Why are you learning Chinese?

Ken,

Because there are many people who live through this type of daily life

http://www.spike.com/video/careerbuildercom-may/3104872

that they need intellectual stimulus of CPod.

Interesting to read all your posts. I too, like hwangd01 must have been in junior school when I became aware of foreign languages and became fascinated by them and still am. I think my first contact was a French phrasebook. Thinking this over, I thought of the various methods for learning languages I've experienced and what can be the best way for me personally.

At grammar school my first foreign language was French, learnt by the typical repetition method: je suis, tu es, il est .... relatively boring but obviously it did stick in my mind.

A second "language" was then Latin which I never really thought of as a language, more like maths. Don't know if it was the subject matter (Virgil) but I never took to it.

My third language, the only other alternative at our school was German. At that time, I was pretty grotty at German (I found it much more difficult than French) but kept at it to A-level and beyond. The method here again: repetition, ich bin, du bist .......

When deciding to go to Univ/College they advised me not to do mainstream French, German but to go in for Chinese, Russian or Arabic. China had always interested me and I would have taken up Chinese if it hadn't been 1970 with China in the middle of the Cultural Revolution and absolutely no chance at that time of being able to visit China.

I went to Techn.College to do languages: French, German and Italian. Italian was a hit and miss thing, relatively easy cos you can often deduct from French or English what it means. But because of that I tended to not actively commit it to memory.

After college I went to Germany (for a year - and am still here!) and had the wonderful combination of having learnt the grammar thoroughly at school and college and then being able to have full immersion. What ever language learner would really love!

In 1993 I went to China for the first time with my cousin who is also a language teacher in England and had like me learnt a few languages. We were overwhelmed by China and loved it straight away. At the same time we suddenly realized what it's like to not be able to understand a word, not even be able to read a word (a lot less pinyin signs etc. in those days), not being able to deduct what it might mean (as you can with other languages). Upon returning I started Chinese lessons and have been learning ever since but bascially not making huge progress. Now with Chinesepod at least I can hear more authentic language which was a big problem before. And I've been to school twice in Shanghai. But in my heart I know that the only real way would be to immerse in China for a reasonable amount of time.

What came out of all your posts I think though, and I feel that way too, is that if you learn Chinese it's somehow much more than just learning another language. Like an addiction, a love. Once, when I had been to Shanghai to school and came back exalted and full of energy. I was telling a colleague and he said: I know what you mean, it's like oxygen isn't it ? That's just how it is !

Can the desire to learn languages be an innate trait? I think I was 9 or 10 when I found I love languages. It may really have started with trying to understand the German declension system (der, des, dem, den...). It was a concept completely alien to what I knew up to that time, and I couldn't stop learning it and thinking about it. It was as if I entered a new world. I am not necessary interested in using the languages I learn in a practical sense, but it's the sheer joy of learning them. There is something about phonology and syntax that I especially love. If you put in front of me, a newspaper, a magazine, a novel or a book on the grammar of whatever language (let's say Polish), I would pick up that Polish grammar book first, every time. Am I obsessed? A freak? Mandarin is one of the many languages I am dabbling in at the time, and I am really digging the syntax, the phonology, and the script.

I've always found it so strange that I am this insane about languages but the vast majority of people I meet are either indifferent or run quickly the other way. (讨厌啊, 真是的!) That's why I found CPod to be a good place to "hang out" since there are people perhaps like myself here.  I like CPod because it's out there almost in real time, and everything seems very fresh, there is always something new, and I like checking out the chatter of the users, some of whom are brilliant. (There is a little white puppy avatar that I always look forward to seeing.) Other audio courses actually seem rather stale, since they were recorded 5, 10 or even more years before I listen to them.

Hello, My friends,

learning is a tough task, especially at the beginning. so don't worry too much, just go ahead.

being a native Chinese speaker living in Beijing, I would like to help you to improve your Chinese ability,meanwihle I also could learn westen cultures. welcome frends to contact with me any time via Email or Skype

Email: tedacoke@163.com

Skype: snow.mountain.lover

Thank you and look forward to hearing from you soon

I am a high school Spanish teacher.  I like to keep things interesting in the classroom and I like learning in general.

Last school year I was introduced to the concept of pod casting and wanted to incorporate it in my classroom.  I googled pod casting for learning languages and Chinesepod came up a number of times.  I was only looking at it for research purposes.  I started playing some of the intro lessons and my wife asked what I was listening to.  The next day I came home from work and my three year old daughter was saying ni hao ma and zaoshang hao; we were hooked.

Being very busy we have not had as much time to work on it as I would like but I have been exploring certain aspects of the language and trying to connect/network with Chinese teachers in my area.  I started a Chinese club at school and am trying to get my school to look at bring Chinese in at some point (I'm a bit selfishly motivated; I want to attend the class :)

I enjoy Chinesepod very much, as does my family.  I can see many practical uses of the language plus I love how logical the language seems to be.  I've always been intrigued by the language but, like most people, thought it would be too hard to really learn it.  I was wrong and wish I could do much more with it.

Looking forward to hearing more from you guys!!

Josh

Hey Doc! Yeah, I've been busy with this "Guided" subscription thing. It takes me a lot longer to study now, so I don't have much time to hang out in the Community section.

The Turtle situation is one that I kept hoping would just work itself out. I figured adding the capability for animated GIF files wasn't high on the list of fixes for the new version of C-Pod, but I also didn't think it would be that difficult. *hint, hint*

龜

Hey, sparechange, so nice to see you on the boards again, but where is the Oscar-winning turtle? It'd be sad if it's gone forever : (

Most of the things I would say about Chinese could be said of other languages. The sound, the people, the culture, the writing system (although, Chinese certainly takes the cake with its writing system). And even though there are some practical considerations (e.g., it's very widely spoken, I live near and work with several native speakers), I really wasn't all that motivated by them. I simply wanted to start learning languages, and I had to start somewhere. 

I would have to say the sheer mystery of such a distant culture (literally and figuratively) played an imporant role in my decision to start with Chinese. We are often somewhat afraid of what we don't understand, and I would say China and the Chinese are misunderstood by many Westerners. And after over a year of studying, I have come to the conclusion that there is no better cure for this kind of fear and misunderstanding than to dive in and learn everything you can. It's an experience I wouldn't trade for anything, and I have made some wonderful new friends along the way.

And I couldn't have done it without C-Pod! :P

Great Story Wolson. Interesting that they recognized the connection between music and Mandarin. I am just realizing this myself and as someone who doesnt play any instruments, I struggle with tones.

Why did I start to learn Chinese?

Because I was forced to. Yes, forced to.

Back when I arrived at the United States Military Academy at West Point, NY, I spoke passable German. Every Cadet must take two years of a foreign language. And because of my ability to speak German they would not me met take German. There are no “easy way outs” at West Point.

During an interview with the Foreign Languages Department at West Point, they learned that I played a number of musical instruments. So, then the interviewer says, “We have this new language program. There are not many students either wanting it or have the ability to take it. However, with your musical abilities, would you be interested in taking Mandarin?”

A request like this is more or less an order: I was not given options here. I could have said no but one generally does not in a military unit refuse requests without a very good reason to do so and I lacked one.

So I was force fed Chinese and regurgitated Ying-ese three days a week. I make it sound worse that than it actually was. Even though my areas of interest were Physics and Electrical Engineering, I continued to try to fit Chinese electives into my program during my fours years at West Point so it could not have too bad.

But anyone familiar with the West Point classroom with Plebes will understand what I meant about force-fed and regurgitate. It is a very demanding program where you are given a lot of material very rapidly and must speak in Chinese everyday in the class room. By the time that I completed my four years at USMA, I could read about 2500 characters and communicate in Chinese passably well.

But in my 24 year Army career, I never once used the Chinese I learned. Instead, I served in Germany where my German was indispensable (within four months of arriving, I had negotiate, in German, contracts) and then later, a little time in Korea.

When I retired from the Army, I became an Engineering College Professor. Then, in 2005, some 32 years after my last Chinese class, I was asked to speak on my research in Sustainability in Shanghai.

To understand me, you have to understand that I am somewhat a fanatic about communication: I never want to visit a foreign land without being able to speak some of the local language.

So I dusted off my old Chinese books, (“Speak Mandarin” by Fenn and Tewksbury) and started to try to recall what I learned so many years ago. In addition, I bought several books all which used Pinyin which was very different than the Yale Romanization System that I had been familiar with. It was somewhat of a hopeless task but I managed.

Then my University asked me to visit China in 2006 and 2007 to coordinate programs with several Chinese Universities. This was followed by an assignment in 2008 to perform as an exchange professor. In 2007, Yanshan University sent to Toledo two Chinese Professors to teach Chinese. I took their Intermediate and Advanced classes which greatly helped me.

In addition, another student in my class showed me ChinesePod last October. And I have been hooked ever since.

So why do I continue to learn Chinese?

1)      I love it.

2)      I feel that it helps me to perform my job as a Professor and as a representative for my university better.

3)      I am also somewhat egotistical and like to show off that I can do things other American professors at my university can’t: that is, talk to my Chinese students in their native language.

So my reasons are not necessarily altruistic but Chinese is fun for me. So I continue.

My theory is that due to the overpopulation in China, many souls are experiencing rebirth in Western countries, so we are atracted to our previous culture and we want to talk and read chinese again.

I get this question all the time when I talk to a native speaker. I get a funny look and, "Why do you want to speak Chinese?"

It started with the intention of visiting China, and now I see its value in day to day life and especially in the future. I've read some magazine articles on the popularity of Mandarin in business. High schools are adding it to their curriculum... there's even a Mandarin-English preschool opening up the block from my apartment!

The story:

I started learning shortly after I began practicing kung fu, about 2 years ago. I knew of some schools that went to China for a short time to train and go sight seeing. I got really serious about it when I started training at one of the "Shaolin Kung Fu Overseas Headquarters." The monks there had bad English, and I had bad Mandarin. But, since then, I stopped training (daily expenses of life and parenthood left nothing to pay for training) but I kept learning Mandarin. I've been on and off with it, but I recently moved to Berkeley, CA and there are more Chinese speaking people around, with China town Oakland and SF... besides that the people in the bay area are very diverse. I've been practicing every day and even getting in some conversations.

Oh... and I might get a job in a big tourist area in San Francisco, so I'll have to study harder!

For me, the reason for learning Chinese came out of frustration. Arriving here almost 5 years ago, I got off the plane Deaf, Mute and Dumb. Deaf - I did not know what anyone was saying. Mute - I could not communicate anything to anyone (without playing charades). Dumb - I had very little insight into the culture nuances (beyond what had been written in textbooks).

That has all changed now but the first year here was very challenging and at times very frustrating - as I am sure other expats can relate.

My analogy to all this would be like listening to the radio. You surf the radio channels and try to "tune in" into the Chinese language station. At first, it is very static and difficult to hear anything (like when I first stepped off that plane). So you can either turn to another station or try to tune into this (Chinese) one.

Then you learn some basic Chinese phrases and the radio station comes in a little clearer. Over time, with continued language training, that station becomes more comprehensible. So the motivation or the main goal, for me at least, is to hear that Chinese station crystal-clear!

And by learning the language, I believe that you can understand the culture a great deal more. I feel that this is especially the case in China where language & culture are so closely connected/intertwined.

By learning the language over the years, it has opened a new window on the world for me. So the journey in learning the language is fascinating and interesting. That's what keeps me going to keep on learning and improving my Mandarin skills.

And I guess that leads to another reason - self development. It becomes a useful skill which any learner can call their own once they have reached a certain level.

So the main reasons for me, in short, is necessity, interest and self-development.

Hope this gives you a little more insight into the Chinese learners psyche...

kencarroll,

To answer your question, there is no one reason why I am learning chinese, there are many.

1. the world is changing, ( again ) I've watched it change several times before. I see the handwriting on the wall, it's no longer America's turn,nor does it deserve to be.

2. there is the endless fascination factor. and no matter how good I get, there's still more to learn, so I'll never run out.

3. I have this crazy theory that language learning accesses the youngest part of your brain and stimulates it, thereby releasing hormonal-endorphin like substances that aid in longevity. ( meet me in person and guess my age).

4. there is the Tighty-Whitey ice-cold culture factor. to illustrate, ten years ago i got hit by a drunk driver, I wasn't hurt, but he didn't have any insurance and fled the country. the courts didn't help me and my family told me that I was too old to be asking for help like that, so I went deep into debt just to keep going. I'm still feeling the effects of that one day. I sure am tired of this place.

5. I do feel more like I belong in an asian culture, and I have been told that by both whites and asians.

6. I love Chinese, and really, that's the best reason.

Best of luck, Lew. Hope you don't develop some kind of "multiple personality" thing that is going to scare your friends and family! ;-) Remember, all you need is just one or two details; physical things.

Thanks Auntie68

I shall try that.

Hello Lew/ lewz. The "solution" I'm about to propose to you is going to sound so kooky that I just KNOW already that I'm going to regret sharing it:

I entered Primary School not knowing a word of Mandarin, but with a smattering of the kind of broken Cantonese spoken by overseas Chinese in Singapore.

My little classmates were probably from English-and-dialect-speaking homes too, but they had fewer problems because they had all had 2 years of Mandarin lessons in kindergarten, whereas my early education had been in the UK.

The way I bypassed the Cantonese-Mandarin mix-ups was to visualize myself as a... Mandarin-speaking girl when I was speaking Mandarin. This girl was me, it's just that she wore her hair in pigtails, wore black plimsolls, and spoke Mandarin.

It wasn't as schizophrenic (!) as it might appear, the pigtails and the plimsolls were really the only thing, just a symbol to help me switch. And I never, EVER spent any time or energy building up any kind of "persona" for this girl (God forbid!). She was just me in pigtails and black plimsolls. I know this is a horrible, crude, example of racial profiling -- apologies to Chinese friends! but this was the 1970s!!! --, but that's what worked for me at the time. HTH...

I am an American Chinese, but fluent in Cantonese and Tai san. Early days of Chinese in America most immigrants were from Guangdong like my parents. In Chinese school we had no one to teach Mandarin back then. Now as more Chinese immigrants are from other parts of China and Taiwan, I hear less dialect of Cantonese and Tai San in the China Town. 

While in Beijing, I was asked why do I not speak Chinese. I responded in Cantonese that I do but not Mandarin. I have decided to learn Mandarin. I have a jump start anyways, but I end up saying it in Cantonese sometimes mixing both dialects it sounds funny. Cantonese speakers any suggestion?

I also love learning. I learned Spanish while on my long deployments when I was in the Army as well as some Farsi and Arabic when I was sent to the War zone. Now that is a tough language.

Lew

the only thing that makes sense in this context is 诚受施惠 - cheng shou shi hui, but those four characters can't even be found together on google.

other possibilities could be 承受社会 or 承受施惠.

maybe we'll never know.

Moloch,

长寿石灰 chang shou shi hui?  I guess maybe it's possible, it does make sense.  Good thinking, I would never have thought of that.

The only thing that baffles me is what the Clarence character THOUGHT he was saying to the two Chinese people that would sound like 长寿石灰 chang shou shi hui, or even 长寿社会 Chang Shou She Hui?

Maybe I'm just reading too much into it?

i think it was meant to be 长寿石灰 chang shou shi hui - long live lime, thus the word concrete. regardless, it was pretty horrible but what can you expect.

It sounded like he DEFINATELY said 长寿社会 Chang Shou She Hui.

But then we're veering completely off topic here.

I'm learning Chinese so I can poke fun at the bad Mandarin in shows like The Big Bang Theory - The Tangerine Factor, and conversely give respect to Movies and TV shows that feature actors who can really speak the language.

By the way, if you're going to create a show about a bunch of genius's and one of them is supposed to be fluent in 6 languages, hire an actor that can pull off the pronunciation of not one, but ALL of those languages.  His pronunciation was SO BAD it sounded like he's never uttered a word of Mandarin in his life.

is 水泥万岁 just 祝你万岁 with a faulty pronunciation?

水泥万岁！

xiaohu, I don't know if what he said in Chinese was "long live concrete" but that's how they translated it into English.

Calkins,

"Long live concrete," I couldn't find that phrase anywhere in the entire clip.

I think he said, "长寿社会"，but he definately did not say, "长寿水泥" or "长寿混泥土"。

The part I liked was when the blond girl came up behind and scared him, he jumped out of his skin and exclaimed, "吓死我了！"

Lowchuang,

欢迎你！在“中文播课”上你可以找到许多喜爱学中文的外国人。其实我们都需要学中文的伙伴，估计这是一个蛮好的机会，我建议你抓住今天而用我们帮你学英文。如果你愿意我们可以当笔友，你随便可以把一封邮件发给我：xiaohucai@gmail.com.

非常高兴认识你！

小虎

认识你非常高兴 :)

你好，lowchuang，很愉快认识你。

Nǐhǎo, lowchuang, hěn yúkuài rènshi nǐ.

Hi, lowchuang, very nice to meet you.

I am Chinese,and almost all of you have a amazing story.But I’d say that I had the same experience with you.Once I  got a ICQ user account ,I added many foreigner users as friends,but none answered.And several days ago,I signed up in a English bsb,I e-mailed some people,only one of them replied ,but it was far better than before.I finally got one foreign friends,which made me very excited.

In short,I believe everyone would talk to foreigners who have different mother tongue with them.I think it's honor to chat with you guys,though somebody  does't .

I think you don't really realise how difficult the task is until you have been studying the language for a few years, and by then you have already invested much time and effort and shown much tenacity in getting that far. You're determined not to waste all that effort by giving up now, so you just keep going.

Long live concrete!  Hilarious clip sushan!

Henning,

You too?  I can't stop myself either, nor would I ever want to!!!

I just asked myself that old question discussed here once again. And there is just one valid answer:

Because I can't stop.

Here is another possible motivation, a la the Big Bang Theory:

It's quite simple at the end: I'm a geek.

there's a whole lot of garbage at the front of blackangel's message, which I guess is because he's been using the Paste from Word [W] editing feature.

I experienced this when testing a post on the migrated 88news group (not published yet). What I did notice and alerted ChinesePod to, is that [W] really only works with Word, doesn't do such a great job with OpenOffice. I know Word is popular in China, but wouldn't it make sense ensure compatibility with open source software wherever possible? Much more in keeping with ChinesePod philosophy I think.

i think this chinese Pod is really good for me. cause i can really use it to talk to people, & have a converstion with them, in chinese. i think its really cool.

1. I was bored
2. I wanted to impress a girl
3. I wanted my company to send me to China
4. I played a video game about Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which made China seem awesome

Since I've started, I've gained new reasons for trying to learn Chinese. As an engineer, I highly admire how super effecient the Chinese Language is compared to English. The company thing turns out to be completely out of my control, and I'd have to speak English when I was overseas during work time anyway (company policy). I also finally bought the books for Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which have been translated for English already for some time now, negating completely the need for Chinese just to understand the book. However, Chinese has been awesome so far and I actually enjoy learning this language.

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I'm 24 Years Old and I live on Puerto Rico, I did start learning other language because I’m always on the search for more information. People don't really think how much very good information they are missing… because they don't understand other languages, currently English is my second language, Spanish is my primary one and tagalog or Philippine is my thir  hopefully Chinese will be my fourth one.

Also learning more languages opens new doors at work, friendships, and global peace like the amateur radio persons and Hey!!! you never know even a girl friend :=) but more than that i do it for my work I’m an Aviation computer programmer -(Scientist) very hard :–( and I’m a member of US Air Force :-) so please people never give up and never say NO.  Be happy, have fun and be safe peace for the entire world!!!

I hope everybody have a great day...

Cordially,

Cristóbal Ortiz Ortiz

=-Yi lu ping an!-=

Jin tian de kao shi hen nan means, "today's test is very difficult."

I have a really good friend who is going to be a Chinese translator for the airforce. She started teaching me a little chinese and I guess it sparked my interest. She gave me this site and so I'm going to use it for my studies.

ps. can anyone tell me what Jintian de kaoshi hen nan means?

I originally started learning Malay "just for fun" after meeting a Malaysian Chinese online and asking him to teach me. This was my first "second language experience," but after a few months I realized not that many people speak Malay fluently as their primary language. When I learned that this man also spoke Mandarin, I thought it sounded neat and asked him to teach me that instead. He agreed, but only hesitantly after warning me about the difficulty level. I said I would try, and that I thought it could be a handy language to learn.

A year and a half later: I got a job teaching English as a Second Language to internationals in a community full of Chinese individuals. I began to build relationships with as many Chinese as possible, and soon specialized my classes just for them, offering "low-level English" classes taught in both Mandarin and English.

Another year and a half later: I married the gentleman from Malaysia. He moved here, and together we are working to help Chinese in the community improve their English and function in day-to-day life in America.

Current reasons for learning: Helping more Chinese in America be able to live comfortably, offering the easy-communication friendship with an American so many of the Chinese here enjoy and want, and of course, communicating with my mother-in-law and others in my extended family who know very little English. I love Chinese!

Well, of course, I have a chinese girl-friend, and this could be my interest already. But that's half of the story. The other half is intellectual challenge. At school I was terrible at languages. Now I feel, my English improved to a point, that I can express myself written and spoken, now that I can think in English, Dutch and German, now that I still can read a bit French (and understand it) I wanted to approach something new. I'm afraid, I don't have those long background stories to share with you, except my fruitless approach of learning cantonese for half a year, but that's not Ken's question.

I definitely agree with eyux: As soon as you can make jokes in a language, you mastered it well enough. Although 我女朋友说了"你很可笑" I would like to feel being in control of the jokes rather than making mistakes. Of course, my favorite pun by now is 矮人。

Ugh. Sounds like I'm boasting. I've re-read my posts. Yes, I know quite a few Chinese women. No, not in that way, I'm afraid.

They're just very kind. I think completely clueless men must be very rare in China. When these women meet me, they look after me. Two treat me like a lost little boy, others treat me like an intelligent stray dog. They feed me, I help them with bureaucracy and we make jokes.

When I can make jokes in Chinese, I'll be happy.

Ever since I was a little boy growing up in New Zealand, I’ve been fascinated with the mystery that is the orient especially China. Things like Martial Arts, Chinese food, the culture (how different from that in New Zealand etc), just drew me in like a moth to a flame.

Many years later (and subconsciously moving myself in the direction of China and its people) I find myself living in Singapore and engaged to a beautiful mainland Chinese lady, who I met here. Interestingly if it wasn’t for her ability to speak extremely good English we no doubt wouldn’t have had the opportunity to develop our wonderful relationship. That’s the other side of the coin, Chinese embracing or at least learning about the western culture and languages.

After my first trip to Dalian (her home town) I just knew that I needed to really apply myself to learning pu3tong1hua4.

I had the most wonderful time and never thought that I would find a family similar to mine, let alone in communist China, but here they were. Mum, Dad, little sister, her boyfriend, aunties and uncles – everyone, just so wonderful and welcoming. One of the most amazing moments was being able to offer them something from culture, the native dance of New Zealand, the haka! They were amazed, and when given the opportunity to explain our culture, and the significance of this dance, especially in the context of our national sporting heroes the All Blacks, I needed to revert to translating through my fiancée (then girlfriend) and sadly some of the meaning was lost.

I knew that to truly experience all the joys and rewards of their love, hospitality, and culture I needed to master this language – no easy feat.

After several attempts at class room based training, text books, CD’s etc, and lots of frustration, I finally stumbled across Chinese Pod and am now addicted to it like my daily hit of caffeine. Sorry, Ken this wasn’t meant to be sale pitch for CPod, but just speaking honestly.

Many people ask me, that with a native Chinese speaking wife-to-be, wouldn’t I just learn at home? Funnily, CPod makes it a lot easier to learn at home, as the daily lessons, help me structure conversations and make them contextual to my learning and I can really leverage, and apply what I’ve learnt. It also adds a different dimension to the learning that I simply wouldn’t get from my better half.

Our last trip back to Dalian in May just proved how rewarding just learning a little bit more of the language was to be - it was amazing.

Here in Singapore, it is so easy to get around without needing to speak mandarin, and most o the older generation tend to speak other dilects e.g. Hokkien, Haka, Cantonese. However it is nice to once and while talk in mandarin, especially to the mainland Chinese, who are increasing in numbers here.

All in all, learning Chinese is a step closer to making those magical dreams that I had as a boy become a reality, plus its also a necessity as my fiancé is speaking to our newly born daughter in mandarin, so Dad don’t want to be left out of the know!

Lastly, we are having our wedding ceremony in Dalian next year, and I WILL (positive affirmation to myself) make all the speeches in mandarin, and I know that this will be a milestone in my learning.

I started learning Chinese so I could talk to my Taiwanese friend. She learnt English, and I really wanted to chat in Chinese. Then I moved to Taiwan last month.

I can get away with not speaking Chinese, it wouldn't be too difficult, just choose places that understand English or just shop in supermarkets. (But I get asked if I want a bag in Chinese, I don't understand the sentance, couldn't repeat it, but when I hear it I know what is being said).

As other posters have said, there is a thrill when you speak Chinese (or any other language) and people understand and they reply. It's a definate warm fuzy, excited feeling.

So now I have goals, ordering food in Chinese, and the one I would love, to be able to read a book in Chinese where I understand a good 80-90% with out the use of a dictionary. It take a while but I'll get there.

And, of course being able to have Chinese conversations is the untimate goal.

1) Learning Chinese gives me intellectual focus and discipline.

Once upon a time, an "incident" left me unable to concentrate or remember properly. I needed to occupy my mind but could find nothing to do. I couldn't finish a book or follow the plot of a film. Then I stumbled on the zhongwen.com website - a revelation. I'd opened a huge box of chocolates - thousands of beautiful characters filled with secret meanings. And everything linked together into a multi-dimensional mnemonic. Just what I needed. Zhongwen.com is the best use of hyperlinks I've ever seen. I spent weeks riding the links, up the radicals and down the phonetics.

As I recovered, I set out to learn Chinese systematically, and soon came back down to earth: I'd been playing, not learning; I couldn't build a sentence; my memory would never be good enough to remember all those strokes. What a conceit to think I'd understand something so rich and so complicated. But I was hooked. I decided to concentrate on spoken Chinese, but ordinary courses bored me. Chinesepod stays the right side of my low boredom threshold: the content is often funny/odd/naughty/about food...; the delivery is lively; there's the sublime Jenny; and there's a fresh lesson most days (essential - gives me that push to get started each morning). I've kept going for two years. So, thank you.

2) I like knowing that China's there. So different. An alternative. Escaping into Chinese language and culture helps me cope with life here. Sad but true.

I'm troubled by British society. Violence, coarseness and anti-intellectualism are too common. Lately, I've kept myself to myself. Then, one day, a Chinese woman started talking to me on the train to work. We got on well and talked most days. She invited me to meet her family and friends. I connected with them mainly through eating and humour. I felt comfortable with them. (After years in the UK, the Chinese women I know here adore British irony - but not much else. Or they say they do, maybe they're being ironic. I'm not sure about the men, I meet very few.) I thought my learning Chinese would bring us closer. WRONG! Surprisingly, although they help me when they can, they think my Chinese studies are a waste of time - I'm not going to live in China and the Chinese I know here all speak fluent English. I should be doing something useful!

But travelling in China by myself was a huge boost: a hotel maid virtually adopted me after I spoke a Chinese sentence (how many towels can a man use? Maybe she thought I was smelly...); glum taxi drivers became chatty best mates after a few Chinese words (so patient - they're bored and have time). Everyone seemed genuinely delighted and that motivated me. I'll never be fluent, but I can communicate. I felt huge satisfaction and want to do better.

Ken, every word you just wrote resonated with this "Grumpy Auntie". Thank you. I hope that you, the genius behind CPOD, will think of your loyal "overseas Chinese" constituency, which is surprisingly vital and vocal here on CPOD (vide the very lively "CPOD Pinoys" thread... ).

The "Basic" package hasn't changed at all for some years -- possibly an eternity the mobile-learning (or e-learning) timescale --, and yet you at CPOD get fresh evidence, daily, of the sense of excitement and "bridge-building" and even of "returning to one's roots", that overseas Chinese like me enjoy thanks to CPOD. Hope that puts ideas into sombody's head somewhere...

Our needs are different, but there is no real reason why we should continue to be the non-paying, non-Premium constituency of CPOD.

Many of us are "heritage speakers". This means that we may not need the "full bells and whistles" services of a premium subscription, but by the same token, we are also easy to please because it is easier (relatively speaking) for us to get the most out your podcasts with the least amount of pain.

It is very naughty of me to suggest this here, but I think you could score a lot of paid "overseas Chinese" subscriptions if you included the "dialogue-only" track in the Basic package...  

Thanks!

This is great feedback.

I'm also a keen learner. I think there are things you can do every day that have an elevating effect on your mind or your spirit. Learning is one. (Contrast that with say, watching soap operas on TV!) Chinese has so much in it that you feel you have spent your time productively after putting time into it - language, culture, history, the ability to communicate, etc. I think learning on this level is a pretty good return on your time investment.

I'm learning Mandarin for basically three reasons:  I have a 'knack' for languages, and already speak German, Spanish, and French;  if I decide to study linguistics for grad school I will need experience in a non-Indo European language; and it is arguably the most important language to learn in the future for geo-political reasons (though, we all said the same about Russian until 1989, and I'm learning Arabic and Farsi too, just in case). 

I'd say now that one of my reasons for learning is being able to tell Chinese people who ask, 汉字 never cease to fascinate me, and being able to decipher them feels like nirvana, but yours is a language no more complex than any other. It takes time to master, it has a rich cultural heritage, some idiosynchrasies and nothing in common with Western languages, but hey, it's just another language, any one can learn to speak and read it, it's not a mystical construct out of reach for non-Chinese.

Nobody will pay much attention to the fact that one learns English (as a foreign language), Spanish and the like, there's no reason to make a fuss about learning Chinese. As the French president recently replied about attending the Olympics, you can't pretend that 1/4th of the world population doesn't exist.

Hello everybody,

The first reason why I was originally attracted to chinese language is because of my chinese origins.

My parents are both "Huayi" (华裔) but neither of them taught me chinese. So learning chinese is a way to get closer to my chinese part :) It's also a mean for me to communicate with my family relatives who only speak chinese.

I would like to learn also cantonese later, as my relatives mainly speak cantonese. :)

And when you look like a chinese people, everyone expect you to speak chinese. I suppose that at the end I was fed up of not being able to understand when I meet chinese tourists who ask for some help...

skabadelic,

I admire your honesty. You are not the only one who gets a kick out of people saying, "Woah! You speak Chinese!," or if they are really shocked, their jaw drops and they say nothing :) That's not the entire reason for my learning Chinese, but I too get satisfaction out of being idolized for being able to speak Chinese.

On a personal/psychological level, I can understand where you are coming from with the whole, "I've already told everyone..." deal. If you get satisfaction out of having others oogle over you and it motivates you to learn Chinese, go for it. It's not really a horrible thing, BUT I think you should keep in mind that doing things to impress people is a bad habbit to get into and a hard habbit to break. You should be satisfied with yourself before you try to make others satisfied with you. Does learning Chinese make you satisfied with yourself? Maybe it gives you a personal satisfaction that you don't realize.

Best Regards,

Jordan

I love learning Chinese. I feel like my intentions aren't as noble as many others, after reading the replies. I don't know if I'm just being more honest about the situation, or if I need to attempt finding a better outlook on knowledge.

I am a learner. By this, I mean, that I absolutely love learning things. I find myself not being able to sleep nights because I am in the middle of reading about something new and exciting. I genuinely feel that I enjoy learning this new information.

However, I also feel like I like learning things for a sense of wow. I want to be the person that someone says, "WHAT? You know how to speak WHAT?" "That's very interesting. How do you know that?" "Ask Jamie, I bet he knows!" So I get the feeling that Chinese comes from that. It's not a common language to learn here in the west. In fact, I find that a lot of native Chinese speakers are just as cynical about my intentions as I am. "Why are you learning Chinese? Oooo...you want a Chinese girlfriend, huh?" "You like Chinese food that much?" It's rare for a Chinese person to learn that I am studying Chinese and not hear some variation of the phrase, "You need a Chinese girlfriend!" uttered. One time, after only saying, "Xie xie," I even had one woman exclaim, "Xie xie, is that what you said to me? How do you know that?! Are you half Chinese?!" [A quick glance at my avatar will show that I am clearly not]

I fully enjoy learning Chinese, but sometimes I feel like the only motivation that I have to keep me going is that I've already told everyone I'm learning Chinese. It seems like such a selfish, egotistical and childish reason to continue.

I suppose the short answer to your question is this:

I've simply already started. The fear of letting myself down, and the notion of failure in the eyes of others, seems to be the only thing keeping my nose in the books and the ChinesePod in my ears.

I am chinese. for us English is difficulty too,

the grammar is very hard to understand..

as when you started to learn chinese grammar.

now,i am still a beginner of English.

if you want to learn..just try your best.

whatever easy or difficulty..

Hi goulniky,

Thanks for your translation. Just out of curiosity, I've translated the French text into English, Chinese and Japanese by use of Google translation tool.

Not surprisingly, the English translation is the best among them, and Japanese one is just disastrous. To my surprise, Chinese one is not so bad.

You can manage to understand the whole idea of the text in Chinese, at least. Needless to say, your English translation is by far the best among them!

Hi all,

My husband and I are expats and we moved from Amsterdam to China jan. 08. The reason for me to learn Chinese is a bit of a control issue :-). Chinese always seemed so unfathomable and mystical and thought I could never learn it, but i liked the challenge.
For me it is important to get around in a city like Nanjing by myself and without depending on others. So, you need to learn the language.
Besides that, I cannot imagine living in a country and not being able to communicate with the people around you, that would make me feel very lonely.
Also, I believe that it is only possible to fully understand a different culture (if you like to do so like me) if you speak the language.
After 7 months I returned to Holland and now I can speak Chinese with the Chinese waitress in the Japanese restaurant and chat about shopping with the lady from Shanghai sitting next to me in a restaurant! I realized what I had learnt the past half year and that made me really happy and motivates me to continue. Learning a language opens a new world I think. Wish you all happy and successful (Chinese) studies.

I take the liberty to translate what qiren says

I hope she doesn't mind :-)

sorry to post my comments all over the place, but I am surfing over and I would like to reply to that one.

I don't know if this the right place but since I don't know where else to post I'm doing it here!

I personally learn Mandarin to show the way to my kids who all have given up as they found it too boring or too hard.

my youngest one would like to learn Japanese, I'm not discouraging him, provided he learns a foreign language I have nothing against.

from all websites offering Mandarin lessons, chinesepod is the best I found!

it's really well thought out, I do enjoy jenny for the enthousiasm of her explanations, her voice is clear and crisp, but I really can't go fast or too far as my English is really basic.

Still I quite like coming to this site every day, I like to listen to them (podcasts) and try to read the comments

one day, if I listen long enough, I may be able to understand explanations in English, who knows

 

- Chinese is a significantly different from Germanic and Romantic languages. Some aspects of the language don't match my strengths. For example, I'm not good at memorizing things. My memory is much better now, though, then it was when I started learning Chinese. Chinese grammar is fascinating and frustrating. Chinese offers a great intellectual challenge.

- Chinese strongly carry their culture with them when they relocate. Chinese assimilate differently than other immigrants to America. We have strong communities of all cultures in America but Chinatown is a familiar, distinct entity in most American cities. If you want to eat the good dishes in Chinese restaurants you have to order off the Hanzi menu.

- Many countries use the same Chinese language or the same Chinese characters. (This also applies to Arabic.) Besides broad utility, an advantage is that there is no "perfect" pronunication of Chinese. A trip to Paris convinced me that French people don't want to hear me speaking French even after 10 years of casual study. You're better off speaking English than trying out your less-than-perfect French. But after only a year of studying Chinese people in Shanghai were happy to hear me butcher their language. 

- People at work use Chinese. Sure, some people use German, French, Romanian, Indian languages, Russian, etc. But almost every day I hear a conversation in Chinese. Plus, in my industry (and my company) there's a good working relationship between the two countries. I could move to China tomorrow if I wanted to.

- There are strong resources available for Chinese learning. I knew about Chinesepod before I started learning Chinese. Also, we have classes at work. And I have a lot of Chinese coworkers who will sometimes humor me.

- I have some family ties to China: my sister lives in Nanjing. I don't have a Chinese wife, however, which seems to be both the biggest benefit for Chinese students and the biggest motivator. I find that most people I know who are learning Chinese fall asleep every night night lying next to a native Chinese speaker.

- One day I might meet Maggie Cheung and I've already established that my French won't be good enough to impress her.

salut

désolée de poster mes commentaires un peu partout mais je suis en train de zapper sur les comments et je voudrais bien répondre à celle là

je ne sais pas si l'emplacement est approprié pour le faire mais comme je ne sais pas ou le poster je le fait ici même!

moi, j'apprend le mandarin pour donner exemple à mes enfants qui ont tous abandonnés car ils trouvaient que c'était barbant ou trop dur

j'ai mon petit dernier qui voudrait apprendre le japonais

je ne le décourage pas sur cela car du moment qu'il apprend une langue étrangère, je ne suis pas contre.

Sur tous les sites qui donnent des leçons de mandarin c'est chinesepod que j'ai trouvé le mieux!

c'est vraiment bien conçu, j'apprécie bien jenny pour le bon entrain de ses explications et sa voix est claire et distincte

mais comme mon anglais est basique je ne peux aller très vite ni trop loin.

pourtant j'aime bien aller sur ce site tous les jours

j'aime bien les écouter et essayer de lire les comments

un jour je parviendrais peut être à comprendre les explications en anglais qui sait, à force d'écouter, on ne sait jamais!

Da jia hao.

I originally started learning Cantonese so that I could communicate with my fellow Taiji students in the UK. Then I changed teacher and shifted to Mandarin so that I could communicate with her. That was three years ago. Now I want to reach fluency so that I can chat to all my new Chinese friends and possibly travel to China one day.

This might be impossible as I am disabled and unable to travel at the moment. Learning Chinese and talking with friends on the internet lets me feel like I can travel. I can't explain why I'm drawn to China as opposed to any other country. I feel a resonance. Whenever I'm in a Chinese environment, for example the olympic opening ceremony with the local Chinese population of Derby (not many) or singing kareoki in a Chinese restaurant, I feel more at home than I do in a purely western environment.

I regularly chat with a Chinese man on-line who is also disabled and stuck in his town. We both feel we are seeing the world by sharing language and photos of our neighbourhood.

Ultimately I want to learn cantonese as well as I love hong kong films : )

I work in a university which has many 'overseas' students including over 800 Chinese. Back in 2001 the Chinese society started a Chinese language class free to students and staff, so I attended. I had an interest since I had to communicate with many new students, some having very poor English, who were studying English for one year before starting their degree. The Chinese language classes were well attended for the first few weeks but the numbers fell back to about 4 or 5 people who had a real interest.

I decided to travel China the following November, intending to back-pack as an independent traveller. Whilst talking to various Chinese students about my travel plan, many Chinese insisted that I meet their friends / family / colleagues at various locations, where they would meet me at the station and show me around. No matter how much I tried to say ‘no need, and do not put yourselves to so much trouble’, they always insisted on helping.

Whilst in China, I was met and helped considerably, being shown around, taken to restaurants and their hospitality was second to none.

They also wanted to pay for everything,… saying I was their guest, and they would pay. No matter how much I tried to pay, they just would not allow it.

Since then, I have travelled China about ten more times and continued to learn Chinese language, culture and history.

The Chinese seem to be very friendly, surprised when a westerner is trying to learn their language, and even more surprised in rural locations to see a westerner who is 6’8” in height.

I now have a Chinese wife and spend a lot of time in Zhangzhou, Fujian with my wife’s family. A lovely place which is still like real China, un-commercialised. At my last count there are only 8 non-Chinese in a city of over 200,000! It is still possible to take a 三轮车 (san1lun2che1) 3 wheeled pedal taxi in Zhangzhou.

Wow, it's great to be back online. I've been deprived of Chinesepod and learning Chinese for more than 2 weeks now, as I'm in Singapore for hols and don't have regular access to the internet (Auntie, I've thought about you too). Back to the question, why am I learning Chinese? When I was living in Singapore and was surrounded by Chinese language and had easy access to learning materials, I was never interested. I only got interested after moving to the UK and started attending classes just to have a useful activity during my kids' weekly Chinese classes. I also felt useless that I was unable to help my kids with their  Chinese. As I progressed, I developed a really keen interest to know the language and I found I was advancing at a surprising rate. I'm also the sort of person not to give up on something I've committed to do...and I do like languages. Discovering Chinesepod has helped plenty and I know I will have to put in extra hours to catch up when I get back home and can use my computer regularly again.

Interesting posts.  I have to be brutally honest and admit that my initial motivation to learn Chinese was financial.  Having been seconded to Shanghai over 18 months ago for a 2 year period (now extended to 4 years (great!)), I assumed that my job would be easier and I'd network better if I could speak the local language.  However, whilst this is certainly true, I do take Ken's point above that foreigners, particularly if they're primarily based in Shanghai, really have no need whatsoever to speak Chinese.  Particularly if you are quite senior in your organisation and you deal with senior people at your clients - English is simply accepted.

So, I now find myself learning the language more because I simply enjoy it - rather than any financial motivation.  I also love the feeling of achievement you get from each of the learning milestones - e.g. the first time you say something more than "yao4 qu4 ........" to a taxi-driver and are understood, or the first time you can have a conversation of more than a sentence with the Ayi in your office or the waitress/waiter at the bar.  It's these little things that make it worthwhile.

The final thing I'll say for now is that languages were always my achilles heel.  I was somewhat of an over-achiever at school, but French and German always brought me down to earth with a bump.  In the 14 years since I think the fact that I could never quite "get" foreign languages has always eaten away at me, so I'm now determined to prove I can do it.  Living in Shanghai just made the choice of which language easier!

Chris

PS - Ken, great question.  I'm enjoying the responses.

Ken, I hope you are not encouraging the idea that Mandarin is a "difficult" language.  Sure, learning to write characters is very time consuming, but it's not hard.

It basically comes down to always wanting to speak a second language.  I know I can live my entire life and have a successful career without learning any language other than English.  But why limit myself at all.  I just did not want to become someone who always says, "I always wanted to learn a foreign language," but never did.

It's just a life goal I will reach, not much more complicated than that.  Why Chinese instead of a more useful language (like Spanish here in California)?  Only because of China's enormous population and out of fairness because so many Chinese people learn English.  

Xiao Hu,

Amazing story. Makes mine look more horrible than it already is. For me, the reasons aren't as straight forward. I like Chinese for reasons that I don't question. I know what I feel and so naturally, I pursue what I enjoy. I think you and I are quite similar in our love of language and maybe even our aptitude for it. When you wrote that you didn't have an American accent, immediately those words jumped off the page. I am exactly the same way. From the very beginning, I only had to hear the sounds once and I could repeat them just about perfectly. Chinese people tell me all the time that I have no accent, just as they tell you. What intrigues me is why. I don't really know why. Do you have any idea as to why you are able to do this? Maybe if we talked this out, we could figure out what gives us that strange ability to imitate sounds so well. I am quite curious about that.

Also, you said you spoke to Japanese people who seemed as though they didn't want you to talk to them, or that you were bothering them? I have had the same sorts of experiences with some Chinese people. Of course, you can't just walk up to an East Asian person and assume they are Chinese (and even if they are, they may not speak Mandarin). At my job, I occasionally see Chinese people and I know they are Chinese right off the bat because they are speaking. I usually go up to them and say just something small like Ni hao, nin men shi zhong guo ren, bu dui ma? They say dui and then they will usually look at me with this look of confusion as if to say, "why can this white boy speak our language?" After that, I think the confusion goes away and they just plain don't care to talk to me, no matter what language I speak. Probably not because they are cold hearted or rude, but I think there must be some cultural difference that I am missing. If anybody has any ideas, please share them if you don't mind.

Alright, well I hope to speak with you soon. Great story, Xiao Hu.

Jordan

Hi auntie68,

Hehe, I don’t believe that you already have hair speckled with gray. As for Chinese, I personally think that it’s a very attractive language even without considering the economic power of the PRC, and I’m sure that you also readily agree with me on this point, thanks in advance!

As you know, I’ve long been an elementary learner of Indonesian. I love the language because it is very concise/rational grammatically and easy to pronounce. I always wonder why Zamenhof didn’t select Indonesian/Malay as a world language, instead of inventing Esperanto.

P/s: Having said what I just posted, above, I may be a bit strange in not being motivated by the "economic power" of languages. Before I grow old and grey, I'd love to study Finnish, Welsh, and Tamil, because I consider them to be "bardic" languages with particularly rich literary and "bardic" traditions. And the fact that they are considered to be opaque (by non-native speakers) is a very big bonus for me!

I, too, feel a bit sorry that xiaohu didn't manage to connect with Japanese people. I treasure my Japanese friends, some of whom have been my friends for many years. We've laughed and cried together, just like it is with all my other close friends. 

Well, as to why I am studying Chinese: I am an overseas Chinese (6th generation). Although I don't feel any emotional ties with China or Chinese culture, it's nice to be in a position to know, first-hand, what my distant cousins -- the real Chinese ! -- are thinking.

I am also studying Chinese because I am the only person in my entire family who knows any Mandarin, and my nephew the Stunt Toddler, aged 3, is required by law to study "Chinese as a Second Language" in school. So I can help him with his Chinese homework one day! But culturally, we would like him to embrace his own culture -- Peranakan + Filipino -- and learn Malay and Filipino.

If there is room for a third reason, I am studying Chinese because there is a really good resource available, in the form of CPOD. I've never been able to resist that reason! I would even say that the availability of really good learning resources has always been the biggest factor for me, where learning languages is concerned.

Eg. Three of the languages I am studying these days, apart from Chinese, were not on my agenda, but I am studying them simply because there happens to be a good "-POD" out there and I can't possibly resist...

I have been interested in Chinese history and culture since I was a teenager when I read a book called "The Good Earth" by Pearl S Buck. After that I read numerous books about China, but only began studying the language many years later for business purposes, but now I only study for enjoyment.

Becoming fluent in a foriegn language is a very difficult thing to do, but it gives me a great sense of satisfaction and accomplishment.

Hi xiaohu,

Every time I read your story, I always feel sorry that you are not compatible with Japanese people. By the way, just out of curiosity, what language are you going to learn next after China begins to decline in the future?

Jordan,This really does help offer some insights in to the thinking. I appreciate it.

Xiaohu,What an amazing story, and told with tremendous intensity. I love the part about the teacher coming to the restaurant. I think that also says a lot about the traditional approach to teaching: many traditional teachers think that westenrers cannot learn Chinese. And indeed they are right if they use traditional methods - it's way too painful.The reason ChinesePod came into existence was because we believed we could present Chinese in a way that anyone could learn it.

But I don't want to change the subject. I'm hoping to hear more from the community about why people choose to learn Mandarin.

Great stuff!

Ken,

Originally I started studying because I felt I had a connection with the culture of Asia.  I see Asian people being more focused on education, self-improvement, and community than white people.  I knew that China was quickly becoming a very powerful nation, they were buying more computers and electronics than us here in America, and everything on the news was leading me to believe that China may just be the country of the 21st century.

I also had always wanted to learn a foreign language.  I greatly admired people who would make the commitment to spend years of their life dedicated to learning the tongue of another people. At the time I wanted more than anything to learn French. Besides that, I would see white people speaking Spanish with Mexican people here in Los Angeles, effortlessly transitioning between English and Spanish and it was almost like magic!

I wanted to be one of those people who could at any time pull that proverbial Rabbit out of a Hat!

Back then I was working very hard to become an actor, and in my acting class there was fellow actor who I became fast friends with (a talented and brilliant Jewish guy who has since gone on to found a Manga company called Go Manga).  One of our other friend from class would often go with us to Cantors Deli here in L.A., and one night there was a group of Japanese girls sitting at the booth next to us.  He sauntered over to the table and introduced himself in fluent Japanese, the girls invited him to sit down and eat with them and he proceeded to have an hour long conversation with them!

I was absolutely BLOWN AWAY!

I wanted to be that guy!

This also coincided with a personal addiction to gaming, and the best games come out in Japan while never being imported here to the US, I wanted to learn to read Japanese to be better able to enjoy the Japanese games I had.  This series of events lead me to believe that Japanese was the language for me so I went to Borders and bought  several systems to learn Japanese.

After a few days of study I was HOOKED on language!

Learning language just seemed to set off some kind of pleasure receptors in my brain, I just couldn't get enough.  It was like I was Dorothy catching her first glimpse of the Yellow Brick Road and seeing the great land of Oz off in the distance, shining like a welcoming beacon!

I wanted to know everything I could get my hands on about Japanese culture to help deepen my understanding of the language.

I made regular trips to Little Tokyo in downtown to practice my Japanese, and I would go online to Japanese chat-rooms to practice my Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji skills.  This was great practice but through this contact with the Japanese people I found them to be very COLD and detached, very difficult to make a personal connection with.  The Japanese people I interacted with always seemed to be very annoyed and bothered by my advances to speak Japanese with them.

Because of this I felt kind of afraid to have face to face conversations with so I concentrated my efforts on my online chats.  I wanted to chat completely in Japanese and not in Romaji (Roman characters used to represent the sounds of Japanese, basically Japanese Pinyin). At that time Kanji was extremely difficult for me.  Hiragana and Katakana were a piece of cake, I could read and write every Hiragana and Katakana in the Japanese "alphabet" but KANJI...ah ha ha...KANJI was a thorn in my side!

A friend told me about a book called "Remembering the Kanji" and that book changed the course of my existence.

Throughout the book, it always refers to how the ancient Chinese conceived of the character and the story behind it.  It all seemed so fascinating, otherworldly, too much for me to grasp!  It felt so far away, yet so close, there was somehow this kind of deep connection with the characters that I couldn't explain!  I'd stare at some characters for hours pondering the story and history behind it...it literally gave me chills to think about it!  I don't know why the characters excited me so much, but I found them to be the perfect blend of form and function, right brain and left brain, Art and Science...dare I say Yin and Yang?

The book always talked about the different readings of the Characters, and how they have a Japanese reading and a "Chinese reading".  I became more and more curious about the origins of the Chinese Characters and how the sounds derived into Japanese so I decided to do a little investigation into the origins of the Characters in an effort to help broaden my knowledge of Japanese.

I printed out a few Chinese lessons from the CSULB website and tried to teach myself some of the basics.  During my study I started becoming more and more excited about the possibility of becoming tri-lingual, English, Japanese and Chinese, but that seemed like a bit of a pipe dream and I felt like it would be better to just focus on my Japanese.

Still the seeds of interest were beginning to sprout in my mind. 

I'm very much a perfectionist about everything I do and if I were going to learn any Chinese at all (even just the basics which was all I wanted to learn at the time) I needed for my pronunciation to be as perfect as I could make it. I tried and tried to understand the pronunciations from "pinyin" and the pronunciation guides, but I was afraid that without hearing a NATIVE speak it that I would never be able to figure out the right way to pronounce these extremely difficult sounds.

I got an idea, I took my study materials to a Chinese restaurant in the Chinese community of Los Angeles, found a restaurant (which happened to be Sichuan, my favorite!) and asked a waitress how to say these words I was having trouble with.

She immediately got very excited, she asked me, "You want learn Chinese?"

"Yeah, I want to learn some Chinese" I answered.

"Okay, wait here, don't move I call a teacher for you!"

She zipped off to go make her phone call.

I was scared to death!  What had I suddenly gotten myself into?  I wasn't looking for a private teacher, just a little help and guidance! 

As I drank my Jasmine Tea, I sat there contemplating what to do.  The teacher would arrive at any minute!  A part of me wanted to duck out when the waitress wasn't looking.  The other part of me (not only told me that would be unacceptably impolite) had this deep, all encompassing fascination with Chinese!  I finally decided to at least give it a TRY!

The teacher arrived, he was very lively, animated and extremely witty!  He immediately gave me a great impression.

During the course of our conversation he challenged me to examine my own motives about learning Chinese, if it was "just for fun" he said..."then forget it".

What was my motivation for learning Chinese?

I couldn't answer that question with anything other than, "I'm utterly fascinated by it".

I began studying privately with him, and to be perfectly honest, my initial impression of the Chinese language was that it was kind of WEIRD.  The language is TONAL?  That's unfathomable!  There are ROLLED TONGUE sounds?  That's unpronounceable!  Words are noninflected?  That's inconceivable!

But something inside drove me to continue.  This overwhelming fascination.  I'd say a word in Chinese and almost be transported to ancient China, in my minds eye almost visualizing myself at the precipice of a great lotus covered cliff in Guilin playing out a folk song on an Erhu.  I'd say another word and in my minds eye see myself in a Buddhist temple sitting cross-legged meditating with my brothers.  The feelings were that intense!

Chinese felt more and more like home.

This teacher would tell me stories of when he was a boy growing up in China, stories about his Mother back in Sichuan and his life when he lived in Beijing.  I needed to see that country.

Gradually I gave up on my Japanese.  Not only was the interest just not there anymore but I saw the handwriting on the wall.  China is the country of the future, and Japan is gradually fading into the past.  Certainly right now Japan is the more advanced and wealthy society, but the Japan we see today is the highest it will ever go.  China on the other hand, has a world of undiscovered heights, and I was excited about the prospect of growing with it! 

After a couple of years with the language I made the decision to move to the Chinese area of Los Angeles, surrounded by hundreds of thousands of Chinese (and Taiwanese) people, thousands of wonderful Chinese Restaurants, giving me the ability to sample a life somewhat like that in China.  To walk out my door and feel like I'm part of a community. 

We Caucasians can be so damn self-isolated!  We don't know the names of the people who live around us, and frankly would never even want to meet them!  We in America don't even know what it means to live in a community anymore.

I hate that attitude!

I grew to love the Chinese people's strong sense of community and sharing.  I find most of the Chinese people to be very warm and open.  Chinese people walk unannounced into each others homes, which at first was unnerving but I grew to love that sense of closeness!  I love eating together as a community, sharing the same dishes, refilling each others Tea-cups, toasting together at mealtimes!

Now I can't go a single day without studying Chinese.  I can't imagine a my world without it!

To say 我爱中国 would be an understatement! 

Xiao Hu

Hmm. I never thought about it like that. I think I am going to stop learning Chinese now... KIDDING! No, I really am kidding. This is a difficult question to answer. I had first been asked this question 6 months into the learning process. A simple, one word question and I had no answer. I was shocked. It took me a while to find the real reasons within myself. They are as follows:

1) I am good at it (for reasons I can't explain) and so I am taking advantage of a talent that I have. Why let this opportunity go by when I have an advantage?

2) I get this rush from actually using the language the likes of which I can barely put into words. All I can really say is that I feel...important(?). Whether or not this actually makes me important, I don't know. Just the feeling of importance I get, be I any more important or not because of it, is enough to motivate me quite a bit. This reason is sort of strange sounding but this is the best I can put it into words.

3) A sense of enlightenment and awakening. I feel less blind to the world outside my own (U.S.A.). Chinese and English are two different languages altogether. Not linked by the same mother language as are English, French, Spanish, etc... For that reason, I feel as though I am looking at the world from a whole new perspective when I am learning Chinese. It's a whole new way of thinking.

I have more reasons but they are extremely hard to put into words. The ones I wrote were difficult but the rest I could not even begin to explain. Sounds sort of strange, doesnt it? If some of these don't make too much sense or they just seem akward, I'm sorry. When answering this question, I almost have to dig into a part of my mind that I don't really visit much and to draw information out is a sort of daunting task. Hope this satisfies your curiosity!

Jordan