Mandarin Day 32: What I’m Using This Month

I usually like to list out early on what resources I’m using for my target language. I’ve held off on Mandarin because, as I said yesterday, there are so many that I have and that I want to use. But for April, I’ve cut it down to eight. These are the eight that I’ve found the most helpful for where I am right now. I’m not including Anki (for flash cards), Dramafever (for Fabulous Boys and other dramas!) or iTalki (for tutoring), as I consider them supplemental and not necessarily Mandarin specific resources.

1. Chinesepod

This is one of my favorite language podcasts (in any language). It’s thoughtfully designed and the Newbie series is actually level-appropriate for absolute beginners (as opposed to some other podcasts *cough*russianpod101*cough*). The episodes are self-contained, so you can listen to any one and have everything concisely and clearly explained without any prior knowledge. Plus, as it promises it teaches current Mandarin, with plenty of phrases and words that I actually want/need to know in every lesson. Up until yesterday, I only listened to the free ones available through iTunes, which is a pretty extensive collection. But I decided to see what the Premium service is like, so signed up for the 99 cent one month trial. It’s so useful. Being able to see the vocabulary words and dialogue written out (instead of having to look them up myself) in the premium version is extremely helpful.

Mandarin Day 31: Too Much of a Good Thing

One of the tips that I repeatedly see in the language learning community is to make a plan. Set specific goals, and figure out how you’re going to get there. I don’t really do that. I do try to set a reachable, defined goal (10 minutes of study a day!), but how I get there is often up in the air. I dabble, flitting from one resource here, another there, getting distracted by watching too many episodes of Wallander or The King of Dramas or whatever other target language TV show I’m into.

And you know what? Everyone else is right. My approach has been like getting drunk before a marathon. It’s fun to start out with, but I don’t make much progress and I end up stumbling around while everyone else passes me. I’m spending too much of my study time figuring out what I’m going to do that day. Do I listen to another episode of Chinesepod? Do I watch a YoYo Chinese video on Youtube? Do I work through another chapter of Colloquial Chinese? Or maybe do a lesson on the ChineseSkill app? TOO MANY CHOICES. I have 12 podcasts, 3 apps, 7 Youtube channels, 6 blogs, and 10 books that I want to use to study, plus Pimsleur, Memrise, and TV dramas (AND my weekly iTalki lesson). There are so many quality resources for Mandarin that I’m strangled by the paradox of choice.  The struggle is real, guys. So usually I just give up and watch an episode of Fabulous Boys and study some flashcards and call it a day (I AM SO OBSESSED WITH THIS DRAMA RIGHT NOW. I gave up on Absolute Boyfriend because the heroine was just far too annoying and started this instead and it is the best decision I have ever made).

My goal for April is to par down to my very favorite resources (which is unnecessarily hard for me because I want it all). And set out what specifically I plan to do every day in the time I have (realistically, 30-45 minutes a day). It’s going to be on a week-by-week basis, because setting out a whole month at a time is a bit overwhelming right now. I have painfully cut down my resources to about a handful, but I don’t have my first week’s schedule put together yet and tomorrow is the first day of April (eek!). It’s going to be a slow start, but I think once I have my first week’s study plan together, doing it the second (and third and fourth) time will be far easier and quicker.

Mandarin Day 24: What’s in a Name?

When I dabbled in Mandarin last year, I got confused by how different sources used different words for the Chinese language. Pimsleur used pǔ tōng huà. ChinesePod used zhōng wén.Was I just hearing it wrong? Were there really multiple words for “Chinese language”? Were they just used in different contexts? I even started thinking (wrongly!) that maybe pǔ tōng huà meant spoken Chinese and zhōng wén meant written Chinese.

This is when the internet is your friend. Yoyo Chinese has a very good explanation of the different words for “Chinese language” (there’s actually five different ways to say it!). In short, both pǔ tōng huà and zhōng wén are commonly used and the differences are slight.

Thank you internet! Thank you YoYo Chinese!

Mandarin Day 21: In It for the Drama

I love Asian dramas. I love soaps of all nationalities, actually. Weirdly enough, I don’t like classic American soaps  (I like my shows to have some sort of ending, and not continue on for decades). I do like “prime time soap operas” (think Gossip Girl, Revenge, and Jane the Virgin). It’s a guilty pleasure that I feel absolutely no guilt about.

My first introduction to Asian dramas was way back in my college days, with the South Korean drama Full House (absolutely no relation to the U.S. sitcom Full House). I then moved on to other shows, including the Taiwanese drama Hanazakarino Kimitachihe,
because it was based on my favorite Japanese manga at the time (Hana Kimi). How can you not love a series centered around a girl who disguises herself as a boy to get into the all-boys school her crush/idol attends?

Hanazakarino Kimitachihe introduced me to Jiro Wang, an actor/singer who I find appealing in a Channing Tatum kind of way (bringing good comedic timing and physicality to a role). I’m not super plugged into the Asian drama community and don’t know what’s hot/trending, so I find new dramas based on if it has an actor or actress I’ve liked in the past, or if it is based on a manga I know. Which brings me to Absolute Boyfriend.

Mandarin Day 19: Keeping Current

One of the things I want to do when I learn a language is learn how people actually speak. Textbooks get a bad rap for not teaching current speaking patterns (it’s hard to keep them up to date) – and are often thought to make a speaker sound stuffy and formal. This turns some people off textbooks, but I still love them. But I also want an insider’s perspective of what’s normal to say. A live human being is probably the best source – a tutor, a friend, or a loved one who is native to the culture. Movies and TV shows can also be of help, but it’s hard to parse everything out when you’re a beginner.

My favorite sources – as a dedicated introvert – are podcasts and the internet. A good podcast will give you an idea of how people really speak, and some cultural insights. Mandarin has an embarrassment of riches in this regard, and this year I learned that some basic greetings and responses are actually not as commonly used as I thought.

Mandarin Day 11: What Doesn’t Kill You

I survived, clearly. It was exactly as bad as I feared. No surprise, I am terrible at speaking Chinese. Maybe even worse than I thought. Thankfully, my iTalki tutor was cheerful, helpful, and patient.

And while it is painful to struggle through a conversation where you only understand every couple of words and where you are mangling the language, it is much better to do it with a seasoned tutor who is at least compensated for enduring the language-mangling. If I had tried out my Mandarin in its current state while traveling in China or Taiwan, I would probably be so embarrassed that I would sink back into English for the rest of the trip. As an introvert, the only way for me to build up real confidence in speaking a language is with a tutor. I’m too shy to speak with family or friends, and I am too ashamed to speak with innocent bystanders. That’s why, as hard as it was to speak Mandarin with a real human being for 30 minutes – even someone as lovely and understanding as my tutor – I am going to keep going with it. As soon as my trial lesson was done, I bought a five-class packet. Too late to back out now! I’ve got another lesson scheduled for next week.

I also learned two valuable things with the tutor, that I likely would not have figured out on my own until much later.

(1) My tendency to upspeak when I’m unsure of myself is annoying in English, but a killer in Mandarin. Upspeaking is when your pitch raises on the last word (which leads high school teachers around the country to ask hesitant students, “are you asking me or telling me?”). This meant that in Mandarin, I threw off the tone of the last word. It would end up sounding like a second tone (a rising tone), instead of whatever the proper tone was. So “Monday” would not be the proper xīngqīyī, but instead an improper xīngqīyí, which I’m pretty sure is not even a word. I didn’t do this when I was practicing on my own, because I am not nervous when I’m talking to myself. But add another human to the mix, and I’m upspeaking all over the place. Slowing down and gaining confidence are the best bets for me fixing this.

(2)  I found out that I had been completely WRONG about my use of the third tone. I had learned from my textbooks that the third tone is a falling, rising tone. When there are two third tones in a row, the first one becomes a second tone (a rising tone). But that’s the only time I thought the third tone changed. Otherwise, I kept it falling then rising. Well, little did I know that in a sentence the third tone is rarely ever pronounced as a falling, rising tone. Instead, in front of a first, second, and fourth tone, the third tone transforms into a low, falling tone. I have been doing this wrong all along and without my tutor I may have NEVER figured it out. She caught on immediately, and explained what I was doing wrong. Once I was clued in about how the third tone actually works, I noticed that the podcast speakers certainly did not pronounce the third tone as a falling, rising tone most of the time. Instead, it is almost always kept as a low tone.

I turned to the internet to see if I could find more of an explanation. Olle Linge of Hacking Chinese has written a great blog post about this. And YangYang Cheng of YoYo Chinese did a wonderful video. I wish I had found these earlier! I guess I got overconfident that I already knew how the tones functioned. I learned the tones several years ago when I first dabbled in Mandarin, and had not focused on them since. This tells me that I need to go back to basics. I’m going to add five or ten minutes of study a day focused on tones and pinyin.

Mandarin Day 8: Do What Scares You

I love learning new languages. I am terrified of speaking new languages to actual people. It is a conundrum. For the past couple of years, I have not worried too much about this. Learning something is better than learning nothing, and I personally needed to give myself a break and learn little by little in order to learn anything at all. I have a tendency to get overwhelmed easily by tasks I find daunting; I let the perfect be the enemy of the good. So I didn’t even try to be “good.” I just tried to have fun. And it worked! Instead of giving up on language study for months or years at a time, I’m putting in a little work (nearly) every single day.

The past couple months, I’ve been leaning more and more towards finally breaking out of my shell and booking an iTalki lesson. For those who are not familiar with it, iTalki is a website where you can book a tutor in a wide selection of languages. You can use a professional teacher (usually a little more expensive) for a more structured lesson, or a community tutor. Benny Lewis is perhaps the most vocal iTalki supporter (unsurprising, given his Speak From Day One mantra), but he is in good company within the polyglot community. In blog after blog, language learners recommend iTalki. I’ve seen so many variations of “I was really nervous about it, but I can’t believe how much it helped!”

Last night, I finally broke. Before I could overthink it, I bought iTalki credits, booked a teacher, and now have my first ever iTalki lesson scheduled for tonight. I am scared out of my freaking mind. I chose a professional teacher just to provide a little more structure and guidance, but I am not sure exactly how the lesson will play out. I have created a little cheat sheet based on this post, to give myself  some confidence, and to assure myself that I can give an introduction and make (a little) conversation if need be.

Mandarin Day 5: Watch Your Tone!

As I said last time, tones are one of the aspects of Mandarin that make it seem impossible. I’m not going to pretend that tones are the easiest thing in the world for native English speakers, but they are not as intimidating as rumored. Yangyang Cheng of YoYo Chinese has a good video de-scarifying tones.

Mandarin has five tones (often said to be four tones, but there’s also a fifth, neutral tone, so I’m saying five). A tone is just the way your voice pitches when you speak. Chinese Pronunciation Wiki has a great explanation of the tones and an extra-cute diagram that really illustrates them. English uses tones, too, but to show emotion, not meaning. For example, nowadays the word “what” can express many different things depending on the tone. If you say Whaaaat! at a high, steady pitch it means surprise/amazement (like, Whaaaat! I can’t believe Taylor Swift is dating Tom Hiddleston! (RIP Hiddleswift)). If you say What? with a rising pitch at the end it means you’re asking a question (like What? I didn’t hear you, could you repeat that?). If you say What. with a sharp lowering pitch it usually means you’re angry (like What. Don’t talk to me I don’t want to hear it).

EDIT: When you learn tones, make sure you don’t get tricked by the third tone! Although it is classically illustrated as a falling-rising tone, in practice it is usually kept as a low tone. See this blog post at Hacking Chinese and this  YoYo Chinese video.

Mandarin Day 1: Reasons to Learn

Does anyone still need to be convinced to learn Mandarin these days? I feel like it kind of advertises itself. Back in college when I told my dad I was going to study Japanese his response was, “Why would you do that? You should learn Chinese.” He was clearly already convinced of the merits of studying Chinese (and did not appreciate how great Japanese is).

(1) It is the #1 most spoken language in the world. That’s nearly 1.2 billion speakers (English comes in second with 942 million speakers). Mandarin is the official language of China, Taiwan, and Singapore. But Mandarin speakers are all over. And tourism by Mandarin speakers is on the rise. Given all that, Mandarin seems an extra good choice if you are in the hospitality industry.

(2) It isn’t as hard as you fear. There are no articles, no genders, and no cases! And no conjugation of verbs! Buzzfeed has even made a list of why it’s easier than English.

(3) You can level up your visit to a Chinese restaurant. In their hilarious video on why you should learn Mandarin, Off the Wall explains that Mandarin lets you order off the “secret menu” at Chinese restaurants. Do “secret menus” really exist? I clearly have not learned enough Mandarin to be in the know on this one. But it IS helpful to know the names of authentic Chinese dishes (as opposed to American-Chinese dishes like General Tso’s), and even better if you can say them in Mandarin and can recognize the characters on the menu. That way you can more easily check if delicious, delicious xiǎolóngbāo (soup dumplings) are available.

(4) You can avoid a Chinese tattoo fail- and spot them on others. We’ve all heard of people inking themselves with what they think is a cool message only for it to turn out to mean “noodle soup” or what have you. Don’t let that be you. Or your friends.

(5) Mandarin is the language of the future. At least according to Firefly, and I take most of my life advice from Firefly. If you won’t take your life advice from Joss Whedon, you should at least follow the example of Mark Zuckerberg and  WWE wrestler/actor John Cena, who have both  given speeches in Mandarin. But seriously, there are a lot of Mandarin speakers, and China is a world power that is seeking to extend its influence. And everyone seems to be saying these days that Mandarin is the language to learn for business (true? I’m sure it depends on what industry/market you’re in). Mandarin is likely a good bet as a helpful language to know in the coming decades.

Russian Day 59: The End for Now

As is typical, my blogging started lagging in the latter half of my language study. Apologies! I have been slowly but steadily plugging along in Russian. I sadly barely eked out more than my 10 minutes a day goal. Most days, my entire Russian study was an episode or two of Russianpod101 while I showered (Language pro tip: get a bluetooth shower speaker that will match with your iPad/phone/etc. Multi-task getting clean and learning a language! Bonus: the rushing water helps cover up the sound of you mangling the language as you repeat after your podcast/Pimsleur/etc.).

Russianpod101, like all the languagepod101 series, is a bit cheesy and stilted, but it does provide good listening practice and some decent dialogues. It really helped me out this month. The Russian series is one of the better ones languagepod101 offers. Plus, the hosts actually seem to enjoy each other’s company, which is not always true (I’m looking at you, Frenchpod101. You guys sound like you can barely tolerate each other, and every overly-scripted second is sandpaper against the skin.)

My clear favorite resources for learning Russian continue to be Russian Made Easy and Living Language. Those are what I turn to again and again, and what I will return to again next year (I’m a big fan of re-listening to podcasts. It’s great review, and often you make connections that you didn’t make the first time through).

I am satisfied with my Russian study this year.Am I even close to fluent? Bahahahahaha NO. I clearly have not put in the hours to be even conversational. But I am now familiar with all the cases (though there is plenty more to know about each case), I can use the past tense (a thankfully simple tense), I can talk about where I am from, my job/nationality, my family, how old I am and things I liked, etc. It’s pretty basic stuff, but it’s more than I knew before.

The best thing, though, is that I developed a true love of Russian this year. That is huge. I don’t think I’ve mentioned this before, but I had previously contemplated giving up Russian for a time. I had toyed with the idea of making 2017 the last year I studied Russian annually – I’d probably come back to it again at some point, but I wouldn’t study it every year. And now I could see myself committing to a six-month push one day, especially if I develop plans to actually go to Russia (which I hope to do one day). I certainly plan to study it again next year, probably for another 2-month stretch in January/February.

But for now, до свидания Russian. And 你好 Chinese!