Here was the response from Mrs. Birkenbihl from someone interested in learning Chinese:
1. Important: Get totally familiar with the sound by massive passive listening! (Passive listening = listening very softly as much as possible, best for hours on end, creating a "in-the-country-surround-sound" for the subconscious.) The more familiar we are with the sounds the easier it gets.
2. After listening ACTIVELY (until we understand the lesson, or the part of the lesson we want to study today, go to passive listening (see below).
3. Do not learn isolated words (and find "pseudo-translations" for the strange sounds) but work with whole sentences in whole lessons only and visualize what it is all about. When you hear the Chinese sentence (are you hungry? or, he is very hungry, or similar) always a complete sentence, then picture a person extremely hungry. This will be your auxiliary thread. No "explanations" of Sounds because this introduces an extra point into the connections and SLOWS YOU DOWN LATER!
Think: smell travels via one ONE SINGLE neuron from nose into the brain. Things we see may travel via 3 - 5 neuronal connections. Things we think may need 12 - 17 connections. The longer (more complex the idea the longer) the neural path, the more time you shall need later. Thus: even if these little "explanations" may help in the beginning, they will hamper you later on, when you NEED words to express ideas, because you then have a layer of English additional explanations between your thinking and the foreign language.
4. In the beginning: do not speak until thoroughly familiar by active and passive listening. If the sounds seem very strange still, then first imitate the SOUND only (imagine the child wants to make fun of his elders!!!) and after you can manage this highly exaggerated fun-speech it will be easy to imitate the real thing. While listening actively (sometimes later, in the car etc.) and while speaking, always visualize your images of what you hear/say, never repeat mindlessly. You are no robot!
Hope this helps.
vera
