Are you Learning Mandarin? Be Inspired by Chris's story

Follow Chris through his extended stay in China.  What is it like to go there, learn the language, get to the know the culture and the people?  You might be inspired in your Chinese language learning to read his tips on how to learn Chinese.  Here is an excerpt from "Ready to Return":

Mind your tones

"The hardest thing when speaking Mandarin are the tones. Even though I thought I remembered how to say a word, and could even visualise it in its written form, when speaking it aloud my tones would often be incorrect. This would incur laughs from native speakers which really dented my confidence. I still have problems with tones today, but I find that extensive listening can help greatly with this."

Don't Try This Abroad! And Other Amusing Cultural and Linguistic Misadventures

Check out these short videos from BBC Language and prepare to be amused as students of various languages talk about their cultural and linguistic missteps and misadventures abroad.  They are baffled in Barcelona, flustered in France, and blundering in Bavaria! 

Workshops for Chinese, French, German, and Spanish

The Language Center offers a series of workshops for students of  French, German,  Spanish and Chinese in the 6 or so weeks of each semester.   Earlier in the semester, the Language Center offered a series of workshops covering English grammar for Students of French, German, and Spanish, which also included discussions of foreign language grammars, if time permitted and students requested.  Currently, the workshops being offered introduce students to the various resources and materials available to these languages, whether in-house or on-line.

Here's the schedule for the weeks of 9/19-9/30:

Monday, 9/19: 9-10 & 1-2  - Spanish, Plazas (3rd and 4th editions)
Tuesday, 9/20: 9-10 & 1-2 - Spanish, Plazas (3rd and 4th editions)
Wednesday, 9/21: 9-10 & 1-2 - French, Allons-y
Thursday, 9/22: 9-10 & 1-2 - French, Allons-y 
Friday, 9/23: 10-11 - German, Deutsch: Na Klar!

Thursday: 9/29: 1-2 - Chinese, Online Resources  

Check in at the Service Desk.  You will receive a voucher for one hour of lab credit after the presentation. 

The Language Center in R-205: Your Place for Foreign Language Learning at CCSF

Whether you're a first-time student at CCSF enrolled in a foreign language class, or a continuing/returning student, the Language Center offers a wide variety of resources for every language learner. These include audio materials on iMacs (with voice recording capabilities) for each textbook, high-speed internet access for foreign-language-related materials selected by faculty here at CCSF, as well as links to publishers' websites where you will find chapter-by-chapter materials, such as online flashcards and self-tests.

But wait, there's more! You'll find interactive, textbook-based CD-Roms for French, German, Italian, Russian, and Spanish, as well as CD-Roms for Mandarin (PinyinMaster, Critical Language Series), Cantonese (Critical Language Series, and Japanese (Power Japanese). There are writing programs installed on the PC's for French, Spanish, and Chinese, MS Word software enabled to create Russian, German, Japanese and Italian accent marks or characters. Rounding things out is a collection of DVDs and videos, most notably for French, Italian, and Spanish.

Faculty monitors with backgrounds in most of the languages taught at CCSF are here to answer your questions or refer you to the language tutors in the Learning Assistance Center, so schedule a regular visit to the Language Center this semester. You'll be glad you did!