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Mainly Mandarin-(yet another Chinese log) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| liddytime Pentaglot Senior Member United States mainlymagyar.wordpre Joined 6232 days ago 693 posts - 1328 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Galician Studies: Hungarian, Vietnamese, Modern Hebrew, Norwegian, Persian, Arabic (Written) | Message 57 of 74 03 February 2012 at 3:24pm | IP Logged | |||||
Its not? What is it Ari? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| smallwhite Pentaglot Senior Member Australia Joined 5311 days ago 537 posts - 1045 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin, French, Spanish | Message 58 of 74 03 February 2012 at 3:42pm | IP Logged | |||||
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> rinser avant de utiliser
> 冲洗前使用 (Chōngxǐ qián shǐyòng.) Should be 使用前冲洗 rinser + avant d'utiliser = rinse + before use before use = 使用 前 before rinsing = 冲洗 前 before meal = 飯 前 before 3pm = 3pm 前 > 矢 means "to lose" 矢 = arrow 失 = to lose 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6585 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 59 of 74 03 February 2012 at 8:06pm | IP Logged | |||||
It's the "shi shi" poem I mentioned earlier. It's Literary Sintic (AKA "Classical Chinese"). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| pigsonfire Newbie United States Joined 5078 days ago 26 posts - 37 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Cantonese | Message 60 of 74 15 February 2012 at 2:00am | IP Logged | |||||
That is amazing!!!! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| liddytime Pentaglot Senior Member United States mainlymagyar.wordpre Joined 6232 days ago 693 posts - 1328 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Galician Studies: Hungarian, Vietnamese, Modern Hebrew, Norwegian, Persian, Arabic (Written) | Message 61 of 74 23 February 2012 at 2:11am | IP Logged | |||||
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One of the risks of tackling any prolonged and difficult task is burn-out. The most frequently documented examples of this are in highly stressed professionals such as firefighters, policemen, air traffic controllers, physicians and lawyers to name a few. These are of course very demanding and stressful careers and I would assume that most people that engage in these professions understand the risks of “burn out” . However, is it possible for someone burn out on something that they started doing for fun? I asked myself this question when I realized that I had burned out on Chinese.
... That’s right. I needed to take a break from Chinese. I was no longer looking forward to my daily lessons, no longer enjoying learning the new characters, no longer enjoying hearing it spoken, no longer looking forward to planning an imaginary trip to Taiwan... just plain done with it. So what was it about this experience that could have caused this? Most of the research on burnout involves organizations and professionals. The simplest definition of burnout is: a condition characterized by reduced energy, involvement and efficacy towards a job or task resulting in emotional exhaustion and a reduced sense of personal accomplishment. Some common risk factors which have been identified for developing a professional burnout syndrome are: Being a highly ambitious and determined individual, Having high and perhaps unrealistic expectations leading to assuming more work than is appropriate, Lack of control over workload, Limited rewards / a low concept of “fairness” / perceived inequity, Neglect of activities outside of work, Isolation and withdrawal at and away from work / lack of community Over time, if these factors are not addressed and /or coping strategies are implemented, the individual runs a very high risk of developing the burnout syndrome. Looking back on my foray into Chinese I may have been guilty of a few of these. Certainly anyone who makes a serious attempt to tackle a language like Chinese is guilty of risk factor #1. I would argue that anyone who attempts to learn ANY language on their own would be classified as a motivated and determined individual. As for #2, I’m also guilty as charged. My bar for Chinese was set WAY too high. Thinking that I could become professionally competent in a “Level IV” Language like Chinese in six months; while maintaining a full time job, a regular exercise schedule and being available for family commitments was pure folly. I set this goal in comparison to my experiences reaching a similar fluency level in Portuguese in 3 months, Italian in 3 months and Turkish in 6 months. What I had not factored in was that these languages could not hold a candle to Chinese in terms of the difficulty and the time commitment required. This was a set up for frustration and I’m sure it contributed to my Mandarin burn out. #3 through #6 don’t really apply to pursuits taken on voluntarily so I don’t think they apply to my circumstances … or do they? The advantage of self-study is that the workload is theoretically self directed and should always be manageable. But then again, there is always that nagging subconscious voice questioning whether or not one should cram in just a little more Mandarin before bed! As for as the limited rewards / low concept of “fairness” / perceived inequity, this may perfectly describe what it feels like to try and study a tough language like Chinese! After studying “easy” languages like Italian, Spanish and Portuguese where progress is steady and easily validated, Chinese comes across as unrewarding, unfair and just plain “hard”! #6 may actually be the biggest factor in putting Mandarin on hold; not so much the isolation factor but the “lack of community” factor. I love learning languages to get out and speak with people; not over Skype, not on the phone but face to face. I thought that with Mandarin I would be able to find tons of native Mandarin speakers in the community to converse with. Strangely, that was not the case! Aside from Josh at J-tea, all the Chinese speakers that I was able to find in my community were not Mandarin speakers, but Cantonese speakers! Crazy! (I may actually have to learn Cantonese someday, it is a really fun and colorful language - despite the fact that it sounds a bit like you are choking when you speak it :-) ). I had no Mandarin community to fall back on. I was having such a hard time finding opportunities to get out and speak the language that I was putting so much effort into studying.... express train to Burn-out-ville... It may be surprising what I have “replaced” Mandarin with in my current language study. I have resumed my study of Korean. WHAT?!?!??! Am I insane?!!?? Replacing one of the most difficult languages in the world with an even MORE difficult one?? Have I learned nothing?! Well, I think I have learned a thing or two from my Chinese experience. I have been “re-studying” Korean for about a month now and I am really, really enjoying it despite its reputation for being “absolutely impossible” for any English speaker to reach basic fluency. Why? What is different about my experience with Korean? 1. Community. There are hundreds of native Korean speakers in our town and they are very visible in the community. There are 2 Korean churches that offer language classes, 7 or 8 Korean restaurants, 6 or 7 sushi bars owned by Koreans and several Korean food markets. There is a Korean program at the University in town with several outreach programs. They are always pleasantly surprised when I come in and butcher their native tongue and are eager to help me learn more about their language. I’m still waiting for those complimentary plates of Korean food by the surprised chefs though... Have I mentioned I love Korean food?? 2. Script. Call me impatient, but it drove me nuts that I couldn’t read Chinese right away. Even though I could recognize a few hundred characters - this was not reading. Even with intensive study, it would take years before I could comfortably read a newspaper in Chinese. The Korean script ,on the other hand, is brilliant! After less than a week of study I was READING KOREAN!! ( I had no idea what the heck any of it meant, but still, I was able to read it!) Aside from being able to read printed Korean, knowing the script opens up the option of being able to type in Korean chat rooms and forums. This would not have been possible for me for eons with Chinese. While it is true that Korean also uses Chinese derived characters called Hanja, they are not used on the internet and appear to be used less and less in general. In fact, in North Korea their use has been banned for decades. When the time comes to learn Hanja I will have the advantage of already knowing several dozen since many of them are exactly the same as Chinese! 3. No goals/no stress. I haven’t set any goals or deadlines for Korean. I’m just enjoying the journey. I have been spending the last 2 weeks on the FSI Course Unit 5. Why 2 weeks? Because it’s friggin’ hard, that’s why! But, I don’t care. When I feel like I have mastered it, I’ll move on. I feel much less pressured and thus the process is a lot more fun. I’m sure at some point I will resume me study of Chinese as my study of languages tend to be cyclical in nature. Certainly when I do, I will heed the lessons that I have learned from my most recent experience! 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4871 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian | Message 62 of 74 23 February 2012 at 2:29pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Interesting to read about language study burnout!
Korean grammar may be more complicated than Chinese, but I also think that Hangeul is a big plus. I'm sure it'll drive me nuts that I can't read what I don't know when I seriously start studying Mandarin. Also, I find the concept behind Korean grammar quite ingenious (adding suffixes to express relations between words is much nicer than studying verb declensions and so on). It just takes time to really get the hang of it. Have fun with your Korean journey! Fun should be an integral part of learning a language for fun ;) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| SueK Groupie United States Joined 4754 days ago 77 posts - 133 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 63 of 74 23 February 2012 at 4:18pm | IP Logged | |||||
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[QUOTE=liddytime] The Next Quest!!
I have always had an interest in the Chinese languages, specifically Mandarin. I enjoy the musical quality of spoken Mandarin and am eager for the opportunity to speak a language in tones. I have always been mystified by the beauty and complexity of the Chinese script and long for a better understanding of it. Chinese culture is fascinating and the thought of being able to travel independently “off the beaten path” in China makes me swoon in anticipation. I enjoy Chinese cinema and would love to be able to understand movies in Mandarin without reliance on English subtitles. Last, but not least, how could an amateur linguist, such as myself, not have some knowledge of the most spoken, native language on earth; a language spoken by nearly one quarter of its population? Thus, my next challenge for myself is to learn Mandarin Chinese. /QUOTE] Just thought a reminder was in order. Take a break, adjust your mindset and your pace, but at very least continue to dabble. Maybe twice a week. I would hate to see you lose all your great progress and hard work. I just let a trip to China stop my study for 3 weeks (how silly does that sound!) and the re-start was much harder than I aniticipated, causing me to essentially lose yet another week. Selfishly, and hope this won't come off as too offesive, I'm a bit pleased to hear that you've found you were working too hard. Following your progress has had me horribly embarrassed about my own painfully slow path. I started at about the same time as you, but only hope to finish Pims 1 TOMORROW!!! I sincerely appreciate where you're at. I feel the pain of having no one in my little New England town to try my skills out on. It's a lot of work to be able to only say, "I've been here 3 days. I ate yesterday." and such. Unable really to hold a very basic conversation. I work full time in a global role (read early morning and late night calls in addition to the 40 hour week), am going to college and have a husband and pets all needing my attention. It's slow as I just don't have much time for it. When I went to China though, I really made someone happy with my efforts. He felt valued and was happy and excited to the extend that someone that new him commented "I've neer seen you like this". That's really what it's about for me, so I can go slow. That said, and once again selfishly, I hope you return to it. You've been inspiring and I've enjoyed (enviously) reading about your journey. In the mean time, enjoy your Korean! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| liddytime Pentaglot Senior Member United States mainlymagyar.wordpre Joined 6232 days ago 693 posts - 1328 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Galician Studies: Hungarian, Vietnamese, Modern Hebrew, Norwegian, Persian, Arabic (Written) | Message 64 of 74 23 February 2012 at 10:18pm | IP Logged | |||||
SueK - thanks for the kind words and the reminder! & no offense taken! That was ridiculous racing through Chinese like that. No worries - I'll continue to dabble with it. The cool thing about learning Korean with a little bit of background in Chinese is that something like 70% of Korean vocabulary is influenced by Chinese. It is a bit of stretch to see the links with most of the words but with some effort one can see it! Also, learning the characters was very useful for identifying Hanja. Many newspapers still use quite a bit of Hanja and many of them are exactly the same as the Chinese ones. That was a nice little bonus! I'm jealous you get to travel to China! That would definitely re-spark my enthusiasm for Mandarin! ( or Cantonese depending on where I was headed! :-) ) Best of luck with your own studies!! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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