I've been in China for a little over five months now. Yes, my PuTongHua has improved considerably, mainly because I'm using it now. Back home of course, it would never occur to anyone to actually talk in PuTongHua, except maybe as a joke.
I tell people that one of the reasons that I came to China is to be forced to speak, therefore learn, the language. However, it is also very much possible to be here for years and not speak a word of it too. It would have been so easy to always have someone to go with you to buy things, pay the phone bill, or maybe have someone else do these things for you. You'd be surprised at how many people are willing to help. These, obviously, are suicide when it comes to learning the language. Of course it wouldn't hurt to ask a friend's help from time to time. But it's also advisable to just go out there and start talking to people. And not in English.
I am, of course, at an advantage when it comes to learning the language. I did not come here with a blank slate. Twelve years of Chinese education should inevitably leave a mark somewhere somehow. I've actually been thinking about it a lot these days. People are thinking that it is phenomenal that I learn Chinese so fast. Um, no, I had a twelve-year headstart.
From Kindergarten to High School, I was subjected to around three hours of Chinese classes every afternoon. And it wasn't just PuTongHua (it used to be called GuoYu. I found out a few days ago that GuoYu is what they call PuTongHua in Taiwan. Hmm, we've been influenced by Taiwan more than I thought.). It was PuTongHua and everything else the school could find a teacher for. Imagine learning Geometry and Trigonometry in Chinese. Imagine reading about current events in Chinese. Imagine learning Chinese history in Chinese. Imagine reading Chinese literature in Chinese. Imagine memorizing poems (and everything else, actually) in Chinese. Imagine writing compositions (zuowen) in Chinese. Imagine singing songs in Chinese! We also had Computer and Speech classes in Chinese! Wow, even I'm overwhelmed. Yes, all these and more if you study in a Chinese school in the Philippines.
How was I able to survive all those? The answer is I wasn't. Not really.
No, I never got to learn Trigonometry in Chinese because I failed Geometry which was being taught in third year. (Come on, it was hard enough learning it in English!) And because I did not attend summer classes (it was summer!), I had to repeat my third year Chinese. Trigonometry was being taught in the fourth year. Therefore I was a senior in English but took the afternoon classes with the younger batch, which was actually the most fun Chinese class I had. And Chinese classes were never fun. Ask anyone.
So I never got to graduate in Chinese. Ironically, look who's in China now? I'm sure this is someone-up-there's idea of a sick joke.
Tweleve years is still a long time (having graduated or not), the question is how come I know very little Chinese? Of all the things that I had supposedly studied, my brain has retained maybe less than 5%. That's because I never really studied (that's why I didn't graduate :p). Come to think of it, nobody really studied (hmm, how come they graduated?). Chinese classes in the Philippines were hell (I don't know how they are now. I sincerely hope they have improved). You were asked to memorize everything. As in everything. I wish they'd just let us study Chinese history and literature in English, then I would probably still remember something now. The 5% that are still somewhere in my brain are, I'm guessing, the things I learned in Kindergarten and early grade school. I was still trying to be a good student at that point.
Wait, I think I have an idea on how to improve it. The earlier generation of Chinese in the Philippines had Hokkien/MinNanHua as their mother tongue, therefore when GuoYu/PuTongHua was being taught to them using Hokkien/MinNanHua they were able to easily understand and learn it. Our generation would have benefited more if we studied these things in English, and maybe just a little MinNanHua. I need your opinions on this, fellow survivors. The even younger generation is not at all fluent in Hokkien/MinNanHua anymore. I don't really know what to do with these kids except maybe get rid of the current affairs, Math, etc., and really just focus on the language. And not just the language but the everyday use of the language. More like our Speech classes before. Come on, who's going to talk to me about right angles and coefficients here?
While I'm reflecting on my Chinese education, I'm also trying to compare how I learned PuTongHua in the Philippines to how the Chinese students here are learning English. I think everyone will agree that PuTongHua is definitely harder to learn than English, but it's still a foreign language to them. And when I say foreign, it really means foreign. And I'm not just talking about the language here. Sometimes, they seem to be totally removed from the rest of the world.
**Funny story: During my first month here, I was walking home with my students and they were asking what I like doing in my spare time. I told them I like reading, writing, surfing the net... One student was very surprised and asked me how good my Chinese was. Not very good, I told her. She said, and I paraphrase, "Then how are you able to use the Internet?! Everything's in Chinese!" She was very serious. She did not think there were websites in English and all the other languages. She did not think there was a world outside of China. And so I tried to explain, and I was not so sure if she understood, that you can actually find a lot, so many that I can't even fathom (no I did not use that word), of websites that are not in Chinese. She still looked at me doubtfully.
Whew. Going back... They've also been studying English for a long time, just as I spent almost half of my life learning PuTongHua. Once they step outside the classroom (even before) however, they'd naturally go back to speaking in Chinese. Sounds familiar... And no matter how many times I tell them to speak in English with each other, they don't. Maybe they forget. Maybe they just think it's too much of a bother. Maybe they're shy. And I've been through all those. I can understand. Perfectly. Sigh. I tell them, watch English movies, learn English songs, and talk talk talk in English!
Of course I have to follow my own advice. I've been listening to a lot of Chinese pop songs. I especially like watching them in videoke, that way I can see how the characters are written. I'm already on my third Chinese song. I can already sing the first one even when I'm sleeping. The second, I need to have my copy (with all the zhuyin, again a Taiwanese influence on us) in order to sing it. The third I have to have my copy that has romanized pinyin (although yes, I am definitely more comfortble with zhuyin) and I'm still finding it hard to unknot my tongue as I try to sing it. But I am making progress. And it is fun.
here are my thoughts...
ReplyDelete1. i don't think that the number of subjects the language is used in school matters.
2. the more important things are: a. a good fundamental knowledge of the language (which in english would be abc, unfortunately, i don't know what the chinese equivalent of that is), and b. exposure to using the language (which would be the songs, tv shows, movies, etc.). since we're talking about second languages, it's hard to get to "b" without "a".
personally, i don't think i benefited from the chinese speech classes. i hated them. i'm forced to speak a language i'm not used to casually and there is nothing casual at all about the entire exercise. it was awkward and hard. i think that for me, the most effective way to learn a language is to be incessantly exposed to it that i begin to think in that language. only after that will i be able to speak it.
Yes, I agree that the number of subjects do not matter, especially when they're useless (like I said, why did we have to learn Math in Chinese when we already had a number of Math subjects in English? It definitely did not make a mathematician out of me. Out of you, maybe :p) However, do you think by teaching say, Math in Chinese, they were thinking that they were exposing us to the language more?
ReplyDeleteLearning a second language has, or should have, pretty much the same process as learning a first language. The only difference is that one was not aware that one was learning the first language, while learning a second language requires a conscious effort on the part of the learner. And because it is conscious, it would seem harder. Plus the fact that most second language learners are in an environment where the second language is not being used at all. I don't know if there will ever come a time when I can claim to think in PuTongHua. Hmm, maybe I do think in it sometimes, in bits and pieces though. Just don't talk to me about the Marxist theory or the Tiananmen Massacre. :p
Now that you're saying that you hated the Speech Classes back in High School because they were awkward and hard, I can't help but think that that's how my students must be feeling when I ask them to speak in English. (I actually told my students this before and how I would avoid making eye-contact with the teacher so I wouldn't be called. They thought it was very funny. I'm sure they could relate. :p) I think Speech Classes like the ones in our high school could work if the teachers were sensitive enough to the needs of the students (this gives me hope). Unfortunately, that was not the case in most of our schools before.
how do you communicate with your students anyway? how do you understand each other?
ReplyDeletewell, if learning a second language should be the same as learning a first language, then my theory that being exposed to it 24/7 is the best way to learn it. though probably, after a certain age, most of us lose the ability to learn a new language without effort in spite of being incessantly exposed to it.
speaking of first and second languages, i don't even know which is my first language. i think i learned hokkien before filipino. but i'm better speaking filipino than hokkien now. so english is my 3rd language. i'm better reading and writing in english than in any other language though. then there's mandarin...
I usually talk to them in English first, to see if they understand. Then to clarify, I'd translate it to Chinese. And I do have an assistant whose main job is to translate although my present assistant gives me a headache. She needs to widen her vocabulary. She always always always! gives wrong translations and it frustrates me! Don't get me wrong, she's very nice and hardworking, but she SHOULD NOT BE A TRANSLATOR!!! At least not at this present time.
ReplyDeleteI know exactly what you mean! People here are asking me which is my first language and I really just don't know. It feels like I was simultaneously learning all these three languages (Hokkien, Tagalog and English) while I was growing up. Each served and continues to serve a different purpose. Hokkien is for our parents and when we were still in Chinese schools, and sometimes to charm the shop owners at 168 to give me a discount. I am definitely forgetting most of it now that absolutely nobody speaks that language here. (There was one Taiwanese who speaks it but he's in Shanghai now. And it was easier to talk with him in English, unless we want to say something nobody else should understand. His accent is different from what I'm used to.) Filipino/Tagalog is for daily communications (which is why formal Tagalog is so hard to understand. But since for me, its purpose is to get the message across in the shortest time possible, it still works.). And English is my literary language. Like you said, it is so much easier to read and write in English than in any other language. Maybe we should also add Taglish which is admittedly the form we use when we want to communicate fast and effortlessly. But then again, we've always mixed all these languages when we talk.
I don't believe a person loses the ability to learn a new language at all, unless of course that part of the brain where language is acquired gets damaged, in an accident or an illness maybe (which reminds me about my damaged brain. Aaaargh!). People saying they're too old to learn a new language are just scared or lazy, or both. Or maybe they do not see the reason to learn that particular language and gives the excuse that they can't. Whatever the reason is, I don't think age really matters in learning a second language.
hay. ang gulo nyo namang dalawa.
ReplyDeletehey jona, we're having a serious discussion here. :P i, personally, have thought about this for a while, with my frustration in learning mandarin. 12 years of studying chinese! and i can't even make a coherent sentence! imagine how much more i can learn and know and understand if all those years had paid off. not to mention tv shows i can watch. hehe.
ReplyDeleteand joni, you don't lose the ability to learn a language, but there is a best time to learn and being a kid is the best time.
Being a kid is the best time only because you're not yet aware that you're actually learning it, again just like learning a "first language". Think of how we learned Tagalog, Hokkien and English. Also, if you have learned a language as a kid, you have more time to keep on learning/using it. Think of it as a headstart, like my PuTongHua. I also noticed that my younger students aren't as shy about expressing themselves in English. They don't seem to mind making mistakes as much as the older kids.
ReplyDeleteHowever, being an adult learner also has its advantages. You can, for example, understand the grammatical rules more if you were an adult learner. And if there are things that confuse you, you can articulate it enough to be able to ask, even if it means you'll have to ask in your "first language". Of course it would be so much easier for the adult learner to have already learned the language as a kid, again just like my PuTongHua because as ineffective as my education had been I cannot discount the fact that it is helping me immensely now.
Which reminds me, because I've learned PuTongHua before, I also have to unlearn a lot of things! I'd been pronouncing the "Fan" in my Chinese name using the third tone all my life. When I came here, I found out that it's supposed to be the first tone! Saying it with the third tone makes my name mean "boring"! Gasp!
hahaha. then your name sounds funny, all in the first tone.
ReplyDeleteExactly! I am actually still trying to get used to the sound.
ReplyDeletenuni! ask them what my name means! plsplspls! :D
ReplyDeleteUh oh. I need the written form. I can remember the third character, Ren. But how's Zhao written? Does it have the four dots at the bottom?
ReplyDeleteI think that everything in your post is on the money Joni, but I don't think that Chinese necessarily easier than English to learn. I have personally found that the actual grammar rules of Chinese are far easier than English (English has some crazy things going on!) Therefore, learning to speak Chinese is pretty easy once you get past the tones. However, written Chinese (Hanzi) is insanely harder than English writing. The kids in China study writing for six years. Most American kids can put together a pretty decent story within one or two in English.
ReplyDeleteBtw, I NEVER let my kids speak Chinese in class. If they do, I make them translate to English. Usually, I take points from their team if they slip-up. Works pretty good and takes away their lazy tendencies like saying 老师 instead of "teacher."
Hey, I never said that Chinese is easier than English! No way! Did I say something like that? I'll read everything again later. I totally agree with you that the grammar rules of Chinese are easier than those of English and that written Chinese, however, is way harder. I must have formally started studying the two languages at about the same time but guess which language I'm writing in. Granted, of course, that I wasn't really as exposed to PuTongHua (I have to make a distinction because we were also exposed to MinNanHua) once we leave the classroom.
ReplyDeleteHmm, that's a good idea. Maybe I should also enforce something like that in my classes. I remember back in grade school, we were fined for not speaking MinNanHua in class. Didn't really work though, we just became more creative: whispering, passing notes, etc. But yeah, it's still worth a shot.