Chinese: Speculation and Discussion

[lamniformidae]

I speak Chinese at home with my family, so when Duolingo: Chinese is released I'll have the advantage - but I'm curious as to what someone else would think of the language, and what would help them learn better.

Do you think characters, pinyin and tone marks will be taught all at once? Do you think one will be taught first, then the others added in? Will simplified and traditional be separate?

I feel like tone marks will be taught first, then pinyin with characters - and eventually the pinyin will be removed. I'm also putting my bets on the quanpin pinyin being used.

Anyone else excited for Duolingo: Chinese to be released?

[tdardet]

I would definitely be interested in seeing how Chinese would be taught. I'm interested in how people that are learning will adapt to using a regular Keyboard for the non-Latin based alphabet.

[Karl12]

In MS its quite easy, with IME you can type Chinese with all the characters like a europaen language

[lamniformidae]

I know - it's so convenient when websites have features like that!

[lamniformidae]

They could have a pinyin typing system like sevenforks.com does, but I wonder if they would add a "click-and-drag" the characters interface or something.

[forsself]

Been trying to study chinese for a few years and I find it pretty hard. It would be awesome if they add Chinese to Duolingo. I think they should start with pinyin and then move on to characters at a later stage.

[johaquila]

I once learned a bit of Chinese. After two weeks of an intensive course my class was able to watch a full film in Chinese, though one made especially for learners of the language. I think this was only possible because the course worked with pinyin almost exclusively. Chinese with pinyin must be one of the simplest languages in the world. Only the tones and the unfamiliar vocabulary are problematic for Westerners, but apart from that it seemed to be almost simpler than English for me (a German).