Earthquake

I haven't posted this before as I didn't really know what to say for the best. For similar reasons I have been somewhat quiet on Chinese social networks that I have started using for practice, apart from one or two condolence messages. Fortunately family and/or friends of the few Chinese people I know are unscathed

Talk is cheap, I can only hope the best outcome for the survivors

Ultimately it seems that there may be significant change in media attitudes and China-West relationships (apart from the occasional Hollywood idiot), a change for better. This of course is not worth the lives of those that have died, a slower change without the tradgedy would have been better by far.

The best thing I did in starting to learn Mandarin

I was looking back and trying to work out what were the significant steps in my Mandarin learning over the past two years or so. Maybe the most significant step was simply spending a lot of time listening to real Mandarin even though at the time I didn't understand it.

It is not easy to remember the exact details, but for the first three months or so of studying a large part was simply listening to real world Chinese at full speed. I was studying on my own so it was up to me to decide what I did, and against all advice this seemed the obvious thing to do. I don't speak French, Spanish, German, Italian, Russian etc. etc. but at that time I coould confidently identify all of these language, simply because of exposure over my lifetime. If I decided to study any of these languages I would know roughly what I was getting into, Asian languages all sounded similar though (might as well be Martian). Certainly I also listened to a few podcasts, and certainly I did some background reading about the language and picked up a few simple words. Somehow these preparation meant that I ended up listening to about 15 of the Chinesepod Newbie podcasts and a similar amount of the elementary before I started tackling the Intermediate. Even though my vocabulary was limited I seemed to have a huge headstart on speed, coping with different accents etc.

So what happened? via attentive listening the mush of sounds became a stream of syllables, and I was increaingly able to determine differences in sounds that originally sounded the same to my Western ears. I started hearing a few simple words that I had learned (中国 zhong1guo2 china) being an obvious one. All the time I　was attempting to be attentive, When do I　think sentances are starting and finishing, are there sounds that are common before a pause? can I learn any words from context? what common sounds can I learn so that when I finally learn the meaing it will be obvious. Even at that time I could hear the significance of 个 and was anticipating finding out the meaning of 这个 and 那个.

Finally I enlisted the help of my sons, they dug up some videos from Youtube and played the sounds to me, firstly (because I wasn't actually sure) I proved to myself that yes it was fairly easy for me to identify European languages even vaguely similar ones such as Dutch and German, Spanish and Portuguese. Then I discovered that now I could distinguish Mandarin from Cantonese, and Thai and Vietnamese and Korean and Japanese with ease. Even more interesting the Cantonese apart from having sounds different to Mandarin had at least one tone that was obviously very different (the low level one) so somewhere my brain had already started on the long arduous journey to get a feel for tonal meaning.

What followed was a mastery of Pinyin and relating the sounds to words I heard, the aim was to get to point where I could reliably hear a word in a sentance of real Chinese and look it up in dictionary to find the meaning.

Sound is where it all starts and what you gain from first getting an ear for a language is hard to measure and test (so is unlikely to be emphasized in a formal course). Gaining an ear for language is what you do naturally as a baby with your mother tongue, it seems obvious to me that you should start this way when you study a new languge (and actually because of the prevalance of English media and culture, many foreigners have had this exposure already before they come to formally study English).

I know this view is not popular but it seems to have helped me.

Rolling my own Kevin Rudd Chinese lesson

The biggest problem I have at the moment is getting conversation practice, although I am quite forward in attempting to speak Chinese with people I encounter this kind of conversation gets stuck in a rut now because either I meet the people one time only (and cover the same/similar ground each time) or I meet them occasionally in a shop or something and conversations can only really go so far. A particular problem for me is that when younger I had a virtual phobia of phones, I get on fine with them now but to some extent this feeling comes back when I use Skype or similar to chat in Chinese. I think Skype is a wonderful tool and I have used it and received a lot of help but I find it so so much easier and natural to talk face to face.

Recently through a work colleague I came in touch with someone who could help me, we communicated by email and met one evening and now I have a new friend/teacher. I say friend/teacher as I intend to pay for a lesson now and again (the first time I have done this). Other times we may well be helping each other learn our respective languages (I have by far the most to learn ;)). I think that paying for the occasional lesson is an important point though, it delimits a period of time where the focus is on me using and developing Chinese skills and means I can't fool myself and sidestep into being lazy under the guise of teaching or explaining some English.

Now the problem, what is a lesson going to consist of, I managed to demonstrate that I don't need teaching as such and am making fine progress on my own, also both of us being busy one lesson a month or less is the likely frequency. What I need is a focus and conversation practice. I don't even really need my new found teacher to prepare anything before hand (apart from being aware of the kind of subject I would like to discuss and some of the materials I may have sourced).

It occurred to me that my last post regarding Kevin Rudd was an excellent starting point. There are two videos here that could be discussed in Chinese and some of my thoughts on "sounding native". I wanted some harder video dialogs to chew through so I found the following snippet on tudou (and put on youtube for easier access):

As Edwin pointed out I also have access to the the recent Media lesson on Kevin Rudd speaking Chinese at Chinesepod. This boosts the study potential somewhat, I have the three videos, the written comments on Chinesepod, the audio discussion in the Chinesepod mp3 and my own thoughts in English. My preparation will simply be to get comfortable with any new vocab. etc. in this lot and prepare to discuss around the subject. 好极了！

Kevin Rudd speaking Mandarin

Been a while since I posted here, I have however still been progressing my Mandarin studies. Actually whilst I intend to continue posting here I am also starting to put together a more structured collection of my learning Mandarin experiences and observations to date.

Kevin Rudd, that newly elected Austrailian Prime Minister interests me immensely and has certainly sparked off a lot of online conversations regarding the quality of his spoken Mandarin. A short excerpt from one of his recent speeches:

It is fairly easy to find the usual criticisms, he still sounds like a foreigner, his sentences often carry over Western intonations etc.etc. yawn! All the usual fare from the pedants who don't think you are speaking Chinese properly unless native Chinese people peer very closely at you wondering why somebody who is evidently Chinese (because you speak so well) looks somewhat like a Westerner. Most of the manifestation of this belief that I encounter comes from Westerners who are learning Chinese (hmmmm). Now take into account that many European politicians who speak English do so with a "foreign accent" no matter how excellent their level of English (and vice-versa I guess), that in fact despite the millions of foreigners who learn English only a very tiny minority actually could pass for a native born English speaker (or though I have met some very impressive Chinese speakers of English recently). Why is it even an issue that someone cannot pass for a native Chinese over the telephone?

I feel the good news is that eventually it won't matter, the more politicians, sports people, entertainers that can speak and communicate in Mandarin then the more acceptable it will be to have a laowai accent. Stop focusing on the edge cases that have lived, worked, maybe grown-up in China and get down to the business of how does a Westerner become fluent in Mandarin. Here is some more Kevin Rudd being interviewed:

加油，加油 Kevin Rudd.

Market trader Chinese

I pass a market stall selling fruit and vegetables and note that two Chinese girls are approaching the stall from another angle. I don't need anything there so move on, but as I do so I hear the stall holder shouting out 新年快乐，你好,好朋友！ enthusiastically.

Nothing too strange except that this is Bath in England and the stall holder is a young English lad of typical market stall down to earth joviality. I have talked to him before as the stall is a good place to buy fruit and veg. but never heard him speaking Chinese before. Granted it sounds a little rough but is fully confident and not lacking any enthusiasm. When I have more time I would will try to find out how much he knows.

Bath has quite a sizeable young Chinese population and the stall holder has at least one impetus to learn Chinese, that is to boost his selling. There may be many other reasons including an interest in Chinese girls (but lets not jump to hasty conclusions).

This made my day, I think it is going to happen more often as cultures meet. For every street seller in a foreign country who has self-learned enough English to sell to tourists; I would wish to see another Englishman who is reversing the trend and returning the favor. One in the eye for those who over intellectualize the study of Asian languages.

No matter how functional his Chinese is there is bound to be one who would stand and say "his pronunciation is off and he has little concept of the finer grammar points". If I was there I would happily punch that "one" in the face......

Strange the things that can lift your spirits when the days are dark.

Reasons for not understanding Chinese

When you think you are making progress in a language it can be a little depressing when you come across some that you don't understand and feel that you should have. Actually I have observed and worked out a number of valid reasons not to feel so bad. So next time don't beat yourself up.

You can't hear it properly

This one is two fold: firstly when eavesdropping on passersbys it is very difficult to catch what they are saying, even in your mother tongue (try it), particularly if the ambient noise level is high. The second reason can be when you are watching TV or a film that is intended for English speakers. The director may have included some Chinese talking but expects you to get the meaning from context or convenient subs. therefore the sound man doesn't actually go to the trouble of making sure the voices are clear. You may feel disappointed you missed some basic stuff but replay it and you discover the sound quality of the conversation is so poor you didn't have much of a chance anyway.

You are hearing something out of context

Even if you are good, you are going to struggle with out of context snippets, as above this can even cause confusion in your mother tongue.

They are speaking another dialect

Perhaps even another language. Particularly with Chinese, remember that what you may be hearing is a dialect they are more at home speaking in. Dialects close to Mandarin can be a particular problem, they sound familiar somehow but you don't quite get it. You would need some heavy exposure to get used to it. Having said that I think is is good to listen to target language enough to at least determine whether what you are listening to is in the right ballpark.

They don't want you to understand

Yup it happens don't take it personally, for whatever reason (maybe testing you, maybe suspicion etc.), they are actively trying to mess you up with funky language and or speaking very fast.

They don't speak very well themselves

This happens too, they told you they spoke Mandarin (perhaps didn't expect you to know much) and actually their Mandarin isn't so good, making it harder for you to understand

You weren't actually ready for it

Your are a learner, your window of opportunity suddenly appeared and you missed it, sometimes you may catch it, there are times you will be tired, focused on something else and your second language skills will be comparitively poor.

The language is highly specialised

This will happen a lot, you just haven't any experiance of the vocabulary and context being used, or the film is a specialised genre etc. etc. Think of your own language, which is easier for a foreigner do you think, a standard chat-show or a "gangsta" movie.

Of course you may just need to practice more ;) but even you are feeling bad about an experiance then don't, there is always another opportunity. Don't get me wrong this is not setting myself up for failure just providing reasons to remain confident. I am sure there are many more, do you have some you can share?

A little philosophy, and a good source of Chinese texts

I posted before about effortless learning and it created a little controversy. I can understand why as effortless can mean different things to different people. I came across a nice explanation of exactly what it means to me on Steve Kaufmann's website. At the beginning of his book (which you can read online if you follow the link) in the introduction Steve has this from from a Chinese philosopher. Zhuangzi, the Taoist philosopher, is supposed to have lived in China over 2,300 years ago. He encouraged people to achieve their potential through effortlessness, by not resisting their own natures. That is exactly what I meant by effortlessness.

I have an interest in philosophy, but know much more about ancient Greek and both ancient and modern European philosophy. I found this excellent website, the Chinese Text Project has number of texts with English translations. Some of the text also have modern Chinese versions alongside the older Chinese (an excellent way to learn to read older styles of Chinese).

CSLpod (thanks Edwin)

Edwin left me a comment that introduced me to CSLPod. Looks like another great resource for me to pull lessons from and reduces to the need to roll my own (although this has it own merits sometimes). The advanced lessons do indeed have news and current affairs topics with transcripts. I had a quick look at some of the other levels also and there seems to some good stuff in there also. It seems that students of Mandarin are really spoiled, we have a lot of resources on the internet to help us.

Rolling your own Mandarin lessons (from CCTV etc.)

There is a lot of Chinese content out there, and once you have picked up the basics it is fairly easy to find things that you can study and make your own exercises from. For example CCTV have a site where you can search for small video clips from news articles etc. Sometimes the site is a little broken and specific videos can not load but there is plenty that does work, and much of it has text transcripts. I uploaded the first one I have been playing with to youtube.

New reports seem to be special in many languages and are often fastpaced, I figure analysing and some repeated listening to this kind of material can be useful as part of a learning plan especially if you have some ability to zero into to specific subject areas (I have an interest in internet related matters).

I have the transcript that came with the video on my study materials blog.

Chinese streaming television TUV

I have posted about streaming Chinese TV and various programs before. At the moment I am finding the TUV player most convienient. PPLive seems to hog network resources and the choice of channels keeps changing too much (also seems to have lost the CCTV channels).

Basically when I am using the PC for writing or overtime (from home) I have a Chinese TV window open most of the time. Sometimes I pay more attention to it than others but it is amazing how often I find I hear an interesting phrase and start paying attention.

Sadly I don't understand it all but depending on the program these days I can often understand most of it.

You can download TUV player at www.tvunetworks.com