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

[rezaf]

The 22nd chapter of Daodejing has a lot of good advice which IMHO explains why this topic turned like this but I'm glad that it's getting back on track:

曲則全，枉則直，窪則盈，弊則新，少則得，多則惑。是以聖人抱一為天下式。不自見，故明；不自是，故彰；不自伐，故有功；不自矜，故長。夫唯不爭，故天下莫能與之爭。古之所謂曲則全者，豈虛言哉！誠全而歸之。

The partial becomes complete; the crooked, straight; the empty, full; the worn out, new. He whose (desires) are few gets them; he whose (desires) are many goes astray.

Therefore the sage holds in his embrace the one thing (of humility), and manifests it to all the world. He is free from self- display, and therefore he shines; from self-assertion, and therefore he is distinguished; from self-boasting, and therefore his merit is acknowledged; from self-complacency, and therefore he acquires superiority. It is because he is thus free from striving that therefore no one in the world is able to strive with him.

That saying of the ancients that 'the partial becomes complete' was not vainly spoken: - all real completion is comprehended under it.

http://ctext.org/dao-de-jing

[skylee]

I don't think it is the right time to show off your knowledge on Daodejing. Benny can't read it yet, nor can many others. What is the point? PS - do note the universal nature of the words "self-boasting", "self-complacency", "superiority".

[rezaf]

I don't have much knowledge on Daodejing to show off but I believe Laozi can teach all of us something useful and there is an English translation so that everyone can understand it.

[renzhe]

Congratulations on getting your mobile fixed. It reminded me of getting a medical check-up shortly after arriving here in Portugal. The lady was very adamant that I was at the wrong place, and that I should go somewhere near Andromeda instead -- far away from her

Enjoy adventures like this one, I love them, but don't forget to study. You should be hitting a vocabulary of 500 words by the end of this week ;)

[hanyu_xuesheng]

I am learning Chinese for 20 years now. I am able to read and understand a lot, I can manage most situations. I am still NOT fluent.

What if Benny will be more "fluent" than me after his Taipei mission? Am I an untalented or lazy dumbhead?

Benny will for sure tell the world how easy it is to learn Chinese. But what about the learning reality of most Chinese learners?

In fact, we shouldn't care. Benny's mission results won't prove anything...

[rezaf]

I don't really care how fluent he can get in 3 months but if he is actually very smart I would like to see him get ahead of Dashan and Zhulian in just a few years because people need to see more successful Chinese learners in order to get motivated.

[pancake]

It's great that you managed to get your mobile phone fixed, but your claim that you managed to do so without any English doesn't really hold up. The word USB is not a cognate; it's a loanword. Using the subset of Chinese that happens to be identical to English is surely not the way to reach C1, seems more like a crutch to me. I'm actually surprised that you didn't bother finding out that mobile phone is 手机 (shǒujī) and that to repair is 修 (xiū) beforehand, would surely have saved you lots of time.

[Silent]

Something no one has mentioned and has just occured to me, why does it matter how long it takes.

i am sure that if you are learning for pleasure it really dosn't matter and if you need to learn, then you may learn faster because circumstances may help ie: being in the country, useing it at work etc.

So can any tell me why they might think its important to learn this fast?

IF you're learning for pleasure, that's a big if. I doubt there are many that only study for pleasure. Many people have a real purpose for the language. The longer you take to learn the language the longer it takes you can enjoy Chinese literature/take the classes or job you want, can enjoy the added value of communicating with people etc.

If you study only to study, yes there's no reason to learn the language quickly. Otherwise the faster you learn the earlier you can reap the benefits.

[Silent]

So much resistance to a bit of optimism! So nobody is going to agree with what my commenter said?

Has nothing to do with resistence, why should anybody agree with the commenter? We've no info on his bckground. So, maybe his native language is very close to chinese. Maybe his level is about zero and has not gone in dept. there's nothing sensable to say about it.

[irishpolyglot]

I'm actually surprised that you didn't bother finding out that mobile phone is 手机 (shǒujī) and that to repair is 修 (xiū) beforehand, would surely have saved you lots of time.

I was out of the house (no access to the Internet), and I didn't have my phrasebook with me (my only physical dictionary apart from the one at the back of Heisig's book). And relying on always being able to look up words is not realistic. I use my smartphone to look everything up when necessary... and it was what I was fixing. What would you have done in my situation? It's important to get out there even if you don't have all the essentials.

Loanword or not, USB is Chinese. And I didn't say using loanwords is a strategy to reach C1, come on, that's really being silly. I was just trying to share a typical exchange I had one week into learning the language. You'd be crazy NOT to take advantage of the many loanwords in Chinese as soon as possible. This is obviously a strategy I had in European languages, and even if its extent is much much less in Chinese, I'm still using it here.

I am learning Chinese for 20 years now. I am able to read and understand a lot, I can manage most situations. I am still NOT fluent.

Sorry for my boldness, and perhaps I'll be dismissed as arrogant? But 20 years of Chinese and not being comfortably fluent is not good enough. Suggestions of anything but this, is where my "crawling on their asses backwards" comment comes from. I'm not saying you're stupid, I'm saying your strategy and devotion is wrong in my opinion, unless you simply enjoy the process of studying Chinese, and using it with people is less of a priority.

@renzhe Since I haven't been successful in making local friends yet, I'm kind of forced to mostly study. Many pieces of the puzzle are slowly coming together as I catch more and more words in random people's talking and see more characters I recognise

I was on a bus last night and there was a sign with Chinese above and English below, but the last English word was not visible. It said "Pay on..." and the first symbol in Chinese was 下 which I knew was down(ward)/below or similar. So it could only mean "pay on alighting", which was important as I didn't know who or when to pay on buses and that made it clearer as I copied those getting off and scanning their public transport card beside the driver. I'm trying to emphasise how you can get into the language quicker before finishing years of studying. Once I have some momentum and am speaking regularly with people I can get useful feedback to worm out my mistakes and improve my comprehension.

Different strategies for different language phases. What I do when I'm actually interacting with people socially to encourage myself to learn more is vastly different. But a strategy of "study until I'm better" consistently throughout all levels for most people seems to be the norm and in my view is terribly inefficient.

[renzhe]

But 20 years of Chinese and not being comfortably fluent is not good enough.

I think that 5 years in China should be enough for fluency at C1 level, perhaps C2. For the sake of argument, I'll take the old HSK8 to be around C1 and HSK10 to be around C2.

But different people learn for different reasons, and not everyone can afford to do this professionally full-time in Taiwan. Many people learn on their own as a hobby, in addition to a full-time job, and of course this takes longer. There's no need to make fun of that.

[irishpolyglot]

I've only been learning languages "professionally full time" for a year and a half. Every other language I learned in the last decade was while working full time or two jobs. While learning Italian I had a 65 hour workweek. Obviously it took more than 3 months, but it still took way less than 5 years.

Your approach is way more important than your latitude and longitude. I learned the vast majority of my Portuguese long before I ever went to Brazil by seeking out Brazilians where I was (France) and attempting to speak with them. Immersion is great, but to practise speaking you just need access to one native speaker, or even to a very fluent speaker.

I'd highly recommend people in this forum go on the site Couchsurfing.org and do a search for their local city and have only one criteria that the person speaks Chinese and unless you are in a small town, you'll find a very open minded person very willing to meet up. This resource is how I've maintained or improved my languages no matter where I am. I feel like I have actually learned way more French outside of France than in it. Otherwise livemocha, as terrible as their courses are, has a community with an army full of Chinese natives desperately seeking a spoken Skype based exchange with English speakers.

I'm not trying to say there's a magic number of 3 months or 5 years or whatever. I'm trying to tell people to push themselves to speak more. If you say I learn quicker simply because I'm physically in Taiwan (like many expats here who are certainly not learning the language), you're missing the point.

[renzhe]

Benny, I completely agree with you.

But don't you think that you are recommending the most obvious things that everybody already does?

[irishpolyglot]

No I don't. I wasn't aware that Couchsurfing.org is something "everybody" already uses as a language learning tool? Be sure to share your thoughts on it with me.

[Silent]

But 20 years of Chinese and not being comfortably fluent is not good enough.

Who are you to judge wether is good enough or not?

Good enough depends on many factors, some people overhere define fluent as 'indistinguishable' from a native. Most learners will never achieve that, even after a lifetime of study.

You hope to achieve c1 (not full oral and written fluency) in three months of full time study/immersion. Say that's 12 hours a day for 90 days, that's 1080 hours of study. That's equal to 20 years 1 hour a week or 1 decennium 2 hours a week. Sure, not too much, but there are plenty of language learners (or learners of any subject for that matter) that put in only a few hours a week due to work, family etc. Deduct a few vacations and other time off and it's well possible that 20 years amount to barely more work than you're doing in these three months. I see no reason to judge based on the info given, based on invested hours he may have done better than you will.

[irishpolyglot]

Who are you to judge wether is good enough or not?

Good enough depends on many factors, some people overhere define fluent as 'indistinguishable' from a native

Well then, to continue "judging", that's not a good enough definition of fluent! That's BILINGUAL.

From the Oxford English dictionary definition of fluent:

1 speaking or writing in an articulate and natural manner. 2 (of a language) used easily and accurately.

There is no "3: indistinguishable from a native."

But I do think aiming for bilingual is a very noble goal and takes longer than what I've defined as fluent, but this fact is irrelevant when I'm not aiming for it right now. Short term goals always yield better results.

Sorry but I stand by what I said. We only have a finite number of decades on the planet, and I'm not personally a fan of things that take 20 years to be pretty good in. 1 hour a week is my idea of lack of passion, in that case it really is just a hobby. Which is fine.

As I said, if the goal is to enjoy the learning process then there's nothing to argue about. If the goal is to speak and use the language with natives then waiting several decades is not acceptable. This is my "judgement". I'm amazed that I'm being told that I'm mistaken in this.

[Silent]

Sorry but I stand by what I said. We only have a finite number of decades on the planet, and I'm not personally a fan of things that take 20 years to be pretty good in. 1 hour a week is my idea of lack of passion, in that case it really is just a hobby. Which is fine.

Fair enough, your opinion. To be honest, I pretty much share that opinion. That however is no reason to judge people on it and to tell them in bold it's not good enough. I strongly feel that people should do what they feel is best for them and what makes them happy. If it makes them happy it's good enough for them. Actually, if it makes them happy and it doesn't hurt other people I'ld rather say it's perfect.

[irishpolyglot]

I strongly feel that people should do what they feel is best for them and what makes them happy. If it makes them happy it's good enough for them. Actually, if it makes them happy and it doesn't hurt other people I'd rather say it's perfect.

Also agree, and sorry this wasn't clear enough (I was sure I implied it). My "good enough" is qualified by ultimate use of the language. If you don't want or need to use it with people any time soon then good enough or not is irrelevant. The fact that I only play chess once every few weeks isn't "good enough" if the goal is to really improve and play it in tournaments. But that's not my goal, so enjoying the game itself is more important. If after 20 years my level is only a little better than it is now, then what does it really matter if I have no interest in tournaments or generally being an impressive player.

I just think it's a pity that some who do want (or more importantly need)to speak the language think such a long time learning it may be good enough when a different approach could change this.

Hopefully this is clearer.

[jkhsu]

I like your suggestion on the couchsurfing.org (gave you a +1 for that).

Based on what you've said do far, I get that you are doing the following:

1. Full immersion in a place where the target language is spoken (Taiwan in your case).

2. Spend the majority of time per day speaking to people in that language. In addition to conversation with tutors, spend time doing everyday things like ordering food at restaurants, taking the bus, fixing your phone, etc. without the aid of a translator. Basically step out of your comfort zone and try to converse with people on a daily basis even if you need to point to things and use pseudo sign language. Don't be afraid to make mistakes and keep talking to people.

3. Spend the rest of the time studying vocab / grammar to help with conversation.

4. Do this full time for 3 months.

Is there anything else significant that I've left out?

With this experiment, are you trying to prove that you have some special abilities to reach a level that most other people can't by doing the same things you are doing or are you just trying to tell us that we can also reach the same level following your method?

I know a lot of people have been giving you very solid, well tested advice on learning Chinese but I'm more interested in knowing things / methods / ideas you can tell us that we don't know. So far, I haven't been "enlightened" yet but I'm still hoping to be.

[hanyu_xuesheng]

But 20 years of Chinese and not being comfortably fluent is not good enough.

Ok, I expected this. During that 20 years I worked fulltime, and visited Taiwan only 5 times. No teachers, only self study in Germany, mostly without Internet (only the last 5-6 years). When being in Taiwan I was also speaking a lot - like Benny. In Germany - without Skype - only shadowing.

Say that's 12 hours a day for 90 days, that's 1080 hours of study.

This is very unrealistic. Benny has to manage his websites, his books, create videos, write posts, write a lot of comments (not only here), eat, sleep, ....

Let's wait until April, and let's see how Benny will perform... I expect a video like that in Bangkok or Berlin, not impressive at all.