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Learning Chinese - an encouraging video | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Julien Diglot Newbie China Joined 6279 days ago 12 posts - 47 votes Speaks: French*, Mandarin | Message 49 of 62 28 September 2007 at 2:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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Absolutely.
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| FSI Senior Member United States Joined 6358 days ago 550 posts - 590 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 50 of 62 28 September 2007 at 11:05pm | IP Logged | ||
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Some more questions, J:
You seem to have learned a lot (most?) of your Chinese while living in France. Did you already know French before moving there, or did you have to learn that for day-to-day living while simultaneously learning Chinese? I'm also curious about your thoughts on learning multiple languages vs. learning one language to great detail. You clearly made a great investment in Chinese, and I wonder, what helped you focus on learning the language so thoroughly, and kept you from straying to other languages, or deciding you were "good enough" at a certain point x number of years ago? To spend four, five, six (now nine?) years with a language requires a tremendous amount of focus (not to mention effort). How did you tackle this part of it - or was it something that came naturally out of the ever-deepening rabbit hole, so to speak, of the language and culture? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| furyou_gaijin Senior Member Japan Joined 6385 days ago 540 posts - 631 votes Speaks: Latin* | Message 51 of 62 29 September 2007 at 8:58pm | IP Logged | ||
I thought Julien is French... Have I missed something?! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6893 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 52 of 62 30 September 2007 at 6:00am | IP Logged | ||
I have been mulling over roughly the same question as FSI mentions above. 24x7 for several years is a tremendous effort and, apart from practical circumstances allowing such a level of dedication, there is obviously an enormous amount of motivation involved. So, what I'd really love to know is, what is your secret in that sense ? What was behind this enormous "want to", and how did you manage not to lose it, or let it flag, along the way ? At least in the view of some of the people around me, I am fairly fanatic about my Mandarin learning myself, but what with a full-time job, a bit of a family life and a couple of other hobbies on the side, I am a very long way off 24x7, and even if I had the practical possibilities I am not sure at all that I'd be prepared to make that kind of commitment. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| maxb Diglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 7182 days ago 536 posts - 589 votes 7 sounds Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 53 of 62 01 October 2007 at 2:40am | IP Logged | ||
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I would think it would be very interesting if you (Julien) could tell us a bit more about how you learned mandarin in France. What materials did you use initally? How did you study? Was it just a lot of listening or did you combine listening with active vocabulary learning as well? When did you start using authentic chinese content instead of textbooks? How did you study pronunciation? Since you quite obivously have reached a very high level of fluency in what is considered to be a very difficult language, I think a more detailed account of how you leaerned chinese including what materials you used would be very useful for others on this forum.
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| Julien Diglot Newbie China Joined 6279 days ago 12 posts - 47 votes Speaks: French*, Mandarin | Message 54 of 62 03 October 2007 at 10:08am | IP Logged | ||
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Honestly I have come to a point where I don't believe I'll ever spend that time studying any other language, even though I would like to and thank God you never know what decisions you will make in the future. I have Russian origins and used to plan to do the same work for Russian, as well as German, Italian and Spanish. I even started Japanese at some point.
And now it all seems irrelevant to me. And very superficial, except if one really gets a lot of pleasure from it. I do have a French friend though who masters - I mean writes, reads and speaks - Chinese, Korean and Japanese. To me however, life is too short to give it all away to languages. I'm a former professional musician, listen to a great deal of music, and also plan on picking my cello again in the next few years. I have very expensive audiophile equipment home and can spend hours every day learning a lot about hi-fi, and will likely start a small business soon. I also have a job, hosting and acting for TV all over the country, that keeps me more than busy. I have many hobbies, like eating, dancing salsa, hot girls... That all takes time you know! I think I like learning about people more than I like to study languages, and it was probably the reason why I loved languages in the first place. I don't think you can learn a language properly if you see it as a simple tool, but at the end it is a simple tool. Or maybe like the simplest-to-use software that actually needed years of improvements to get to that simplicity. And after all, the most important I believe is that the mastering of a language is maybe not even half of the understanding of a culture (even though you probably couldn't dissociate most forms of understanding or knowledge from the language). Which takes a lot more years. And is a lot more interesting. I also mean that someone's true knowledge should be learned from life, observation and listening more than from books. Not more than 30% books in my humble opinion. And I think somebody who studies too many languages will eventually feel like a stage monkey. Or worse, others will see him like that, mixed with admiration of course, and blinded in his world he will feel very proud. And at the end isn't social recognition something we all need? Except for the greatest art geniuses, I do not believe you want to separate your success from the love other people give you. And this all starts with the love you give them, in other words deep focus and understanding. Just my two cents. Edited by Julien on 03 October 2007 at 10:13am 12 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| krtek Groupie United States Joined 7109 days ago 46 posts - 50 votes Speaks: Mandarin* Studies: English, Italian, Cantonese | Message 55 of 62 03 October 2007 at 12:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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Julien, I like your latest posting very much. It's honest and thought-provoking. Thank you for sharing and all the best wishes to you.
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| furyou_gaijin Senior Member Japan Joined 6385 days ago 540 posts - 631 votes Speaks: Latin* | Message 56 of 62 03 October 2007 at 1:48pm | IP Logged | ||
Very true again. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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