Thoughts on Learning Chinese
"Wo jiu hui shuo yi dian dian." or "I can only speak a little, really."
People often ask me if I’m fluent in Chinese yet. It’s funny, but the question now seems kind of absurd to me; I once naively thought that after 2 years of college Chinese I’d be at least close to fluent, but the more Chinese I learn, the more laughable that seems. Oh how I wish I could say yes to the question! I’m not sure I’ll ever reach the point where I feel fluent—there is so much to learn. Not only vocabulary (of which there is a copious amount) but context, idioms, common ways of speaking, formal ways of writing…it gets confusing pretty quickly. Forget fluency--I would settle (quite happily) for proficiency. So in answer to the question, I usually say that I’m nowhere near fluent, but that I know enough to get around in China without too many problems.
This is the truth, although sometimes language issues cause hassle or embarrassment, or acceptance of a less than ideal situation. One of the books I’ve read on the trip is River Town by Peter Hessler. The book describes the author’s experiences during two years teaching English at a college in a small town on the Yangtze River. It’s an awesome book—I’ll say more about it in a later post. What I wanted to mention here is Hessler’s description of his Chinese self; “Ho Wei”—he talks about how Peter and “Ho Wei” are two separate people, with different languages, of course, but also different personalities. Ho Wei can only use simple words, laughs at himself a lot, often feels awkward, lets things happen to him instead of being proactive, accepts things Peter would not… I can sympathize with this a little bit. In some ways, “Jin Jing” is not so different from Jean Anne—mostly because Jean Anne has been Jin Jing at Sewanee, in a Chinese class where she was the most serious student and did well. She is Jin Jing with friends—and friends are patient and encouraging. But it’s true that my personality changes a bit when I’m in “Chinese mode.” I’m much more hesitant, more humble I guess, eager to show goodwill, quick to brush off an insult or a joke about the waiguoren, generally ignoring people who yell “heellllo” or “ladyladylookeelookee” but smiling at all the kids. I use the phrase “bu hao yisi”—I’m embarrassed—a lot, and also “dui buqi”—I’m sorry.
I especially identify with Hessler about accepting things. I do it a lot here. So we ended up with hard seats on the train to Suzhou…at least we have tickets. So the drinks aren’t cold…at least we have drinks. So I ended up with plum-flavored cola…I guess it’s drinkable. Thing is, my vocabulary could handle all of these situations—I know how to ask for a soft seat and for cold drinks of many different flavors, but often the hassle of communication or the risk of upsetting someone is just not worth it. Plus there’s just something Chinese about accepting whatever comes. Not karma exactly, but a similar idea maybe. Fate, I think; after all, with all the craziness of China’s past century, what else could the people do but hang on and hope for the best? A common Chinese phrase, “mei banfa,” means really there’s nothing that can be done—you accept it and move on. (Hey, it sounds better than that I just don’t want to deal with the hassle of a controversy in Chinese.)
My Chinese is improving, though. I’ve learned a lot of new words already this trip; things like “reservation” and “check-out” and “long distance bus station” that I’ve never needed to know before. And of course the more I speak Chinese and listen to Chinese and read Chinese the more fluent I become with the words that I already know. That’s maybe the biggest battle—recognizing words that I already know in context and also, learning to use them correctly.
Sometimes the missing pieces of a particular conversation will fall into place later, when I learn a new word. Last year in the course of our Shanghai research I talked to a 25 year old guy from Sichuan Province in China’s southwest. He was trying to explain to me (being extraordinarily patient with my bad Chinese) what he thought were the major differences between his hometown and Shanghai; one of the things he kept saying had something to do with marriage, but I never did quite understand...something about only a couple of months…I thought he meant people in Shanghai sometimes married after only knowing each other for a couple of months. A week or so later, I figured out what he’d been saying—when I learned the word for “divorce.” Another example: a girl I spoke with in Yangzhou was telling me about the difference between the way people of the young generation thought and the way some people of the older generation sometimes thought; I caught her basic meaning about the younger generation accepting new ideas more easily, but it wasn’t until later when I learned the Chinese word for “feudal” that I realized exactly what she’d been saying. The psychology student part of me is fascinated by these occurrences--these puzzles stay in my head, probably because of the frustration they cause, and my brain somehow plugs the missing piece in. Interesting.
It’s funny; people here compliment me all the time on my Chinese, but it’s almost always when Chinese isn’t necessary. If I’m just chatting with the shop clerk as I browse, inevitably they’ll tell me, ‘Oh, your Chinese is so good! How long have you lived in Shanghai?” But if I have to ask a question or someone’s trying to tell me something semi-important and my Chinese isn’t quite up to the task, it’s irritation at the dumb waiguoren who can’t speak properly or understand simple things. Their impatience is completely understandable, of course. And knowing this makes me even more frustrated. Ah well. More motivation to keep plugging away.
People often ask me if I’m fluent in Chinese yet. It’s funny, but the question now seems kind of absurd to me; I once naively thought that after 2 years of college Chinese I’d be at least close to fluent, but the more Chinese I learn, the more laughable that seems. Oh how I wish I could say yes to the question! I’m not sure I’ll ever reach the point where I feel fluent—there is so much to learn. Not only vocabulary (of which there is a copious amount) but context, idioms, common ways of speaking, formal ways of writing…it gets confusing pretty quickly. Forget fluency--I would settle (quite happily) for proficiency. So in answer to the question, I usually say that I’m nowhere near fluent, but that I know enough to get around in China without too many problems.
This is the truth, although sometimes language issues cause hassle or embarrassment, or acceptance of a less than ideal situation. One of the books I’ve read on the trip is River Town by Peter Hessler. The book describes the author’s experiences during two years teaching English at a college in a small town on the Yangtze River. It’s an awesome book—I’ll say more about it in a later post. What I wanted to mention here is Hessler’s description of his Chinese self; “Ho Wei”—he talks about how Peter and “Ho Wei” are two separate people, with different languages, of course, but also different personalities. Ho Wei can only use simple words, laughs at himself a lot, often feels awkward, lets things happen to him instead of being proactive, accepts things Peter would not… I can sympathize with this a little bit. In some ways, “Jin Jing” is not so different from Jean Anne—mostly because Jean Anne has been Jin Jing at Sewanee, in a Chinese class where she was the most serious student and did well. She is Jin Jing with friends—and friends are patient and encouraging. But it’s true that my personality changes a bit when I’m in “Chinese mode.” I’m much more hesitant, more humble I guess, eager to show goodwill, quick to brush off an insult or a joke about the waiguoren, generally ignoring people who yell “heellllo” or “ladyladylookeelookee” but smiling at all the kids. I use the phrase “bu hao yisi”—I’m embarrassed—a lot, and also “dui buqi”—I’m sorry.
I especially identify with Hessler about accepting things. I do it a lot here. So we ended up with hard seats on the train to Suzhou…at least we have tickets. So the drinks aren’t cold…at least we have drinks. So I ended up with plum-flavored cola…I guess it’s drinkable. Thing is, my vocabulary could handle all of these situations—I know how to ask for a soft seat and for cold drinks of many different flavors, but often the hassle of communication or the risk of upsetting someone is just not worth it. Plus there’s just something Chinese about accepting whatever comes. Not karma exactly, but a similar idea maybe. Fate, I think; after all, with all the craziness of China’s past century, what else could the people do but hang on and hope for the best? A common Chinese phrase, “mei banfa,” means really there’s nothing that can be done—you accept it and move on. (Hey, it sounds better than that I just don’t want to deal with the hassle of a controversy in Chinese.)
My Chinese is improving, though. I’ve learned a lot of new words already this trip; things like “reservation” and “check-out” and “long distance bus station” that I’ve never needed to know before. And of course the more I speak Chinese and listen to Chinese and read Chinese the more fluent I become with the words that I already know. That’s maybe the biggest battle—recognizing words that I already know in context and also, learning to use them correctly.
Sometimes the missing pieces of a particular conversation will fall into place later, when I learn a new word. Last year in the course of our Shanghai research I talked to a 25 year old guy from Sichuan Province in China’s southwest. He was trying to explain to me (being extraordinarily patient with my bad Chinese) what he thought were the major differences between his hometown and Shanghai; one of the things he kept saying had something to do with marriage, but I never did quite understand...something about only a couple of months…I thought he meant people in Shanghai sometimes married after only knowing each other for a couple of months. A week or so later, I figured out what he’d been saying—when I learned the word for “divorce.” Another example: a girl I spoke with in Yangzhou was telling me about the difference between the way people of the young generation thought and the way some people of the older generation sometimes thought; I caught her basic meaning about the younger generation accepting new ideas more easily, but it wasn’t until later when I learned the Chinese word for “feudal” that I realized exactly what she’d been saying. The psychology student part of me is fascinated by these occurrences--these puzzles stay in my head, probably because of the frustration they cause, and my brain somehow plugs the missing piece in. Interesting.
It’s funny; people here compliment me all the time on my Chinese, but it’s almost always when Chinese isn’t necessary. If I’m just chatting with the shop clerk as I browse, inevitably they’ll tell me, ‘Oh, your Chinese is so good! How long have you lived in Shanghai?” But if I have to ask a question or someone’s trying to tell me something semi-important and my Chinese isn’t quite up to the task, it’s irritation at the dumb waiguoren who can’t speak properly or understand simple things. Their impatience is completely understandable, of course. And knowing this makes me even more frustrated. Ah well. More motivation to keep plugging away.
posted by Mike and Jean Anne at 10:47 AM
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