better investment of my time, at least at this stage of the game, to focus mainly on language and once I can have a basic convo in Chinese, then my value and leverage to these Chinese companies would be way higher. So at this time, looks like I'm going to put these on the back of the queue for now and go full steam on learning Chinese.

(10-17-2015 12:15 AM)RichieP Wrote:  So so awesome VP. Congrats on jumping in and making it happen.

Would love to hear more about the lucrative opportunities to help Chinese companies with marketing in the west. What exactly is the value-add here - presumably you're talking about doing more than just translating their marketing materials. Were you thinking about building websites, running their online marketing? Chasing sales/deals with western companies on the phone?

Would love to hear more of your ideas around that, I bet the earning opportunities are phenomenal if you can structure things so you own the client relationships / get big commissions, etc.

Post: #63

Mr. Brightside,
Thanks man for he kind words. I'm glad you've been enjoying my China threads man!

You're totally right on focusing first on the language as that will unlock doors to worlds of unlimited opportunities, work wise, biz wise, not to mention access to a whole new category of women that without Chinese language skills, you could only dream about.

Best of luck to you amigo in BJ! When you do get to HZ, let me know and we'll link up!

Cheers!

Post: #64

I am curious to see how long a linguistic MOFO such as yourself takes to get conversational in Chinese.

This will be, what? Your sixth language. Sheeet.

Post: #65

I don't think I have a special talent or skill with languages but I simply enjoy learning languages in which cultures or something with the country of interest that I have a deep interest in. I've learned them all by myself with ever stepping not even for a minute inside of a classroom, save for Spanish, which I did study as a kid in school in France. However, it was only in my early teens when I started getting into latin music and latinas that I really learned the languge.

However, Chinese is not like any of the languages I've learned by myself. It's something that can't be learned alone with a bunch of books. You need to be speaking it and hearing it on a daily basis. Even tough you may think you're pronouncing a word correctly, it is not until you've been exposed to it for a while and been hearing it and saying it a good 50 or so times that you might eventually say it properly. That is the challenge with Chinese and the fact it's such a tongue twister!

But I'm up for the challenge as this language would open up opportunities that all the other 6 languages combined wouldn't even touch. Number 7 is truly the lucky one so to speak!

Post: #66

The thing that I find so frustrating about spoken Chinese is that with European languages, we are so used to a sentence's contextual intonations that the tonal aspect of Chinese is, in the beginning, basically an alien concept that is extremely difficult to get into your brain. Even though I know the character, its pronunciation, and its tone, my sentences still don't have the tonal "sharpness" and accuracy that a conversational speaker would have, and trying to focus on the tones takes up too much space in my head and I begin to forget what I'm even saying.

Post: #67

Yes you've exactly summarized the biggest problem I'm also facing with Chinese!

Not just the tones but the words themselves are so alien to the ears of a normal western person that I forget very easily a word I just heard less than 2 minutes ago. Perhaps drilling your brain with repeating that word 50 times in a row might help with this? Has anyone learning Chinese used that method and if yes, has it been helpful?

Post: #68

Chinese only has a very limited set of possible sounds. Look at this: https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-pinyin-chart.php
You should to get familiar with the possible sounds to the point where if a person says a word to you, you can transcribe what you hear in pinyin and repeat it yourself even though you may not know the meaning of the word itself. Knowing that there's only so many possible combinations of initials and finals and being able to visualize what you hear as a pinyin transcription makes words more tangible in your mind, as opposed to just hearing some unidentifiable jumble of sounds that you don't even know how to replicate.

So one of the best things you can do in the beginning is just listen to Chinese and get a feel for the language, even if you don't understand the meaning. On the page I linked you can click on any initial-final combination and hear it with all 5 tones. These sounds in the table are ALL the sounds you will encounter in Chinese, ever. I also recommend the Pimsleur Mandarin series (either buy or torrent), it's super basic and repetitive audio-based training that won't get you fluent, but it's still incredibly useful at the beginning for drilling the pronunciation. Keep the TV or Radio on during the day as much as you can. Just get used to the sounds for now, you don't even have to try to imitate them.

Of course at the end that's not even half the battle - the flipside of a very limited set of syllables is that there are a lot of homophones. This is where learning to read Chinese becomes incredibly useful later on as it provides you with a way to mentally distinguish between, say, the dozens of characters that are all read shì. But for now I think what you should do is go through the Pimsleur material (if you can get your hands on it), listen to Chinese whenever you can and try to transcribe it in your head, and then you'll be much better prepared for the real learning process.

I also highly recommend this site: http://www.hackingchinese.com - lots of useful articles on learning methodologies.

Post: #69

When I first started learning tones, I mean the very beginning, I used my hands. I made the tones in the air with my hands as I went along to separate in my mind the 2 different parts of the language, the words and the tones.

Just throwing that out there.

Post: #70

Atlant, +1!
That was a very valuable post my friend! Bookmarked the links on your post and will refer to them on a daily basis!

Cheers man!

BDL,
Great tip as well!

Love this forum and the amazing quality of responses posted here!

Also, gotta thank my good friend Suits for giving me a ton of valuable tips via pm and over the phone!

Much appreciated brother!

Post: #71

This thread is really interesting to me as I lived in Hangzhou for a few years too. Do people still go for laowai beers at Maya and for a party afterwards to SOS? Good luck on your new adventure.

To bang cute chicks then I would say just build a huge social circle and go out a lot. Invite your students (if they're old enough) and friends of friends. In Hangzhou if you have a social job it shouldn't take long to have a network of 50+ friends and an offer of something to do on every single night of the week. Just go out, be the social, fun guy and keep a strong eye on core game/Mystery Method techniques for social situations. Make yourself the fun guy, don't let others tap your value, keep your eye out for girls that are up for it or laowai-curious. If you just keep doing this you can bang 6> girls a year without doing any game.

Be careful on nightgame doing cold approach, as the mainland guys are insanely jealously protective and resort to dishourable group-attack violence very quickly. However, if you go up, befriend them, toast them a few times first, then they will invite you into their group and positively make it easy for you to score with their single female friends. Online dating... probably you just don't need to bother. It'll be lots of timewasters and old chicks looking to cash out.

Oh... and western chicks there drop 3 points compared to back home. They're all attention starved and well aware of their virtual celibate lives. They're very easy to pick up. In fact, I'd say it's worth doing bar/club game and just aiming for the western chicks. You will get real, concrete results quickly. Any one that gives you the slightest attitude you ditch and move on to another. You can easily get a few western fuckbuddy's there. It's like being a Calvin Klein model in London or something. I literally had a western girl texting me shit like "please, can we just fuck. i live a celibate life here. can you just come round each wednesday and give it to me? I won't hassle you and shit when we see each other socially". Madness.

Oh... and learning Chinese will quadruple your chances and game. It's pretty easy actually as long as you make a good effort, something most laowais don't actually do. Spend 20 minutes a day, morning and evening, practicing and memorising vocabulary. For God's sake focus on pronunciation at the start: it's absolutely core. Just learn tons of vocabulary and perfect pronunciation and you're basically 50% fluent already. Grammar, what little there is, is over-rated.

Post: #72

So one trick I found out works pretty well with pronouncing foreign languages is to channel their accent while speaking their language. So if your speaking spanish, try to channel the accent and mannerisms of a mexican guy speaking english, while speaking spanish. Almost like your being an actor. You'll surprise people when you do that.

Similar with mandarin, try to channel the accent of a mandarin chinese speaker speaking english, while speaking chinese. And also remember those retroflexive sounds in mandarin chinese. And try to just imitate the sounds people make exactly, not even thinking about the tones per say.

Also with language you just want to drill vocab constantly. Like when your walking 10 minutes to somewhere, take out the flashcard app and drill your vocab. Then try to use the vocab in sentences.

Post: #73

(10-28-2015 02:51 AM)malc Wrote:  So one trick I found out works pretty well with pronouncing foreign languages is to channel their accent while speaking their language. So if your speaking spanish, try to channel the accent and mannerisms of a mexican guy speaking english, while speaking spanish. Almost like your being an actor. You'll surprise people when you do that.

Similar with mandarin, try to channel the accent of a mandarin chinese speaker speaking english, while speaking chinese. And also remember those retroflexive sounds in mandarin chinese. And try to just imitate the sounds people make exactly, not even thinking about the tones per say.

Also with language you just want to drill vocab constantly. Like when your walking 10 minutes to somewhere, take out the flashcard app and drill your vocab. Then try to use the vocab in sentences.

You can't seriously be serious.

Post: #74

It works for an initial level as far as accent imitation. Of course you have to get your actual pronunciation drilled by tutors in china, but it gets you %60 of the way there faster than no trick at all. I've tested it on several people, some who learned Chinese in their late teens / early 20s and some native mandarin speakers. They all say it's pretty good. Everyone's tones are kind of shit in china because of the regional dialect effect unless they are from Beijing or HISO or similar.

And for languages like Spanish, once you get some tricky sounds like the rolling Rs down, then accent imitation can be enough. It helps with a lot of subconscious vocalizations.

If you want further accent elimination, then you go to a speech pathologist / therapist. They can help people train out accents. Maybe some sort of actor training, since actors learn accents somehow?

Post: #75

Anecdotally I agree with this. I've picked up languages faster by getting "into character" as it were.

Why I think this works: memory is state-accessed, and much of your memory re: the language is stored in associations with the type of people who speak it. Access those associations,and you'll access the actual language - accent, vocab and conversational phrases - more easily.

I think this is a useful technique for someone who naturally enjoys imitating people/acting.

(10-30-2015 03:18 AM)malc Wrote:  It works for an initial level as far as accent imitation. Of course you have to get your actual pronunciation drilled by tutors in china, but it gets you %60 of the way there faster than no trick at all. I've tested it on several people, some who learned Chinese in their late teens / early 20s and some native mandarin speakers. They all say it's pretty good. Everyone's tones are kind of shit in china because of the regional dialect effect unless they are from Beijing or HISO or similar.

And for languages like Spanish, once you get some tricky sounds like the rolling Rs down, then accent imitation can be enough. It helps with a lot of subconscious vocalizations.

If you want further accent elimination, then you go to a speech pathologist / therapist. They can help people train out accents. Maybe some sort of actor training, since actors learn accents somehow?