Why a brainiac with 0 external stimuli would study chinese?

[werewitt]

I mentioned elsewhere that my motivation to continue learning Chinese has been flagging recently. I guess it is one of those "post-beginner" platoes  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

 

The minimalist background: I am a not extremely social GTD-driven nerd. Chinese was meant to continuously tickle my brain, and gods do I love a good intellectual problem - 5 years of pure math at a uni back in Russia, just after the Soviet Union has collapsed. Blessed times! 

 

So, learning Chinese was a mentally challenging task in its first year, but at the current stage it appears to have boiled down to dumb memorising of words / phrases. There isn't even an interesting grammar, they all appear to be a few general concepts followed by f*cktons of exceptions. I have discovered a couple of grammars though (one in Russian, heh) that still hold some promise, not entirely sure yet.

 

Chinese got me through a year of what would otherwise have got boring pretty quickly, but spending another 5 years of drilling words/chars before being able to read a teen-level book is somewhat discouraging. Maybe start Classical Chinese? At least it will be intellectually challenging again, I hope. Other languages? Lojban ?

 

So the main question - learning Chinese kinda became a habit, no external stimulus whatsoever apart from my half-joke prediction of China invading Australia, one way or another, in 5-10 years!. But to continue learning, I need to discover new beautiful things in the language. A brainiac's concept of "beautiful" is "it feels the same as when you prove an elegant theorem (or read a good book, but this appears out of the question)". How do I find that intellectual joy in learning Chinese, and does it even exist??? (Obviously I'm pouring this all down because I have a bit of hope it does exist still left.)

 

[889]

You either go to China, where you may start to get some positive feedback that'll encourage you. At the moment you're like a budding comedian that's never heard the laughter and applause of an audience. Performing before a mirror is deadly.

 

Or you give up Chinese and do something else.

 

But it doesn't sound like continuing on your current track will get you anywhere you want to be.

[werewitt]

On 2017/6/3 at 0:32 PM, 889 said:

But it doesn't sound like continuing on your current track will get you anywhere you want to be.

That's the thing - I'm perfectly fine and comfortable now (and for at least the following 10-20 years, sans hitting a bit of demotivation in learning Chinese). I don't want to be anywhere else.

[889]

"I'm perfectly fine and comfortable now."

 

Then I'm sorely misreading between the lines of your posts here.

 

 

[werewitt]

On 2017/6/3 at 0:47 PM, 889 said:

Then I'm sorely misreading between the lines of your posts here.

You are. I'm just getting bored doing something I expected to bring me joy for years to come - learning Chinese. And being somewhat a person of action, am considering what to do about it.

[Cake]

In my opinion, you can get more satisfaction out of doing something really well versus doing many things halfway. 

 

I would encourage you to consider that you don't know how much you'll like putting a year into leaning an undecided different language, and with that being said, why not take a chance on discovering how good you could feel when you reach the next level of proficiency in Chinese?

 

Still, the desire to continue can't come from anywhere but within you. I can't tell you what a year of time you've already invested is worth to you.

[imron]

3 hours ago, werewitt said:

but at the current stage it appears to have boiled down to dumb memorising of words / phrases

How much do you actually try to use the language?

 

Are you just memorising word lists or are you also doing things like trying to watch TV shows, reading graded readers, going to meetups and talking to people in Chinese (shouldn't be a problem in Sydney) etc.

 

You can't avoid the drudge of memorisation if you ever want to achieve literacy, but you can be taking steps to use the language.

 

Finally, see also this thread for an example of someone considering giving up, but then persevered and finally started seeing the results of their effort.

[Guest realmayo]

7 hours ago, werewitt said:

learning Chinese was a mentally challenging task in its first year

 

An analogy might be taking up a team sport in order to keep fit. First, you've got to enjoy it. Second, if you actually want to be good at it, you'll have to spend a lot of time practicing technical skills which won't actually improve your fitness. Otherwise, you're better off just running or going to the gym.

[Shelley]

I think you are not stretching yourself enough. I agree with imron, do more than just studying the books.

 

For me the joy comes from looking at a paragraph or a page of Chinese characters in my text book or any book at my level or just above and thinking I can't read this!? Then when I get to the end without many tears and have understood and comprehended it, that is my WOW moment,  "I can do this" and when my friends see that page and to them it is complete gibberish I also have a "yes I can do this" moment because I realise it is my hard work that I can do it, they didn't put in the effort, they can't do it

 

As you are a mathematician, the joy is probably in the solving of the problem not the problem itself. I think chinese is a problem that can't be solved the same way. It is long process with no actual solution. I don't think there is an end to learning chinese, it is a lifelong affair.

 

Many learners of Chinese reached this point where effort in does not equal the same results out that it did when you first started. You just need to continue working at it.

 

I write this post not knowing if it will be ignored, I hope not. I would like to encourage you to carry on but only you can make this decision. Happiness and joy come from within, I wish you well.

 

 

[werewitt]

22 hours ago, Shelley said:

I write this post not knowing if it will be ignored,

Don't worry, apparently they never meant to turn the ignore feature of the forum software on and quickly turned it off when I pointed out it was a bit unequal wrt different users https://www.chinese-forums.com/forums/topic/54290-cant-ignore-users/

[werewitt]

22 hours ago, Shelley said:

As you are a mathematician

I've always worked in a somewhat different field TBH. And I've just found a great quote from another nerd that describes what kind of problems I like and what I wanted to find in Chinese:

Quote

As a kid, I loved math. It had this neat quality, because everything was connected. You memorize that 3 × 4 is 12, and then you learn that 4 × 3 is also 12, and eventually you start realizing that you can switch the order of any two numbers you’re multiplying. You see that 3 × 4 and 4 × 3 are examples of something much larger— some abstract, floating pattern known as multiplication— and every new example helps you hold more of that giant floating pattern in your head. That pattern changes and becomes more subtle and nuanced with every little fact you learn. Soon you begin to see the connections between multiplication and division, and multiplication and exponents, and multiplication and fractions. Eventually, your giant floating pattern of multiplication becomes part of a bigger floating pattern— a universe of math. As long as I could connect every new thing I learned to this universe, I had an easy time with math.
...
It was so much easier if you could see how all the pieces interrelated— how multiplication connected with the area of rectangles, how the area of rectangles connected with triangles and trapezoids, and how the volume of prisms connected back with multiplication. I didn’t have to memorize formulae; they were just examples of something much, much larger.

It's from https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IBZ405W/ - The "methods" in his book are nothing new or special - not worth buying for language study, but I like the way how he sometimes lapses into sheer poetry  

 

To summarise, it would be sad for me to find out that learning Chinese is similar to train to run in marathon competitions.

[Shelley]

I have to say it is probably more like training to run a marathon but without actually running a marathon at the end because IMHO the training never stops. HOWEVER this should not put you off as it is a problem that will tickle your brain for the rest of your life. You should be looking for the joy in the small victories, won day by day instead of looking to win the marathon at the end.

 

If you can't find the way to do this maybe you should pick one of the unsolved maths problems and spend the rest of your life trying to solve one. Pick from the millennium list or one of many others https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems_in_mathematics

 

I think this would put you in the same situation though, working at a puzzle/problem without any idea that you will find the solution but using knowledge you are familiar with. So think of learning chinese as another maths problem just using a different set of symbols and rules. For me maths is almost like another language and learning the symbols opens the doors.

I think you have reach a point where you experiencing the law of diminishing returns. Your reward = hard work feedback loop has got stuck. It requires perseverance, hard work, and wanting to do it.

 

As someone who learns chinese for sheer pleasure, my motivation is my love of "solving this problem" everyday victories, and looking back to when I started and seeing my progress,these things fuel my desire to continue. I have never really become depressed or unhappy with my progress because it is only my efforts, so if I haven't put in the effort how can I expect results, so work harder

 

 

 

 

[eddyf]

I don't really think there's anything elegant about Chinese in a mathematical sense. It has a high degree of arbitrariness. All languages are that way. Why do certain sounds mean certain things? No good reason. It was just the outcome of thousands of years of language evolution. Linguistics and grammar are our imperfect attempt to find a low-dimensional way of describing the outcome of this fundamentally arbitrary process. There's certainly some structure to be found there, but it doesn't get you very far. Once you account for that structure you're still left with a long tail of high-entropy information that has to be learned bit by bit.

 

The good news is that our brains are really good at learning languages as compared to learning other kinds of arbitrary information. It's an instinct. Then again, maybe that's why languages are so complicated--because they can be and yet humans still manage to learn them.

 

So I don't think a search for elegance can be a sustainable motivation for studying Chinese. It needs to be something else, like an appreciation for the culture that it gives you access to, or simply a feeling of accomplishment from doing something that took a lot of effort.

[werewitt]

I've realised this morning that I've been treating learning Chinese as some sort of work. And am suspecting that most people learning Chinese are doing the same - learning it in order to get a job, a promotion at work, a scholarship... talk to rich Chinese customers... not out of pure love for the language. Plus some live in China (and are not stuck in the "expats" world - good for them). 

 

I don't want to do any of the above, for reasons similar to the ones described in http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html. Don't get me wrong, the joy was there initially, but it's all but disappeared and, to quote Paul Graham,

Quote

 

If your work is not your favorite thing to do, you'll have terrible problems with procrastination. 

 

 

So if there is anyone who learned Chinese out of pure joy brought by the language (including those who later got a job related to the thing they love - Chinese - kudos to you!) and they feel like sharing their drivers, I'd appreciate it.

[werewitt]

13 hours ago, eddyf said:

I don't really think there's anything elegant about Chinese in a mathematical sense. It has a high degree of arbitrariness. All languages are that way.

I think you're right. The only languages I learned for pleasure are various dead ones. They are smaller (at least the commonly learned parts are), and have a long history of teaching. As a result, they have a great pedagogical selection of texts from original sources for all degrees of learning, and one of benefits of this is that the learner feels he's actually getting somewhere all the time. Biblical plus Middle East languages - thanks to Protestants, Latin and Ancient Greek - due to 2000 years history of teaching. So naturally I was expecting something similar.

 

When learning Chinese - the most popular materials available are dead boring - if not dumbed down to a beginner's level then focused on preparing the reader for work or student life in PRC  我不管！My current hypothesis is that Taiwanese-published courses, or classical Chinese ones published in US would be significantly more interesting. Traditional characters though...

 

I sorta like Integrated Chinese, possibly because it is published in USA, and the publisher is from Taiwan, so there is a little less focus on "working in China". I guess I'll try some more of Cheng&Tsui books e.g. https://www.cheng-tsui.com/browse/reading-into-a-new-china-2e.

 

13 hours ago, eddyf said:

So I don't think a search for elegance can be a sustainable motivation for studying Chinese. It needs to be something else, like an appreciation for the culture that it gives you access to

That's my other working hypothesis, although I'm getting an impression most people learn Chinese for practical/monetary reasons - here's a second iteration of my search for motivation.

One other possibility - to discover the Chinese system of metaphors and view on things. Even at my rather low level I noticed a few intriguing things about it. That system appears to be much closer to my native Russian one than the quite alien Western-Protestant one embodied in English.

 

13 hours ago, eddyf said:

or simply a feeling of accomplishment from doing something that took a lot of effort.

Totally not my case, I'm not a masochist or an "achiever" at all .

[imron]

3 hours ago, werewitt said:

here's a second iteration of my search for motivation.

Merged it with this one.  Lets not have two topics essentially discussing the same thing.  Also deleted a couple of off-topic posts. 

 

Anyway.

 

3 hours ago, werewitt said:

although I'm getting an impression most people learn Chinese for practical/monetary reasons

 

And that most people learning Chinese are doing the same - learning it in order to get a job, a promotion, a scholarship... not out of pure love for the language.

 

I think this is wrong.

 

I don't think anyone really learns it for monetary reasons unless they haven't really thought the matter through or unless they are from a country that is less developed than China.

 

For the same amount of time and effort there are better monetary returns on investment.

 

There might be people who learned it out of love/interest and later made use of their skills to earn money, but I doubt money was the primary reason.

[werewitt]

7 hours ago, imron said:

I don't think anyone really learns it for monetary reasons unless they haven't really thought the matter through or unless they are from a country that is less developed than China

I didn't say they wanted to work in China. You'd be surprised how much money the Chinese customers throw around, both retail and business. Just look at Australia's big cities and mining industry. China has been essentially ahead of US for a while, plus its recent dumping of US debt (and citizens' buying $ ) only made it a richer foreign customer.

 

Re motivation there are some good nuggets here, but you cannot read it anyway  

 

So what was your motivation @imron?

[Flickserve]

52 minutes ago, imron said:

There might be people who learned it out of love/interest and later made use of their skills to earn money, but I doubt money was the primary reason.

 

Absolutely agree.

[Balthazar]

@werewitt

 

"So if there is anyone who learned Chinese out of pure joy brought by the language (including those who later got a job related to the thing they love - Chinese - kudos to you!) and they feel like sharing their drivers, I'd appreciate it."

 

I think you would be well served to spend some of your posting time on something more introspective, say meditation or taking long walks.

 

You started learning Chinese hoping that it would enrich your life by providing a certain kind of "beautiful logic" that you have only recently discovered it probably will not be able to.

 

You are now discouraged, and seek other people's help in order to find a motivation to keep learning the language (or the strength to call it quits).

 

Do you actually believe it is possible to emulate other people's "drivers" to rediscover your initial joy, or to find a "rational" reason for learning Chinese that will allow you to stay motivated? Beyond the difficulty of accepting sunk costs (in that most valuable currency of time), I am surprised to see this almost desperate search (hidden behind irony and smirk) for a justification for not giving up, especially since you've tried to portray yourself as a cool-headed rationalist. (I am also surprised that you would seek help from a community you view as little more than a social club.) If you don't find any pleasure in learning the language and do not expect this to change once you actually reach a higher level, if you think your time would be better invested elsewhere, then I strongly encourage you to move on to something else. If you are still undecided, I recommend taking a break to think things over on your own.

[陳德聰]

Language enthusiast here: there is no beautiful intellectual challenge inherent to language learning. Almost any benefit I have ever reaped from proficiency has been social or economic, not intellectual. Except maybe the very rare realisation that something I never noticed before happens to have a 規律 when I thought it was random/arbitrary.

 

I don't think I am ever like oh wow it's so intellectually stimulating that some characters capture x y and z historical oddity in their composition, nor am I like golly jee I feel my intellect confirmed by the fact that I know how to form a sentence or that I know whatever trivial backstory a certain 成語 has.

 

I guess I am not sure I understand why you wouldn't pursue studies in linguistics if you're only marginally interested in the social aspect of language but seem more interested in the science behind it. I found it much more stimulating than the mindless drone of language learning, though I mean I also just happen to enjoy the language learning part because I am social.