Editorial: Teaching Myself Chinese

It's not easy to learn a language, and it's even harder to teach one. I'm not sure if the number and diversity of pedagogies and doctrines indicates that our knowledge of language acquisition is increasing or, on the contrary, has stalled. But from my experience, one thing is clear: you can't hope to master a language by simply attending language classes. As a learner, you have to develop your own strategies for independent learning. I think there are as many language learning strategies as there are (good) language students.

Of course, formal classes provide structure and guidance which can be very helpful, but they also make demands. If I studied chinese at a university, I would be expected to show an improvement in my writing each semester, but as a self-studier I deliberately chose to postpone writing practice and focus on reading instead. There is research to show that reading is in fact the best way to improve writing ability, and I believe it. I did recently start doing a bit of writing, but if anything it is an aid to my reading: if I have trouble expressing something, then I will keep an eye out for a better way of saying it the next time I pick up a book.

Furthermore, I write using a computer, which means I don't have to remember how to write the characters stroke by stroke: I simply type in the pinyin, and choose the appropriate character from a list of homophones. Memorising how to write characters is something I plan to postpone even longer than writing itself. I have no wish to torture myself by writing out a character 100 times, only to have forgotten it by the next day. I believe that this too is something that will gradually improve the more I read. However, I do compromise by sometimes copying my writing from the screen to paper. I think this helps to fix the characters in my mind. I should note that I did learn the basics of the writing system when I first started learning chinese. This is vital because it's impossible to even look up a dictionary unless you can identify the radicals that make up a character.

Teaching Chinese to Chinese The Chinese are under no misconceptions about the difficulty of learning chinese characters. As soon as their child has developed basic language ability, many parents begin teaching them to recognise simple characters. Visit a family that has a young child, and you will often see a set of flashcards lying somewhere. Writing characters can be compared to spelling words in English, and even educated Chinese occasionally "misspell" a character, or have to turn to a friend or colleague to ask "How do you write...?" I'm not very good at describing characters orally, but fluent speakers can usually find an efficient way to do so without resorting to writing the character down, for example: "The left is an ear side-radical, and it has the same right side as wash as in wash rice" (that's how to write my chinese surname).

Yes, reading has become the focal point of my study. Context is the key. Through reading, I learn new words in context, plus collocations (words which are frequently used together), and grammar as a means of expression rather than a formula. I have come to realise that the real building blocks of speech and writing are not words, but habitual ways of combining those words: for example English-speakers "take" a photo, Germans "make" a photo, and Chinese "illuminate" an image. In the short-term, I could probably cram more knowledge into my head by studying word lists and grammar rules, but there are no shortcuts to being able to use a language fluently and naturally. That is my goal, and because nobody is evaluating me I don't have to worry about whether or not I show rapid improvement in the short term. Instead, my aim is to learn a language the way a native speaker learns it, so that eventually I can judge the correctness of a sentence not by analysing its grammar, but by whether it seems right or not. I'm confident that this goal is achievable, though it will take many years.

The other reason I read is to improve my reading, meaning speed and comprehension. Some language students care more about speaking than reading, and faced with the complexity of the chinese writing system some people chose to learn only oral chinese. There is nothing wrong with that, but personally I want to learn everything I can about China and chinese culture, and until I can read fluently a huge wealth of information will remain veiled. Furthermore, I've already chosen reading as my strategy for learning the language, so the faster I can read, the more I can learn! To read fast, it is not enough to know the meaning of every word on the page. You have to train your brain to recognise those words instantaneously as your eye passes over them. Again, there are no shortcuts, the only way is to read a lot.

There is another reason why reading is the cornerstone of my study. That is, I enjoy reading. In fact, it doesn't even seem like study. I totally reject the idea that learning should be laborious and uninteresting. An unenjoyable method of study is less likely to be successful, simply because it invites procrastination. For this reason, my main criterion for choosing reading material is interest. I have read novels, magazines, comics, internet pages, erotica, a book on grammar (not to improve my grammar, but to satisfy my linguistic interest), and I'm currently reading a politics textbook about Deng Xiaoping theory. As for writing practice, I compose entries for my chinese blog, so there is a genuine communicative purpose for my writing, and I enjoy sharing my thoughts and experiences with chinese friends. It's also a good way to keep in contact with the people I met in Dalian.

I haven't mentioned oral chinese yet. In fact, I still have a long way to go in this regard, but I don't consciously devote any time to studying it. Living in China, I have opportunities to speak and hear chinese every day, and I'm happy with my progress. At the moment, my listening comprehension is still not sufficient to watch television of films, but when I do finally reach that threshold I intend to make full use of it by starting to incorporate DVDs into my education.

At first glance my method might seem naive, or perhaps lazy. But in fact, these conclusions have taken me a long time to reach, and have been influenced by various books and theories (particularly the Input Hypothesis put forward by Stephen Krashen and others) and by my brief experience as an english teacher. Of course, my learning style will continue to develop. But I think the most fundamental point is that language is a unified system, not merely a collection of words and grammar rules. And learning a language is like putting a model boat into a bottle: it's not enough to just stuff all the pieces in, you have to take the time to build it up bit by bit, gluing all the parts together.

You Did What Before Breakfast? Visit a chinese high school or university early in the morning, and you might find some early risers standing by themselves in a quiet part of the campus with a textbook in their hand, reciting English words or sentences. This kind of memorisation is seen as a means to the end of bettering one's English proficiency, and it even has a name: chennian, "morning recitation" (reminiscent of chenlian, "morning exercise", a daily routine for many people). One of my friends can still remember the first sentence of an article she memorised years ago, a dull essay about walking.

It seems you have put a lot of thinking into how to learn a new language. Very insightful. I am learning English. I enjoy reading English too, and your website is a very good material.

wang [] 24.08.2004 , 05:32

Very Interesting. I agree that reading is the most efficent way to spend study time. However I find it a very slow process to read books without pinyin underneath the characters.

Ivan [] 11.10.2004 , 09:47

I agree with you, imersion into any part of the language pulls the other skills into play. Learning to speak taught me to recognise which sentences 'sound' right and which 'sound' wrong when i read them out. i can see how reading can teach you ways of expression and grammar in the same way as hearing them does. You've motivated me to get back to study :) i'm doing second year intermediate stream AB chinese at sydney uni and honors stream classical chinese, was just on the net lookin for a job tutoring a beginner in chinese to pass on the knowledge i've learnt. Btw i have exactly the same problem in that i recognise and can type charaters on the computer but i can neva remember the precise parts when writing only the general shape of the word. learning classical chinese; the influence of history and culture on the way words have taken meaning has helped me alot in remembering the radicals and the different characters that make a character.

Ben [] 23.03.2005 , 13:32

i`ve ever seen a tv programme which was about travel.in this programme,they introduced a handicraft of putting a boat model in a bottle. they all were very small.the boat model was flat at first and binded by a string,so that it could be put into the bottle easily,after that,people pulled the string left out of the bottle,thus a boat in a bottle came out. is this the one you mentioned in your words?

Elly 04.05.2006 , 21:56

Oh, is that how they do it? Yes, that's the kind of boat-in-a-bottle that I was thinking of, but I thought they must construct the boat piece by piece inside the bottle -- I guess I was wrong. If they use a trick to get the boat into the bottle, it spoils my metaphor a bit...there are no tricks or short-cuts to learning language! (But there are certainly some methods that are more effective than others).

Todd 05.05.2006 , 17:53

i had have the same thought with you about the making of the boat-in-bottle untill i saw that programm. it seemed that i shouldnt speak it out here.hehe,but i do underestand what your metaphor mean on how to learning language. i`m quite agree with you,Todd.

Elly 07.05.2006 , 09:51

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