What level does speaking start to become encouraging?

[amandagmu]

Honestly, looking back at on it now, the thing that motivated me the most to learn was having interest in a particular subject or wanting to do something. My first experience in Beijing I was at your level - I did 6 weeks at BLCU, it was rocky at times, I spoke a lot of English... at the time, things seemed to get slightly better without me knowing exactly when or how. In retrospect I'm fairly certain my obsession with gym, swimming, jogging (etc) helped. I wanted to tell people that I was training for marathons and triathlons and talk about gym-related things. Same thing happened the following summer in Dalian. When I went off to Taiwan, I was enrolled in the doctoral program and was absolutely determined to learn how to read the newspaper. (At that point I was already an intermediate level.) I also swam, ran, and cycled with numerous Chinese people in Taiwan who couldn't speak English, or couldn't speak it well, or preferred to not translate conversations into English when we were, e.g., cycling in a group through the mountains. It's probably unsurprising that I ended up writing about somewhat related topics for my dissertation... I had found something I was interested in.

 

I think many members of this forum have had the same experience: if you find something you REALLY want to talk about, or read, or whatever, you will suddenly throw yourself into a situation where learning the vocabulary and having to speak/understand becomes necessary. Now, I didn't say it would be easy, and I personally think everyone learns different, so you're going to have to probably do some combination of techniques that involve perhaps language exchange AND throwing yourself into uncomfortable situations where you have to use poor Chinese... For me, in Beijing and Dalian, that was things like trying to negotiate a gym contract with my crap Chinese, and trying to explain to the people in the gym why I didn't want 热水 (boiling hot water to drink) after spinning for an hour in a room with no fan. My escapades on the treadmill (I was marathon training and would run more than an 60 minutes at a good pace) also prompted curious questions from the staff and trainers. Other times I asked questions about what they liked to do, or what was on TV because I didn't understand it.

 

Also, I have a lot of fun watching TV shows like 非诚勿扰 (if you are the one dating show) and 职来职往 (people compete for real jobs) because, as someone else on here mentioned, there's so much in the body language/gestures/mannerisms that one can pick up on just by watching it. You don't need to understand most of it to get that part, and once you start understanding the tone and rhythm, combined with continued, diligent study of the basics, IMO, things will become easier. But it is not an overall easy process, and it will be extremely frustrating at times. That's why the carrot at the end was always so important for me. Without Chinese I could not have done my dissertation research, and could not have completed my PhD.

[abcdefg]

I think many members of this forum have had the same experience: if you find something you REALLY want to talk about, or read, or whatever, you will suddenly throw yourself into a situation where learning the vocabulary and having to speak/understand becomes necessary.

 

Agree 100%.

[DernierVirage]

My own way of getting over this hurdle was to become a "regular" in as many places as possible....for example, I always went to the same little place to buy 包子 every morning. I started by always ordering the same things, that way I got used to the owner's way of speaking (and vice versa). Little by little, we developed the relationship, just by naturally adding new things to the conversation. Because it became a regular contact, the feeling of fear disappeared and I gained a lot of confidence, which encouraged me to try saying new things....a snowball effect. After about a year, I was speaking pretty fluently with them, without even realising. The big advantage was that I knew that I would never be embarrassed in front of others when I went there, which made a big difference.

[Takeshi]

Speaking was encouraging for me... as soon as I can say my first words really.

 

Before I came to HK for the first time I had casually learnt a little bit of Cantonese because I thought it would be useful, and then I came. I was studying an English-language summer program with most of my classmates being mainlanders, so I didn't really get to use Cantonese that much. But in a sense that was good I guess. My Cantonese at the time was probably similar to the OT's Mandarin now, knows a bit, but not able to hold up a conversation.

 

Well, I still tried to use it as much as I could. Which was not very much. It mostly involved talking to bus drivers, restaurant staff, and supermarket staff. When I first arrived in HK I got lost on a bus but some communication with the bus driver and I got there in the end (actually, I don't know if we even managed to communicate orally; I had a picture of the place I wanted to go so he probably understood from that; I don't know if I understood him either). At our canteen I copied down the whole menu, and would look up the reading of a random new menu item so I know how to say it then ask for it the next day. When I was at the supermarket and I needed something, I'd often ask the supermarket staff where it is. Or maybe even if I planned on going to the supermarket to get something, I'd look up at home how to ask for it. I think I remember looking up what a plug converter was.

 

Those simple interactions made me so excited back when I was first starting. I don't know how, but I somehow progressed from that into being a fairly fluent speaker today.

 

EDIT: Well, I guess the thing is, it's encouraging when you see yourself make progress? It was encouraging for me to ask for the most basic of things in HK that time because it was the first time I ever put Cantonese words in my mouth really. But for you, maybe it's not encouraging because you are hitting a wall and that's all you can do. Once that became a norm, it would be encouraging to try to notice yourself using the language for new things you couldn't do before somehow I guess. Good luck!

[sthubbar]

Johnny20270,

 

  You are learning even if you don't understand.  It sounds incredible and is true.

 

  Increase your active exposure to the language and don't be concerned if you understand all those noises around you.  Your brain is a powerful meaning generating machine and is working hard to make sense of all the noise.

 

  The key word is "active".  There are numerous foreigners that spend years in China and may claim they are exposed to the language and don't learn anything.  I contend that they are no more exposed to the language then you are to the traffic noise around the city.  Our brains will tune out noise, and this includes unknown languages.

 

  Don't allow your brain to tune out the language around you.  Actively pay attention to the noise.  See if you can find anything interesting or any patterns in the sounds.  Try and see if you can recognize even a single word.  Your brain is learning much more than you think.

 

  Final advice, the standard answer in response to any sentence is "Right" 对

 

  Do you speak Chinese? Right

  Are you from X country? Right

  How long have you been in China?  Right

 

  Best of all, have fun, for example by going to watch movies in Chinese and paying attention.

 

[Manuel]

It took me 3 years to really start enjoying speaking the language. But that's because of my obsession with pronunciation.

[tysond]

 

 

You are learning even if you don't understand.  It sounds incredible and is true.

 

This is something that was a huge revelation to me when I first started to understand it.

 

We are unfortunately not taught in standard school curriculum how the brain actually learns.  So it can be a surprise to realize that consciously studying is just one learning technique.

 

Listening, really listening and trying to catch sounds in a language will train your brain to do this automatically, using techniques you DONT EVEN UNDERSTAND.  Your brain does not consciously understand how to analyze soundwaves and break them into initials, finals, tones.  But your automatic brain, that you cannot even access, can do this for you as a service and just supply the conscious brain with the post-anaysis data piece by piece (jin1 ... tian1) or even chunk by chunk (jin1tian1).  

 

A good way to get an understanding of this is through this article:  http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/sounds-you-cant-unhear/373036/ .

 

[AdamD]

Oh tysond, you have no idea how much that post helped me. Thank you. Thank you so very much.