No, it’s not porn (I can hear your dissatisfied grumbling), but learning chinese in the summer. I hope IMHO is the right place, as I’m polling for opinions.
Specifically, I’ve this irrational desire to learn the chinese language (mandarin), and we have around here the “Boston Language Institute”, which offers programs in chinese. Within 6 - 12 months and a couple-three thousand, I should be fairly proficient in the language, judging from their advertising. But, as I said, it’s completely irrational and has no practical value. I wouldn’t be speaking it to anyone on a regular basis. With the exception of buying chinese videos and newspapers, it’s conceivable that I wouldn’t have any real exposure to it.
So what do I do? Should I drop the bucks and take the courses, and try to keep up my proficiency after it’s over by watching movies and talking to the take-out girl at the local ChinaHut, or should I just file it away under “interesting but useless” and move on to other things, like piloting?
I’m on the side of “It’s always good/useful/neat to know another language.” However, I also know how rapidly you can lose proficiency if you don’t use the language. (You can regain most, if not all, of that proficiency fairly quickly, but …)
I’d vote to learn the language now, and then practice, practice, practice! Read as much as you can (a few minutes a day, an hour a week, something like that), and speak/write as much as you can. The composition will train you even more than the absorption. Good luck!
[I used to see those BLI ads on the T all the time, and I was always tempted, but… neither time nore money enough. Sigh.]
I guarantee that you have zero chance of becoming proficient in Chinese in a mere 12 months, even if you worked at it full-time. I’ve studied Japanese, which is much simpler than Chinese in many ways, and it took me about 4 years to attain a modest fluency. My friends who studied Chinese learned just a few basics over the course of a year.
That being said, I highly encourage studying foreign languages. There is much virtue in learning things foreign to your own mindset, and learning a language is also about learning to think in new and different ways.
[just spewed coke all over the keyboard and am trying to tuck my left lung back in]
Fluent in 12 months? If you are, then you’re some kinda language MASTER. Don’t even think about learning some characters in there while you’re getting orally fluent - or did they promise you’d be reading Confucious in the original as well?
Now, I am the first to admit that I’m not good a languages. Mandarin Chinese was the first real language I tackled aside from 2 years of really basic French in High School. I spent about 12 hours a day every day for two years at university, went to Taiwan right after that, and a few months later started to feel reasonably proficient. That did include at least 3-4 hours a day of character work. I had classmates that managed to get reasonably good by studying a mere 6-8 hours a day for two years. I know some people that lived in Taiwan or China, studied real hard for 3 months and had some real basic conversational fluency.
Sorry if I sound obnoxious, but Chinese is a difficult language. Studying it part time in the US without at least a black haired dictionary will mean you end up knowing maybe a few hundred words. So, if the Chinese restaurant you go to speaks Mandarin instead of Cantonese, you might be able to order and ask for the check.
IMO, the best way to learn a language is to fall in love with a speaker of that language… Think about it! It’s like a two for one ;-).
So, assuming you’re not currently going out with anyone, get yourself someone of the opposite sex and drop the equivalent amount of money to go out on “learning dates”. Complement that with some computer assisted learning software and it might be most interesting. Plus, you’ll at LEAST make some friends that speak the language.
I meant proficient by university standards. They advertise the courses as comparable to a semester of university-level training. Given their schedule, I can conceivably attend levels 1 - 4 within 6 months (the “accelerated” program), definitely within 12, which should be better than two years at a univ. Again, according to their website.
rngadam:
You’re probably on to something there. I can’t actually start dating someone, as the missus frowns upon that sort of thing. Hmmm…gotta meet some people and get that “black haired dictionary” that ChinaGuy referred to. BTW, CG, thanks for the vote of confidence Not that I doubt anything you said, mind you.
So far I’ve got:
A) Befriend a native speaker
B) Don’t expect more than a few hundred words from the class
Hate to break it to ya, but “black haired dictionary” is probably someone your love muffin would object to.
That said, you’ve got reasonable expectations as to how “fluent” you’ll be. Go for it. “jia you” literally means “add oil” which really means “put on the gas” or “do your best”. Good luck
You’re on the right track. Just seconding what’s already been said. It took me more like 6 or 7 years to become fluent, and was much easier after I got the black-haired dictionary. The Chinese can be pretty friendly, so you won’t necessarily have to get in bed with anyone. (I suggest a male friend.) Although your friend may want to work on his English. I gather you’ve got a life outside of Chinese, but you could go live in Taiwan or China. English teaching jobs are available both places, but more flexible in Taiwan.
Do you think my girlfriend would be mad if I described her as a black haired dictionary? I have to learn it, how else am I going to know when she is swearing at me?
Speaking as someone whose proficiency never got all THAT high (second-year college level, max, plus some immersion-learned terms and slang), and who has not practiced it in, oh, almost 15 years (has it really been that long???), it is STILL worth learning a foreign language. And Chinese, while not at all easy, is easier in some ways (like grammar) than many languages, and is really fascinating, too. (IMHO, there)
I can’t even order food in Chinese (which is actually harder than it seems - the names tend to be artistic rather than descriptive, though you can often get a general clue), but I can help out the odd lost traveler, pronounce things with a decent level of accuracy, and so forth. learning Chinese (in the long run, without practice) has mostly helped me appreciate other parts of the culture more effectively - like, it is much easier to appreciate good Chinese brushwork if you’ve actually written (at least some of) the characters yourself.
Also, you really do need to learn those insults and swear words, from the mild and affectionate to the majorly insulting. You need a buddy for those, they don’t usually tell you those in class. I found a working knowledge of insults to be really helpful when haggling over price (I was young - shopping was a major thrill). It was often essential to be able to raise my eyebrows at the casual commentary on the crazy American… I’d get a lot more respect being able to indicate that I knew I was being insulted, even if it was often very gently and with some amusement. And have some fun and start trading slang terms with a Chinese buddy who is learning English… they find ours pretty entertaining, too. (like, how many slang terms for ‘vomit’ can you think of?)
Not that I doubt anything you said, mind you.