Why Chinese?

[laurenth]

(This introspective thread is proving too hard to resist)

 

Somehow, it was bound to happen as, since childhood, I've always been some sort of bookworm with a life-long relationship with languages, a mild interest in Eastern philosophies, and a love of allusive poetry.

 

After graduating in translation, and then in linguistics, I started working as a translator (still am) and wanted to learn a non-Indoeuropean language. There was an aborted attempt at Arabic and an inconclusive attempt at Finnish, after a few years of insufficiently dedicated study. Then, one summer I read a wonderful translation of the wonderful 水浒传. I was blown away. I started collecting and reading other translations of old Chinese works and was particularly fascinated, the following summer, by an anthology of ancient Chinese poetry. Than I thought, hey, wouldn't it be cool if I could read the original? Hm?

 

Back then, I was 41, had a full time job, two kids, soon 3, then 4. So you just can't do that, can you? Of course it's not possible and it won't work. But that was a liberating thought, somehow. There was no challenge, no pressure but the one I chose to impose to myself. After all I didn't need Chinese, I had no Chinese friends or relatives, I didn't plan to join the rush to make business with that country, heck, I didn't even want to become "fluent" in Chinese, not in 3 months and not even in 30 years, I just wanted to have whatever interesting, thought-provoking, maybe even fun, activities I could swallow right here and right now.

 

When I got back from those holidays, in 2007, after scanning a few internet sites (in particular section 6 of this famous article), I soon accepted that it would be wiser to begin with contemporary Chinese, so I bought a method (which is famous in the French speaking world: Joël Bellassen's Méthode d'Initiation, aka "the little yellow book") and got started. I even could negotiate 2 weekly evening classes with my family, for 2 years. Then I took Skype classes at 5 or 6 a.m. for another two years (it had to be outside of working and family hours). Now I no longer take classes: study time is confined to lunch time, commuting, etc.

 

As you noted, when I started, I was not particularly interested in contemporary Chinese literature - I'm not sure I'd even read anything by a contemporary author - nor by contemporary China and I'd never been there.  Since then, I have taken an interest in modern China, I've read quite a lot of remarkable modern authors - some of them in Chinese - and I've actually *been* there, not just once but twice - for a grand total of 28 days, no less! However, I still plan to dabble in classical/ancient Chinese. Chinese always has plenty of new and challenging stuff in store to keep me busy for the next 30 years. It now seems obvious that I will keep on doing Chinese-related stuff for the rest of my life.

[Wang2014]

At my school we had to take a langauge to graduate (American High School). We could just choose between spanish, french, and chinese. I lived in Southern California, so we had tons of spanish speakers. French didn't seem like much use, so Chinese it was. Taking into account that of those three I liked chinese food, culture, history, sound of the language, and the fact that it was by far harder than the others, it was a no brainer.

 

I took Chinese for three years in school, albeit it was mainly focused on the culture, reading, and writing. then I went to England and am currently doing a lot of work with the chinese uni students, in the last 6 weeks by chinese has gotten better than the three years of study I did in High school.

[edelweis]

My boss asked us to go to China, I was too inexperienced to refuse, and that was that.

I knew myself just well enough to know I would want to learn the language.

But I had obviously underestimated the impact of jet lag, culture shock, the frustration engendered by the myriads of different characters, and whatever. It all combined into being unable to let go once it was clear I would not be going back to China.

 

(Intellectually I know that people don't all have the same interests, but I was still astounded at being the only one of our team to have had any interest in learning Chinese. How people can be satisfied with showing typed addresses to taxi drivers, and not being able to read signs, take the bus, read menus etc. Unbelievable... )

Fortunately they don't send me to other countries all that often, and the European languages just don't have a writing system interesting enough to keep me hooked for long. (Arabic lasted 2 years, but there's - there was ? - not much to read in Arabic that interested me.)

 

So I'm still studying Chinese 5 years later, I don't know how long it will last...

 

I am in the middle of a time travel short story in traditional characters - an unexpected find in the Taiwanese literature anthology I checked out from the library some time last year and renewed since then because I read verrry slowwwly.

So I don't see myself giving up on Chinese any time soon, not when I have the tantalizing perspective of being able to read Chinese Sci-Fi novels in the "near future"... that is maybe in 1 or 2 years. Learning Chinese is definitely on a different timescale...

[Demonic_Duck]

(Intellectually I know that people don't all have the same interests, but I was still astounded at being the only one of our team to have had any interest in learning Chinese. How people can be satisfied with showing typed addresses to taxi drivers, and not being able to read signs, take the bus, read menus etc. Unbelievable... )

This always messes with my head too. There are plenty of people who I like and respect who live in China and yet have zero, or very little, interest in learning Chinese. And as you say, it's not just a matter of taste, it's also a very practical matter. I mean, on an aesthetic level, I equally can't understand people who say thay they don't like any Beatles songs, but at least it doesn't significantly impede them in their day-to-day life.

[li3wei1]

the only one of our team to have had any interest in learning Chinese.

 

There are many things that I am interested in, but that I haven't done anything about learning, and probably never will. Knowing that something takes a huge commitment and lots of time, and you've already got something big on your plate, . .  I lived in HK for about ten years, without ever getting beyond rudimentary Cantonese, and don't really regret it. I had other things to do,

[GotJack]

Demonic Duck that is a brilliant last post! Such a jokes comment re: beatles

[Pokarface]

Hmm, originaly I had planned to study Portuguese for a year. After 3.5 months of studying I was doing extremely well. I can always get better but I didn't see any marginal returns. I speak English, Spanish, and Esperanto as well. I decided to study Chinese because I have been teaching English to coworkers that work for the same company but work in the China divisions (Note: I am not a language instructor).

 

At that moment, I didn't know any Mandarin Chinese, but their Engilsh was anywhere between beginner to advances, so I was able to instruct them. Everyone I have meet from China is very respectful and generous. I decided one day to give them a surprise by greeting them and mentioning very simple comments in Chinese. The expression in their faces was priceless. If you have seen Laoshu50500 videos on youtube or talk a foreign languages nobody expects you to know, you know what I'm talking about =-)

 

I want to visit China since I have been learning a little bit about their culture, but it is still a mystery to me. Obviously, some Chinese will be able to speak some English, but many things will still be kept a secret if I can't speak Chinese. I also feel learning Chinese is a very pleasent experience because making mistakes is so easy, and learning from your mistakes speeds up the process. I live in the U.S. but I enjoy talking Mandarin at work, at the restaurants, and at China Town (Although my China Town has a lot of Vietnamese in the mix. This adds great variety!)

[roddy]

Thanks, Pokarface, and welcome to the site!

[haoyu]

 I also feel learning Chinese is a very pleasant experience because making mistakes is so easy, and learning from your mistakes speeds up the process

Pokarface, I like your perspective on that!  The fear of making mistakes holds me back from learning way more than it should.

[Melanie1989]

Wow, my reasons are incredibly lame too, compared to everyone else's. Alas, it's different.

 

When i was at school, about 8 years old, we had a Chinese student come join us in class for about a week. I have no idea why, no-one was sent to China for an exchange. Everyone, including me, just thought she was a little weird. She had the Bruce Lee haircut and wore a green tracksuit everyday. She understood what we were saying to her (eg. "Show me the Chinese alphabet!" "Do you know what a fork is??" "Have you seen snow before?" Bloody kids, haha), but she never spoke. Not English, not Chinese. Kind of strange, but i guess she could have just been overwhelmed having 30 kids jump on her.

 

One day, i noticed she was reading a book in beautiful Chinese characters and i was just fascinated! I couldn't get my head around the concept of essentially looking at pictures instead of Roman letters and having to use no imagination (EDIT: I meant as in different to if you were looking at an actual picture book, not meaning that Chinese takes no imagination -it absolutely does!). I couldn't make sense of any of it at all, but it looked so beautifully intricate and special. I remember wondering if each character was somehow made up similarly as if one was to write an English word but squishing it all up into a little box, like with graph paper?

 

I realised that was ridiculously stupid and complex and forgot about learning Chinese. It was beyond me.

 

But over the years, i noticed that i was fascinated and intrigued by all (and i do mean ALL) Asian languages, in every form. The writing was always so unique and different from Western writing, the spoken language never really sounded like somebody speaking; more it seemed like they were just making beautiful sounds to communicate -i found something very real and sensual about it. It was as though they were actually better at expressing their thoughts and feelings, like there was no need for "words", the emotions were pouring out.

 

That sounds so pretentious (and a little pervy), but it's true. 

 

I started researching world history, particularly war, and as i came across Japan's invasion of China, i was just floored. I won't get into a whole thing about it, for risk of offending anybody (unintentionally) and also because i digress enough, but i had new found respect and amazement for China. The strength, judgement, will etc. I looked into more about the culture and even mythology and "real" China, from people who have actually been there. Turns out they are not these "psycho commie bastards" that so many people seem to think in the West.

 

Finding a youtube channel, Serpentza, also hugely persuaded me that i had essentially been brainwashed (not that i ever particularly disliked China, just never found any appeal, barring the language) and that actually it sounded like an amazing place, nothing like what western media had portrayed (for the most part).

 

Then one day last year, i --somehow-- pulled a muscle in my butt cheek and was laid up on the sofa, doing a great impression of a spoiled child (sulking and tutting at nothing in particular), when the idea just came to me out of nowhere: "Ooh! I wonder if i could learn Chinese!" I found a video on youtube and by the end of that day, i could speak and write the basic 你/您好，你好吗，我很好，你呢？我也很好，谢谢!" Albeit with a few rookie mistakes, but i was hooked. 

 

The more i learn, the more i love the language. It's a whole list of contradictions: it's so hard, but so basic and straight-forward. So frustrating, so rewarding. I want to go to China one day and i would love to work for them as a translator. Ideally, a localisation tester job. i would be in heaven!! I hope too that anyone just starting out will hang in there and have fun with it. When it becomes a chore, you'll likely just quit and miss out. Have fun and try new things all the time, even just watching lots of Chinese TV helps massively and doesn't require too much concentration. It can be surprising how much you can pick up without realising it.

[Melanie1989]

My God, that's really long. Sorry.

[roddy]

Not long at all, and interesting. Imagine how dull life would have been if it'd just been a boring old French child who turned up...

[Lu]

I remember wondering if each character was somehow made up similarly as if one was to write an English word but squishing it all up into a little box, like with graph paper?

You were actually right, you know!

 

[Guest realmayo]

For me, my situation was basically the same as #1 except one year later, Wuhan not Wuxi, and after a couple of years I decided to go home, a decision I've long since regretted.

 

Lu/Melanie: that's Korean you're talking about

[Melanie1989]

Lu - haha, that's so cool, it's exactly what i'd thought! 

[MeiMay]

Chinese characters are made of simpler characters (radicals and sound characters) squished into a square box, but Korean is actually literally letters squished into a square box: each Korean constitute character corresponds to one sound and one sound only (except one which doubles as a placeholder character): every Korean character has 2-4 (and very rarely only one, in loan words) letters squished into a box, for example: 한 = ㅎ h + ㅏ a + ㄴ n = han. (my computer is showing Korean fonts as boxes right now so I had to type that blind, hopefully I didn't make a mistake.) So Korean is exactly like squishing the english letters han into a square box like

ha

ｎ

That's why Korean is the easiest Asian script to learn, even easier than the Western alphabet.

[HarujioN]

I don't have any reason from the past. All my reasons to learn Chinese are in the future from when I will have learned it.

[Adam_CLO]

I wanted to teach English in Asia, but also wanted to earn a salary that was worth something in North America. That narrowed my choices down to Taiwan, Korea and Japan. I figured that living in one of these countries would also give me a chance to learn the local language. Mandarin seemed like it would be more useful for me to learn over Korean and Japanese. 

[querido]

When I was a child the Klingons were Soviets and the Romulans were Chinese; that is, they were real, and my mother taught me to care for them, as a Good Samaritan. It turned out that the Federation wasn't real, and that I should have cared more for my own house, but that would be another topic. I started Russian late in life and two years was enough as by then we thought that the Klingons had been liberated. And so, I turned to the Romulans. I learned that their house was, in this context, divided - as mine had been - and I couldn't help empathizing with the weaker part. And as this communion will not end in my lifetime, the five year mission goes on...

[老马萍]

When  was a small girl I had a book called The Story About Ping.  Ping was a duck who lived on a fishing boat in the Yangtze.  It was a silly little book  but I clearly remember being fascinated by the Chinese boy in the story.  The only Chinese people I knew were the Moy family who ran the local laundry.  They were very friendly and always playfully spoke to me in Chinese.  Thus began my longstanding interest in the people and the culture of China.

 Over the years I made a few Chinese friends and on 2 occasions, 15 years apart, I took Beginning Chinese in the local community adult evening school.  I wanted to know why the language sounds the way it does.  That became clear but those brief  courses avoided any introduction to the writing system.  So for my 60th birthday, I decided to find a teacher and actually study the language.  The Chinese department at the local state university had one teacher.  She had never had a private student before but agreed to take me on, probably not expecting I would stick with it.  She insisted I learn to write from the beginning and I'm really glad she did. I met with her twice a week for 4 years.  We completed the Intergrated Chinese    series and had begun the Princeton Language Program series.

 Last spring her schedule changed so much she no longer had time to tutor me.  Since then I have been trying to muster the discipline to continue on my own with mixed success.  I volunteer as an English tutor for local immigrants and always request Chinese speakers since I am  familiar with the grammar and can speak well enough to communicate at a basic level.  Recently, I have been fortunate to start tutoring a woman  who taught Chinese in Beijing for 15 years.  We meet twice a week, once for English and once for Chinese.    It’s turned out to be a good arrangement  as I now have a weekly deadline for getting something done.

I’ve been to China twice.  Living there is not an option at this point in my life but I don’t think I’ll ever lose interest in the country, the  people and the language.