You know that old saying, "The journey of 1000 miles starts with a single step" or something like that. I feel like that phrase represents the commitment of learning Chinese. You have to start out with the initial steps of vowels, consonant clusters and tones before you can even think about saying words correctly. Like anything else, starting to learn Chinese has been slow going and I have struggled with the frustration of not being able to say sounds correctly, being incompetent at making or recognizing tones and creating time to study Chinese or being diligent about practicing it.

My tutors are helping me with this process a lot and offer plenty of encouragement as well as patient repetition of sounds over and over again. Sometimes I record the session so I can go back and listen when I can't remember how to pronounce something. Incredibly, most of the students here know how to use the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) and when I have trouble saying a sound or word, they can describe it phonetically.

A common conversation during any session might go like this:
Tutor: "Try to say qǐng jìn"
Me: "qǐng jìn"
Tutor: No, that's not exactly the sounds I'm making. Try it again."
Me: "qǐng jìn"
Tutor: Not quite, but you're getting a little better (she is just being nice here)
Me: "I can't hear the difference. What I say sounds exactly like what you are saying in my head"
Tutor: "Hmm... maybe you need to practice some more."

One of the difficulties of learning Chinese is training your mouth and ear to discriminate the seemingly tiny differences between sounds and tones. For example, the consonants: j, q, x, z, c, s, zh, ch and sh all sound very similar (to me at least). In the same way, the words: shī, shí, shǐ and shì mean different things but sound quite the same to me. As you can imagine, adding speed, dialect differences/accents and background noise can lead to a complicated and chaotic language situation. I haven't started attempting to learn the characters yet but I am sure that is a whole new battle in itself.

Currently, I have four different students who are working with me: Tesa, Daisy, Isobel and Anna. They are all great students who can speak English very well. They are always punctual, patient and very sympathetic and understanding. Some of them even prepare little worksheets and study guides for me. Keep in mind that they do all of this for free simply because that is the way it is done here. I had more willing tutors than time to work with them not only because it is probably fun to hang out with the foreigner but also because teachers enjoy a higher level of respect and honor here. I am going to do something nice for my tutors at the end of the semester, but until then I try to talk with them in English a lot during each session. I also recommend music and let them borrow some English magazines and DVDs that I have.

Some of the resources I am using to study are flash cards, "The Beginner's Guide to Spoken Chinese," another book called "Reading and Writing Chinese - Simplified Character Version", some sound/vowel/consonant/tone charts, a website called Pinyin Practice (try it and see how you do!) and a really cool program called Chinese Pod (you can play the podcasts on your ipod and print out the pdf transcripts).


As I write this blog post I can hear Sean chanting "zh" "ch" "sh" with his tutor, Jefferson as they practice in my living room. Today started out as a rough day because I am fighting a cold and when I wanted to make pancakes for dinner, I discovered that the packaging was damaged and there were bugs in the mix. I ended up having toast and eggs with juice and coffee. As the day is winding down it is improving, however, and the smell of freshly-baked brownies drifts from the kitchen. Maybe I'll go make a cup of coffee, have a brownie and get back to the journey of learning Chinese.

3 comments

1. Amanda on October 21, 2009 at 9:09 PM

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2. Amanda on October 21, 2009 at 9:10 PM

   Wow! There is no way I could ever learn to do that, I have enough trouble with Spanish..Good Luck to you! I miss you lots!

    
3. Chen on October 21, 2009 at 10:35 PM

   I know Isobel and Tesa. I think they can help your Chinese.
   And I also recommend you to use Chinese Pod.