Chinese

As you have seen, one of my missions for the end of this year is to be Intermediate in Chinese, in all speaking, reading and writing.

As I work full-time and at very weird hours, this is not an easy endeavour. I am often out of the house by 9am, not returning till passed 10pm. And I am exhausted! However, even on these days I try to squeeze in 2 hours of Mandarin study, in whichever way I can. The biggest problem with this is not actually the Mandarin study itself; once I get into it I can sit for hours working away, but the motivation to drag myself to the desk and begin. Beginning is always the hardest thing to do, that’s why one of the most popular quotes of modern times is the Chinese proverb:

‘Every journey begins with a simple step.’

My Chinese studies consist of self-exposure, in particular listening to dialogues until I am comfortable with the speed and new vocabulary learnt. The downside to my stay in China is that I work in an English-speaking environment where the use of Mandarin is discouraged. Due to my late working hours, the only exposure I get to native speakers is at the coffee house where I have my lunch. This isn’t ideal, but it is better than not having these little snippets throughout the day, and I do find myself understanding more and more each day.

Saying that however, I can say with absolute confidence that the key to successful language study is one absolutely crucial thing:

consistency.

I’ll say it again:

CONSISTENCY

And once more for good luck,

CONSISTENCY!!!

If you are not consistent with your language studies you will not improve. In fact, you will find that if you leave large gaps between your language learning, you will forget most of what you’ve learnt. This will be incredibly frustrating and nine times out of ten, you’ll give up altogether on your goal.

Even if you find yourself only managing to do fifteen minutes of study a day, this is better than nothing. This keeps the language fresh in your mind and allows your brain to consistently revise the vocabulary learnt. You may not reach an intermediate level within six months with fifteen minutes a day, but neither will you regress into a state of monolingualism.

This is an introduction to my Chinese Mission; to reach an intermediate level in Chinese in three months. I will be writing more articles and critiques about the actual techniques I have researched and which I use and why they work. You can also check my links to other websites to my favourite polyglots and others. Most of all, I hope you become inspired, or revitalised in your language learning!