Savvy Chat Chinese – 20 Questions to Basic Fluency20 Questions to Basic Fluency:Guide to Basic Conversational Mandarinby Matt SikoraFirst Edition, 2012Editor: Seraph ChingContact Information:/profile/mtskahttps:///u/0/117895081310002069781/about/pub/matthew-sikora/a/473/a35Savvy Chat Chinese: 20 Questions to Basic Fluency by Matt Sikora is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit /licenses/by/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 444 Castro Street, Suite 900, Mountain View, California, 94041, USA.Savvy Chat Chinese – 20 Questions to Basic FluencyHow to use this bookConversation is the heart of language learning. Talking with someone in another languagedevelops your listening skills while giving you the speaking practice that you need. Butconversing in another language can be hard to manage when you are first starting out. Savvy Chat Chinese – 20 Questions to Basic Fluency is homebase for developing your MandarinChinese communication skills. It is not only a guide for you, but it is also a guide for yourlanguage partner. Conversation is all about improvising within the linguistic and cultural rules of the language. This book allows you improvise with a manageable number of high frequency questions and answer and it gives your language partner a guide as to how to help you so that you can both make the most of your time. Below are some suggestions on how to use Savvy Chat Chinese – 20 Questions to Basic Fluency:1. Read the book – Read the book all the way through. It gives you a unique perspective on thegrammar at work behind the patterns and characters used in the questions and answers.2. Personalize the book – Take some time to personalize the questions and answers in this bookwith your own information. If someone asks you one of these questions it is important for you to be able to come up with a response with your own information. Write out your answers (or your likely answers) to each of the 20 questions and keep that list handy.3. Chat – Whether you are face to face or texting - communicating with real people is still thebest way to learn a language. You need to use the questions and answers in this book as often as you can. You don’t need to be perfect. In fact, you absolutely have to make mistakes in order to learn languages. No one, native speaker or foreigner, young or old, has ever learned Mandarin without going through the same thing that you are going through right now. If you have alanguage partner, let the person know that you are focusing on these 20 questions and answers and give the person a copy of them so he or she can help you. You will be able to make the most of your time if both of you are using these questions and answers in your conversations.Enriching your studiesThe fastest way to learn Mandarin is to go live where Mandarin is spoken for a year or more. Be sure to only use Mandarin and stay away from anyone that speaks to you in any other language. If you are in a position in your life to do this, stop reading right now and get going. You won’t regret it.But chances are that your learning experience has been and will be a bit more fragmented than what was described above. This book is great for learning how to start communicating with people in Mandarin, but it is not enough. You need to immerse yourself in the language as much as you can and no book can ever take the place of living your life in the Chinese language and culture. There are two simple rules for learning languages that you should try to keep in mind:1. There is no substitute for repetition.2. Never let yourself get bored.You can’t possibly use the 20 questions and answers in this book too much. They make up the basis of daily conversation and even after you have mastered them you will still use them all the time. But if the only thing you do is use these 20 questions and answers you’ll probably become bored with it and lose your motivation before you master them. Be sure to seek out things that interest you and allow yourself to get distracted every so often. Follow your bliss and you’ll be a much happier Mandarin learner. Come back to the 20 Questions to Basic Fluency whenever you need them, but don’t put on the blinders to what else is out there. Happy chatting!BackgroundSavvy Chat Chinese – 20 Questions to Basic Fluency was developed and written as a communication guide for Mandarin language learners who are ready to put their language skills to use. The questions cover some of the most high frequency grammar patterns, vocabulary andcommunication situations that you will need to know at the basic level. This book is designed to guide your communication skills to the Novice-High Proficiency Level on the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines. (ACTFL – American Council on Teaching Foreign Languages). The ACFTL Novice-High Proficiency Level roughly correlates to the A2 CEFR Proficiency Level (CEFR – Common European Framework of Reference - for Languages)./speaking In addition to the academic research has gone in to this book, the questions and answers have also been informally field tested in real communication situations and reviewed by native speakers.ThanksI would like recognize the Study More Chinese community of users for all their input and support on the 20 Questions to Basic Fluency blog. I would also like to thank my editor, Seraph Ching. Her insight and eye for detail made this book possible.Q&A IndexQuestion Answer1. Name 你叫什么名字？我叫马特. 你呢？Nǐ jiào shénme míngzi? Wǒ jiào mǎtè. Nǐ ne?2. Origin 你是哪国人？我是美国人. 你呢？Nǐ shì nǎ guó rén? Wǒ shì měiguó rén. Nǐ ne?3. Profession 你做什么工作？我是老师. 你呢？Nǐ zuò shénme gōngzuò? Wǒ shì lǎoshī. Nǐ ne?4. Free time 你空余时间喜欢做什么? 我喜欢学中文。