Friday, May 20, 2011

3 essential foundations for learning Chinese (or any foreign language)





To me, language is really beautiful.  I think language is what makes us human.  Without language, we would not be able to share our thoughts with others.  Without language we could have no thoughts, only instincts.  Learning a second, third, fourth, or 25th language not only enriches you through exposure to different ways of thinking, but it also helps you understand your own language more succinctly and completely.  The better you can use language (your native language or any other,) the more complete and whole your thoughts can be developed.  With that development comes a deeper, richer, more enlightened life.

When I was in Beijing, it was normal for people to arrive and ask "what is the best way to learn Chinese?"  Perhaps because I learned my Chinese in classrooms and in my interactions with Chinese friends (as opposed to intense military training courses or religious missionary service), most of these people were referred to me.  In the future, I'm simply going to point people to my blog when they ask how I learned Chinese, or what I recommend they do to learn the language.  As I build my blog, I hope that it can be a useful tool for anyone who visits China.  I want to pack this blog with as much information as possible to help people get along well in visits to China.  In this entry, I'll focus on the basics of language acquisition.

Laying a good foundation for learning another language
firm foundation


I think there are really three things that lay the foundation for successful language acquisition: attitude, expectations, and  approach. 

1) Attitude:  The right attitude will rescue you time and time again throughout the language acquisition process.  There will be times when you feel REALLY stupid.  You have to decide to find the humor in the situation and agree that it's okay to make a fool of yourself.  Decide now that it is worth the humiliation to be able to eventually master Chinese (or whatever language you are focusing on).  One thing to keep in mind, is that all the extra attention you receive because you made a silly mistake in front of others will make it far easier to remember this mistake and avoid it in the future.
I think most of the time people freeze up and stunt their own growth it is usually because of one word: insecurity.  Learning a language is no different.  I'll talk about insecurity in greater detail in a future post, but if you feel like you can never win, or that everyone else seems to be having an easier time figuring things out than you, those are good clues that you might be insecure (in your second language).
*Decide to be willing to be put in vulnerable positions in life and laugh at yourself
*Open yourself up to the possibility that you can be successful, imagine how you will feel when you are beyond your current stage.
*Reward yourself for small successes and breakthroughs in bravery.  When you do something that is outside of your comfort zone, stop afterwards to reflect on how you successfully faced your fears and came out okay.  Focus on how good it feels when you look back and can see the growth in yourself.  

2) Expectations:  A necessary aspect of the right attitude is to adjust your expectations.  Adjust your impression of mistakes.  I make lots of mistakes!  Your Chinese teacher probably makes loads of mistakes.  In fact, you probably constantly make mistakes when you speak English!  If you ever want to be fluent in Chinese, you will first have to make tens of thousands of mistakes.  
The key is to come into your language experience expecting to make mistakes, and decide ahead of time that mistakes are normal, healthy, funny, and wonderful.  Decide to be okay with that.
If you expect to have fun, expect to make mistakes, and expect to succeed, you will.  You will succeed and you will have a riot all along the way.

3) Approach: first, it is important to realize what language acquisition is not.
*learning a language is not memorizing a list of vocabulary words
*not working out grammar like you would a math equation
*not passing quizzes and tests in school
*not perfection.

a very very poor foundation
I believe it is often counterproductive to try to learn a language through vocabulary lists.  Especially if you are learning your second language, (as apposed to having already learned a second language) because it might be difficult to keep in mind that many words in English have several different meanings.  One of the fun bonuses of learning a second and third language is you begin to be more aware of the multiple meanings of a single word.  There are thousands of examples of words that, if you change the context involved, you also change the meaning.  Usually each different meaning has a different translation in a foreign language.  Also, remember that the words in the foreign language often also have multiple meanings and can only be accurately interpreted in context.  More often than not, only one of those meanings is going to correspond accurately with its English counterpart.  Basing language acquisition on a list of comparable vocabulary lists leads to using "strength" when you mean "courage" or "cold" when you mean "angry."  The list of possible mistakes is endless.  So if you are going to memorize something, do not memorize lists of words, at least memorize phrases that are in context and express an entire thought. 

Language is communicating thoughts, understanding someone else who shares their thoughts, giving and taking directions, etc.  
I will share other posts about more specific things that you can do to learn a new language or reinforce a language that you worry is slipping away from you.  For now, decide that you love your target language, and begin studying the people and culture that use the target language.  Use what you know as much as possible.  You don't have to speak to native speakers to be able to use your language skills.  www.italki.com is a fun website that allows you to meet native speakers from any language around the world, and you should be able to find dozens of other ways to keep up on your target language, if you are committed to it.

I will need to fill in the gaps with a lot of the advice on this post with more complete posts in the future, but really the focus here is that for you to truly succeed in learning a foreign language, your mindset needs to be aligned with success. 

6 comments:

  1. Steve, good tips. I'm actually trying to get back into learning Chinese, mostly because I met a native Chinese member here in the states and we're getting married. Thought I better brush up since her parents don't speak a lick of English. Scott Barrett

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'll get some articles with more specific content up soon, but I wanted to get started with this one. I'm glad you found it useful!

    ReplyDelete
  3. By the way, where are you now Scott? How is life?

    ReplyDelete
  4. this comment is from Tyler Carter, I'm not sure why he was not able to post, but the comment was very good:
    One method I use to help people learn chinese (or any other language)...

    First off learning mundane vocab lists is a quick way to kill interest in a language for many. I remember sitting in high school french class repeating with the class "I would like to buy butter and milk" in French.

    Truth is everyone thinks differently, everything speaks differently and they communicate differently. Don't waste effort learning stuff that is going to be little or no use to you. If you don't use it regularly in English, why you learning it in another language? Focus on learning things you will retain and use.

    What I do for people just starting out... I have them write a brief (maybe 1 page or half a page) introduction of themselves, double spaced in English.

    We then translate the page sentence by sentence with that person being part of the translation process. With Chinese I will then write the romanization (or with another language the translation) right underneath the related sentence.

    Now practice it. Memorize it. Get to the point where you can stand in front of someone and give a basic introduction of yourself.

    Once you go through that sometimes in just a matter of days a person can easily retain the 'script'. But in reality its more than a script. With this method the student knows the facts of the situation so they are left to focus on the basics, ie, putting together relevant sentences, remembering relevant vocabulary, and of course pronunciation.

    Once they get proficient with that introduction stuff move on to other topics the student finds interesting. Odds are the stuff they talk about anyway is the stuff they will be talking about in Chinese. Don't fight that system, just go with it.

    It is important to push yourself. Don't be satisfied with half a page a week. If thats where you start then go for a full page and so forth. Build up.

    Pretty soon those pages add up where you will have a relevant vocabulary tailor made for YOU on topics you tend to want to talk about and stuff you talk about anyway.

    Also this method uses the teacher's time wisely and will be almost entirely dependent upon the student's motivation. They can practice on their own for 3 days, then meet up with a native speaker for 30 minutes to an hour once every few days, fire it off and practice and then go from there.

    Don't fall into the trap of not bringing something to the party. IE, you show up to a teacher and say 'teach me'. Its much more effective to have a basic something to work from, then you show up to your teacher and practice it and perfect it. Your instruction will then be 'situational' rather than just 'teach me'.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thank you for your insights and willingness to share your knowledge! There is truth in what you say.

    I remember when I first began learning Chinese in junior high school. Our teacher told us exactly what you said and then she did what most language teachers don't do: put us in situations where we were immersed in Chinese. Meaning that we went on a lot of field trips and even did things outside of the classroom. She took us to events, Chinese wards, Asian markets, restaurants, speaking contests, and even selected the lucky few to go to China. She always informed us of service opportunities, such as teaching Chinese elderly people English in SLC, and volunteering at special cultural museums. I remember that being the most helpful in helping me not just learn Chinese, but love it.

    Since then, I've continued learning here at BYU-Idaho, but two things happened. First, there were no more field trips to SLC where we could practice. It was all classroom learning--which I feel is effective, but I don't feel it was as effective as learning outside the classroom. Secondly, my attitude changed. I have to admit, I was extremely self-conscience and insecure when I stepped into my 202 and 301 Chinese classes when I saw all the fluent Chinese-speaking return missionaries! Ah!! What in the world was I doing there?! I felt vulnerable. I felt that making mistakes at that level of Chinese was out of the question and I would be looked down upon. But my motivation isn't letting me quit, and I never will.

    Although I make mistakes all the time, I've come to accept that. I still feel myself blush, heart beat quicken, and thoughts race around in confusing circles trying to catch what I had just said wrong to try to fix it. But at the end of the day, I'm on a weird high. I'm not sure how to explain it. I'm sure there are many who can relate with me. My body is restless and I feel like running at full speed, my mind playing back conversations I had and pinpointing things I could work on and phrases I had said correctly. Oh, and I can't stop smiling either.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Gidianny, I'll post a few more articles that might be helpful in your situation. I'm so proud of your junior high teacher! She sounds like a real champion!
    The fact that you can't stop smiling through the process is evidence enough that you are already well on your way to mastering Chinese. Way to go!

    ReplyDelete