Timeline or success stories?

Hello,

I was wondering if any of the people here have any success stories or a timeline regarding their Chinese learning progress. Im curious as to how long it takes native english speakers to do the following:

1. Watch Chinese news and be able to totally follow it.

2. Read an entire Chinese article without having to use a dictionary

3. Have a normal conversation in Chinese beyond the standard, "What is your name? What do you study? Where do you live? What do you do for fun?"..etc..

4. Watch and understand a Chinese movie from beginning to end.

Also, when it comes to characters, can you physically write our every word or character that you know? I mean really "write it out", not just be able to recognize it using a pinyin input program on your computer...I dont know about the rest of you, but studying Chinese is makes me feel retarded sometimes. Im no genius, but Im not an idiot either. Ive recently graduated college with a 4.0 GPA, but studying Chinese is making me seriously question my intelligence..haha This is my first time Ive ever really tried to learn a foreign language (the obligitory Spanish in high school doesnt count..we all just cheated our way through that anyway..(sh) )Ive been studying it for a few months and it gets frustrating sometimes. I go through periods when I think Im doing well, then I turn on some Chinese news or try to read a Chinese newspaper and get shot down to reality. My favorite thing is when I forget how to write a character I thought I had "mastered" just a few days earlier! I just want some sort of timeline from other people regarding when they were able to do certain things in Chinese...Perhaps some inspiring success stories would do the trick. Do the rest of you go through periods of feeling encouraged followed by times of frustration and despair?haha Thanks in advance.

Mandarinstudent, you're definitely not alone! I feel very much the same way you do. I find speaking and listening quite simple. However, my 词汇 is still very low. On the other hand, I find reading and writing to be very hard.

At first I was only good at listening, and was able to understand what was being spoken. But I could not say anything correctly. (Pronunciation was no problem, just the way I organized my sentences.)

I soon began to speak more and more. Because I my school does not offer Chinese classes, I would search for even the tiniest opportunity to speak in Chinese, even if it was the classic "speak to them in Chinese, get a response in English".

Once I felt comfortable speaking, I began reading articles in Chinese. (I had learned 拼音 way from when I was just listening to the language.) Reading a short article was no problem, I would just read it over and over until I felt comfortable. However, going on www.people.cn (人民日报) and reading daily newspaper articles was a common smackdown to reality. For one thing, my 词汇 was so low, and another thing was that I had not learned the grammatical structures that are used in this kind of writing.

I would try to write on my own time, because no one bothered to help me with the process. Because of this, I have bad habits of writing strokes out of order. I would write stuff over and over, and forget it the next day. (You're not the only one!) What I find helpful now is to visualize the character in my vocabulary lists, and write it down. I will compare it to the list and see if I'm right. If not, I will observe the radicals and other parts of the characters. Then I will just try again.

I have my days when I feel comfortable communicating in Chinese (whether it be reading, writing, listening, or speaking). However, a common smackdown will bring me back down to Earth.

Despite all of these problems, I have had a few moments of success. I have been teaching Chinese to 4th, 5th, and 6th graders in my town. I also was a translator for a guest to our town from 山东省实验小学. However, this translating opportunity was a smackdown in itself, because the Americans I was translating for would say, "WHAT?! You don't know how to say BLUEBERRY JELLY ON WHEAT BREAD TOAST?" It made me feel stupid, but they're the actual stupid ones for not making an effort to study this magnificent language.

What is it like taking Chinese classes everyday? Is it helpful? I can't wait till college!

Oh, Im not taking chinese classes, Im self studying. Long story on why and how... I guess its irrelevant. My major in college was Finance. Long story short, I ususally pick up on things pretty quickly, but Chinese is definitely not the case here...or maybe I am picking it up relatively quickly and it is all in my head...hence the request for a timeline from people that have already mastered Chinese.

Learning potonghua reinforces one's humility. I, too, study alone. Using Pimsleur, I can be understood, but I have a greater problem understanding what others say in Chinese.

I watch Chinese movies but grasp only a few words. Then, I go through the movie again, listening more intently, sometimes backing up the movie for repetition. I gradually understand more.

However, there appears to be such variation in dialect that my Chinese friends correct me when I articulate the pronunciation which I heard in the movie.

I think that learning Chinese is like climbing the tallest mountain. It requires persistence, persistence, presistence...stubborn persistence.

All I know is, I've been learning by myself for over a year and still know relatively little -and I can't speak well because I hardly ever tried saying anything really out loud (and I'm bad at understanding speech because I just used textbooks ) But I haven't been learning in a particularly 'intense' way.

I've been using Pimsleur Mandarin and I have many, many links to webpages to learn Mandarin.

I can't say that I can watch TV and understand or have a good conversation with somebody but I'm absolutely amazed about what I learn about Mandarin.

What I've learn is that Mandarin SEEMS to be much easier than what I thought.

Of course, learning with pinying. Learning how to read is completely different.

I'm in chapter 9 of Pimsleur Mandarin and sometimes I have watched TV on the internet and/or listened to radio and I could understand people saying:

hello, is it ok?, I know!, and a few other words/phrases.

I've been working on Mandarin for sometime (on and off) but I know that I'm doing really good for the amount of work that I've put into it.

Based on what you said it seems like you are learning how to speak mandarin and learn how to read/write mandarin at the same time.

Based on the little that I know, I believe that that's like learning 2 languages and that's why I'm only learning how to speak with Pimsleur Mandarin and pinyin and once I know how to speak good I'll worry about learning how to read.

Well, it's been a little over 5 years since I first started studying Chinese. 3 and half of those years have been spent in China and with the exception of 1 year at Beida, it's all been self-study.

Regarding what things I can and can't do:

1. Watch Chinese news and be able to totally follow it.

I wouldn't say *totally* follow it, but I can generally follow it. I know what they'll be talking about, but I still miss lots of stuff. I got to this point probably in the last year or so. If you ask me afterwards about the finer details of what was going on (names, dates, exact figures etc) , I might not be able to tell you all that much unless it was a name/date/figure that I was already familiar with. e.g. if something on the news is about Iraq or another country whose name is often in the news, then I'll have no problem telling you about it. But if it's a small African nation who happened to be visited by some random Chinese official, I'd be hard put to tell you the name of either the country or the official afterwards unless they had a memorable/easy name.

2. Read an entire Chinese article without having to use a dictionary

Still not at this level if you are talking about understanding every single word and character. In a given newspaper article there will still be words and characters that I don't know however those words are usually not all that important to the actual meaning of the article (or I can guess the meaning from context), and so unless I want to, I don't have to look up those words to understand what's going on. This ability also came in after about 3-4 years of study. Currently I would say I can recognise around 3000 characters.

3. Have a normal conversation in Chinese beyond the standard, "What is your name? What do you study? Where do you live? What do you do for fun?"..etc..

If you are only talking about normal everyday conversations where occasional grammatical errors/vocab errors are allowed, then for me this was maybe 2-3 years, as time goes on my ability to express myself improves, but I'm still not at a point where I could debate the finer points of quantum physics or other deeper topics. However I can communicate in Chinese, and if I don't understand something, a Chinese person can use Chinese to explain the meaning to me

4. Watch and understand a Chinese movie from beginning to end.

It depends on the type of movie and whether or not the actors speak with a standard/non-standard accent. If you are talking about watching without the use of Chinese subtitles, then this is something I've been able to do in maybe the last year or so. There will still be parts that I miss, but I can still watch and mostly understand what is happening.

I'm sure I could have been able to get to these points sooner if I'd put in more time studying, and, even though now I would say that I can generally communicate in Chinese, and can generally understand most of what's going on around me (whether it be written or spoken), there's still a lot of work that needs to be done and I can see it taking me at least as long as it's taken me already to get my Chinese to a point where I'll be happy with it.

I also posted this on my blog, hence the weird point of view:

Still climbing this seemingly endless mountain that is Chinese. I thought I'd pause for a couple seconds to give a report. This report is prompted by this post on Chinese-forums.com. The poster asked for "a timeline or success stories", which, to me, as to most learners of Chinese, is a little bit oxymoronic.

To tell the truth, I've been trying to learn Chinese for over six years. I can easily calculate that, because I started this endeavor just before the turn of the millenium, in late 1999. For that much time, I almost always feel like I should be further along than I am. The first five and a half years were 90% self-study in America, though, just as a hobby, and I wasn't very diligent. I'd have bouts where I'd study almost every day for an hour or so, but then frequent stretches of several weeks at a time when I wouldn't study at all.

My progress during all that time was abysmally slow, mainly, I think, because I'd never settle on one good textbook and study it all the way through. I bounced back and forth between tapes (Pimsleur, in particular) and several books I got from the local mege-bookstore. I don't recommend that method at all. In hindsight, I wish I'd gone to more trouble to find a really good set of textbooks, which can't be found in the general bookstore. I don't know for sure, but I guess good textbooks could be found in University bookstores. I never found really good books until I came here to China. Now, I can recommend a few: the best one I've found is the New Practical Chinese Reader. That's a new edition of the Practical Chinese Reader, which I did try to use before coming to China, but this new edition is much better than the old.

The classes I'm attending now don't use that, though. Right now, I'm using three books, and all of them are pretty good:

1. 汉语听力教程, Hànyǔ Tīnglì Jiàochéng, Chinese Listening Course, from

北京大学出版社, Běijīng Dàxué Chūbǎnshè, Beijing University Press

2. 汉语口语, Hànyǔ Kǒuyǔ, Chinese Speaking, also from

北京大学出版社, Běijīng Dàxué Chūbǎnshè, Beijing University Press, and

3. 博雅汉语, Bóyǎ Hànyǔ, Boya Chinese, also from

北京大学出版社, Běijīng Dàxué Chūbǎnshè, Beijing University Press.

When I first read the guy's post, I thought immediately about this article: Why Chinese is So Damn Hard, which I just reread. I can relate to everything that that author says, with the exception of his complaints about the different romanization methods. I have exclusively focused on Mainland China's standard Mandarin, with the simplified characters, and pinyin as the only romanization method. That makes things marginally easier. But, of course, it does help to be able to recognize a few traditional-form characters, as a lot of the store signs use those (I assume it lends the sign a little traditional flair) and, surprisingly, a lot of movie and karaoke subtitles use those.

One of the most frustrating things about learning characters is that there is so much overlap and similarity. Often, I will learn a character well, and then, after I learn some other similar character (either in meaning or in form) I find that I constantly confuse the old and new characters. There's an interesting article about this effect on the Supermemo website, under item 11 - avoid memory interference.

For example, a long time ago I learned the character 职 zhí, which means "duty". Then, just recently I added another character to my repertoire, 责 zé, which also means "duty, responsibility". Now, I find that I am constantly mixing them up. The first character instantly became harder to remember. That's actually a mild example, because the pronunciations are different. For a much worse example, I am lately having a lot of difficulty remembering and keeping the following three characters straight in my mind, which all have exactly the same pronuncation:

- 忆 yì - recall, recollect, remember

- 议 yì - confer, discuss, opinion

- 义 yì - justice.

Even worse, Chinese is full of examples of characters that have identical pronunciations and meanings, and you just have to remember when it is appropriate to use which. A particularly notorious example is 做 and 作, which are both pronounced zuò, and mean "to do, to make". In some multicharacter words, you have to use 做, and in others, you can only use 作.

Also, one of the hardest things to remember is the proper tones of new characters and words. Especially, as I've lamented before, I constantly confuse the second and third tones. I was a little bit gratified the other day when I was talking to a Chinese woman, and she said that when she was in school learning pinyin (the roman spelling technique) she also often confused the second and third tones.

The poster on Chinese-forums.com asked for a timeline for when students could do any of these four things:

1. Watch Chinese news and be able to totally follow it.

2. Read an entire Chinese article without having to use a dictionary

3. Have a normal conversation in Chinese beyond the standard, "What is your name? What do you study? Where do you live? What do you do for fun?"..etc..

4. Watch and understand a Chinese movie from beginning to end.

With the possible exception of (3), I am still really far away from doing any of these.

For five years, I basically spun my wheels in America. If you are at all like me, and trying to learn Chinese, I would suggest, don't waste your time trying to learn in your home country -- come to China! It's the only way to really have any improvement. I'd say that I learned as much in my first three months in China as I did in those five years. Which, I might add, is still not saying much.

I came to China in June of last year, and was an English teacher in Dalian for nine months. During that time, my Chinese got a lot better, but even after nine months, it was still really painful trying to say even simple things, and I was constantly frustrated at not being able to understand things said to me. So, in March of this year, I started attending university full-time -- three hours of classes every day. If you are at all like me, and trying to learn Chinese, I would suggest, don't waste your time trying to learn while you are teaching English -- attend school full time! I'd say that in the last two and half months, I've learned as much as I did in those nine months in Dalian. Which, I might add again, is still not saying much.

As for those abilities:

1, From what I've heard, watching and understanding TV news is just about the hardest thing to do in any language. Many Chinese I've met, whose English is very good, still say that they can't understand the news in English. They talk really fast, and use a lot of place names and people's names. I'm a long way off from mastering this skill.

2, Reading the newspaper is maybe the second hardest thing to do. Nowadays, from time to time, I'll pick up a newspaper in Chinese and stare at it for a while. I can usually make out about two thirds of the characters. I can sometimes tell what an article is about. But, as far as really understanding it, let alone not needing a dictionary, forget it.

3, Having a normal conversation -- I can do this, with some rather major qualifications. I can't talk about anything really interesting, but I have had some good conversations with Chinese people in Chinese. This is where I'm starting to see real progress, and it's amazingly gratifying. Of course, it really helps if they speak standard Mandarin. If the person has a strong regional accent, it gets really hard to understand them. Also, my speaking, I know, is atrocious. My grammar is very bad, but I can usually make myself understood, which is lovely.

4, Watching a movie -- again, forget it. I can watch a movie if it has Chinese subtitles, and I constantly pause and read almost everything that is said, but then, it's not very enjoyable. I have a friend in Dalian who regularly uses this technique to study, but I don't really enjoy it very much. Especially now, when I am completely swamped by my regular classes -- whenever I get in front of the T.V., I just want to relax, and usually, I watch movies in English.

So, is that pessimistic enough for you? Well, I can report on a few successes. Nowadays, I very often communicate with people using text messages (or, as the Chinese would say, short messages) on the phone in Chinese. To my delight, I find that I can almost always read what they write to me! Occasionally they'll use a word that I don't know, but I can almost always guess the meaning from the characters.

Another success that thrills me is that I can often understand what people are saying around me. If they're speaking Mandarin, that is. If they're speaking Shanghai dialect, forget it -- it's completely unintelligible. But, sometimes, I can catch snippets of conversation of people as I walk past them. One day not too long ago, in fact, I passed two women, and one was saying to the other, "外国人不知道..., Wàiguórén bù zhīdao ...", which means "Foreigners don't know ...". As soon as she saw me, she stopped, mid-sentence. I kept walking for a second, but then I turned back and looked at them. They were looking at me expectantly, and I said "Don't know what?" in Chinese, and they burst out laughing. It was a fun moment.

So that's my report. I don't know why I continue, except that now, since I've come this far, I feel like a just can't give up. Maybe, with that attitude, I have a chance of success.

If you are at all like me, and trying to learn Chinese, I would suggest, don't waste your time trying to learn while you are teaching English -- attend school full time!

I would, but how would I have the money to do that I would have to get a full-time job here in the UK for a significant amount of time to save enough money to take another university course..

Yeah, that's a problem, I guess. I saved up a chunk of money before I came. A little money goes a long way over here, of course. US$10,000 could easily last a year, even including the tuition.

One day not too long ago, in fact, I passed two women, and one was saying to the other, "外国人不知道..., Wàiguórén bù zhīdao ...", which means "Foreigners don't know ...". As soon as she saw me, she stopped, mid-sentence. I kept walking for a second, but then I turned back and looked at them. They were looking at me expectantly, and I said "Don't know what?" in Chinese, and they burst out laughing. It was a fun moment.

That's a wonderful story. It made me inwardly smile. It's that kind of thing that can (temporarily) make all your work worthwile.

Keep up the good work.

Thanks! I agree, it makes it all worthwhile. I'm looking forward to getting back to the U.S., where Chinese people are really surprised when you understand them.

Wow, after all these stories, studying Chinese sounds pretty futile... Anyone here actually succeed in learning Chinese?

Like I said before, I think I'm doing really good even though I still don't know much.

I'll learn how to read someday in the future when I'm good speaking Mandarin.

Just wondering "mandarinstudent" but is this the 1st language that you are learning as a second language?

For me, it's the 2nd language than I'm learning as a second language (I'll be trilingual) and I think it would be close to imposible for somebody to learn mandarin as their 1st second language

I discussed this topic with a friend of mine who speaks Mandarin as a 3rd language (him being indonesian and speaking english fluently). His timeline went something like this.

-Studied Mandarin for 1 year in Singapore.

-Moved to New Zealand for 5 years and used Mandarin a little but couldnt understand much. He didnt speak chinese alot here and other chinese said his pronounciation was really bad etc. During that time he said; If he was in a group having lunch and they were talking in Mandarin about something he could understand 20% of what was being said

-After the 5 years he moved to Shanghai to WORK at his older brothers company. He said when he first arrived he couldnt understand anything being said in the office (about 20% still). He just pretended to understand.

-After 6 months of living there and speaking Mandarin everyday in the office he said he could understand about 75% of what was going on by the time he left. His pronounciation and tones also improved alot according to people who talked to him before he went to Shanghai and then after. During that 6 months he met a girl and they started a relationship.

-He left to come back to New Zealand where he used Mandarin more (but still not that much), and called his girlfriend back in shanghai nearly everyday.

He is now back in Indonesia and does not speak Mandarin much apart from when he talks to his girlfriend. He said now if he is in a group who are speaking Mandarin he can understand 85-90% of what is being said. A few words go over his head but he generally gets it.

I thought this was a pretty good timeline as it shows quite a good level of communication after about 2-3 years and the biggest increase due to actually living in China . Some of these stories in here are depressing

Although not addressing the specific way points of the time line

http://www-personal.umich.edu/%7Ewbaxter/howhard.html

includes a table with data from the Defense Language Inst. Basically it says that it takes 1320 hours of instruction to reach level 2 proficiency(I imagine that is 1320 hours of intense, efficient instruction at DLI). The table compares Chinese with other languages.

You can do the math to figure out how many years this will take you. But one thing to keep in mind, when Baxter says these are "hours of instruction required to bring students to a certain level of proficiency," presumably these are students who have qualified for DLI courses, not exactly hobbyists.

What is level 2 proficiency as defined by DLI? Google yields

http://www.dliflc.edu/Academics/academic_affairs/dli_catalog/skill.htm

Below I've pulled out the descriptions of Level 2 proficiency in Listening, Reading, Speaking, Writing.

Listening 2 (Limited Working Proficiency)

Sufficient comprehension to understand conversations on routine social demands and limited job requirements. Able to understand face-to-face speech in a standard dialect, delivered at a normal speaking rate with some repetition and rewording, by a native speaker not used to dealing with foreigners, about everyday topics, common personal and family news, well-known current events, and routine office matters through descriptions and narration about current, past, and future events; can follow essential points of discussion or speech at an elementary level on topics in his special professional field. Only understands occasional words and phrases of statements made in unfavorable conditions, for example through loudspeakers outdoors. Understands factual content. Native language causes less interference in listening comprehension. Able to understand facts, i.e., the lines, but not between or beyond the lines.

Reading 2 (Limited Working Proficiency)

Sufficient comprehension to read simple, authentic written material in a form equivalent to usual printing or typescript on subjects within a familiar context. Able to read straightforward, familiar, factual material with some misunderstandings, but in general insufficiently experienced with the language to draw inferences directly from the linguistic aspects of the text. Can locate and understand the main ideas and details in material written for the general reader. However, persons who have professional knowledge of a subject may be able to summarize or perform sorting and locating tasks with written texts that are well beyond their general proficiency level. The individual can read uncomplicated, but authentic prose on familiar subjects that are normally presented in a predictable sequence that aids the reader in understanding. Texts may include descriptions and narrations in contexts such as news items describing frequently occurring events, simple biographical information, social notices, formulaic business letters, and simple technical materials written for the general reader. Generally, the prose that can be read by the individual is predominantly in straightforward / high-frequency sentence patterns. The individual does not have a broad active vocabulary (that is, vocabulary he recognizes immediately on sight), but is able to use contextual and real-world cues to understand the text.

Characteristically, however, the individual is quite slow in performing such a process. He is typically able to answer factual questions about authentic texts of the types described above.

Speaking 2 (Limited Working Proficiency)

Able to satisfy routine social demands and limited work requirements. Can handle routine work-related interactions that are limited in scope. In more complex and sophisticated work-related tasks, language usage generally disturbs the native speaker. Can handle with confidence, but not facility, most normal high-frequency social conversational situations, including extensive but casual conversations about current events, as well as work, family, and autobiographical information. The individual can get the gist of most everyday conversations but has some difficulty understanding native speakers in situations that require specialized or sophisticated knowledge. The individual’s utterances are minimally cohesive. Linguistic structure is usually not very elaborate and not thoroughly controlled; errors are frequent. Vocabulary use is appropriate for high-frequency utterances, but unusual or imprecise elsewhere.

Examples: While these interactions will vary widely from person to person, the individual can typically ask and answer predictable questions in the workplace and give straightforward instructions to subordinates. Additionally, the individual can participate in personal and accommodation-type interactions with elaboration and facility; that is, can give and understand complicated, detailed, and extensive directions and make nonroutine changes in travel and accommodation arrangements. Simple structures and basic grammatical relations are typically controlled. However, there are areas of weakness. For example, in the commonly taught languages, these may be simple markings such as plurals, articles, linking words, and negatives or more complex structures such as tense/aspect usage, case morphology, passive constructions, word order, and embedding.

ILR Skill Levels: Writing

Writing Skill Level — the assessed proficiency of the individual in writing a given language

....

Writing 2 (Limited Working Proficiency)

Able to write routine social correspondence and prepare documentary materials required for most limited work requirements. Has writing vocabulary sufficient to express himself simply with some circumlocutions. Can write simply about a very limited number of current events or daily situations. Still makes common errors in spelling and punctuation, but shows some control of the most common formats and punctuation conventions. Good control of morphology (in inflected languages) and of the most frequently used syntactic structures. Elementary constructions are usually handled quite accurately, and writing is understandable to a native reader not used to reading the writing of foreigners. Uses a limited number of cohesive devices.

....

http://www-personal.umich.edu/%7Ewbaxter/howhard.html

includes a table with data from the Defense Language Inst. Basically it says that it takes 1320 hours of instruction to reach level 2 proficiency(I imagine that is 1320 hours of intense, efficient instruction at DLI). The table compares Chinese with other languages.

That is a nice chart, except I think "hours of instruction" should be changed instead to "hours of study."

I say this because the chart states that an average English speaker would need 480 hours of "instruction" to reach level-2 "limited working proficiency" in either French or Spanish. 480 hours of instruction is more than six months of classes at 20 hours per week. In my experience of studying these two languages, I think one would be able to hold everyday conversations in these langauges in about a month with 20 hours per week of classes, provided that you also study outside the classroom to reinforce the material learned.

Not sure but it looks like the table in

http://www.dliflc.edu/Academics/academic_affairs/dli_catalog/resident.htm

implies that the Basic Chinese course (which gets you to level 2?) is 63 weeks.

@ Gato re: instruction or study. These are presumably averages. Also, I don't think the military cares how much you have to study outside class. I am guessing they are scheduling classes and designing instruction schedules. I am guessing the students are extremely motivated and spend up to every waking hour studying if needed to pass.

The fact that you have studied both those languages already may make you atypical. Or maybe not among DLI students.

That's about right, Kudra. The Defense Language Insitute's classes are designed to be six hours a day, five days a week. 5 days/week * 6 hours/day * 63 = 1890 hours.

I think six hours a day of classes is too much. I took some Spanish classes in Mexico a couple of years ago. It consisted of four hours a day of small group classes. I thought that was just right and left me enough time to take siesta, sight-see, watch TV, review, and study on my own. We also weren't assigned any homeworks. Most Chinese as a Foreign Language programs in China also seem to be around four hours a day.

http://www.dliflc.edu/Academics/academic_affairs/dli_catalog/start.htm

In general, instruction in classrooms and language laboratories is conducted for six hours a day, five days a week. In addition, homework in varying amounts is assigned each day. The actual hours assigned may vary from language to language and class to class. In addition to foreign language education, each service also provides specialized military training programs to help prepare students for their future.

Thanks for all the graphs, reports, and theories, but Im more interested in REAL people's accounts of success. How long does it take a REAL ACTUAL person, using normal studying methods (not training at some military institution), to acquire the skills that allow them to do the things that I mentioned in my first post? I know that this forum isnt made up exclusively of beginners...There has to be a few people that can provide this information. Please?