I guess I’ll offer my advice as an English guy who has spent a considerable amount of time learning Chinese. I’ll generally stick to answering your second question. I lived in China a few years, learned Chinese and now I’m working as an interpreter/translator. Obviously being in China gave me an advantage but it is not enough. I’ve met foreigners who have lived there for years, some even have Chinese families, but still can’t speak more than a few utterances. They create for themselves English bubbles. I had to create a Chinese bubble, and you do it the same way whether you are in Bejing or New York – simply put: chuck your English crap away and get Chinese crap. You like listening to music? Do it Chinese. You like games? Play them in Chinese.
For the classic immersion grandmaster see
www.alljapaneseallthetime.com. Written by a guy who got fluent (and I mean real fluent, not ‘I can order a beer’ fluent) in Japanese while in America. Also find a blog called
Korean in Kuwait if you can. About a guy who successfully learned Korean in Kuwait of all places.
It can be done. These two differed in methods and outlooks but they shared a lot in common. They both had a strong clear motivation. They both believed they could succeed. They both used native materials from the beginning.
Which brings up an important point if you are learning Chinese (or indeed any language). Listen to it all the time. It doesn’t matter if you can’t understand it – you will. Just get used to the sounds – at first they will all be joined together – but the more you listen the quicker you will be able to differentiate them. There is no perfect method to learn Chinese or Japanese. But whatever you do, just do something. Don’t spend hours arguing over how to study Japanese/Chinese on an internet forum. Unless you’re doing it in Chinese or Japanese of course.
Since you’re not learning the language in the target country you are going to need something to speak to and to correct you. My advice would be to find a native tutor. There are so many Chinese students in Western universities now that this is not a problem. It’s probably best to pay them rather than do a language exchange but it shouldn’t be very expensive. In the UK I hear 10 to 15 pounds an hour is the going rate. And of course, if you happen to be male, a pretty Chinese/Japanese tutor can get you turning up for classes regularly. I would stress though: DO NOT JOIN A GROUP CLASS. You don’t need to pay through your nose to hear foreigners speaking terrible Chinese.
As to the question of which language specifically, I can only give you some info on Chinese to help you in your decision. First of all though be warned, it is difficult, don’t believe anybody that tells you otherwise. It will take a considerable amount of hours to get up to a good level. On the other hand don’t believe the bullcrap that some traditional China ‘experts’ spout about it taking a lifetime. You can start to understand and enjoy Chinese TV series and movies after just a few months. The key is to think in hours not years. If you spend one hour every day going through a text book, of course it will take you decades. If you spend 8 hours a day immersed in your language things will go a bit faster. And when I say immersed, that’s what I mean. Just leave a Chinese movie on in the background always. You don’t have to be actively studying for it to be useful.
The basics:
Pinyin – this is the Romanisation of the Characters. You’ll need to learn it for pronunciation. Very logical and clear thankfully (a plus on Korean).
Characters – Yes there are thousands of different characters with different meanings, and yes you are going to have to learn them. Not just to recognise them but to write them. Chinese children generally learn these by rote. Spending hour after painstaking hour writing them out again and again. Thankfully we no longer have to do that.
Characters are made up of different component parts. We learn the basic components and then when we see two of these components joined up, we create a story to help remember the meaning. It sounds more complicated than simply remembering the Character in the first place but trust me, you will save hundreds of hours this way.
The best book to get you started:
Remembering the Hanzi by Heisig for Chinese (simplified)
Remembering the Kanji for Japanese.
Pronounciation/Tones – For me this was and is the most difficult part of Chinese. And what makes it, in my opinion, more difficult than either Japanese or Korean. The Chinese don’t speak: they sing. There are 4 different tones (or 5, depending on your point of view) and they do matter: I cannot stress this enough. Go over them again and again with your tutor. It is far easier to speak slow and correctly at the start than having to go correct your tones after you’ve started speaking a lot. Emphasise them to an absurd degree. You might think you sound stupid but to a Chinese person you will sound just right.
There is a computer program called
PRAAT which allows you to actually see your tones. I have found it immensely useful.
There are also some sounds in Chinese which do not exist in English and some which are just a little bit different (r, zh etc).
The best pronunciation guide I have found is from a linguist living in China called
John Pasden. Head over to his site
Sinosplice to take a look at it. His advice is short and clear, unlike mine I might add.
Grammar – This is where Chinese starts to look a bit easier. In comparison to the dreaded Japanese or even English, Chinese grammar is very simple. Perhaps deceptively so at times, but most of the time it really is that easy. For example verbs do not change form at all. ‘Go’ is just ‘go’, none of that ‘went’ or ‘going’ nonsense.
I would also say, be clear about why you are doing it. What are you going to do with the language? Do you enjoy Asian tv series etc? It should be a joy to look at material in your chosen language. I must be honest there are not many Chinese TV series or movies that I would choose to watch over American ones if I did not have to keep my Chinese language level up. I’ve known a few people that learned Korean and stuck with it simply because they loved Korean dramas. To them, it wasn’t studying, it was relaxing. The same with Japanese games. What China had to offer me was something different. A political system than not only matches that of the West but surpasses it in many ways. If it was not for my interest in China I would never have had the motivation to get past phase one.
I’ve been rambling on for a bit too long but I would just say if you really want to do it then just do it. You don’t need to be a genius by any stretch of the imagination. You just need to put in the time. Do check out AJAAT, and Sinosplice. They say it better than I ever could.
Here are some Chinese websites you can look at if you have the time:
www.youku.com - Chinese youtube
www.Tudou.com – Chinese youtube 2
QQ – Chinese MSN
www.weibo.com - Chinese Twitter
The first two you can just randomly click on a few videos. And if you complete Heisig, you’ll be surprised at how fast you can use and enjoy the second two.
