now your wife is here

[weiaijiayou]

i think some of you guys are making excuses! to say there's something about yourself that makes you unable to learn chinese? unless you're literally deaf, it's just not true. to blame your wife for bad teaching or for not correcting you? unless you're an ace teacher yourself, that's also not a valid reason.

 

the truth is that many americans are just afraid to learn a new language. why? it's hard, it's absolutely mind-bogglingly difficult for a long time, it can be embarrassing, and we just don't know how to do it properly.

 

i started off learning chinese the american way, sitting in a class, doing the assignments, waiting for my turn to recite some rehearsed words. i did that for two entire semesters during my last year of college. the first time i actually went to china, i could hardly do anything or express a single one of my thoughts or feelings. it sucked. i met a korean man one day who was reading a book on chinese idioms and their origins. i remember thinking his chinese was so good. i didn't have a dictionary at the time, so i began asking him the chinese for commonly used words and phrases. we started going to eat and doing things together with chinese and korean people on a daily basis. i became extremely overzealous, wanting to learn how to express every feeling, observation, and reaction i was having in chinese. anything i didn't know, i would ask my korean friend or a chinese friend to write down words, both hanzi and pinyin, on whatever paper was available -- mostly on napkins. (i probably became a severe annoyance.) i'd save these and practice them daily for several days before finally throwing them out.

 

once i stopped using english all the time, i was learning 50 to 100 new words and phrases every day. i eventually learned to say f&*# it, i'll make mistakes, pronounce things wrong, and mostly ting bu dong, but i'll talk and improve and eventually i'll be able to speak this language like a chinese person. nearly four years later, i'm still on my journey, but the learning is extremely easy now.

 

many americans believe that there is a "critical period" for learning a second language -- that you'll become fluent only if you start before 5, 12, 16, or some other arbitrary early age. i remember when i told my korean friend this idea. it was the first time i ever heard anyone dispute it. as he pointed out, an adult can learn vastly, vastly more words, more complicated ones, and more quickly, than any child can. the three advantages the child has is that they have 1. no other choice but to keep learning words and grammar if they are to express themselves, 2. no choice but to speak the language if they are to be understood and get what they want, and 3. lots of time to learn and many private tutors.

 

 

 

i'm always struck to find that people could be married to someone (or could contemplate marrying someone) and not have a fire under their ass to learn their language. i can't imagine not wanting to understand that nearly limitless aspect of my wife, not wanting to be able to understand her speaking in the way she spoke for the first 22 years of her life. now that she's in the united states and i hear her speaking english, i appreciate more the fact that we speak chinese together. i find that her whole demeanor is slightly different when she speaks chinese: she's more confident, comfortable, and open, and even more beautiful than when she speaks english. i'm also able to share the joys and responsibilities of talking with her friends and family. finally, i personally believe she feels more respectful, trusting, and proud of me because of the time and effort i've taken to understand her language. also, unlike some others here, i've never experienced my wife trusting another chinese person or chinese source more than me on important issues, and i believe this is part of the reason why.

 

in sum: as other speakers of chinese as a second language will attest, you in fact can learn chinese, but it will be difficult and discouraging. as my original (not very helpful) chinese teacher told us, don't be discouraged at how much you don't know. look back at how much you've already learned...

[griz326]

i think some of you guys are making excuses!

 

Really true!

 

...many americans believe that there is a "critical period" for learning a second language...

 

Not so true. Capacity to learn may be more developed in older people, but the longer you speak a single language the more atrophied the vocal muscles required to make some sounds become. English speakers not only use different vocal muscles, but they also use their mouth/jaw/tongue/lips differently to make sounds - and this issue goes both ways. For instance, Xiaoyuan barely moves her lips or jaw when speaking Chinese however her throat is fully involved in her speech. The concept of putting her tongue through her teeth or on the roof of her mouth is extra ordinarily difficult for her. Our daughter has no problem with these things because she's been learning English since she was 8 or 9. These things are at the heart of elocution and something I'm pretty good at as an old voice over artist, so every night we get elocution lessons here. Saying the words is a good place to start, but having the words understood when said is paramount.

 

HOWEVER, your premise is: "there's nothing to it but to do it" and with that I wholeheartedly agree. Refer back to your point #1!

[chilton747]

I was learning soon after I met her and I have continued to learn while she is here. I can't put all the burden of our communication on her. Besides, I will be retiring in China and I ain't about to go live there and not speak and read the language.

Let's just say it's a 50/50 proposition, her learning English and I learning Chinese.

 

 

I forgot to mention that there are MAJOR brownie points to be had by learning her language!

[Scott@Hong]

I am learning, but if you are like me and stuck here in US it can be difficult. I tried couple different methods but now I am actually using rossetastone software and I like it.

My fiance says the words I have learned I am actually pronouncing properly also which I was surprised. She also says my sentence structure when I speak is very good.

Now if they would take out all the Z sounds from Chinese I would be fluent in a day.

 

1 Year now since I started seriously learning and I can hold a conversation pretty well.

 

Not an endorsement, just what is working for me.

[Kim-saru]

I started about 2 months before I went to China the first time. 1 1/2 years later I am still teaching myself, but from many different sources from the internet and chatting with a lot of new friends in China on QQ.

 

I can type and read chinese a lot better then I can speak. My Yan tries to teach me a little but said that her mandarin is really bad since she is from Hunan and her home language is Xiang. She even said that a lot of people laugh at her when she says some words in mandarin.

 

It doesn't matter if I am learning for her, or if I want to move to china, what really as captivated me is that if you really study the written characters, you will find a lot of history that goes into each one, almost like a character tells a story about itself. Also if you love puzzles, you'll love to study the characters. After knowing the radicals you can understand much more about what a character is.

[weiaijiayou]

I started about 2 months before I went to China the first time. 1 1/2 years later I am still teaching myself, but from many different sources from the internet and chatting with a lot of new friends in China on QQ.

 

I can type and read chinese a lot better then I can speak. My Yan tries to teach me a little but said that her mandarin is really bad since she is from Hunan and her home language is Xiang. She even said that a lot of people laugh at her when she says some words in mandarin.

 

It doesn't matter if I am learning for her, or if I want to move to china, what really as captivated me is that if you really study the written characters, you will find a lot of history that goes into each one, almost like a character tells a story about itself. Also if you love puzzles, you'll love to study the characters. After knowing the radicals you can understand much more about what a character is.

 

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i talked to random chinese people on QQ a few times. once a person with the screenname ÀäѪɱÊÖ asked for my home phone number!

 

in my opinion, using the computer is good for learning new vocabulary and studying ºº×Ö, but eventually one has to get out and work their ears, mouth, and throat. ËäÈ»ÄãµÄδ»éÆÞµÄĸÓï²»ÊÇÆÕͨ»°£¬µ«ÊÇ´ó¸ÅËý»¹ÄÜÌýÄã˵»°È»ºóÖªµÀÄã˵µÃ¶Ô²»¶Ô¡£

 

keep up the hard work. maybe later you can learn your wife's hometown language. my wife speaks putonghua and henan hua -- when she uses henan hua to speak to her family i can still understand about 95%, since she uses few words and phrases unique to henan; when her mom speaks i can understand about 50%. sometimes what she says doesn't even sound like chinese to me.

Edited June 12, 2009 by weiaijiayou (see edit history)

[Guest Pommey]

Jin talks mandarin and cantonese, also Yunnan mandarin just 3 tones, lucky me

 

Also she and our chinese friends here laugh their heads off at me talking chinese, but its meant in a nice way , umm

Edited June 12, 2009 by Pommey (see edit history)

[tonado]

A good way to learn Chinese is to watch Chinese movies or mini-series.

[Feathers268]

q

Edited June 14, 2009 by Feathers268 (see edit history)

[Kim-saru]

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I have had a few people tell me that I use a Taiwanese accent, mmmm maybe 'cuz my teacher in college was from Taiwan.

 

Hey Tonado, I watch all my movies from a website called PiPi.cn. Everything has Chinese subtitles. They have a lot of Chinese movies as well as American, British, Korean and some French. Once day I started watching one and it was all in German but I was able to follow along with most of the storyline by reading the Chinese.

[Guest ShaQuaNew]

It's so easy to take the easy road on this. I took a class in beginning Mandarin after arriving for work in China, that was very helpful, but also requires a lot of time and effort. I can get by for the most part in speaking Mandarin when I need or want to buy something. I have gotten quite lazy though, and rely upon my wife, or an English speaking co-worker to translate or communicate with others for me. This is immensely limiting though, as I am not at all confident that I could take a trip by myself to rural areas without someone to help me through. I hope to start taking intermediate Mandarin classes soon. We'll see how that goes.

[credzba]

It's so easy to take the easy road on this. I took a class in beginning Mandarin after arriving for work in China, that was very helpful, but also requires a lot of time and effort. I can get by for the most part in speaking Mandarin when I need or want to buy something. I have gotten quite lazy though, and rely upon my wife, or an English speaking co-worker to translate or communicate with others for me. This is immensely limiting though, as I am not at all confident that I could take a trip by myself to rural areas without someone to help me through. I hope to start taking intermediate Mandarin classes soon. We'll see how that goes.

 

I always rely on my wife when I am in China, but I find the most pride in the things I did alone.

 

When I arrive in Shanghai, I go to the bus station, buy my ticket, and get home to Suzhou using my poor Mandarin.

 

When at home alone (wife went to work) I decided to repair the apartment plugs. I needed some long wood screws. I went out and walked down the business street stopping in to each shop to ask for wood screws .. Was one of my funnest days.

 

Another day I wanted to replace the ball float in the toilet. Off I went shopping for that alone.

 

My mandarin is terrible and limited, but being able to achieve what I wanted alone was a great feeling of success.

 

I am jealous of you guys who live in China!

[weiaijiayou]

 

I always rely on my wife when I am in China, but I find the most pride in the things I did alone.

 

When I arrive in Shanghai, I go to the bus station, buy my ticket, and get home to Suzhou using my poor Mandarin.

 

When at home alone (wife went to work) I decided to repair the apartment plugs. I needed some long wood screws. I went out and walked down the business street stopping in to each shop to ask for wood screws .. Was one of my funnest days.

 

Another day I wanted to replace the ball float in the toilet. Off I went shopping for that alone.

 

My mandarin is terrible and limited, but being able to achieve what I wanted alone was a great feeling of success.

 

I am jealous of you guys who live in China!

 

i remember getting pleasure from doing small stuff like that independently in china. it's weird to have a conversation in mandarin for hours with your fiancee about, e.g., politics, things you've experienced, your deepest hopes and fears, and then feel good about yourself when you pick up snacks at the corner store. i think i still get that feeling sometimes because of how responsive most chinese people are to a foreigner when he or she speaks mandarin fluently. (as most of you know, even if your chinese sucks, most chinese people will say "wow, you're great!") mandarin speaking westerners are becoming more and more prevalent, though, so i imagine the chinese will soon become accustomed to us and start expecting at least proficiency.

 

the last time i got that good, warm feeling of competence was at ACH in guangzhou in March. a chinese man who recently immigrated to the US was standing behind me in line (where you first pick up the form to write your questions on) and he must have heard me speaking mandarin with the CO. the man later approached me to ask for my help filling out the form, saying he couldn't read or write in english (and he also apparently preferred speaking in mandarin, as everything he said was mandarin). he had me translate all the entries on the form for him (e.g., "petitioner name", "beneficiary name and number,") and then translate and write his question down for the VO to see. the man was applying for visas for his three brothers to immigrate to the US and he had received paperwork for only two of the three.

 

i got my own question answered and felt the most relief about that, but i also felt good about myself that i was able to help this man. thinking back, i probably should have told him to just write his question in chinese...