Fluenz Mandarin 1+2 Session 01 - Learn Mandarin

[24FretLove]

Fluenz starts off with a non-native-speaker? Thank you for Rosetta Stone...

[skibblesx]

@24FretLove Different people have preferences, I for one love this because if you actually use the software it gives perspective on both foreign voices and native voices.

[AnonymousDouche30]

Does she give private lessons?

[galactusz]

Hey, you morons...this is Sonia Gil...co-founder of Fluenz. She's is not a native speaker...BUT THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT...an English speaker's Mandarin point of view. Plus...once the lessons get going...a Chinese native speaker takes over. Sonia Gil is proof that you can indeed learn Mandarin...she first studied eight hours a day for six straight months (and continues to do so)...and she also lived in China. She's awesome...and it doesn't hurt than she's beautiful as well.

[g00glian0]

@galactusz Whatever ding dong. She is still beautiful

[shtdragon]

This lady better know how to read characters in order to recognize chinese language.

[DanKreiger]

love it

[hawaela]

well ))) if she wore Islamic clothes then it would have been easier to concentrate.

[peichengc]

I think her Chinese is good enough to teach CFL.

[ifbei]

how is this different from pimsleur?

[aretlev]

@ifbei

Pimsleur is completely audio.

[Xinoutorah]

They don't change you how the tones change...it's extremely important. Her Chinese is okay, but I think it's better if you learn it from someone who sounds native or who is native imo... if tones weren't so important it wouldn't matter.

[christopheclugston]

@Xinoutorah Yes, Tone Sandhi is very important. For those that are saying her Mandarin is perfect--it isn't: she has the wrong stress patterns and she nasalizes a whole syllable not just the consonant.

[RjunCN]

Her chinese is good and she's hot too!

[shuceniel]

Great product, I purchased the french program.

Mandarin's my mother tongue, her pronunciation is perfect.

[rowelle]

@shuceniel How's the French program? I'm thinking of either getting Fluenz French of Mandarin. I wish they had Japanese.

[arkim44]

she has a good,basic instructional method that makes her easy to follow.

is it possible to develop a decent grasp of,say, mandarin, from solely internet learning?

[TommyB739]

She is good and very cute but I would rather her teach me the language of love.lol

[pianokidAJD]

I have Fluenz, Italian

[mikatan12]

This sucks. Fist i dont like white girls. 2nd this doesnt teach memory. get pimslure. someone post pimslure mandarin with a hot asian girls pic please.

[buhosabio]

too hot to concentrate :-( baad. Her chinese is good!

[crystalceline]

@Nisu3

I've purchased the fluenz course but cant really recommend it. But Sonia is really hot! ;-)

I have downloaded the Mandarin course level 1 from speedlearninglanguages. com yesterday and have listened to the audio course for about 7 hours. Much better than this one! and also much cheaper!

[poor750]

What would you recommend instead?

[crystalceline]

Its hard to recommend something because everyone is different in the way he learns. I am using the mandarin course from speedlearninglanguages. com and it works for me very well. You can give it a try!

[atropos2000]

hi crytalceline,

I did not try the fluenz course but I have to agree on the mandarin course from speedlearninglanguages. its exactly what I was looking for. you get really much value what you pay. thanx

[rowelle]

@crystalceline Suuuuure.. You probably work for that site. My suggestion, put a damn demo on that site.

[EuropaBloke]

she's pretty annoying...

[tonbogori]

shes hot

[willchan1963]

impressive!!

[lykej]

The interface looks really nice, the best I've seen so far. Unfortunately, I'm not a beginner, so these lessons are too basic for me. I hope Fluenz makes Intermediate and Advanced Mandarin software.

[charliewu888]

nǐ hǎo

[panjo23]

sexy woman

[dinobott]

I dont buy her chinese language. But i will buy her beautiful looks, so damn hot.

[go0gol]

I am chinese!LOL...So easy.LOL

[Keksdich]

thanks for sharing this with us.

for a bloody beginner like me it was

clear enough,

slow enough,

positive enough.

Bring on more, would you?

xie xie

K.

[krabykevin]

I can speak it FLUENTLY, I meant.

I'll post numerous lessons if you want me to.

I'm taking requests of any kind.

[krabykevin]

lol...guys, if you want to learn mandarin, I fortunately, can speak it.

Just request by comment or message and I'll post how people normally speak it in their everyday lives, unlike these of course, these tutorials teach only BOOK mandarin, you can say a lot of it, but the other guy/girl will be like wtf, even tho they'll understand. I can teach you pinyin too.

[calioti]

Hi great stuff as I'm learning chinese pinyin...I'm sure during my first study, that Xie Xie means THANKS and Xie Xie ni means THANK YOU

[RichQiu]

This chick is so hot!

[MesmerizedEys]

it's important to note that hen is not always used to mean "very" eventually it loses it's meaning for example you cannot say "wo hao" if someone asks "ni hao ma" otherwise it will sound strange. The hen has to be used.

[icyhearted01]

She's a hot hispanic girl teaching Mandarin.

[funnycritic1]

Can any body could say how many letters (characters) in Mandarain. I could see some 104 letters. But it seems even more letters exists

[ottamtakietam]

thousands characters. There are no letters just chracters each meaning sth different

[MesmerizedEys]

over 3,000

there are no letters in Chinese, just characters

[holkn]

over 20000-30000, but 3000 of them are most commonly used. All you need to learn in order to read chinese newspaper is to learn those 3000

[NauticalFILMS]

healthy blood flow in both side of brains.

[Zhaominmin1987]

汉字呢，怎么只有拼音。

[magics619]

For non-Chinese speakers, they need to know pinyin first. That's very important for them to learn. After they understand pinyin, they then start to learn the words. If they learn the words and pinyin both at the same time, they won't remember it.

[kayne001]

so this software is good then?

and in order to learn Chinese fluently learning pinyin first is neccessary?

[lykej]

It's pretty necessary. Pinyin teaches you the correct pronunciation and tonal inflection. I couldn't imagine trying to learn Chinese without it.

[kayne001]

so Fluenz is a good program since it teaches this?

also how do you really say Xie Xie

(I'm mainly talking about the X)

is it like shze shze

or she

or Se

or something else?

[lykej]

Phonetically, it's kind of like "shye shye", or "shie shie". Her pronunciation of it at 2:27 is right on. Listen to that a couple of times and you'll have it down. Also, you'll have to say it in the same tone that she did for it to be correct.

[kayne001]

yeah I noticed that the first shye was different than the second, because of that mark.

I look forward to learning more real soon.

It's between this and Primsleur.

[anyolina]

its more like shie shie, but note that the first xie has the rising/falling tone. so they will slightly sound different.

[remister1984]

Nothing like a foreigner speaking Chinese. It's so sexah :)

[google2boogle]

OMG U ARE SO GOOD!

[rabu3a]

hahahah....

[nitcan]

good tutorial.

its so hard to concentrate. why she so hot :)

[cruzjuvenal01]

Hell yea! im having the same problem?I wonder if learning mandarin will get me girls like this.

[KakashiBallZ]

god damn she's smokin hot

[ahr2107]

focus on the lesson! lol! jk, she is beautiful!

[corderoi]

she's indian comes from a province called PUNJAB

[xXSinChildXx]

Wu busher dao... (or however you spell it)

[MesmerizedEys]

wo bu zi dao :)

[calvinkleinmba]

i like the computer fx

[emilyrusso1980]

these videos are truly fantastic for what they are...you have to be a competitor, or a true cynic, to really dislike them

[CurlyHeadedGurl]

I don't like that they don't teach you the characters...

activechinese seems more fun

[goldreserve]

whats with the at-the-dentist trance music?

Also too slow, fire the words at me with corresponding pictures!

And I always wondered what 'ma' meant, thanks

[rocksolid1015]

what dentist do you see? LOL

[carolianleen]

why so many tought the "sh" vowel instead of "s" in Chinese, it is not "shia shia", you can say "see yeah, see yeah"

[drhook1986]

A good looking teacher is important for learning. I would say that this teacher rocks!

[elnigey]

yeah she does indeed ^^

[elnigey]

look awesome i mean:D

[steve91803]

Those red lines are hurting my eyes.

[rabu3a]

maaaaaaaaaan ey ! das war ya voll die verarschung

[KyonoRocks]

OOh look at those funky effects. Seems pretty good but I can see it getting really annoying... not sure why. I'm learning Mandarin using the Pimsleur program and it seems less annoying than this

[sylabivia]

i can speak mandarin

wo hui shuo eder zhong wen

[raiseyou]

in pinyin this would actually be spelled:

wo3 hui4 shuo1 yi4dian3er5 zhong1 wen2

[onepartofchinese]

danm she is sexy

[L3X4R]

damn im in love with a polyglot

[jennysorad]

I think I'm in luff as well, ♥

[ninjaL0ve]

damn i think im in love also...

[xsajienx]

Damn. I think I'm in love....

[dhillman]

god damn she's a beauty

[xanlu]

Too make a slight correction, the letter "x" does not exactly sound like "Sh", but rather like "Ch" in german, almost like the word "Ich" but with less frictional sound and flatter tongue and wider mouth. this is usually the most difficult sound for beginners, so many choose to use "Sh" as a substitute, when speaking fast the difference is not that big but local chinese will definitely notice.

[Dr4g0nstyl3]

in german "ich" is pronounced like "ish". The pronounciation of x is always different in mandarin (in meiguanxi its "s" and in xiao it`s "sh") btw she has a strange way to say h. instead of hao she sais chao(german)

[xclownkillerx]

its also accent.... many different areas say things differently...depending on where you are, thats why beijing mandarin speakers are different to hong kong mandarin speakers.

[TunIqbal]

Hongkees speak Contonese.

But yes, it is true that Mandarin sounds different in different parts of the world. I think in China, the Mandarin is rather "thick" (soundwise), while in Malaysia, Mandarin sounds "lighter"

[RPGonline2]

Isn't the "X" in Mandarin sounds just like an "S"?

Example:

Xie xie

[[SEE-EH SEE-EH]]

[eatshityoutwo]

Nyet.

[firesteel1]

its mostly like 'sh' as in 'sheep' but it does vary to 's' as in 'saw' depending on where you are in china.

[TunIqbal]

That's what I always thought too!

[danondiz]

Furthermore, when pronouncing the "x" in Mandarin, the tip of the tongue rests on the lower teeth. This sound is known in linguistics as a voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative. When pronouncing the "sh" in English, the tip of the tongue is not touching the teeth at all. This sound is known as a voiceless palato-alveolar fricative. So two different sounds.

[danondiz]

The romanized Mandarin letter "x" (in Pinyin) is used to describe a sound produced by raising the front of the tongue to (but not touching) the hard palate (area on the roof of the mouth just above the upper teeth) leaving a narrow opening through which the air escapes causing audible friction. The vocal cords when pronouncing this sound does not vibrate. It is not the same as the English "sh" sound.

[MommyofPrincess]

she sholdn't have worn black. she looks like a floating head, but she's very pretty

[hot12lips12]

no offense, but the chinese she speaks sounds like she is an old woman, i do not recommend dis video.

[Exchristian]

Well when are you going to post a tutorial "Hotlips?"

[Jaguar1010101]

There's an intelligent comment. Did it overload your brain thinking it up?

[HuaLiu]

WoW~

pretty girl!

[kaitenuser]

0_o she is gorgeous! Ni hao hoe! lol

[LegoMyGeggo]

I can't even concentrate cause she's so pretty haha

[nelsonoda]

How pleasant is listening to Sonia Gil's sweet voice. zhen de hen hao! The pronunciation of pinyin "x" is similar to English "sh", while pinyin "sh" is an especial pronunciation of English "sh" with tonge curled far back.

[Yazardo]

Shes hot and her accent sounds good to me, im still learning...

[piss2u]

pretty girl!!!!!!! >.< 美女

[za5084]

谢谢

[Foine69]

X is pronounced as "X" and not "SH".

[Raymasaki]

the letter X sounds like ex.

the word xylophone has a Z sound

the X in Mandarin sounds like Sh.

xie xie - Shi.

[kayne001]

ok who is right about that?

[jkcosine]

she's cute indeed. however her pronounciation is not that standard. never try to pronounce "x" like "sh"! that's not correct.

Anyway it's already very cool for her speak chinese like this ;)

[zenbiont]

well the sound quality is a little poor but if you listen carefully she is not pronouncing it "sh"

[goddard2046]

Standard pronunciation in Chinese seems to be kind of utopian. I've never seen such a wide range of accepted pronunciations across a country, unless of course we're talking of hyper-pure Mandarin spoken by 0.01% of an overly educated population you never meet anyway. Or you go back 200 years to find the true, original Mandarins.

[championofcathay]

SHES HOT

[smg909]

xié xie (谢谢) :)

[dgd7758]

真漂亮