Forgotten how to read

[Scoobyqueen]

I just came across a sinology graduate who had lived in China for a total of three years in addition to his Chinese studies in the UK. He mentioned that he had been able to read and write some 3,500 characters. After three years away from China though, he had to resort to translation programmes as he could no longer scan a news article. He explained that he had forgotten many characters and that this happens to Chinese people as well.

Anyone else with the same experience? It seems such a pity that after so much hard work, one can lose a lot of it. I thought once you could read that was it (since the vocabulary is passive).

[daofeishi]

Hmm... I suspect that that he just hasn't had enough exposure to the language. His formal background might sound impressive, but it isn't really. 3 years in China + Chinese studies in the UK doesn't amount to much. Think about it. You don't expect a Chinese 10 year old, who has probably had a much broader exposure to Chinese and tons of reading practice, to be an advanced reader either. It comes down to having had enough exposure, and even though you can probably become a slower reader after a while if you don't use a language, I don't really think it s possible to forget (i.e. be unable to passively recall) words that you really know.

These are just my two cents, but I'll let someone with a background in linguistics/language acquisition provide the real answer.

[wushijiao]

I tend to agree with daofeishi...he might have been slightly overestimating his original Chinese abilities (although I'm just guessing). I think a person must do a certain amount of work for passive knowledge to become second nature regardless of how rusty one might be.

With that said, I think the good news is that if he were to get back in the game and start studying hard, I'd bet that his skills would come back quite quickly.

Also, in the age of the Internet, in which one can easily follow Chinese news, TV, radio, and movies on line, I don't think there's inherently an excuse for declining skills when you leave the country. (Of course, speaking skills will get rustier, but passive skills can stay strong, and even improve).

The problem might be, as I've noticed in many of my friend's, once they leave China, their interests in China, and thus their motivations for learning plummet, and they become busy with other things.

[Lu]

I've seen it happen too. Especially characters are easy to forget, you need to keep practicing or you slide back. Tutoring a friend of mine now who studied Chinese for three years, granted her Chinese was not at that high a level, but now it's really deteriorated. It's not very difficult to get it back to a decent level, but that does take some time and work.

Chinese people also forget characters, at least how to write some of them that they don't use often. But the problem isn't as big, I don't think Chinese would forget how to read a certain character (unless it would be one that they hardly even see used).

[chrix]

I also think that he overestimated the number of characters he knew. I was once in a similar position, and for double as many years, but once I got around to reactivating my Chinese, it came back pretty quickly to me, it was amazing. (I might be a bit different though, as characters never "left" me, as I continued to use Japanese all those years).

EDIT: Also, as has been discussed many times here, the number of characters you know is a poor indicator of how many words you actually know. He might have crammed that many characters once, but that alone doesn't mean he would have actually been able to read a newspaper article, as the question would be, did he also learn all the words that go with the 3,500 characters?

[xiaotao]

It's not a surprise. One has to live the language. It's like school kids that can study for a test, ace it, then forget after a matter of months because they have to cram something else in. It certainly is a pity.

My mom immigrated to America when she was in her 20s. All this time, she never put in any extra effort to maintain her Chinese characters. She can read but has to look at a dictionary if she had to write anything complex. I think she was able to retain what she has because Chinese is her first language.

My aunt used to speak good enough English, but after a change of environment, hanging out with mostly chinese speaking people, her English went downhill. Her daughter scolds her for letting her English go. After all, we live in the west.