Benny Lewis' 3-month quest to become fluent in Mandarin

[irishpolyglot]

People aren't bringing up the simple things, because they're not going to be issues that you'll run in to.

Fair enough, but quite a lot of discouragement is an important issue that I'm running into too you know ;) Discouragement is far more damaging to learners than complicated grammar, tones or writing systems ever will be.

Anyway, that's my English limit for the day! Maybe be back in the evening.

[imron]

So much resistance to a bit of optimism!

There's a difference between "a bit" and "so much that it creates a reality distortion field". I mean going by your definition, I can read and write French, Spanish, German, Portuguese and Irish (which makes me quite the polyglot!). And yet if I said that to you, you'd laugh at me and tell me to stop being such an idiot, because by any reasonable interpretation of what it means to read and write in those languages, I'd fail miserably (less so in French and Spanish, more so in Portuguese and Irish).

If you can't appreciate that difference, then don't be surprised when people start to jump on you for what you are saying.

[peterlkj]

The teacher I saw said I've made the fastest progress she's ever seen with pronunciation.

Just a heads up Benny, I would take this as a warning signal that you probably should look at getting a different teacher.

[Guest realmayo]

Imagine if Benny had come on here and said something like:

I'm going to see just how far I can get with Chinese after three months of intensive study, I'll put my experience learning other languages to good use, and hope to disprove as much as I can the notion that Chinese is impossible for foreigners to learn. If I can race through to some real progress on the conversational side in three months, I can inspire people who read my website to consider learning Chinese, I can show that some parts of the language aren't as difficult as everyone says, and who knows, maybe I'll then commit to learning the characters and progress further in the language.

Instead of:

I have a long road ahead of me, but I plan on sprinting that road rather than crawling backwards on my ass, which ... I’m convinced is the way most people are tackling this issue. Sorry for the bluntness, but I’ll make fast progress because of a much more efficient learning approach than them.

It would be a shame if people who stumbled on this thread simply took away the message that this forum is all about discouraging people from learning Chinese. Then again, if they took note of lots of the very detailed and thoughtful advice some people have added to this thread, hopefully they'll see that's not the case.

On the one hand, I can't help feeling that Benny has already, in his mind at least, written his post-3 month conclusion: that as long as you use fun and easy and innovative techniques like he does Chinese is no more difficult than any other language on the planet. But I also have a suspicion that Benny is a self-motivational genius: he has intentionally belittled the experience people here have of studying Chinese in order to heap more pressure on himself, a sophisticated variant of the running away from dogs approach.

[leosmith]

I don't argue that Chinese is hard. I just think that Chinese takes time

Please - let's define hard = takes a lot of time, when it comes to language learning. Any other definition can't be quantified.

[Erbse]

i need more popcorn for the next 2 months and 3 weeks.

[leosmith]

You have summarised my biggest problem with the academic approach to language learning, in the most concise way I've ever seen. Pity you are arguing for that view rather than against it, but I will actually be quoting your words in future.

IMO, a language learner that needs everything to be fun is not very robust. Hard work kills them, because nobody can make it fun all the time. It's better to take the attitude that you will do what it takes to learn the language, regardless of your emotions.

All these arguments and dismissals of very important good news are not helpful to new learners. There's "waking them up to the real world" and then there's simply being far too selective in sharing only the hardest parts of a language with people.

There is nothing new about anything you've posted. A new learner can find out everything you've said, and a whole lot more, on any number of sites, and from any number of sources. I haven't seen one bit of evidence from you that Mandarin takes no more time to learn than French.

But yes, I agree with you that if I can't read then I won't get beyond intermediate, although I think I was clear that my focus is to read at a useful level and speak beyond an intermediate level, which is different than an academic clumping of the whole language together, and saying not reading well may invalidate speaking well.

He's saying that without reading you won't get beyond intermediate in conversation. He is correct.

Fair enough, but quite a lot of discouragement is an important issue that I'm running into too you know ;) Discouragement is far more damaging to learners than complicated grammar, tones or writing systems ever will be.

This might be true for someone who has to make everything fun all the time, but not for most. Discouraging things happen, and we all have to deal with them. It's part of being an adult. For example, all of us backwards ass-crawlers don't let your campaign of discouragement slow us down in the slightest. On a related note, if you're going to dish it out, you better be ready to take it.

On the one hand, I can't help feeling that Benny has already, in his mind at least, written his post-3 month conclusion: that as long as you use fun and easy and innovative techniques like he does Chinese is no more difficult than any other language on the planet.

Absolutely. But I believe it's all about profit. He makes huge amounts of money from his products (last time he talked about it, it was 50k + British Pounds per year), so you can't blame him for trying to pump up his popularity.

Admin note: For reference when challenged on the above leosmith said that he'd got the currencies wrong, couldn't find his source and that he's never going to post here again. Which seems odd, but this is the Internet after all.

[irishpolyglot]

@Leosmith You are really starting to piss me off my friend. Your lies about me are driving me mad!! I'm not making that amount of money, never said I was (at best, I may have said that on a good day I'll sell 2 or 3 guides, but that's not typical and I really hope you aren't going to branch off and start quoting me from some shite you've dug up out of context around the Internet), and it's none of your damn business how much I earn.

Seriously, stay on topic (i.e. language learning, not finances and your idiotic claims of me bleeding people's money out of them to undermine my credibility) or shut the hell up. You are starting to become among a small number of my biggest Internet trolls. This "dishing it out" is totally unjustified - you're just being mean.

I'm really starting to not like this forum when underhanded attacks about how much money people make start coming into it. Leosmith has a vendetta against me from other forums, and I'm politely requesting that a moderator at least ask him to shut up, or I'll really start not feeling welcome here.

Call me arrogant, say my language learning skills or objectives are unrealistic, but stick to language learning. Don't attack me in other aspects of my life. If I had any information about you Leosmith, other than the fact that you are an annoying Internet troll, I'd probably make this personal too with all the motivation you are giving me.

[hbuchtel]

Personally, whenever I see a post that consists entirely of 'quote-response' 'quote-response' 'quote-response' etc etc I don't even read it.

Don't come back to the forum just to respond to trolls. There are plenty of other good posts to respond to.

[irishpolyglot]

@hbuchtel It's kind of hard to ignore someone spreading such huge lies about me. If I don't deal with them, then the forum may believe them. It's hurtful to see such things being said about me.

But the thing is, nearly all of these lies are coming from the same troll. If someone puts a muzzle on this dog, then the only annoying things in this forum are really just calling me arrogant or whatever, which I think most people will agree will have been established by now and maybe we can discuss other things.

But dragging up random things like this is all one big sales pitch and I'm rolling in cash is going way off topic (which is supposedly language learning), to open up an entirely new can of worms, and are personal attacks from someone pissed off that I have called him on his BS elsewhere online, where most people have learned to ignore him when he talks about me, and he has new territory here where people may consider his crap.

No' date=' because admin will step in and put a stop to things if a thread starts to degenerate into a slanging match. Heated discussions about a topic are ok, and especially if a topic is controversial it's somewhat expected, but we'll put a stop to things if they get out of hand. Most regular members here know and appreciate that, because in general it keeps threads and discussions much more useful and interesting.[/quote']

I'd like to think this is true. It will determine whether I stick around or not.

[roddy]

He makes huge amounts of money from his products (last time he talked about it, it was 50k + British Pounds per year), so you can't blame him for trying to pump up his popularity.

Lets have a source for that (or a retraction), and then if everyone could just stop making the same points over and over again, that'd be fine and dandy.

[renzhe]

The tones are so distinct from each other and everything's monosyllabic and there are no declensions or conjugations. This means that when you learn a word you know it 100% and you can hear it in any situation and it won't have warped beyond recognition. The tones cut up strings of noises into clear syllables making it easy to pick out each one.

Ignore the piece of advice I quoted here. Just about every word in it is 100% wrong.

I'm amazed people don't see the irony here when discussing ease of languages you know little or nothing about.

Actually, I learned German faster than you, and to a much higher level. I have also learned Chinese to a much higher level than you even intend to. Judging by your blog, I worked harder too.

I am telling you that, in my experience, it takes 10x more work to understand "赤壁" or "霸王别姬" or "武俠" than it takes to understand "Lola Rennt" or "Das Leben der Anderen" or "Der Untergang". You're not seriously suggesting that watching a movie or reading a book is purely academic? It's a very important way to enjoy a language and its culture.

I understand that you don't want to shackle yourself with goals this early, and that the joy of learning languages is the primary motivation. But your refusal to even peek at 10 minutes of TV after 3 months confuses me.

[irishpolyglot]

What kind of source for that is actually useful? You want my bank statement?

What a load of shit. An admin is actually looking into how much money I make. Yeah, this is really relevant. How am I supposed to take this forum seriously?

[renzhe]

What kind of source for that is actually useful? You want my bank statement?

roddy is not asking YOU for a source, he is asking leosmith for a source (or a retraction of his statement).

[irishpolyglot]

And I'm asking you how this is relevant at all to language learning?

Can I have some proof of how much all of you earn too? And your mothers' maiden names and blood types and names of first girls/boys you kissed? All this info will really help me to learn Chinese.

This thread has degenerated into a circus.

[renzhe]

Stop being paranoid. Only one guy is interested in your bank account.

The rest of us are only interested in how you are going to demonstrate being able to follow full-speed native conversations.

It's also not fair to claim that this thread is all about discouragement. We encourage you, but expect amazing proof for amazing claims. I have given you ten tips already, and then you suggested that we are all crawling backwards on our asses and learning inefficiently and have little knowledge of European languages. That's a strange way of showing appreciation.

[yonglin]

I think both sides of this conversation have turned unnecessarily rude. How about we just cut Benny some slack and let him get back to work? Personally, I'm awaiting the first-week video that I saw posted about a few pages upthread. After he has posted the video, we could perhaps get back to what we're best at: offering some useful advice and constructive criticism!

Personally, I'm quite happy that Chinese takes years to master. That way, I will not be at risk of running out of interesting things to learn for the next few decades or so!

[skylee]

How about we just cut Benny some slack and let him get back to work?

Yes, please, please. And Benny, please spend your time on studying / practising the language. You need it.

Oh and please do learn some chengyus and idioms. They are fun, with lots and stories and history in them, and I think being fluent at a C1 level (even if you can't read or write) should include being able to understand and use them.

[Guest realmayo]

What happened to the OP?

[irishpolyglot]

In other news, today I managed to have my cellphone repaired (hardware issue) without any English! Was a bit surprised that the official Samsung repair store didn't have anyone who could even say "cellphone", refusing to budge when I pleaded for just a little English. But it just meant another opportunity to practise the puny amount I have

It required very imaginative use of 電 combined in ugly ways with the couple of dozen other words I know, as well as cognates that I've become aware of, such as USB. Result? My phone is working!

Someone said that reading the entire menu in Chinese would take years. I'd probably agree, but I can't understand most menus in English to be honest. There's always something I'm not sure of. But you don't need to read the entire menu. That's overkill.

My point is that you can do a lot with a little. And a hell of a lot with a "decent amount" combined with efficient use of extrapolation and reading the almost always generous context. This is something I've learned from other languages that I'm already confirming applies to Chinese, and along the lines of something you can't test.

I'd obviously fail a test in an examination of following along in a conversation at a phone repair store, which may be A2/B1 or whatever. And yet my phone has been repaired thanks to the fact that no adult ever starts any language from zero thanks to unspoken communication.

@skylee I have a chengyu book, but will leave that for much later.