Chinese progress

[Scoobyqueen]

Can anyone relate to this. You have got to the stage where you can express virtually anything you want. If you do not know something, you can always find another way of saying it. This makes it hard to develop to the next level as it gets quite comfortable as it were. However, there is still that native way of saying things which you still do not have in many situations but everyone understands what you are saying.

[rezaf]

Me too. It just takes some time and from what is considered as advanced level(for foreigners) there aren't many shortcuts for getting close to a native speaker's level. Even for a native speaker it takes about 2 decades to learn how to speak like that.

[anonymoose]

I can relate to that. Actually, I really admire the users here who have managed to reach that level, largely whilst being outside of China. I have been in China for several years, and by and large have been quite dilligent as far as learning Chinese goes, paying attention to the way native speakers phrase things, carrying a notebook around and writing down unfamiliar words or useful expressions and so on. Whilst I use Chinese quite extensively on a daily basis, I still feel that it doesn't come naturally to me, and whenever I try to articulate something in greater depth, I more often than not stumble for the appropriate words. Like you, I can usually get around this by paraphrasing, but it is really frustrating that I cannot just come up with the right words or phraseology on the spot.

I don't really have any good ideas for solving this. As they say, practise makes perfect, but when I've been practising almost daily for several years, I'm just wondering how much longer I'll have to wait until I'm perfect (or even half way there would be satisfying). I think probably the main factor that leads to this situation is that I spend far more time reading to or listening to Chinese than I actually spend speaking or writing.

[kdavid]

This is where I've been for quite some time. The key has been to challenge myself.

I did that for a short while when I hired a tutor to listen to me speak for an hour a day. When we met, I'd pick "advanced" topics to discuss. Whenever I couldn't express my ideas in a "fluent" manner, I'd ask how native speakers said this or that.

Now my language skills are really being put to the test. I've just started an MA in Ancient History. I'm listening to academic Chinese (in lectures) several hours a week, plus discussions and a ton of reading. Being exposed to a wide variety of topics, reading, etc., and all of it using formal Chinese, appears to be doing a lot of good. I'll have more to say on this progression in several months.

[feihong]

To sort of echo kdavid, you need to put yourself in language-using situations that make you uncomfortable. This is part of what lead me to start the 中文挑战 blog. I won't say the challenges I've made are really hard to do, but some of them were pretty hard to make, and took me to the limit of my translation skills.

A good example would be "If I was a robot I would break dance all the time and swear in binary". If you can translate that one off the top of your head, then I tip my hat off to you.

[jbradfor]

001001010100100101001011010101011010011001010101

[No, wait, that should be 零零一零零.....]

[Sarevok]

A good example would be "If I was a robot I would break dance all the time and swear in binary". If you can translate that one off the top of your head, then I tip my hat off to you.

Didn't know how to say "break dance", the rest wasn't that hard

It's always like this with specialized vocab (which is what the advanced level is about). I am quite comfortable with technical vocab related to machine industry, since most of my translation and interpretation jobs revolve around this area. I could talk for hours about computers, smartphones and mobile technologies in general, because that's my hobby. But take me out of my comfort zone by changing the topic to something like dancing and I'll start stuttering that very moment, frequently pausing to think about words and all...

On the other hand, I doubt I could have a meaningful discussion about such topics in my mother tongue, let alone Chinese...

[amandagmu]

Yep, still here.... working every day in the archives isn't helping much. I feel like if I spoke outloud what I've read then people will laugh at me (well, actually they have/do). This is something that as far as I know just can't be "taught" - trust me, ICLP tries to do this in one its core books and imo it just fails.... I still don't know when I'm supposed to use one word over the other, but then I remember that I'm doing my PhD at a U.S. university (and can write in English, yeah!) and I breathe a sigh of relief. I truly, truly admire those people (kdavid) who are going through the whole nine yards in Chinese. I've had native Chinese speakers in my program in the U.S. and while it has (obviously) always been beneficial for their research, they have a hell of a time keeping with the writing requirements (several response papers each week, lengthy seminar papers, master's and then doctoral theses, of course -- nevermind that they also must read 2-3 full-length books in English each week for the seminars). That's why when I meet Chinese students here who want to do a PhD in the Humanities in the U.S. I advise they go to Hong Kong - or elsewhere - for a master's degree first, in an environment where they can get more writing experience in English. It will give them the time and guidance they need, and the only successful Chinese students I have met in U.S. History PhD programs have gone that route. The rest either drop out after a year or two, leave with a master's, and/or transfer to a different program (non-humanities or attend a no-name university that doesn't place as much importance on the writing quality). I wonder if it's just as cut-throat with PhD programs here - interested to hear more on kdavid's experience as time progresses...

[Olle Linge]

I think there are three things to take into consideration here, but since one of them has already been discussed (keep challenging yourself), I will focus on two other things.

First, I think it's likely that you are advancing and that your Chinese is improving gradually, but it might be at such a pace that you don't notice any difference now compared to a couple of months ago. When we start learning Chinese, we feel that we get better everyday, but once we reach the level you describe, the time to make measurable steps forward is too long for us to be aware of. The solution is benchmarking. Regularly check your own ability in various ways and see that you are actually improving. I'm currently writing a lengthy article about this, but it isn't done yet. If you're interested, let me know and I could send you the draft.

Second, I think what most of us lack is enough immersion. The reason native speakers have a feeling for what words to use in what contexts is that they have heard these words so many times. We need to listen more and read more if we hope to reach that level. For instance, I'm not a native speaker of English, yet I have been able to learn how to use English accurately (most of the time) simply because I've read tons of books and listened to thousands of hours of English. If I (or anyone else) hopes to learn Chinese really, really well, I'm convinced that we need to read more and listen more. It takes time and progress doesn't come easily, but I really believe this is the only way forward.