Any heritage Chinese learners here?

[coolwind]

I am really interested in topics related to Chinese heritage language learners, such as your identities, your learning motivation, your challenges/opportunities, etc.

No matter you study in China or you are in your home country now, now matter how old you are, I am happy to connect to heritage Chinese language learners to listen to your story of Chinese learning and use. 

I am looking forward to your private message.

Thanks!

[ChTTay]

Why not share in this thread so it becomes an open discussion rather than a private message? ?

[agewisdom]

1. Learning Motivation

Get literate and educated. It sucks not being able to understand fully what's being said in movies and TV series (and comics!) and having to rely on subtitles. Being illiterate despite being old is a big annoyance as well I can speak and understand basic Mandarin but couldn't barely write any characters other than my own name.

 

2. Challenges

Finding the time to get off my butt to do something about it. Now that I've finally started, there are times when the motivation dips off, so having a sticking to a minimum routine e.g. Tofu Learn daily streaks on writing and recognition of chinese characters helps a lot.

 

3. Opportunities

Plenty. Having people speak to me in Mandarin all the time and speaking to them in Mandarin helps a lot. I find about 35% of the pronunciation and meaning is easily understood, so the bulk of the effort goes into trying to remember the written characters.

 

Technology is also incredibly advanced these days, so with various apps, learning Mandarin is really much easier with the smartphone.

 

With some effort, it took me about 2 months to finish learning up to HSK Level 2 characters. HSK 3 is proving to be somewhat more challenging as there's the burden of ensuring that I don't forget the first 300 characters whilst learning the other 300+ characters in HSK Level 3, but I'm sure  I can get there.

 

Cheers

[feihong]

OP, can you elaborate on why you want private messages? This is a public forum after all, and the topic doesn't seem like it needs to be private.

 

Motivation: I'm Chinese, I should know more about my own culture.

 

Challenges: Living in a predominantly English-speaking country, there's almost zero opportunity to practice the language in a natural setting.

 

Method: I'm not really learning Chinese any more, but more just enjoying it as a hobby. Currently reading 明朝那些事儿 (satirical book about the history of the Ming dynasty), and hope to start Jin Yong afterwards. I watch a number of reality TV shows such as 梦想的声音. I run a Chinese meetup in Chicago. I listen to quite a bit of Chinese music.

[Flickserve]

On 12/15/2018 at 11:18 AM, coolwind said:

 

I am really interested in topics related to Chinese heritage language learners, such as your identities, your learning motivation, your challenges/opportunities, etc.

 

 

Why are you interested?

[coolwind]

I am a novice here and I dont know how to reply to a specific person.....

 

On 12/16/2018 at 4:22 AM, ChTTay said:

Why not share in this thread so it becomes an open discussion rather than a private message? ?

Thats fine with me actually... actually I am still learning how to use this forum...haha

 

On 12/16/2018 at 1:52 PM, Flickserve said:

Why are you interested?

Good question... one of the reasons is that I saw many second or third generation of Chinese have mixed feelings of (learning/using) Chinese. I want to know what they think.

 

On 12/16/2018 at 4:34 AM, agewisdom said:

 

Chee

Thank you for your such long and detailed reply. It makes me think a lot. May I ask what school year are you in? High school? Undergrad? or other? If it is not private for you.

 

On 12/16/2018 at 6:19 AM, feihong said:

Chinese meetup

So am I right that this is one of a main opportunity for you to practice and use Mandarin? Xiexie

[Lu]

9 hours ago, coolwind said:

I am a novice here and I dont know how to reply to a specific person...

You're doing fine! I see you already found out how to quote. If you want to ping someone, you can write @ and then their name. It will look like this: @coolwind.

 

I took the liberty of combining your five posts into one, to simplify things.

[agewisdom]

9 hours ago, coolwind said:

Thank you for your such long and detailed reply. It makes me think a lot. May I ask what school year are you in? High school? Undergrad? or other? If it is not private for you.

 

I'm no longer in school. Working already...

I'm guessing you're a heritage learner as well?

 

I think Mandarin language is pretty cool. Just too lazy too learn it whilst in Primary school and never got around learning after that. Technology was also a great limitation. For instance, those printed textbook characters were too small. And the intonations, having to use tapes...

 

Even desktop learning wasn't convenient enough.

 

The smartphone and the advent of apps such as Tofulearn, TCB, DuChinese, Chineseskill, Zizzle etc. is such a godsend. It's really so much easier to learn Mandarin now.

[Flickserve]

9 hours ago, coolwind said:

Good question... one of the reasons is that I saw many second or third generation of Chinese have mixed feelings of (learning/using) Chinese. I want to know what they think.

 

Since you have met them, did you ask them?

[feihong]

@coolwind In Chicago, there's really only one monthly meetup for Chinese, and I run it. Ostensibly there are other Chinese meetups, but they don't seem to be doing anything. I should mention that Chicago is a very cosmopolitan city, and other language meetups seem to thrive here, but Chinese seems to the lone exception among major world languages? If there truly is a Chinese learning bubble, it never reached the Midwest.

 

Practicing once a month barely helps at all, so the majority of my speaking practice comes from conversations with the parents. My speaking skills have been degrading for a while.