Introspection on eleven years of self-study of Chinese in a non-Chinese environmenton

大家好!!

I'm a new guy here. Looking for a good place for my first post, so I guess this is as good as any. I don't know if anyone will reply seeing as I'm doing topic necromancy on a post that's been last commented on in July of last year. However, it's a subject I think I can speak about.

My wife is Chinese, and while that might make you think I could use her for helping me, we don't currently live together because of our current employment/study commitments, so when we do talk on Facetime, we don't normally have the time to do Chinese lessons. So, Chinesepod is what I use. Previously I essentially mastered all three levels of Pimsleur and all 5 levels of Rosetta Stone.

My theory is that I'm going to try to get "comprehensively fluent", which is just get to the point where I can listen to virtually any Chinese conversation and understand everything being spoken. At that point, I would like to start practicing everyday speach with my wife.  Pronunciations have never been much of a problem for me, though. It will be another year before we can live together continuously, so by that time perhaps I can get to the point where I can conceivably start speaking Chinese for virtually everything.

With Rosetta Stone, I would study new lessons for about an hour a day, but with ChinesePod, I can essentially just listen to Podcasts while I'm at work. This amounts to about 3 hours of listening per day on average (I work 8 hours but I do have to turn off the podcasts sometimes). 

I also highly recommend Skritter for anyone with an iphone, ipad, or ipod touch. It's a great tool for learning how to write, which definitely bolsters reading comprehension by a huge degree. I also recommend using a bamboo pen in conjuction with Skritter.

Ok, that's my story! I've been studying Chinese in earnest for about a year and a half, and I think I'm about an intermediate, but I've been listening to many elementary podcasts to catch some grammar and unique expressions that I haven't yet learned which might be far more common at the intermediate levels.

I study about 15 hours a week. I have a formal 2 hour lesson every Sunday that normally requires about 6-8 hours of preparation. I have almost completed Intermediate Business Mandarin Book #2.

Living in China certainly helps, but most of my workers are trying to improve their English, not help me with my Mandarin. Watching TV shows(which almost always have the chinese text scrolling below) is a real help.

My reading skills are definitely better than my speaking skills. I think this is true for most of the chinese as well.

Hopefully I will get to stay in China a few more years.

PS- Just recently visited Chengdu. Who would have thought that the best pizza in China would be there-Mike's Pizza.

Some answers to questions, and responses to comments:

Bodawai, I didn't remember you were in Chengdu, else I might have tried to look you up.

Xiao3Mai4, I spend fifteen hours a week studying, pretty consistently.

Darkstar94, my goal is complete fluency.  I want to speak Chinese as well as I speak English.  I don't have any special plan.  I just push myself to consume more and more material in Chinese, and get as much speaking practice as I can arrange.  I started studying Chinese in my mid-forties, and have never learned a second language to anything approaching fluency, before.

AmesburyGeorge, it took me about a year and a half before I could parse Chinese phonemes, and several years before I could come up with some kind of verbal response in Chinese to whatever someone said to me, even if my word choice and grammar weren't perfect.

Thanks all, for your well wishes.

Hi Mark,

Yeah, I can relate. I haven't been studying as long as you, but I do have the advantage of living here. I think that is a tremendous help for me. I don't do as much work with Chinesepod as you, but I spend lots of time practicing writing. 

I can relate with the difficulty of trying to study Chinese without the benefit of daily opportunities to practice. My first 10 months of learning was while I was in the states. I didn't have my first conversation until I was flying from DC to Beijing... I do feel somewhat bad for the man I was trying to talk to, although he did demstrate a degree of patience with me.

Ive been at it for almost 5 years, I enjoy the harder lessons. I particularly like the lessons that have no English at all. There are gaps that I don't understand, but I do get enough of it to get the general idea. I guess I am in the same boat as you, I would like to see more difficult lessons... Not quite sure if I am ready for media as I have recently made the jump from Upp. to Advanced... Not to say that I am a true advanced speaker, it is just that I want to hear lessons entirely in Chinese.

I am not sure if I will continue to study Chinese for the rest of my life, but I plan to continue at least for the short-term.

So where do YOU want to go next with your study?  I know it can be hard because there is so many things you don't that you don't know until you come into the situation where it's exposed (if you can understand that).  There are two aspects of learning languages that I think of in these situations, one is looking for particular marterial e.g. I want to learn how to say this in Chinese or there is a more passive aspect where you learn things from choosing random materials.  They obviously both have advantages and disadvantages.  But anyway, I think that was a bit off topic, but I hope you learn lots in your next year of study, it's never too late or you're never too old.  Go on youtube and you'll find there are some polyglots who are still learning languages after their 30s.

Mark, how many hours do you study in a typical week?  Best of luck with continuing your Chinese

Definitely can't best you Mark, but thanks for your story. Wish you had looked us up in Chengdu!   But of course I understand not wanting to hang out with foreigners.