Zhuyin Fuhao learning resources

[oravavaara]

Hi!

I'm trying to get a head start on learning Chinese before I arrive in Taiwan in February and would like to learn the bopomofo system. Can anyone point me to some resources? I'm especially looking for some kind of video or game where I can listen and guess how a word is written. It would even be helpful to have a video that was subtitled in zhuyin fuhao.

I have been listening to a few podcasts as well as the CD that accompanies the Teach Yourself Chinese book, but I keep getting hung up on the zh/ch/sh/r z/c/s q/j sounds as well as some of the vowels, especially the dipthongs. A friend suggested that part of my pronunciation and comprehension difficulties could be in failing to overcome my native language bias, and I think she's absolutely correct. So I think it would be useful, at least in the beginning stages, to start getting the hang of Chinese sounds by using a completely different writing system. The problem is that to my knowledge, the zhuyin fuhao system isn't widely used by second language learners or outside of Taiwan. I would love for some resources similar to what preschool Taiwanese use! Does anybody have any leads?

Thanks!

[archylgp]

Hi!

I'm trying to get a head start on learning Chinese before I arrive in Taiwan in February and would like to learn the bopomofo system. Can anyone point me to some resources? I'm especially looking for some kind of video or game where I can listen and guess how a word is written. It would even be helpful to have a video that was subtitled in zhuyin fuhao.

I have been listening to a few podcasts as well as the CD that accompanies the Teach Yourself Chinese book, but I keep getting hung up on the zh/ch/sh/r z/c/s q/j sounds as well as some of the vowels, especially the dipthongs. A friend suggested that part of my pronunciation and comprehension difficulties could be in failing to overcome my native language bias, and I think she's absolutely correct. So I think it would be useful, at least in the beginning stages, to start getting the hang of Chinese sounds by using a completely different writing system. The problem is that to my knowledge, the zhuyin fuhao system isn't widely used by second language learners or outside of Taiwan. I would love for some resources similar to what preschool Taiwanese use! Does anybody have any leads?

Thanks!

Everything will use pinyin now and nothing but kids and key boards will have Zhuyin Fuhao; so you'll need to learn both. If you just learn pinyin, I can't see a reason for learning Zhuyin. There will be a lot of kid workbooks for Zhuyin once you get here; I recommend using your time know to learn tones and syllables and some basic sentences.

[oravavaara]

Thanks for the advice, but I'm really set on learning Zhuyin Fuhao. It just makes more sense to me in terms of pronunciation. I had the same difficulty when learning Russian- it wasn't until I spent a few days on the Cyrillic alphabet that I could get a handle on the new sounds. German, Spanish, and Finnish were of no difficulty to me when learning pronunciation because, although they use the same alphabet, the pronunciation just made sense to me.

I did find a few resources in case anyone else is interested. http://www.mdnkids.com/BoPoMo/ Here you can look at bopomofo and here it pronounced, and http://quizlet.com/1911046/all-398-syllables-of-chinese-bopomofo-pinyin-correspondances-flash-cards/ here you can practice pairing zhuyin to pinyin.

If anyone finds video subtitled in zhuyin (or with characters and zhuyin) please let me know! Especially if such video is marketed toward young children. I just don't have the Chinese to search for such a video.

[asiababy]

This one uses characters from "Journey of the West" to teach ㄅㄆㄇ and characters.

http://www.tyc.edu.tw/files/west/index.htm

Enter from the main page. Click on the box "確定" by the monkey and then click on the ；ㄅㄆㄇ真好玩 at the bottom left of the page. Then, click on each symbol to hear it, see how it's pronunced (video of a person's mouth) and how it is written.

[oravavaara]

Thanks for the tip!

[teamhyperbeam]

I recently made a game to teach Zhuyin/BoPoMoFo, try it and see if you like it!

http://www.memrise.com/set/10037518/zhuyin-bopomofo-4/

[Alitagally]

大家來讀ㄅㄆㄇ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RrQ9xrM ... ata_player

陳燕靜教育網01: 注音符號念謠教學
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCJhQ8Vu ... ata_player

Videos my friend used to help her child.

[ehophi]

I also forgot to mention that there is an Android app which gives Bopomofo results from Pinyin inputs:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... LmxpdGUiXQ

[ironlady]

The thing is, the OP is mixing things up.

She believes she has a problem discriminating and producing certain sounds in Mandarin. So she now is going to launch herself at learning bopomofo.

They are not the same thing. Nor should they be. The OP would get far more mileage out of an hour or so with a teacher who knows phonetics from a hole in the ground, if she insists on going the analytical route to Chinese.

[Taffy]

Agree with ironlady, and in addition the kind of resources used here for preschoolers assume (rightly) that they already speak the language to some degree. For an adult newcomer to the language these texts are not going to be a great deal of help.