Maintaining motivation while studying Chinese

[ablindwatchmaker]

 

So I wonder how often you actually hang out with Chinese people in your daily life?

 

Right now, not at all. It's a pain to communicate with the international students, so I don't bother. I would have to join some kind of structured group I really don't care to join just to meet them. If I did, I couldn't get them to stick to Chinese if I tried. Every time I've tried, they find ways to get around it, even if I tell them I just want Chinese. It becomes a chore for them, and they flat out don't want to do it. If I'm lucky, they might try to get me to do something in English for them, which ends up being more work than what they put in.  I'll just wait until I get to China where I can afford to hire tutors and can find plenty of Chinese people who don't speak English. I'm not going to bother with making Chinese friends here unless it happens naturally.

[stapler]

I agree with what you're saying. I also wouldn't be comfortable with those more contrived arrangements. I met my first Chinese friends a few years ago playing sport. I wasn't learning Chinese at the time and we only spoke English. Actually I didn't give a shit about China at that point. Only later from that as friendship circles expand until I was making friends with "friends of friends" and when there's a majority of Chinese they'll switch to Chinese. If you're going to China though I guess there's no real need for you to make friends at home.

 

This conversation reminded me of this article about a guy who learnt Blackfoot and Urdu. It covers a lot on "motivation"

 

https://growingparticipatorapproach.wordpress.com/what-me-worry-about-language-learning/

 

He lists a series of situations from most-likely to learn a language to least likely. The closer you can get to 1 the better!

 

 

By way of summary, the following nine scenarios illustrate a range of social contexts, arranged on a scale front the least challenging to the most challenging. Your exact situation is probably not in the list, but where would you place it on the scale which the list represents?

1. You live in a monolingual community with no other foreigners (except, say, your husband, John, and your four-year-old son, Eric), and the people are enthusiastic about you being there and want you to learn their language. There are a couple of bilinguals, who speak a language you already know in addition to their own, and they have agreed to help you learn for the first few weeks.
2. You live in a monolingual community with no other foreigners (except John and Eric), and the people are enthusiastic about you and want you to learn their language. There are no bilinguals whatsoever.
3. You live in a monolingual community with no other foreigners (except John and Eric), and the people are unfriendly toward you and indifferent toward you learning their language.
4. You live fifteen miles from a monolingual community in an English speaking town. A few bilingual people are willing to help you if you pay them enough.
5. You live in a largely bilingual community (the second language being one you know well, such as English), and the people are enthusiastic about you learning the local language.
6. You live fifteen miles from a largely bilingual community, and the people are enthusiastic about you learning their language.
7. You live fifteen miles from a largely bilingual community, and the people are unfriendly toward you and do not really want you to learn their language. Some people are vocally opposed to your learning the language, and some are willing to help you if you pay them.
8. You live thousands of miles from any community that uses the language you want to learn, but there are scattered (mostly bilingual) speakers around your city, and one speaker has agreed to help you.
9. You live thousands of miles from any community that uses the language you want to learn, and you can only find a single speaker, who, it turns out, is willing to help you.

[imron]

which involves listening and reading native material every day until you've learned 10 words and then stopping until the following day

Just remember that it's stop adding new words, not stopping your Chinese study for the day.  What I mean is that once you hit 10 words, don't close your books and say done.

 

Instead, make sure to read/listen back over what you learning until you can read/listen to it smoothly and with full understanding.  Also try speaking out loud the sentences that contain new words until you can say them comfortably without too many pauses and stumbles, and recording yourself to see where your mistakes are.

 

It's the latter part where learning will take place.  The first part is just finding out which words to learn.

[ablindwatchmaker]

 

Instead, make sure to read/listen back over what you learning until you can read/listen to it smoothly and with full understanding.  Also try speaking out loud the sentences that contain new words until you can say them comfortably without too many pauses and stumbles, and recording yourself to see where your mistakes are.

 

Absolutely. Ｔｈａｎｋｓ　ｅｖｅｒｙｏｎｅ　ｆｏｒ　ａｌｌ　ｏｆ　ｔｈｅ　ａｓｓｉｔａｎｃｅ　ａｎｄ　ｅｎｃｏｕｒａｇｅｍｎｔ．　Ｉ　ｔｈｉｎｋ　Ｃｈｉｎｅｓｅ　ｆｏｒｕｍｓ　ｓｈｏｕｌｄ　ｓｔａｒｔ　ａ　ｌａｎｇｕａｇｅ　ｔｒａｉｎｉｎｇ　ｐｒｏｇｒａｍ　ｌｏｌ．

Ｉ＇ｖｅ　ｌｅａｒｎｅｄ　ｍｏｒｅ　ａｂｏｕｔ　ｅｆｆｅｃｔｉｖｅ　ｓｔｕｄｙｉｎｇ　ａｎｄ　ｄｉｓｃｏｖｅｒｅｄ　ｍｏｒｅ　ｒｅｓｏｕｒｃｅｓ　ｏｎ　ｔｈｉｓ　ｗｅｂｓｉｔｅ　ｔｈａｎ　ａｎｙｗｈｅｒｅ　ｅｌｓｅ．　

[Lu]

Shift+space bar to switch back to half shape, in case you hadn't figured it out :-)

[ablindwatchmaker]

Haha! I actually didn't know how to get that off. Thanks!

[victorhart]

I'm hesitant to give advice since I know so little Chinese and I have "studied" it so little. But I do have a decent amount of experience learning and teaching languages.

 

So here's my suggestion. Keep doing everything you're doing, but add daily a dose of listening without subtitles. Don't consider it studying, but just do it to wind down and de-stress. 

 

15 minutes of Qiao Hu 

2 episodes of Boonie Bears or something along those lines

15-30 minutes of quality Chinese movies or other programming for adults that you enjoy, without subtitles

 

I bet you will notice a lot of synergies and a big difference after just a few months.

[ablindwatchmaker]

 

I bet you will notice a lot of synergies and a big difference after just a few months.

 

No question, try 5 minutes. When I practice listening at all, I almost always hear a word I've recently learned or one that was in passive vocabulary. The other day I was watching " A Journey to the West" and the protagonist yelled "小姑娘！“ and now the word is firmly entrenched. This happens to me all of the time.

 

Btw, can anyone on here explain this word: 没涵

 

We went over it in class, and I think It means sissy, but I'd like a foreigner's take on it.

[stapler]

I'm having a day where I suddenly felt like I haven't achieved much despite all my hard work. Last night I had a French interview on in the background - subtitled because I don't understand any French. I wasn't watching the screen or reading the subtitles. However I could still follow a lot of the conversation just from picking up a lot of nouns that sound pretty similar in English. More than that, the phonemes were all very clear, even the grammar felt more familiar (despite not actually understanding anything). I then suddenly thought "wow, after 3 years of Chinese, I'm still at this same level with French, a language I don't even know" - by the same level I mean I can't understand much, just pick out enough key words to understand the conversation. So disheartening. The salt in the wound came today when I tried to write a long message in Chinese and I just got a "??" response....

[ablindwatchmaker]

 

I then suddenly thought "wow, after 3 years of Chinese, I'm still at this same level with French, a language I don't even know"

 

I know the feeling. This semester I've been asking other Chinese majors at my uni as well Chinese minors what their plans are after graduation. I'd say 9/10 of both groups have no intention of going to China or to continue with Chinese. For people restricted to studying outside of China, the brutal truth is that the vast majority of people, for various reasons (mainly time investment and willingness to live abroad), have no chance of ever attaining serious proficiency in the language. I blame these unrealistic expectations on the media and certain language learning gurus who spend a huge amount of hours in a short period of time developing a superficial and limited understanding of the language, what I like to call "baby Chinese." Unfortunately, this isn't obvious in the beginning because, as with everything, gains come quickly in the first 250 hours (4 uni semesters) of formal study and then come much slower from that point on. All that being said, there is hope for most people, but with conditions.

 

You've got to go to China, actively study, and have access to regular tutoring or instruction, for a long time. I think it's incredibly unrealistic for people to expect to achieve adult-level competency in all aspects of Chinese without living in China for a few years and spending a lot of time on intensive study. A lot of people think they can do other things and treat mandarin like a hobby, but it doesn't work, at least not within a time frame that most people would consider reasonable. It's hard to treat Mandarin like a side project until one attains a fairly advanced foundation.

 

Anyone willing to go live in China and study the language seriously has nothing to worry about, but they shouldn't expect to work a normal job, study a few hours a week, and be able to really use Chinese the way adults use language on a day to day basis. It ultimately depends on one's goals, but I think that if the goal is the ability to consume media and communicate like an adult, a willingness to live abroad and study Mandarin is a must. Some people will make all kinds of exceptions, which are true in a perfect world, but don't apply to 99% of people.

 

At the end of the day, it's still fun to learn and you can put yourself in a great position to pick up the language quickly after you go abroad. I had three years under my belt, and one summer of half-way intensive study was enough to profoundly improve my Chinese. One or two more years, and I'd probably be able to read newspapers and watch TV now.

[Flickserve]

University courses (undergrad) rarely bring student up to the level of 'expert'. It's not just chinese but any subject such as accounting, business, pharmacology, medicine. Postgraduate experience and study counts for a lot.

As for not doing chinese after graduation, you should also survey what jobs people do after they have graduated. A large number do a job unrelated or slightly related to their degree.

As a student, the path to the future is uncertain. Especially in the final year when people start thinking 'oh I have to get a job' rather than have the security of an educational insitution around them.

What you learn may not seem relevant. However, lot of it is about learning where to find the information as well as knowing it. So, research, process, analysis, writing logical conclusions etc are all essential skills for the future. But I am definitely sure that many people across the world have learnt things that they never use later in life. Then again, they have learnt things they thought they would never use and suddenly use it again.

I learnt mandarin at a chinese school once a week. Learnt very little and came out with a bit of pinyin and learning stroke order of characters. 12 years later I am in Hong Kong - totally unexpected - stayed in HK for another 20years (only supposed to stay a year maximum!). Now learning mandarin again (strange behaviour).

If you asked me as an undergrad how my life would turn out, how my degree would affect my life, nobody, least of myself, could have predicted.

So keep going. It may not seem relevant nor useful. It's only a few more months. Don't worry how good your chinese is at the end of the degree but just do you best at what's left. After graduation, brush up on areas which you want to work on which seems to be communication. Work on presentation skills because this is a very important skill in working life. I have seen good people make bad impressions because of poor presentation skills.

Good luck.

(Edited to correct autocorrect typos....)

[imron]

Don't worry, you're not alone, and it's something that happens to everyone.  This is one of the reasons why Chinese is hard - because it's difficult to see results (compared to other languages) and easy to get disheartened and give up.

 

The only thing to do in this situation is have faith that regular, daily study is slowly improving your Chinese.  Instead of comparing your Chinese with other languages, try looking back at some material you thought was difficult 6 months ago and see how easy or difficult you find it today.  If you've been doing regular study, hopefully you will find it far less difficult and maybe even easy.

[ablindwatchmaker]

 

try looking back at some material you thought was difficult 6 months ago and see how easy or difficult you find it today.

 

As a little test I just went and looked at some headlines on the people's daily website. I know virtually all of the individual characters and understood a great deal of the headlines. Additionally, I've found that I've finally reached the point where vocabulary is the only limitation to understanding written material. Pretty awesome. My speaking skills may have stagnated here in the states, but my reading and writing are getting up there. I think another year at this pace will finally bring me to a somewhat functional level.

[Pokarface]

Make friends with the international students you find (or strangers)! Don't think it's bothersome.

Talk to them every day, those who want to work on language exchange will keep talking to you, the others will ignore you. Ask for their QQ, WeChat.

 

You need to find at least 1 that's willing to help and become your friend. I'm not telling you to be a social butterfly either  . You had prospects of a career in China, don't you think having Chinese friends that will return home after graduating might ease finding a job in China?

 

I still speak with some of the students I met on my local campus.

Even though I never attended their University, LMAO!     

 

Me at a Sichuan food restaurant.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qcmDRDos_Y

 

me walking around campus (most already returned to China  )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B84gu8xfDkw

 

You see, I wouldn't give you advice that I don't follow.

Constant compliments, seeing how long can I carry a conversation, and learning from mistakes gives me motivation . 

 

Just finish your degree with decent grades and push your career towards whatever you want to do with it  .

Prove potential employers that you focused on what you wanted in life instead of writing essays about boring topics (okay, maybe you don't want to mention that during a job interview, haha!)

[ablindwatchmaker]

 

try looking back at some material you thought was difficult 6 months ago and see how easy or difficult you find it today.

 

I just watched the video and found it hilarious! Your comment about the women being beautiful had me laughing hysterically rofl. I've said the same thing to Chinese women in China many times. When I was in China I spoke to people as much as I could and had an awesome time. At UT it's a lot different though. I can't really put my finger on it, but outside of restaurants its hard to find willing language partners. Another problem is that by the time you get to the fourth year of study you are so inundated with work that there is zero time for self-study and fun. Watching this video has me excited about going back to China though and getting to do this again. Are you in China yet?

 

If you keep up at this pace you'll be pretty good within the next year or so, and a lot better than most people studying at uni within the same time frame. Universities load you up with huge amounts of homework, grammar exercises, and character writing--I would advise getting started on characters pretty soon though.