Learning Chinese

Learning Chinese is rewarding and enjoyable. Mainly, it's just cool speaking to people in a foreign language. Also, it never gets boring, you are always learning more things about the language and therefore the culture, you can see visible improvements, and you can say things you wouldn't say in English. Chinese language is pretty interesting, especially the writing. Talking to other foreigners in Chinese is quite satisfying, as is talking to Chinese people who can't speak English. Also, your success is totally up to you. If you do nothing and are lazy, you won't improve, but if you work hard, create and use opportunities to speak Chinese, you will get better. Not least of all, China is an interesting place.

Having said this, I have about a million (nay, a squillion) reasons why Chinese is so incredibly, stupidly hard to learn. Half of the reasons are to do with the language itself, the other half is to do with the learning environment.

For the language itself, best to see the article previously posted. But I'll add my own personal difficulties. Firstly, I'm not much of a natural and nothing comes easy. The pronouncation is so foreign, some sounds I literally cannot pronounce. The number of times I'll read a sentence and can understand every character but have no idea of the meaning continues to astound me. Remembering my friend's names is also embarrassingly difficult. I have them all written down in a list, with scribbled annotations on the side - 'thin one with bad eyesight; one from chinese corner who give me food; slurred speaker one; weirdo; one who's bf looks like Yoko Ono'.

As for the environment, it really increases the challange. The standard of teaching at the university (and I suspect most Chinese languages places) is dreadful. Teacher speaks for 4 hours, students listen, this is learning (apparently). The process is so passive. In our 'speaking' lessons, I'm pretty sure the only person who benefits greatly is the teacher, because (s)he's the one who does 95% of the speaking. Every lesson has tonnes of new words and very few opportunities to actively use them. Also, everyone chapter is taught in an identical fashion, there is NEVER anything prepared outside the textbook. I cannot stand it when the teachers say how stressed they are with lesson planning - what lesson planning!? I see none.

In our classes, the Europeans are outspoken, the Koreans are deathly quiet, the Vietnamese are all so good they have their own class, the Kazakhs are ususally absent, and only the Turks have a worse accent than me. In a class of 16 - 20 (way too many), it's difficult to learn properly.

There are also culture problems. When people speak to me, they'll drop in references to Chinese popular culture, history, geography, foods, etc, and I have no idea what they're talking about. I, like most Chinese people, have no idea about Chinese politics, economics. Politics is particularly taboo, one of my favourite pastimes is touching on Hong Kong, Tibet, etc. The level of uniformity on these issues is huge, and is also very sensitive, so it's really really hard to talk about these things. So much of the culture is just inaccessible.

Sense of humour is also genuinely a challenge. As far as I'm aware, Chinese doesn't have a word for 'sarcasm'. The closest is 'ridicule', which is of course not the same. Some times people (especially the teachers) will correct me, because they assume I've said it wrong, when in fact I said what I wanted to say.

Yesterday, we learned a new word (ji mo 寂寞), meaning lonely. Using it in a sentence, I said 'When I go to the toilet I feel very lonely'. My classmates got it, but the teacher first didn't understand it, then said I had confused it with 'alone'. A little explaining was necessary. And just generally, using a new word in a correct-but-not-in-teacher's-book-way is not appreciated. Creativity and initiative are discouraged, uniformity and compliance are.

It seems everyone wants to learn English here, this really is bothersome. Quite often someone will approach me asking to practice their English. I've lost count of the number of times I've said 'I didn't come here to improve my English', or 'No, you can't', or just lied to them and said I'm Portuguese. The next door uni is the foreign language uni, and every Thursday they have an English corner outside on campus. There are at least 1,000 people there, all gabbling away in various varities of English. I've been a couple of times, and you just get surrounded by upto 50 or so people wanting to speak to you.

Another is my personality. The best language learners are ones who force themselves on other people and speak the language. I can't do this, I only really speak to people I know. While most people here are really friendly and love having a chat with the foreigners, it's not easy.

Yet another reason is the dialects. China has loads of different languages. In Xi'an, the local language that people normally speak is not totally different to Mandarin, but different enough to make communication harder than it would be if China only had one language.

My German friend who speaks great English, some Swedish, some French and is fairly new to Chinese assures me that learning a European language, while obviously difficult, has less obstacles waiting to impale you. I've just seen something on an English newspaper's website - 'learn to speak Mandarin in 10 easy lessons'. If only.