Fluent Mandarin in three months? I’m not convinced

Date: 2012.04.05 | Category: Chinese Language | Response: 13

It’s been three months since Benny Lewis at Fluent in 3 Months started learning Mandarin in Taiwan. He still haven’t uploaded his three month video, but the time is up and lets take a look if it’s possible to get fluent in Mandarin in just three short months.

(I really tried to make this post a bit shorter!)

First lets review and go to the beginning of his mission. What was his goal?

• “this is day one of my mission to speak fluent Mandarin in 3 months! “
• “That’s fluency as in being able to do most of what I can do in English, in social situations in Mandarin.”
• “I won’t hold up the flow of conversations (on either my side or the person I’m talking to) i.e. conversational fluency”
• “Or something along the lines of level C1, specifically for the oral component”
• “My priority will be to be able to read menus and signs”
• “I do want to be able to get the gist of almost anything I see”
• “I won’t go as far as to try to be able to read the likes of full newspaper articles beyond headlines”

And after three months what does Benny say he has accomplished?

• “I won’t be speaking C1 Mandarin this month”
• “now I can follow B2 level conversations and get the general gist”
• “follow B1 conversations almost entirely”
• “in general I’d say I’m a comfortable B – a very safe B1, and dipping my toes into B2 on occasion”
• “My ultimate goal of “high level fluency” of being able to do what I do in English in the language, is still a bit off”
• “I’d be happy to call what I have “conversational fluency”, not right now, but likely some time this month”
• “I was successful in my objective to be able to read Chinese on signs, menus, getting the gist of some articles, and went beyond that by being able to chat with someone online or via SMS entirely in Chinese”

So is Benny fluent or not?

I’m not sure what Benny means with B1 and B2 conversations, but I know he has been using ChinesePod, so it might mean that he has been listening to B1 and B2 podcasts. That’s not quite the same as listening to native people have conversations.

There’s no three months video yet, so I can only rate his spoken Chinese according to the 2,5 months video. Based on that video I would say Benny Lewis’ Chinese is on A2 level. Usually can get his meaning understood, but it takes some searching for words and the other speakers sometimes need to paraphrase his sentences. Benny doesn’t really say what level spoken Chinese he has at the moment, but he says that he will soon be conversationally fluent and high level of fluency is still a bit off.

I guess my definition of fluency is very different than Benny’s, because I think he is still quite far from high level fluency. Conversational fluency? I think even I haven’t reached that level yet, even though I have a relationship purely in Mandarin.

I’m not sure what Benny means by being able to read, but with a dictionary anything is possible. I would like to give him a magazine and let him read the headlines.

Is it possible to reach fluency in Mandarin in three months?

I don’t know anyone who have been able to do this and according to my own experiences studying the language for 3,5 years, I think it’s not possible. With impossible I mean that impossible for European learners for example who haven’t studied Japanese.

Is learning Chinese hard?

• “I’ll go through hell”
• “These 3 months have been a really shitty experience to be honest “
• “I’ve ended many days this year with a headache and incredible frustration that I can’t begin to describe”
• “kicking and screaming”

Sounds like a hard work for me ;)

Does this matter?

Benny would probably say (and have said) that this doesn’t matter because reaching fluency or C1 was never his true goal. His real goal was to learn Chinese quickly (as explained in 2,5 months video). But then again he said “But I have found that aiming high and timeboxing it into a tight deadline, and having both being as specific as possible creates much better results than “try your best” does.” I’m a bit confused.

I agree with Benny that goals should be as specific as possible, but I think that having realistic goals is better. A learner should aim high, but not try to reach the moon. While trying to get to the moon it’s easy to get depressed by your own lack of improvement, but if you set smart goals they keep you studying hard, but you also get a feeling of success.

Conclusion

It’s been an interesting three months and I’ve read all the blog post and watched all the videos in this Benny Lewis Mandarin Mission. There are many things I agree with him, but that kind of post would be a bit dull. I don’t want to lie to people and say you can become fluent by studying Mandarin for three months. I would rather say it requires hard work, but it’s absolutely worth it.

(p.s. Benny makes traveling in China  sound like an extremely hard thing from which you can hardly survive. Well, I’ll just say that I don’t agree and leave it at that.)

Becoming fluent in Chinese: March Goal Check-In

Date: 2012.04.02 | Category: Chinese Language, Me | Response: 8

It’s time for my monthly Mandarin goals check-in!

Listening

13 episodes of Chinese TV and 24 episodes of American TV. A big fail! I finished with 幸福三颗星 and found a new series I enjoy called 夫妻那些事, but I still haven’t managed to get hooked on it as well as to my American TV favourites.

I think that the best part of watching those English language series is to get a small break to my other so full of Chinese life. I will continue to let myself to have those breaks, but I also want to get the numbers more even.

Besides watching TV I’ve also started to occasionally listen to the radio. Beijing Story Radio is excellent listening material because it’s mainly talk and there isn’t any visual clues.

I don’t have a listening course at the university this semester, but because all of my courses are in Chinese, I get to listen to a lot of Chinese daily. It’s a new challenge to listen to a lesson about Chinese history in Chinese.

Writing

I published two blog posts in Chinese this month: 吃惯中国菜吗? and 最近怎么样?

At the university I have a writing course where we learn to write opinion essays.

Reading

I have to finally admit that my book (失恋33天) is too difficult for me at the moment, there haven’t been any progress this month. I’m going to the book store during this short holiday and try to find a book with a similar level to 单身公主 (which I read last year). I will try 失恋33天 again later this year.

Skritter

I’m not skrittering daily but recently I’ve been skrittering more than last month. I used Skritter for 8 days this month, total of 2,3 hours.

Speaking

I had a presentation about my travels in China at my spoken Chinese course. Unfortunately our teacher doesn’t really give us feedback and the course in whole isn’t has helpful to me as I would like to. Luckily I chose a selective course 中国国情 (China’s current situation) and there are plenty of opportunities to speak. We can give small presentations about different topics and have discussions.

Conclusion

All in all this month didn’t go as well as I planned. I’ve been feeling very busy with my courses, but still haven’t been as hardworking as I should be. I have a feeling all the time that I’m not improving as fast as I should.

Goals for April:

• Find a new Chinese book that fits my level and start reading regularly
• Shoot more short video clips of myself speaking Mandarin

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Mandarin Monday: Rate my Cantonese!

Date: 2012.03.27 | Category: Chinese Language, Mandarin Monday (中文博文) | Response: 30

It’s still Monday in United States so here comes my Mandarin Monday, but this time with a little twist. Some readers have asked me to record my Cantonese and finally I managed to do so! My Cantonese is still very limited, I only know some phrases. Also my tones and pronunciation are quite terrible.

But still here it goes, listen to this short clip of my Cantonese and let me know what you think.

Listen to my Cantonese

If the player above isn’t working, you can also get the mp3 here: Cantonese

Courses of a Chinese language undergraduate student

Date: 2012.03.03 | Category: Chinese Education, Chinese Language, Me, Sun Yat-Sen University | Response: 8

As most of you know, I’m studying a undergraduate degree in Chinese language at the Sun Yat-Sen University. There isn’t really many full-time Chinese language students in the blogosphere, but perhaps some of you are interested to hear what kind of courses I have.

I’m on the third year of my studies and chose Teaching Chinese “major”. The official name of my major is Chinese language, but my degree also includes some courses about teaching Chinese to foreigners. Other option was Business Chinese, but I thought Teaching Chinese is a better pick for me.

Let’s take a look at the courses!

Basic language courses

口语， Spoken Chinese

My teaching-Chinese-group has only four students so for spoken Chinese and comprehensive Chinese we were put on the same class with advanced non-degree students. There are over 20 students in total which is too much for spoken Chinese course. Even though the aim for the course is to learn to make presentations, most of our time is spend on dialogue. There just isn’t enough time to let us all make more than one or two presentations this semester.

The level of the course (not the students’) seems to be lower than my spoken Chinese course last semester, where we had presentations every other week. At the moment this course is the one I’m least happy with.

综合， Comprehensive Chinese

This is the basic core course which includes vocabulary, reading and grammar. There is 50-60 new words in every lesson and we learn maybe one lesson per week. Our teacher is quite demanding and she wants us to be well prepared for every class. She asks lots of questions from students and it’s not nice when you have to admit you don’t know because you weren’t prepared.

写作，Writing

Our goal for the course is to learn to write opinion pieces, essays that shows our opinion about something. We will write ten essays during the semester and grades from them will have an effect on the final grade. The same teacher use to teach me Cantonese last year, but seems to be good at teaching other subjects as well. This course is only for my group so there is always maximum of four students at class.

Teaching Chinese special courses

对外汉语技能教学， Teaching Chinese for foreigners（teaching different courses）

On this course we learn how to teach different courses to foreigners. We learn on what to pay attention to when teaching comprehensive Chinese, spoken Chinese, listening , reading and (if we have time) writing. During the semester we will also learn to make lesson plans.

语言学概论， Introduction to linguistics

Our teacher said that this course’s aim is to understand languages, including our own, a little bit better. The teacher always asks a lot of questions about our own native languages and sometimes I find it hard to answer. I have never thought about Finnish in that level and this course makes me think in a new way.

现代汉语， Modern Chinese

This is an demanding, but interesting course. It teaches us more about the language we have been learning for years, it teaches what is Chinese language is really about. This semester we will concentrate on aspects of spoken Chinese and vocabulary. Other parts of the language will come up on a different course next semester. With this course I hope I would have learned the grammar terms well when I was in high school, now I finally have to learn what attribute means.

对外汉语教学引论， Teaching Chinese for foreigners

I’m not sure what would be the proper translation for this course, but for example we will learn what is this “Teaching Chinese for Foreigners”, it’s a major, it’s a profession and even a mission. The most important part of this course is second language acquisition. During this course the teacher also hopes us to find a topic for our bachelor thesis.

Selective courses

中国国情，Current situation of China

The topic of our first meeting was Chinese New Year and especially the rush to get back home to celebrate the festival. We discussed what it means to migrant workers and how hard it’s get to tickets for buses and trains. Our other topics will be from different aspects like economy, politics, culture, people, education, religion and so on. I hope this selective course will help me to understand China better and to learn about recent happenings in the country.

现代汉语虚词学习，Modern Chinese function words

This course will be a headache! A full course on those little function words which doesn’t have meaning, but do have a grammatical function. Like 的，地，得 and 了1 + 了2. So why did I chose this course? It will help me in so many levels: speaking, writing and with my modern Chinese course.

中级粤语，Middle level Cantonese

A better name for this course would be Beginner Cantonese 2, because that’s the level we still are. Luckily or unfortunately all of my classmates on this course seem to have a Cantonese parent or grew up in Hong Kong. But optimistically thinking, it means I have more than one teaching at the classroom!

中国历史, History of China

History used to be my major back in Finland so I of course had to choose this course. I really like the teacher and we will learn the basics of the 5000 years of Chinese history. I’ve been concentrating a lot on 20th century Chinese history, so even during the first meeting I learned a lot.

- – - – - -

So here are all of my courses for this semester. Do you find them interesting?

In total it’s almost 22 hours of Chinese classes per week. On top of that comes the homework of course (exercises and reading), then add some self-study like reading books and watching Chinese TV. And don’t forget that I have a Chinese boyfriend and cat at home.

Becoming Fluent in Chinese: February Goal Check-In

Date: 2012.03.01 | Category: Chinese Language, Me | Response: 9

Listening

46 episodes of Chinese TV and 47 episodes of American TV since beginning of the challenge (mid January). I’ve been enjoining a Chinese TV drama called Happy Michelin Kitchen or 幸福三颗星. I would say that I did well this month because there is only one episode difference.

Writing

I published two blog posts in Chinese this month.

Reading

I’m reading 失恋33天 at the moment and it’s harder than the first book I read (单身公主). I’m currently on page 35 so I didn’t get to page 100 which was my goal. But besides reading that novel I also read 30 pages in Chinese from my textbooks (对外汉语教学导论 and 现代汉语). Those textbooks are originally meant for Chinese students who want to teach Chinese to foreigners.

Skritter

I still haven’t managed to make Skritter a daily habit. This month I only used Skritter for four days, total of 0.8 hours.

Speaking

I uploaded a short video clip of my self speaking Chinese. I also interpreted a lot when my friend was visiting Guangzhou for business. I learned some new words in the process like 不锈钢 or stainless steel.

Goals for March:

• Find a new TV series to watch (I’m almost ready with 幸福三颗星)
• Do well with my Chinese courses at the university (I need good grades because I want to apply for scholarship)
• Study all the new words from 综合 (comprehensive Chinese) class with Skritter
• Get to page 100 on my current book

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