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How far can you actually get in Chinese? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6582 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 9 of 18 22 November 2011 at 6:51am | IP Logged | ||
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If you don't enjoy studying it, it's gonna be super hard. I never once felt that Chinese was hard, but looking back, I suppose it was, and is. I have problems getting stuff done around the apartment because I can't stop studying Mandarin.
I'm very comfortable in day-to-day conversations, can read colloquially written books without too much problems and formal texts if equipped with a dictionary (I use Pleco on the iPhone, since it has OCR. Just snap a picture of the word and it'll look it up for you!). I know most common chengyus passively and a number of them actively (which always impresses native speakers). I've spent a lot of hours (and a year in-country) getting here, but I had fun every step of the way, so it doesn't feel that way. Whenever I wasn't enjoying myself, I stopped. Dunno if that works for you, though. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Tesuji Newbie United States Joined 4768 days ago 7 posts - 9 votes Speaks: English* | Message 10 of 18 22 November 2011 at 8:21am | IP Logged | ||
This probably the root of the problem actually. I'm not so fond of this language, at least not yet. Japanese, French, and Russian would probably be my true labors of love, haha. I thought it'd be wise to pragmatic and learn an economically beneficial language, but perhaps it's the wrong way to go. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| nway Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/Vic Joined 5415 days ago 574 posts - 1707 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean | Message 11 of 18 22 November 2011 at 8:28am | IP Logged | ||
You'd be better off learning accounting, the language of business... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6582 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 12 of 18 22 November 2011 at 9:49am | IP Logged | ||
Well, there's yer problem! You have three doors in front of you: 1: Start being fond of this language (easier said than done!) 2: Stop studying this language 3: Spend countless hours torturing yourself with little to show for it The choice is yours. My view? Life's short, man. Spend it doing something you enjoy. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| OneEye Diglot Senior Member Japan Joined 6850 days ago 518 posts - 784 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, Taiwanese, German, French | Message 13 of 18 22 November 2011 at 1:35pm | IP Logged | ||
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Sometimes I wish that damn article would disappear. It does more harm than good.
First, I can guarantee David Moser can read Chinese. No problem. The article is meant to be humourous, and a sort of "in-joke" among people who have already been through the process of learning Chinese. Second, the level of Chinese he's talking about in that article is much higher than most people aspire to. We're not talking about just reading a novel or newspaper, we're talking about specialized academic writing, which is a whole different beast. Unfortunately, I agree with Ari. If you don't have any interest in the language, you won't make it far. But if you're really learning the language for business purposes and not because you have any specific interest in the language itself, remind yourself that it is a tool without which you will have a harder time doing business in China. Keep up with Chinese business news and current events. These things can make for a good substitute for interest in the language itself, IMO. There are plenty of people at my school (in Taipei) that are learning so they can do business in Taiwan, not because they like the language. And many of them have learned Chinese to a very high level. Which brings me to point out the fact that of course it's possible to learn the language to a high level. I know plenty of foreigners here that think nothing of reading the news in Chinese every day, or picking up pretty much any book, or having a conversation on most any topic they want. The catch is that it takes longer for Chinese (for native English speakers) than for most other languages. I'm not convinced that the writing system and tones have all that much to do with it, either. For me the hardest part by far is the cultural stuff, because their culture is so different from ours. "Well, I guess the grammar is correct, but we don't say it that way because we don't consider X to be a part of someone's personality, but rather the result of their personality traits." That was an actual quote from my teacher today, by the way. This is the difficult stuff, because there are a few thousand years of culture that we Westerners don't share with China. You have to catch up on some of that while studying the language because language and culture are so intertwined. These types of problems are much smaller when learning, say, French. But, while frustrating, I think they make studying the language incredibly interesting. 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6550 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 14 of 18 22 November 2011 at 2:26pm | IP Logged | ||
That was a Pro-tip? Hate to see the Am-tip. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5381 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 15 of 18 22 November 2011 at 4:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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Dashan's Wikipedia article claims that he studied Mandarin in University for roughly 4 years before he moved to Chinese and hosted, that same year, a televized singing competition. Really?! If that information is correct, I'm impressed. I wonder how other people who have been doing really well learning Mandarin would feel about hosting a TV show after 4 years of studying... outside of China.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Tesuji Newbie United States Joined 4768 days ago 7 posts - 9 votes Speaks: English* | Message 16 of 18 22 November 2011 at 4:15pm | IP Logged | ||
thinking learning the language well is not possible (I spent a good 10 minutes trying to just pronounce cup while at dinner, which is needless to say very disheartening =\) or for trying to learn a language that really doesn't float my boat. I suppose both, but I'll plug along and just focus on speaking for now. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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