Why learn Chinese

No.. we literally played on the swings.. haha.. Considering that we are both over 30, I guess it would be easy to assume that it was a euphemism but she is just a very nice, traditional Chinese girl. I really enjoy the time we have together and would rather play on swings and talk, and generally have a good, quality time with her than go to a movie and not say a single word, even if it does sound a little odd for adults to play on swings.. hehe.. It's just very.. genuine, I guess. She is a very beautiful person.

Thanks for your words of motivation and praise. I certainly don't feel like I have any special wisdom or talent or major progress.. :) I am just plodding along wondering why I can't remember the basic words I heard the previous day and so on. Just need to keep the repetition going. I do about 1 to 2 hours of listening per day, and about 1 hour of reading and doing cPOD exercises per day as well. I also walk around talking out loud to practise.. though I make sure no one can hear me first..

One interesting thing happened to me today: I buy my mocha coffee from the same place everyday now because they make it the proper Chinese way (ie. VERY sweet.. haha) and I said "xie-xie" even though in my mind I thought of "thankyou" my mouth automatically said "xie-xie".. It's a bit like a Freudian slip but in terms of mandarin, I guess.

I have mentioned in Ken's blog that I have played guitar for 16+ years and learning spoken mandarin is a similar process to learning how to play the guitar. I also have a background in computer programming so may be this combination of art and science, as well as my natural empathy gives me the ability to pick up on language concepts faster.. but like I said.. I don't feel like I am doing well or not well.. just that I am learning, and learning is exciting and fun and satisfying to me.

My family, friends and co-workers are sick to death of hearing about me learning mandarin by now, I'm sure.. but it's the only way to make sure I learn, I think..

Is "we played on the swings in the park" an Australian euphemism for some boyfriend-gf stuff?

Only teasing. For what it's worth, I have to say that I sometimes read your posts and think to myself, "No WAY this guy has only been at it for a few weeks! No way! Oh well, maybe he's intelligent and has exactly that kind of open mind that you need to learn Chinese well..."

Seriously, one of your strengths seems to be that you don't fall into any of the usual traps... "grammar" in Chinese doesn't mean what it does in English, and I sense that you have an analytical mind but you don't translate into English and back. Good for you.

Do think about tackling Chinese characters... even if just to have a crack at them in order to see if you are one of those people who learns better with the visual clues in Chinese characters re: meaning/ sounds. Be good to that Chinese gf of yours!

My reasons are many.. but the most recent motivation to start learning properly is that my new girlfriend was born and raised in China, and has only been living in Australia for 5 years now. Her English is quite good but there are times when it is hard to understand the full meaning of what she is trying to express to me. As I say, I also have other reasons such as the fun of learning new things.

Learning Mandarin is a very natural progression of learning for me. I also live in Sydney, which has probably about a 40 to 50 percent Asian population, at least in the CBD areas. So learning an Asian language is very important. Mandarin appears to be the most commonly used language here in Sydney amongst the Chinese population so that is why I chose Mandarin instead of Cantonese.

However, I would be lying if I didn’t admit that having a girlfriend who speaks Mandarin as a first language isn’t the foremost, current, reason for me learning Mandarin... hehe..

I spent most of Sunday afternoon and evening with her. We went and got some Chinese Herbs for her mother and we spent about 20mins reading the labels on the packaging. Later we went to an authentic Taiwanese restaurant.. and afterwards we played on the swings in the park. :)

i am chinese girl,i feel happy to see many people is learning chinese in the world.I 'd like to make friends with you.and i also can help people who is intersting chinese. my MSN:xiaoyutitieni@hotmail.com. QQ:56147024

Heres my 2 cents

It started 8 years ago as I thought Hanzi was cool, so I took a class, and for the first year my only goal was to visit China one time.

I met my wife 6 years ago, She is Chinese, and she loves to help and encourage me, there are many reasons why I keep studying.

1) it adds to my relationship with my wife

2) ( and her family)

3) its an excellent mental exercise (keeps me sharp)

4) I look forward to visiting China every year, I love the adventure of it

5) Maybe, some day we will live in China

6) Im so fortunate to live in the internet/dvd age, where learning a language is so much more interesting than it used to be. I really want to take advantage.

7) Part social experiment. I want to know how much progress a 40 year old guy in the US can make by spending 30 minutes a day studying Chinese

As for impressing people, thats very relative, if someone has no idea that you ever studied Chinese, and you rattle off a few words, they will be impressed. On the other hand, if I tell a long story in broken Chinese, a Chinese person may grow tired of my effort.

thanks

Tom

Yes, leraning Chinese it's challenging, it's beautiful, it's a completely different way of using a language, also of thinking, it's a good work to try keeping in shape my 53-years-old-brain, and many other exciting things....but, actually, I guess it has more to do with a deep emotional feeling, maybe a kind of feeling I had many many years ago, probably a feeling of the time of my early childhood.... Well, not so far in the past, only five years ago, I had the chance to stay in 上海 for a month; I was not a tourist and I was spending the most part of my days with a group of Chinese, particularly a couple of them who are speaking nothing else but Chinese. They were very kind and hospitable to me, so it was natural for me trying to learn the very first things you have to learn in a new language. I still remember very well how I was trying to imitate 我,你,他,我们,你们,他们, pointing with my finger on each of us to be sure of the meaning, and then I learned to say 好, 谢谢, 多少, and some few others.

I knew nothing of any sort of romanization, nothing of pinyin. I also invented a my own personal transcript system, trying to deal with all those unknown sounds....

But the most exciting experience was when I was able, after a couple of trials, to count from one to ten in Chinese!

Now, If I say, I remember that, I'm not saying the truth, I would be more precise if I'd say that I can actually see, very clear in my memories, today after these five years, the smile and the surprise suddenly rising on the face of my Chinese "teacher", well, I think that's really the best reason why I'm still trying to learn this language! Well, Ken, that's my reason...

Some of the stories here I can relate to. Here in Portsmouth, when I first meet Chinese people and say something to them in Chinese, it's like they've just seen a talking dog or something. You just don't get that sort of thing from learning French or Spanish :)

hi i like studing mandarin chinese, that is also popurlar language in world to communicate with other people. Chinese language is not easy to practice and study, but we try to study hard, we feel happy and have benefits from them when we can make a lot of friends in the worls and can understand about chinese culture and tradation. so i specially like learning Mandarin chinese. i hope all friends will successful in study.

i was on a train a few months ago. i sat opposite a young chinese woman, and she started talking mandarin on her phone. i could hardly understand, but i got out my practice pad and started practising some of my recent characters. when she finished, she looked in amazement at my characters, and giggled, and we started talking. she had just moved from beijing to cambridge, and was so incredibly impressed i was learning chinese . she told me chinese tongue-twisters and things like that. i think it must have been a cultural thing, because she was much more open than the average westerner would have been. since then we've been pen-friends. =] and that's my first and so far only experience randomly talking to chinese people. it was great! ^_^

Franch, 你说的对。Though you call it late night sterile comments, there is profound truth therein.

Ken, I can't tell whether the Chinese were impressed or amazed that I would speak to them in Chinese. And my Chinese was truely "newbie" at the time. And, its not like they could have spoken to me in English, most could not. Maybe it was gratitude.

I convey a funny story not my own, where an obviously foreign woman was in an indoor market in Beijing waiting to negotiate with the merchant. The merchant said to the current customer, "now give me a lot of money for this and I will give you change discretely, I want the foreigner to think you're paying more for this item". But the merchant did not think the foreigner could understand Chinese. So, in addition to "impressed", and "amazed", you can add "chagrin" to the list of responses (很丢脸).

Well, my daughter is Chinese so I wanted to learn to help her stay in touch with her heritage. Besides, we had an amazing time there and intend to return in the future (hopefully several times). I could speak a little the first time around, but I would like to be "competent" next time. To answer Ken's question about the reaction I get in the states, I can definitely say the Chinese are more surprised when I speak Mandarin, whether they are here temporarily, or are Chinese-American. First, their faces light up, then they rapidly fire a series of sentences back at me. At this point I stand there open mouthed and uncomprehending (the very picture of a dumb American, I'm sure) while they look crestfallen. That's where you guys come in.

Hi! I'm from Spain and I'm studing English and Chinese at the same time... and both are wonderful!

Can you imagine how grateful I am this great place exists?

Mananar

Ken I would agree with Ron. Maybe I would not say impress the heck but in China if you speak Mandarin they really appreciate that you took the time to learn their language. It shows you care and that you are planning to be around for a while.

For sure my friends in North America are impressed that I can speak Mandarin. It alls seems like greek to them:)

Ken - I have two somewhat funny stories for you from when I used Chinese in the States. One time was when I was working at a clothing store. An older Chinese woman and her daughter came into the store and I asked if I could help them. The older woman spoke Chinese to her daughter and her daughter translated to me (even though they had no idea they didn't need to). When I asked the older woman, in Chinese, which colors she was interested in, they both looked at me as if I had grown a second head. The other time was when I was in Disney World of all places - in Epcot in the store they had in China. I couldn't find a price for something and went up to the clerk and asked her in Chinese how much it was. She answered in Chinese, blinked, really looked at me, and told me I was the first person she had met in her year there that had spoken to her in Chinese (that didn't work there). But I really think this is becoming more and more commonplace because more schools are intoducing Chinese to their foreign languages.

As for in China, I guess with where I am it is still fairly uncommon for a foreigner to be able to speak Chinese - foreigners are rather scarce as it is. But when someone does find out I can speak Chinese, I suddenly become their "best friend" and then they want my phone number so we can keep in touch. When in bigger cities I usually am ignored.

I believe the "prestige" one might hope to enjoy is among the first steps on the whole motivation 道. But it's the most transient, since you quickly learn that you can't become a wise man out of ambition. Still, the hope we all look forward to is not a matter of personal taste. What we Westerners all yearn for is to live upside down at the other side of the earth, and the desire to impress our peers remains against all 风雨, setbacks which are part of the game, and the sunk-cost of it, indeed, thx Huibert for that term. Mandarin is the true 汉堡 and the people up there may laugh at our plainchant. Sorry for such sterile comments, it's pretty late here, I think I'm off to bed now -z-

Ron mentioned that being able to speak Chinese 'impresses the heck out of people'. I think this may be more the case outside of China. Here there are lots of foreigners who speak it well. I'd like to hear more about how this is in the States or elsewhere, though. When you speak Chinese in somewhere like the States, who is generally more surprised, the Chinese people or the Americans?

It took me a while to see the light. Now I am on fire.

I love to travel in China and meet the people. To really meet the people you need to be able to communicate with them. With the limited Chinese I know today I can get around China and I have already met and made many freinds in many cities. I am looking forward to becoming fluent or nearly fluent and fully enjoy this great country and its beautiful people.

Let me just add a little more to this interesting discussion about motivation. I am not living in China, I am not planning to marry a Chinese girl and neither does my work really require knowledge of the Chinese language, although I do teach in China from time to time. Apart from this sunk-cost story and losing face, genuine interest becomes a motivation in itself. The more I know about China and Chinese culture - subjects about which a lot of nonsense has been written in the last few years! - the more I really want to understand. I feel that being able to understand a few words already helps to break down our stereotyped Western views of the Chinese world. And this already helps me a lot in teaching the subject of cross cultural management in Holland and other countries. The 'case of China' has shown me the poverty of culture concepts in management. If you want to understand people, you must listen to them, talk with them and one linguistic step into their direction helps a lot! That's why learning Chinese is such fun. It will certainly also help when I take my wife and children to China this summer for a holiday. Saturday I'll see how far I have got, taking part in the 汉语水平考试, the 'basic' level that still requires at least 2000 characters... Also this sort of thing helps to keep motivation high!

It's really comforting to read all these comments. This is really a great community and the feedback is very motivating. I can still remember a time, not long ago, when I felt as if I was alone in learning Chinese. Many people from my home in America asked me why would I bother with the language - which I can understand as speaking Chinese is not a big deal where I'm from... but, what was really more amazing, was the number of Taiwanese people that would ask me why I was learning, as they felt non-Chinese people have no need to learn Chinese since most people around the world can speak enough English. As a result of all the negative feedback, it really demotivated me for a while....made me question myself if it was worth the time and effort...

but anyway, after re-dedicating myself, my reasons are simple:

1. I love learning about languages and Chinese is just so uniquely different from English to always keep it interesting.

2. Survival in Taiwan (Of course, I could hunt for someone who speaks English everytime I need something, but that can be time-consuming and also I don't like the feeling of other people translating things for me)

3. I hope I can find a secure computer career in Taiwan or China.

4. Chinese culture is very interesting and understanding the language helps to undestand and appreciate it more.

5. If I marry a Chinese girl, I need to speak to her family.

Everyone has their motivations, but I think everyone also has their impediments. I like what Huibert said about sunk-cost and not wanting to 丢脸 (lose face). Not just because recognizing the cost of giving up is a good form of motivation, but because it says others also battle through difficult times (walls, plateaus). Knowing those times are coming and having a strategy to deal with it keeps me learning Chinese.

cavadarossi and aluminumoxide - Whether a wall or plateau, I agree, transforming it into a useful construct is the key. I call it a "wall" because that's what it feels like, like continued hard work with "seemingly" no progress. When I hit a wall in learning, I immediately begin looking for ways to break it down. Thanks for the good advice.

henning - 125/2500. I'm about 5% closer to the goal! At 5 characters a day, I've got about 475 days to go. Actually, you are quite on target with your comment. I see it in practice on the "micro" scale. By learning the few characters that I have, the listening and speaking have improved. But, I have to say that the listening and speaking level I had prior was very helpful in learning these few characters.

The original reason (2004): I was teaching management in Shekou (Shenzhen) and I was very happy to find Heineken beer in my little frigidaire in my hotel room.But I could not find a glass, so I went to the reception desk and asked for a glass. The lovely ladies offered me things like grass, and finally brought me a... teacup. That is why I decided to start studying Chinese. And why did I continue? Because of the sunk-cost problem, I suppose: at a certain point you have invested so much time, that it does not seem wise to stop. Economically this does not make sense, but the 'loss of face' associated with stopping seems unbearable.... But, anyway, I can ask for a glass now, and even for more beer, and that is important to survive in China.

I remember being told about the stages of language learning in French lessons at school. The explanation of the 'plateau' that we were given was basicly that at some point we would feel like we were making no progress and this would encourage us to be lazy. The advice we were given on getting past the plateau was to pull ourselves together and get on with it (I went to an english girls school). For some slightly more usefull advice on this have a look at

http://gbarto.com/multilingua/confessions/2007_02_01_archive.html

or why not try and find a Chinese pen pal? That would give you a real and imediate motivation to learn to express yourself more.

Best of luck Lester

Im learning for self improvement, that... and really want to visit in 2008 with some friends :)

I want to be able to speak to my in laws!!! not mention understand what they are saying half the time!

Because it's challenging, intellectually stimulating and impresses the heck out of people.

Lester... that "wall" you talk about does not exist. That's a mental construct you've created, so why not replace it with other constructs that are more useful? Think instead of a momentary plateau. A break in the immediate, noticeable progress as your brain subconciously is making connections between all the bits of information you've fed it. Kids are super slow at learning languages... look how stupid kindergarteners are, yet they get so much credit for being smart by doting parents. Give yourself at least as much time as you'd give a dumb kid to learn a language. That being said, I'm learning Chinese because that's what super-wealthy people do: they learn languages (and travel).

It's actually funny why I chose Chinese as a foreign language. My middle school had 3 options: French, Spanish, and Chinese. Both my brothers had taken French and I never liked the sound of Spanish (sorry to anyone who does!!) so Chinese it was. I think on my first trip to China in 1998 made me fall in love with the people and culture, and I knew a key to that would be to stick with the language. I've had a fairly inconsistant education in Chinese (when in middle and high school we studied traditional characters and had no requirements, so I really didn't learn TOO much), in college I made the switch to simplified and had one of the sweetest people as a Chinese teacher, but he never reinforced what he taught. I had a 6 week program in Beijing in 2004, but I was with college friends so I didn't go out and practice my language with locals. I think it's only been within the last year living in Guiyang that I've gotten serious about learning and almost had a panic attack wondering how I'd keep my listening/learning schedule on track - then I found ChinesePod. So why study Chinese? Because it's interesting, useful, and a challenge - all three of those things keep me coming back for more.

lester,

that question has been discussed here several times. My personal experience was that a key factor for bridging the way to an Intermediate level was learning characters. It is almost torture, but after learning to read (!) about 2500-3000 of them acquiring the language becomes much easier.

There are more walls towards Advanced and than towards Media which are quite natural. Because "reaching the next-level" is a non-linear process. What it takes is volume, volume, volume (of vocab).

Phase I. Initial motivations...

1) My son went to China to learn Chinese, I thought it would be neat to show him his old man could still take on a challenge or two.

2) I lived in Taiwan as a child and regretted having not learn more than a greeting and a few vulgarities.

Phase II. Growing Interest...

3) The language is like music. I like music.

4) The language is like a puzzle. I like puzzles.

5) I felt like I was making real progress in learning. I was listening to CPod and studying with an audio course (can't say the name but it begins with Pims and ends with leur's :)

6) I got an invite to go to Beijing. It became something to work toward.

Phase III. This is really hard...

There comes a point where you "hit the wall" and you are tempted to give up. After month's of study, understanding only 10% of the host chatter in an intermediate lesson can be discouraging. I found the following items to be of additional motivation.

7) I spent a lot of time, I would not give up and let it go to waste.

8) Mandarin is spoken by SO many people. Wouldn't it be great to make friends on a global scale?

9) Beijing was great! I want to go back.

10) Mandarin will add to my ability to market my self and to financial security.

11) I reminded myself of the successes I did have in using what I had learned. People complemented me, some thought I understood more than I did.

Hey Poddies. If you don't have the premium subscription, I certainly recommend it. Just listening will take you far in understanding, but I felt illiterate in Beijing having studied almost nothing in the way of the written language. Signing up for the premium subscription opened up the world of written Chinese and that actually helped my spoken Chinese. Having a 200 word spoken vocabulary accelerated my learning of the characters, too.

Hey Ken. Do you, as an expert in language education, have any insights to add about "hitting a wall" in learning? I've gotten past one wall by adding the study of characters. It feels great to be making progress again. But, what's the next "wall", and how will I (and others) get over/around that one? Other poddies have complained of the wide gap between "elementary" and "intermediate", and I wonder if there isn't some common wall people are hitting.

I figured learning a language is a good investment in job security. People will always need to communicate, and more so with China in the future (or at least I hope). So, even though I'm not 100% sure what I want to do in the future, I figured mastering Chinese would be a good investment in the future.

Later down the road I plan to attend BeiDa and get an MA in modern Chinese Literature.

aluminiumoxide,

my Chinese wife. But it took a while until I really catched fire.

aluminiumoxide,

my Chinese wife...but it took a while until I really caught fire (:

Well that suggestion is what made me sign up for Chinese instead of French and begin learning. I'm very glad I did as I've enjoyed it very much. It is because I have enjoyed my lessons at uni that I have joined up to chinesepod and I plan to go on learning Chinese after uni. I agree that just because something is usefull you will not be putting all you can into learning it. As can be clearly demonstrated by my Finance modules.

What got you started?

aluminiumoxide,

what do *you* say? The "somebody said it might be very useful in the future" will not carry you very far. You should ask yourself: Is it *fun*? [believe me, it is. You just need to become crazy enough].

Well, I'm living in China over this year, and my wife is Chinese...

Because I am studying business at university and my Dad said that if I was going to take a language module then Chinese would be the most usefull in the future.

Because I'm studying mandarin at university. ^^

I've been learning Chinese ever since I came to Beijing back in '98 because I wanted to be able to communicate with the people here and I wanted to be able to read the signs and menus, etc. :o) I still have a lot to learn though I've studied at Di Qiu Cun for 2 years and studied most of their textbooks twice. I want to be fluent too but it takes a lot of work and practice and if you don't have time, it's just not possible. As and English teacher, everyone around me wants to practice English and I speak English at home with my family. I have to be proactive about practicing with Chinese friends.

Because it's the coolest language in the solar system. ;)

I am interested in learning chinese coz it is challenging! ^^ I feel happy when i can finally recoqnize chinese characters when i read chinese article. The other reason is coz Chinese is very important now.. China's economic growth has brought a big influence in the importance of learning Chinese. One more other reason, Because I am a Chinese who is not living in China and who cannot speak Chinese! >.< I wanna be able to speak MY language... haha

Btw, traditional chinese is more difficult, but.. somehow.. i do feel it is more artistic.. hehe => my friend told me this and i realised it right away

a thought Ken could be finding a publisher to work with. Your teachers make the podcasts, some being the work of the publishers, refer to the publisher materials for poddies to purchase, Cpod gets a kickback for publishers sales. Possible?

Story books

Many story books are starting to include CD recordings of the book, but there is a large hunk of the pie out there untouched. Not only would this service be for foreigners learning Mandarin, but any parent who wants their child to read Mandarin could be interested in this.

Give me one percent of the kickbacks would ya?:)

Man2toe,

Interesting suggestion, but we'd have to look at the resources it would, require. I'll bring it up.

ekdean

Cpod does supply traditional characters. Please go to the blog Ken indicated and you will find how to have the website operate in simplified or traditional. (default is simplified)

http://blogs.chinesepod.com/2007/04/25/firefox-plugin-for-traditional-chinese/

There are many facets of motivation for me. One of the stronger pieces involves my children. Since their birth, I only speak Mandarin with them. I am convinced that one; multilingual situation enhance a child's brain development , second, I believe the next generation of children will only benefit from knowing Mandarin. This being said, I would like to propose and additional level be added to Cpod. Level-Children entertainment- This level can just be read stories, and or songs that parents can randomly play for child-in addition, I know the adults listening to this level will also learn helpful phrases and vocab.

What do poddies think of this idea?

It's interesting to compare the different types of comments you get between here and the blog.

@henning,

Actually, I'm treating this as a kind of test... more later. Reply wherever you wish.

It would be ideal to see the blog entries in the Connect section. In this case there are 2 pages to open to follow 1 discussion...

Ken, does that mean you will not provide the traditional character scripts here? I was told that they would be forthcoming...if so what is the timeline? Thanks,

I'm still motivated to get caught up on listening to every lesson, but it almost feels like the number of lessons and the vocab and other things I can learn from them multiplies as fast as the number of Chinese characters keep realizing I don't know! Just listen to lessons from the beginning of 2006. Fortunately ChinesePod's lessons aren't as numerous as Chinese characters.... yet. ;)

edekan,

You can learn how to convert the characters to traditional here: http://blogs.chinesepod.com/2007/04/25/firefox-plugin-for-traditional-chinese/

I tried to describe my motivation, as much as would fit, in the bio section of my profile. I "discovered" Chinesepod in March 2006. My motivation hasn't changed since then. Before that, while my initial impetus was work related, learning Chinese to the point of fluency has since become an independent obscesion.

Because it is an ancient and facinating language tied to an equally amazing culture. Please everyone take a look at this petition and please support the traditional form. The UN has not supported the traditional written form for 10 years. Ken, I am still waiting for the traditional lesson texts but I do like the changes made to make the website more user friendly!

http://www.gopetition.com/region/237/8314.html