Introduction: Why I'm interested in Chinese.

[Meng Lelan]

I haven't had good experiences with special needs programs, anyway. My Dad was upset with me for not making eye contact, so he had me pulled out of class every week to sit with children who were acting out, or who were handicapped in some way... and have this lady gently pressure me about making eye contact. They treated it like a mental disorder, but I was really intimidated by eye contact, AND I wanted to point my left ear towards people's mouths. I felt humiliated, being treated like that, and I was glad when it was over.

That probably was a resource room you were in, if you were in there for 30 to 45 minutes a week after being evaluated as needing special education services. Sounds like you did qualify for services at some point. Still, speaking from over a decade of experience in special education, I can tell you special education has absolutely declined in every respect I can think of so no surprise to me about your thoughts on your less-than-excellent experiences in the resource room. 

 

Social skills is a very common issue among the hearing impaired. We used to have a counselor who was deaf and specialized in counseling our deaf students in social skills but he left and the position was never filled again. If social skills is a concern to you maybe try to talk to a social worker or counselor about this. 

 

As for the Dallas area, that area is extremely rich in Chinese resources. Especially Plano. If I were you I would contact community colleges, schools, weekend Chinese schools (many offer classes to adult learners on weekends), also try to search for Meetups. Try to attend festivals and activities being hosted by Chinese organizations, they tend to set up information booths where you can learn more about their services. With Chinese New Year coming up quite soon you should start looking for events like this and just go scope the scene. 

[Jeremy Andrews]

Well, it looks like I can't do this often enough to learn much. It's too bad, there's a lot of nice events coming up.

The thing is, I have no money/income of my own. I have to convince my mother that any outing is worthwhile, and I feel guilty about every dollar.

Regardless of all that, I'm sure I could get $20 a week for going out to do stuff. She's offered that before. I've determined that, for that price, I can only afford to attend one informal meetup a week, most of which expect you to already know some Chinese. One of the main issues is that they tend to eat in expensive restaraunts where you pay over $10 for a meal, and my budget is such that I'd rather go to Wendy's and order stuff off the dollar menu. The other issue is that I have to pay $5 to even ride DART into Dallas. Between that and the meal, I've blown my whole budget for the week.

Tutors charge about $20 per hour, so I could get one hour a week (most of them will come to my house or a nearby restaraunt). Classes cost hundreds of dollars and aren't reasonable.

Basically, I can suppliment my Chinese learning with either an hour of tutoring or a meetup at an overpriced restaruant once a week. But I still have to do the bulk of my learning on my own.

However, I have managed to earn four $5 Amazon.com gift cards over the past month through online surveys, rewards programs, etc... and decided to buy this book with that money:

Chinese for Beginners: Mastering Conversational Chinese

I couldn't afford most of the textbooks and workbooks people suggest, but this one looked really good for the price. It had more than 10 reviews, all very positive.

[Meng Lelan]

Then try this, chineseteachers.com. The rates are extremely affordable, you can get a 30 minute one-to-one lesson online for less than ten dollars.

[sparrow]

Wow, DART is expensive. That's nuts.

 

I'm Vegan, so when I would go to meetups, I would just let the organizer know that I wouldn't be eating anything, or I'd ask for a couple of bowls of rice with hot sauce for a few bucks. Cheaper than McDonald's and healthier. hahaha

 

 

Meng Lelan's link looks cool, or you could look around for Chinese teachers to Skype with. Depending on they person, they might not charge too much! It's somewhat worth it once a week to polish off your accent, at least for the first couple weeks. It all depends on how good you feel about your pronunciation.

 

Also, about pronunciation, I think there's a place to upload audio to these forums where people will critique you. (?)

 

Don't feel too discouraged, though: You have a bunch of people on this forum willing to answer questions, and most studying is done alone anyway and not in a classroom!

 

 

Good luck.

[Jeremy Andrews]

Yeah, I am thinking that hiring a tutor would be more cost-effective than going to an informal meetup and buying food.

On the other hand, if I can just pay the $5 to get myself down there, and then only get water or a soda without buying food, I could afford to go. I'm a little embarrassed to do that, but... it might be worth a shot. Maybe I'll just say I'm on a really strict diet. Depending on what kind of people they turn out to be, I may also need to put on a suit and lie about being unemployed. Hope that isn't needed.

DART is crazy, though. The buses only run once per hour most of the time, sometimes once every half-hour in the morning. And, they're very slow. On average, it only takes me twice as long to walk somewhere as take the bus. The buses stop running around 9-10PM, so if something starts at 7 or 8PM, you're out of luck getting home. A day pass costs $5, you can go one way for $2.50 (can't get back), and you can get something called a "Midday pass" for $1.75, but that's only valid between 9AM and 2:30PM on weekdays. As you could guess, almost nothing happens during that time.

I'm glad this forum is here, and I should be able to gather resources on learning Chinese over time. I'll keep on trying to exercise all my options, and see where I get.

[roddy]

Try and grab yourself one of these.

[sparrow]

@Jeremy:

 

As for lying about your situation, if your ego can handle it, then be honest. It sucks having to lie to potential friends out of embarrassment. No one will care if they're half-way decent people—especially if you're making an effort in life. But that's just my advice—do what you gotta do.

 

I don't know how distances are, but if you're willing to walk, what about biking? Biking is pretty cheap if you save up enough or get a used bike off of craigslist.

 

If we're talking $20 per week as allowance, perhaps your mom could give you three weeks up front—or you could save up—for a bike. Hey, it's exercise at least, and it's cheaper in the long run.

 

Also, if you're looking for a job, biking gives you mobility to find work close by. You could canvass businesses in your area, going from one to the other looking for work. If you mention you've been "biking from one business to the other for a week looking for work," that's brownie points for any employer who respects commitment and hard work.

[Lu]

Jeremy, wouldn't you either be in school or working? If you're in school/university, perhaps you can ask the relevant department about possibilities to study Chinese as part of your program there. That might save you a lot of money, or make it easier to convince your mother to help you out with this. If you're working, you'd have your own money, so I assume you're not. Perhaps you can get a side job, to have a little more independence and room to do your own things without feeling guilty?

 

As to pronunciation, imo it's best to have a teacher when starting out, who can correct you. Virtually everyone who starts studying Chinese struggles with this, deaf or no (although of course it's exponentially harder when deaf or partly deaf). It's a very different system of pronunciation, you (general you) can be getting things wrong without noticing. A teacher can correct you.

 

Others have already pointed out you most certainly can learn a language after the age of 13. One reason Americans tend to be bad at learning languages is that they often have never learned to learn a language, and have little idea of how to go about it. You need the right resources, the right amount of practice, a routine, etc, and it's hard to figure all that out on your own if nobody ever explained it to you. In addition to the language itself, you need to learn how to learn it. The good news is that you've come to the right place to help you with that: there are already many threads on the forum about what works for different people.

 

Good luck!

[Jeremy Andrews]

I'm not really in a place in life where I feel like getting a job is a means to an end. Getting a job is THE end... something I've been struggling with since I graduated HS in 2007. I've only had a job working for my Dad, and volunteering at a hospital (which I stopped doing because the price of the bus pass went up too much). It was a shame I had to stop, because I really liked volunteering there.

The only paying job I've ever gotten legitimately, is being an overnight stocker at Wal-Mart... I did that for about three days and quit, because they were yelling at me to go as fast as I could from day one, and then asked me to lift something that weighed 50 lbs by myself. I've never gotten a response to any of the other thousands of resumes I've put in, not even a rejection letter. I feel like I can't handle the kind of jobs my current education qualifies me to do. That's why I need to go to school. Employers are unreasonable people who seem to expect you to have a college degree and a few years of experience for anything, and seem to want people who can convince them they've been dreaming of that job their whole life, no matter how mundane or ridiculous it is. I could understand competition for good paying jobs, but it seems deeply unfair that I have to fight THIS hard for minimum wage. It's been so bad sometimes, that I've wished the other people applying for the job I want would die, so they'd have to hire me. That's why I stopped looking... every rejection made me more bitter and hateful inside. I didn't like who the job search was turning me into.

Sigh. You know, I think I have too many other problems in my life to deal with learning Chinese right now, and all the suggestions you guys have been making just remind me of that. I guess I'm done... I feel too overwhelmed by my life. Learning a language on top of all that seems absurd now. Of course, I need money and social skills to do THAT well, too. Well, scratch that. LOL.

On top of all that, if I get even a low-paying job now, I'll be legally required to buy health insurance, and may or may not lose my pell grant. It's too risky right now. I'm actually better off not having income right now, though it sucks.

I'll think about this again after I graduate college and get a job in programming or something. I've had to put so many things on hold until then... life just demands too much of me.

Thank you all for your help, I'm sorry this didn't work out for me.

[abcdefg]

Contact the Confucius Institute in Dallas.

 

The social skills problems sound debilitating, however, and may screw up many of your learning plans. Also since you have no desire to go to China, you will have less motivation to succeed. Frankly, from what you have said so far, I cannot be too encouraging.

 

As regards your hearing, Meng Lelans' insights and suggestions are golden. Read every word twice and ask her for more.

 

Also, forget about Rosetta Stone. Waste of time and money.

[abcdefg]

Suggest you look at this recent thread and ask yourself how you measure up.

 

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/42613-ideal-personality-traits-habits-and-attitudes-to-master-chinese/#comment-320593

[Jeremy Andrews]

I have Asperger's Syndrome. And I don't think it's logical for someone who can barely manage to get by in the United States, as a native, to go to a country where life is tougher and where they would be a foreigner. I need the government programs here... I may need to go on disability because of the Asperger's, if I can't find a job after college. I know another guy who lives that way, he's got a Master's degree in Mathematics.

I'm quite aware that I don't measure up to being the ideal student of Chinese, that's one of the reasons I'm giving this pursuit up. I really don't think it's realistic for someone with my limitations to learn Chinese. At first it was just my hearing and age I was a little worried about, but now I'm realizing that my social skills and lack of income are limiting factors as well. To be honest, I was hoping to develop proficiency in Chinese as an additional skill that might eventually help me find a job or at least network with more people. Now I realize that's not likely unless I can invest a LOT more into it than I have to give.

I'm very sorry about dragging this out and wasting everyone's time here... I know you guys probably are a lot more passionate about life than I am, you're the kind of people that believe that what you want matters. However, I can't ignore reason, and I can't ignore my limitations. Wants come second to needs and practicality.

I will just add the following facts about myself. My parents are HS dropouts, and I was kept out of school between 3rd and 8th grade. They were supposedly "homeschooling" me. When I finally went back to school, they discovered I only had 4th grade Math skills. I just barely managed to pass Algebra 2 my senior year, and I was told that I pretty much had no chance of passing the SATs. My father also told me that college was a waste of time, and that HS was more than enough. It took me a long time to realize that people don't think that way anymore.

I am still interested in Chinese culture, history, and people though... maybe I could learn more about them without learning the language? I think that's something I could reasonably do.

[sparrow]

Jeremy, you know yourself better than any of us. However, I want to say a few things...

 

I've read most of your posts, Jeremy. I see you as someone who puts a lock of stock in limiting beliefs—negative thoughts about why what you want is too difficult or impossible. It's very hard to get what you want with that kind of attitude. It's good to be practical and realistic, but sometimes those sentiments lend themselves to selling yourself short. That's just my opinion though.

 

As for job hunting, I've been told repeatedly by professors, friends, and I've experienced it myself that resumes are not the best way of finding a job. It's not uncommon for someone to submit resumes endlessly for jobs and never find one. However, if you canvass the businesses in your area, you may find a week or a month is all you need to find work. My friends and I have found jobs that way, from working at registers, to fashion boutiques, to entry-level positions on Wall Street. All this experience was in Manhattan, New York, mind you, where you can imagine job competition is tough.

 

As for Health Insurance, I'm pretty sure you aren't legally forced to buy it. You can opt out. The cost of opting out isn't unaffordable—it's 1% of your income, and will increase to 2.5% in 2016. (I'm looking this up right now. Here's the link I found.)

 

However, if you do choose to opt in, the new health care should not be too expensive. And if you qualify for disability, some of your expenses will be taken care of.

 

Now, about Chinese, you may decide you have too much on your plate right now. However, there's another way to think of it. Imagine five or ten years later, you decide to pursue Chinese again. If you had been putting in 5 to 10 minutes each day over those five or ten years, you would be in a much better place and for very little investment of your time.

 

 

But like I said, you know yourself better than we do and you know your situation. You know what expectations and goals are realistic for yourself better than any of us. Good luck.

[Jeremy Andrews]

What does "canvass the businesses" mean? I've never heard that expression before. All I know about is sending out resumes and job applications... that's all I was ever taught to do. My Mom said she had her best luck with places that just let her fill out an application in person and didn't ask for a resume. But now, it seems most places send me away and tell me to submit an application online... and when I do that, I never hear from them again, just like with the resumes. She thinks it's harder to get a job now because they make you do things electronically and won't remember your face.

Well, I have plenty of time to spend with the subject. To be honest, when someone mentioned getting a job, I sort of shut down. Most of my insecurities are connected to work/money, and the moment I think about getting a job, I feel as if I'm contemplating how to touch Neptune. It's possible I overreacted when the thought of having to touch Neptune to pay for studying Chinese entered my mind.

But now that I've calmed down, it does occur to me that I have options. I could sell stuff on eBay to pay for tutoring or bus passes, at least at first. I probably should have thought of that before.

I definitely need to put some thought into this, though... deciding what I want is the hardest thing for me to do. I don't even know what I want for lunch most of the time. Often, I just have whatever other people are having, or ask my Mom to pick something for me. Same way with clothes, I guess. This makes me really grateful for advertisers... they often make me aware of wanting something enough to look into it. Most people either hate them or get suckered by them, but I seem to benefit from them.

[abcdefg]

Jeremy, take a look at some of these podcasts as way to learn more about Chinese history and culture without knowing the language.

 

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/38184-china-history-podcast-by-laszlo-montgomery/page-2#comment-321231

[Guest realmayo]

While self-studying Chinese probably isn't going to be a quick and simple 'magic bullet' solution to everything, if you're interested in it then why not simply consider it a hobby? A lot of people find it fun.

[sparrow]

What does "canvass the businesses" mean?

 

 

It means physically go to businesses (dozens or hundreds, depending on what kind of work you're looking for) and ask if they're hiring.

 

Go between 12 and 2 PM so that people are on their lunch break and will have more time to talk with you.

 

Show up in decent clothes—though nothing expensive is necessary. You'll get turned down a lot, but it's still way more effective than sending in resumes. Bring a folder to keep any documents, two pens, and a book to read.

[Lu]

 

What does "canvass the businesses" mean?

As mentioned, go to businesses and ask whether they have vacancies or need anyone. If you do apply online, consider calling them a week or so later to mention that you visited them, applied online as they suggested, ask if they received your application in good order, and how they see your chances with them/if they think they'll have any vacancies that might be suitable for you. I imagine this might seem a bit daunting for you, or as pushing it, but this is really one of those things where you have the no and might get a yes. This way, they've seen your face, seen your resume and know you're genuinely interested, and if they have nothing they can still tell you.

 

 

Well, I have plenty of time to spend with the subject. To be honest, when someone mentioned getting a job, I sort of shut down. Most of my insecurities are connected to work/money, and the moment I think about getting a job, I feel as if I'm contemplating how to touch Neptune. It's possible I overreacted when the thought of having to touch Neptune to pay for studying Chinese entered my mind.

I'm sorry I mentioned a job at all, had I known it was a) that hard in your situation and b) would deflate you like this I wouldn't have suggested it. If above advice has a similar effect, please ignore it, I realise you're not here to ask for job advice.

 

Learning Chinese is a huge task, but it's more akin to building the Notre Dame out of matchsticks than like touching Neptune. You can take it one little bite at the time, and if you have too many other things to do, take smaller bites for a while. Having money and people around you helps, but you can certainly get started without either. Do have a look around the forums for advice on self-study, if you haven't done so already. There are all kinds of websites that can help, people willing to chat over Skype or correct your work or anything.

 

And seriously, you're not even remotely too old. Non-Chinese people who learned the language before the age of 12 are a tiny minority, almost everyone only starts in university, including people who got really good at it, and most people here. And Meng Lelan proves that it's possible for people with hearing troubles too.

 

Don't lose heart, and good luck!

[li3wei1]

If you have lots of time, consider language exchange. You can hook up via Skype with a Chinese person somewhere who wants to study English, and you give them an hour of English for an hour of Chinese (smaller amounts of time are probably better at the beginning). You don't have to spend anything, as long as you have broadband. Time is also the most important ingredient in studying Chinese. Get a textbook, read it for 4-5 hours (not all at once), spend an hour with your language exchange partner going over questions and pronunciation, repeat. There are plenty of free resources on the internet, as well.

[Jeremy Andrews]

Thanks for the advice, Lu, I really never considered doing that before. I always felt like something was off with the whole submitting applications online and not seeing anyone... like there was something else I should be doing, I just didn't know what. Don't feel bad for the advice, I just have a lot of hang-ups most people don't.

Yeah, if I start off a bit slower with self-study, that will give me time to figure out how to get along with Chinese people so that I don't have to worry about offending them or anything when I do talk to one. All I know so far is that they care a lot about saving face (it kind of makes sense if you feel shame/embarrassment easily), and that they don't like the number four or the color white.

Well, anyway, I'm glad everyone contributed so many resources and ideas to this thread. I definitely appreciate it.