Why Chinese?

[trinifinn]

My mother's family emigrated from Guangdong 150 years ago (according to ship records), and I would say there is very little trace of Chinese heritage after 3-4 generations. My mother took a Chinese course in the 1960s during the Mao rage, so we had some textbooks on the bookshelf. I can't remember why exactly I started studying them and characters as a teenager, but I diverted to Japanese in university, but kept dabbling until a mid-career break with full-time study program in China.  

After learning various other languages Chinese is a great add on, now ranks in 5-6th place with German. (perhaps rather detached connection there -  always infuriates my wife 

[sweet potato]

Hi all,

Wow, licence to ramble!

For me learning Chinese was an uninteded consequence of failing to find a worthwhile career, which led me to travel, which led me to learning Chinese.

It could have been Russian if I didn't happen upon a Chinese teacher in my area on Gumtree. She was/is great and now 4 years later I'm studying in Guangzhou, on my 3rd trip to China.

My reason now is that it's a great hobby! I have no desire to make it anything else. It's an hobby which has taken me to some amazing places and led me to meet fantastic people. It's led me to learn more about a one of the most interesting and frustating countries on earth. Iv learnt so much more about my own country exploring the differences between us, from the workings of government to the nature of 'thank you'!

The act of learning has been such a relief when doing rubbish jobs. I hate that feeling of 'what have I really achieved today?' But with Chinese, my guitar and an outside to go running in, I usually am pretty content with my answer.

ramble over!

hope everyone is well, thanks!

[Hilde-07]

I started learning Chinese for fun, but in my first year we had a very good teacher and studying Chinese became a passion. So now I want to learn it very well and maybe next year I can visit Beijing.

[ric]

Thank you Roddy for the welcome and the help with understanding what I need to do. I came to this site because I wanted to start learning some conversational Chinese. I'm "online dating" a lady in China, who fortunately, speaks English pretty well. I have had a life long fascination with Chinese culture and cuisine. So much so that I decided to see if I could find a Chinese wife after divorcing a few years ago here in the US. I definitely want to visit China this year and I don't want to be just another uneducated American tourist.

I also believe very strongly in the idea of keeping your brain well exercised to maintain a sharp mind and intellect. It certainly can't hurt!

Thanks again for your help, I look forward to learning something new!

[pokey]

ric, I used to work and live in Atlanta, Georgia.  I quit my job, but the company head-hunted me back and took me over to China.  They offered foreign employees the chance to study Chinese several hours a week with a company provided teacher.  I can't imagine living there without learning it, there's something to going into a food shop where they don't speak English and being able to order the same food locals do.  Or having a basic understanding with some friendly local who approaches you and who can't speak English, yet is willing to work with your basic Mandarin.

[JohnLe]

I work for a multinational company and we opened a branch in Shanghai 5 years ago. I helped trained many of my Chinese coworkers and we have became closed friends. I will travel to Shanghai next year so I want to speak Chinese to suprise my coworkers. Currently I live in the US but I grew up in Vietnam. When I was younger, I read [in Vietnamese] many Chinese classics such as Journey to the West, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Water Margin, and of course many kungfu fictions like Condor Heroes and Adventures of ChorLeuHeung so I have a good understanding of Chinese culture and customs. I drive more than an hour to work so I thought why not spend my time learning Chinese and my ultimate goal is to be able to watch Chinese movies without English caption or Vietnamese dubbed. Currently I am using Pimsleur CDs and at level II right now. I am also taking an extension class at a local college and I hope to finish all three classes offered there. The pronunciation of Chinese is not too bad for me because Vietnamese is also a tonal language. My American classmates have difficulties with the tones. However, I have a real hardtime with memorizing the characters. I wished China has replaced the characters with Pinyin similiar to what Vietnamese have done with romanizing our writing. I am also happy to discovered that I already "know" a few Chinese words because they sound almost the same in Vietnamese. I guess we borrowed these words from China.

[the]

People always ask me this but honestly I have no idea. I typically respond with "So I can speak with you!" but there's no real reason.

[traunk]

Hi! I have been lurking for a little while now. I figured it was about time I get an account and participate.

 

Like some of you I started learning because of a girl.

 

I dated a Taiwanese girl for about two years before I even considered learning more than 我爱你. Then in 2003 she took me back home to meet the folks. I picked up a little bit from exposure there, and figured I could come back next time and have a real conversation with them.

 

I failed repeatedly at learning for a long time. In 2006 we started making friends who were from Mainland. Our cultural differences started to interest me. My why changed to "I want to learn Chinese so I can learn more about Chinese people."

 

Now that I have learned a little about a lot of Chinese culture and history, I am even more interesting in the language, for that reason, but I also want to be able to communicate with my friends in their native language, and participate in things like karaoke, story telling, and games that require me to speak some Chinese.

[smcullen]

I am also a long-time lurker. I generally feel that I have more to learn than I have to contribute. being a rookie Chinese learner.  I have loved Chinese history & culture since I was in school.  I am older now  and have raised my kids.  I learned French in school and began learning Spanish about 7 years ago. Now that I have a little more freedom I want to pursue something I've always wanted - to learn Mandarin and written Chinese.  

 

I've thoroughly enjoyed what I've learned so far and this has spurred me on to broaden my understanding.  I recently decided to plan a trip to China in about 2 years time.   If I had known learning a language was this much fun I would have invested time in it years ago.

 

And I have discovered that I really like the Chinese people I have met. They are so positive when they discover that I'm learning Mandarin. this spurs me forward and gives me a sense of duty to not let them down.

[roddy]

Good to see some newcomers introducing yourselves, hope you're all finding the site useful.

 

"I generally feel that I have more to learn than I have to contribute, being a rookie Chinese learner."

While I understand the sentiment, rookie Chinese learners are vital to this site, and while you might not be solving tough grammar problems or recommending native-level resources, you've still got plenty to contribute. Most of all, your questions. See my response to Melanie - another relative rookie. 

 

Anyone else not yet posted?

[Silent]

 

From what I have read, many people on this forum seem to already be quite proficient in Chinese, having learnt it in high school or in China. Am I the only one who is yet to learn it but is intending to?

I guess most people start looking for resources only the moment they start learning Chinese or afterwards. Consequently most people here will have at least some Chinese. This does not mean that they're all proficient. My impression is that levels strongly vary from absolute beginner to highly proficient and even some native speakers.

[Demonic_Duck]

Re: "I generally feel that I have more to learn than I have to contribute, being a rookie Chinese learner", I think a lot of us felt that way when we first joined. When I first found this forum, I certainly felt my level was at the extreme lower end of regular posters. Now, I'd say I'm around mid-range, and certainly have constructive things to add to a wide variety of discussions.

[smcullen]

Good point. I'll try to keep this point of view in mind.

[Base7]

I have always loved languages - I studied some Arabic for fun in high school when I found my mom's old college books (in French and German - those were the languages of academia back then, at least for the arts!) I also took a few courses of sign language when I was in college. My fascination with Chinese started when, as a grad student, I had a Chinese roommate who was learning Dutch. I helped her, and in exchange, she taught me some Chinese. I think I was very lucky to have her as my first teacher, because she was very persistent and adamant about me practicing my pronunciation, patiently explaining and correcting.

 

I dabbled a bit in Chinese for the next few years, then in 2009 I decided to get a bit more serious. So I got a language course (Pimsleur, I can recommend it!) and started learning characters (using Tuttle's book, again, recommended). I also got a language partner (since my roommate had moved on), and I have been studying in self-study ever since.

 

The most important reason for me to study is: it's fun! It's a fascinating language, and it is immensely satisfying to make progress. And, as a previous poster mentioned, it is good to keep your brain trained and practice your memory skills!

 

As for why Chinese, I can't really say. My roommate has something to do with it, but I have always found the far east interesting (I practiced karate and play go as well). I really like the Chinese culture (as far as I understand it, of course) and the people, both in China and abroad. And of course, the language itself is fascinating to me because it is completely unrelated to my other (Indo-European) languages, and the writing system is beautiful and elegant (though a pain to learn

[lowrijos13]

Hi there!

 

I've been guided here after making my first ever post begging to be given a Skritter voucher and I figure it does make sense to explain properly why I'm studying Chinese. When I was about 15, I bought three books to help me learn Chinese. It was very random, I just had an urge to learn something new. I ended up not making much use of them because exams came around quickly and then I was in sixth form and things just got busy. In my last year of school, I came across an amazing opportunity to take a year out before university with a charity called Project Trust (it's based in Scotland). They send school leavers to do different projects for a year all over the world and at first, I was set on Japan. While on the selection course, they gave us details about all the countries and we were interviewed so that they can match our personality to a country. One of the members of staff told me that the programmes in Japan were super competitive and I'd be better off choosing a different place. I looked at the list again and there it was, China. I went to the 'China room' where a woman was telling people about the country and the projects and it just sounded amazing. The culture, the food, the scenery and the language, all so beautiful! 

 

So, 10 months later, I found myself in the town of LiuJiaXia, about two hours away from Lanzhou, the capital of Gansu. I was teaching senior students oral English and holding two English Corners a week. I tried my hardest to learn Chinese but free time was scarce and if I did get free time, I spent it exploring or contacting home. Luckily, exploring gave me a basic knowledge of Chinese (I can order beef noodles and book train tickets) but I ended the year feeling a bit disappointed with how much I'd learned.

 

A couple of months after coming home, I decided not to dwell on my mistake of not learning while in China and just do it now. I made some Chinese friends at university, did a beginner's class and got those old books out from the cupboard. My learning's been slow with being a student and having other work to do, but it's now Summer so I can focus much more on Chinese. 

 

...and that's why I'm here! 

[roddy]

More newcomers, excellent. A warm welcome from all of us (I'm sure someone else will welcome you too....they're just a bit shy...)

[Johnny20270]

I think what interests me about the language is the country and the people. I always find China to be a crazy place and I have a love/hate relationship with it. I seem to go from amazement to flabbergasted at some of the colorful characters you find there. Beijing is a unique city and no doubt has spirit. I see it as the type of place that keeps me young yet would kill me at the same time. 

 

If you think about it, its not the normal people, the unassuming nor the conventional people that you ever remember in life.

 

I just came back from 2 weeks in Korea I wanted to like it. Its clean, nice, modern, advanced, polite but just seems to be missing that spark or that umph!  

[Demonic_Duck]

Beijing is a unique city and no doubt has spirit.

Four of them, actually: patriotism, innovation, inclusiveness, virtue (爱国、创新、包容、厚德).

[Wei]

Simple: out of love. (我的男朋友是中国人。)

 

We met 3 and a half years ago and we'll be getting married in September, now that it's is finally legal (我是他的男朋友...)

[yueni]

Oh, this post is pretty cool. It's really fascinating to see each person's journey towards a language.

 

Edit: Holy crap this post is long. TL;DR: Chinese is my heritage language. We moved to an English-only country when I was in my early teens. Stopped Chinese language education for 10 years. I learned about interpreting as a profession in high school. Decided to become an interpreter. Quit job, ran off to China to learn Chinese. Did a graduate degree in TI. Am now a professional interpreter. The End.

 

For me, Chinese is one of my heritage languages. In Singapore, all schooling is done in English, but all students (starting in Primary 1 or even kindergarten) start learning what is termed as their "mother tongue". In Singapore parlance, this is generally Mandarin Chinese if you are ethnically Chinese, Malay if you are ethnically Malay, and Hindi or Tamil (or Sikh or Punjabi too, I think) if you are ethnically Indian. I could actually have either learned Mandarin or Malay, because my father is Indonesian Chinese. He didn't speak any Chinese, but Bahasa Indonesia is really close to Malay; and my mother speaks Mandarin (and Cantonese, and some Teochew, and some Hokkien, and some Hakka, and some...). In the end, they decided for me to learn Mandarin. So I did.

 

I hated it. I was learning this stupid language (so I thought at the time) with a lot of students who actually spoke Mandarin or some other Chinese dialect at home all the time. As I was from an English speaking household (it is my parents' only common tongue), I was far behind the curve. Somehow I muddled through and actually tested into the Advanced Chinese courseload when I was in Primary 4, and that continued until I entered secondary school. About 6 months into Secondary 1, my parents moved the whole family to the US because of my dad's work.

 

At that time, I did continue Chinese lessons with a Chinese tutor from Taiwan for a couple years, for when we returned to Singapore. However, my dad's work made him a permanent employee in the US, so those lessons stopped. In a way, it was a good thing, because it wasn't like I was remembering anything I was learning. I wasn't really that interested, and we weren't plugged into the Chinese community, so it wasn't like I was actually using the language to communicate with anybody. I might as well have been learning Sumerian or Ancient Egyptian, for all the good it did me.

 

In high school in the US, we could choose from French, Spanish, and German, and I ended up taking German for all 4 years, and that choice actually changed my life. My German teacher is a supremely fascinating man. He used to work as an interpreter for the US Army during the Vietnam War. He was fluent in Russian, German, and Morse code, and was conversational in Vietnamese. He would tell us the most incredible stories, and that was the first time that I learned that being an interpreter was an actual career path. Blew. My. Mind. You see, my family and country are both multilingual. My dad speaks 4 languages fluently and can get by if needed in 2 more. My mother speaks at least 2 Chinese dialects fluently, and is conversational in 3 more. Singapore has 4 official languages, most people are conversational in at least 2 of them, if not more. I already spoke 2 more-or-less fluently, I knew enough of Malay and Cantonese to order food that wouldn't kill me, and I was passing conversational in a 4th language (aka German). It never occurred to me that anybody would actually need interpreters. With this new revelation, I decided that that was what I wanted to do.

 

I originally wanted to major in German in college, but my traditional Asian mother forced me into a more realistic major choice. I ended up doing Statistics and Mathematics and getting into banking, and hating my life for the duration. About a year after college, while I was busy hating my life and the entire banking industry, I decided I needed a career change, and after some soul-searching, returned to my high school dream of becoming an interpreter. I quickly realised that my German wasn't good enough, and neither was my Chinese. Due to 8 years of prior Chinese language education, I was farther along in my Chinese than my German, so I decided that to get to where I wanted to be, I would work on my Chinese first. Tried to do it on my own, but realised that my Chinese was far better than anything I could get help for in the US. So I decided to apply for the CSC scholarship and go to China. I found chinese-forums at that time.

 

In 2008, I applied for the scholarship and got it. So I quit my job and ran off to China for what was supposed to be one year. That turned into 2 years of just the most amazing time ever. My Chinese improved drastically the first three months I was in China, partly by necessity, partly because I was motivated. Took the old HSK and scored a 9 on it, and applied to graduate school for my MATI. When I returned to the US for graduate school, I quickly realised that my Chinese that I thought was so amazing in China, wasn't. So I studied my ass off. I spent the entire two years at grad school paranoid that my professors would kick me out of the program (like they threatened to do first semester) for shitty Chinese. 

 

I'm now a professional translator and interpreter for English & Chinese. I hope to add German to my arsenal at some point in the future. I don't think I'll ever get to a point where I will feel fully confident in my Chinese. Every time I think I've reached the peak of Chinese mastery, I only find that there is a long, long way to go. It's truly a case of "the more you know, the more you realise you don't know". There's so much more out there for me to learn, and that's what makes this so exciting!