Foreigners like us don’t want to just survive or get by in Mandarin. Can you imagine, wherever you live, not having enough English to share your thoughts and feelings with people? Sure, you can buy groceries and understand directions, but what about sharing with friends about one another’s family life and other relationships, and all the struggles and joys that come with it? I would love to be able to discuss face, Confucianism, history, nationalism, family issues, individualism and interdependency, etc. in Chinese with Chinese people. Or at least imagine seeing traces of them in the nuances of the conversation. If we’re going to actually live in China – rather than merely exist as some sort of long-term, permanently clueless tourists – we have to really learn Mandarin well.
But attempting to learn Mandarin well is like training to swallow the ocean. That could be said about learning any foreign language, I suppose, but for native English speakers, Chinese is not just another Spanish or Swahili; the cultural/linguistic distance is significantly greater. After three years of full-time study a good student can expect to have poor Chinese, or in the more positive terms of Martin Symonds, the linguist who writes our textbooks, “a good foundation.” Comparing your progress to the average Western language student is one thing; your level of proficiency in the eyes and ears of native speakers is another.
Martin Symonds is a linguist who’s lived in Chinese cultures for decades and is the author of our textbook series. Here’s how he laid out realistic expectations in a journal article, regarding what a good student can expect to achieve with full-time language study in a good program in China:
| Full-time Mandarin Study | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| # of years | 1 | 2 | 4 | 8 | !??! | |||||
| Proficiency Level | Survival | Daily Living | Minimum Work | Full Work | Native | |||||
Apparently unless you’re some sort of mutant, you can’t learn Chinese in two years, or three years. Three years of full-time study gets you bad Chinese/”a good foundation.” Sure, you can wow your visiting friends and family and garner lots of compliments from the locals, but really being able to work, live, and love in Chinese is a whole nother deal.
We were privileged recently to have individual 90 minute sessions with Martin. Part of what he does is travel around and give coaching to the students who are using his materials. His experience helps paint realistic expectations for us. He assessed our progress, helped map out our learning strategies, and unreservedly affirmed our commitment to do what it takes to really learn this language well. A little sobering, but encouraging.
Canada:
Taiwan:
The States:
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If all else fails…you could start having kids, and learn the language from them
or at least they could interpret for you 
Yeah, we’ve seen how that works: 6-year-olds correcting their mom’s English! But we’ll be in that situation either way… it’s unavoidable. We’ll do three years fulltime (hopefully), and then squeeze in whatever part-time we can around everything else.
You’ll just have to be content with one grandkid for now. =)
No worries there…I am content with 1 grandchild. You have to at least wait till I’ve saved enough $$ to travel to China!!!!Maybe you can borrow someone else’s children to correct your Mandarin!
Sounds like crap to me. You need half a year to get some basics, and with daily training in live there, one can get pretty good in a year. Chinese Characters is another issue that may take A LOT of time, though.
Happy 28th Birthday Joel!!!! We love you and miss you very very much!!!
June 21, 1979 @ 4:19 am London, Ontario, Canada
Happy Birthday. Bon anniversaire!
Thanks guys! We’re having a picnic dinner in the park tonight and hunting for old people writing calligraphy on the sidewalk with water and giant brushes.
Ingo,
I suppose it depends on a few things, like: What do you mean by “pretty good” and “basics”? Pretty good compared to whom? People can ‘get by’/survive after a year, sure, if they never have to do anything beyond mundane daily living. But as someone who grew up around immigrants in North America, I have a hard time imagining anyone achieving truly good Chinese after one year, even if they were some sort of genius. Unless we’re comparing their Chinese to that of the average 20-something English teacher, and not to native Chinese speakers.
June 21, 1979 @ 4:19 am London, Ontario, Canada …
I was there.
Sheng ri kuai le!
Colleen and I are so proud of you & Jessica. So many things to learn and accomplish. We observed our many homestay students struggling with English, and as their ability to communicate in English improved, we were able to almost “meet” them all over again and dig deeper into their lives & hearts. I’m thinking that it makes lots of sense that your language journey will be very long-term. Just keep at it & know that you have at least a million cheerleaders who are rooting for ya!
and Happy birthday a couple days late.
Yeah, in terms of language, we’re like your homestays, only way worse =) because we’re starting at zero. But you can see what learning a second language looks like to locals. Some of those homestay students have enough English to go to attend a summer program in Canada, but communicating at a meaningful level is a whole nother deal.
What languages have you guys had live in your house so far?
Joel,
Interesting concept: “After three years of full-time study a good student can expect to have poor Chinese.” I think the biggest question is, as Ingo points out: are you including the hanzi characters? If so, I think that’ll really slow you down. But it sounds like you’re not talking about reading/writing because of the things you mention in your first paragraph that you’d like to be able to “discuss” with people.
I don’t think a blanket discouraging…umm…I mean realistic statement like “You can’t learn Chinese well in 2-3 years” is fair. It seems to depend a lot on entrenchment into the culture. Because of some factors I’ve listed here it is difficult to get into situations where you NEED to learn Chinese. If you do need to, and if you don’t have hanzi to slow you down, I think you can learn to speak Chinese at an acceptable rate and thoroughness.
Hi, Albert. Glad you dropped in.
I think we’re both imagining the a similar average level of proficiency after so many years, but just calling it different things (your terms being more generous than mine).
I suppose I’d agree with you that if you minimize the characters you could achieve an “acceptable” amount of proficiency… I just don’t think that what’s currently acceptable is really all that great. If immigrants to our own English-speaking home countries achieved the same proficiency in English, I think we’d see more clearly the point I’m trying to make. Their job prospects and the depth of communication in their friendships would be severely limited, for example. Locals would have to consciously adjust their speaking and listening when around them, etc.
I agree that it’s probably not best to tell new language learners “You can’t really learn Chinese in 2 years.” That’s kind of a cynical-sounding paraphrase of Symonds’ chart. I suppose it’d be best to qualify it… like, you can’t become literate in two years, or you can’t discuss complex issues in depth in two years, or you can navigate daily living easily after two years.
It’s probably best for us (Mandarin learners) to be a little naive and a lot encouraged anyway. =)
And I should point out that the negative comments are mine, not Martin Symonds (he’s actually very positive and encouraging). But when he says students can have “a good foundation” after three years, that’s using his material, which intentionally de-emphasizes writing and reading, and explicitly teaches for conversational ability (and not for writing the HSK).
we don’t have our students anymore because we’re in a tiny little place now. but we had folks from Korea, Mexico, Japan, Brazil and Saudi Arabia. All good experiences. Lots of charades & bad attempts at sign language in the early days. keep at it. big hugs
all sounds pretty discouraging to new learners. i think it all depends on where you want to be at. to settle for everyday conversational skills without too much consideration for reading and writing is pretty much where i want to head and i am sure many others too. no matter what the language i think that is attainable within 2 years of pure study.
I agree, Luke, that it depends on what your goal(s) are. If someone sets out to have daily living conversation skills, that itself is a significant accomplishment and a fine goal to shoot for. They shouldn’t feel bad about not being able to read and analyze classical Chinese poetry!
Your goals will also determine what kind of program you go into. For example, if you want every day conversation skills, then a university program geared toward taking the HSK would probably be a bad fit. But the program we’re in would be pretty much a perfect fit.
Since we eventually want to be literate, we’ll have to (eventually) draw on more than our current program can offer. But it’s great for us right now, being at the baby stages of Mandarin.
interesting blog…how’s the language study coming along? i taught english in Xi’an for a year, and with no prior language instruction in a year i was definitely able to do more than survive, i was finally reaching the point where i could make friends entirely in chinese and actually not feel like talking to them was a whole bunch of hard work. but for the most part i agree with your assessment on how long it takes to learn chinese. but just remember it’s all good fun and the best way to learn is to just get out there and make a fool of yourself
Thanks, Jonathan. I totally agree about the fun factor, and being willing to make a fool of yourself. There’s no avoiding it for people who want to actually progress.
I think Chinese learning expectations can be accurately described in different ways – it just depends on the perspective/measuring stick you’re using. From a foreigner-in-China perspective, we’re doing alright. But, like I said to Albert above, if I think of the immigrants in Vancouver that I grew up around and imagine them having the equivalent level of English, then suddenly our Chinese doesn’t look so hot. I think both measurements are legitimate: the first is more helpful and encouraging for us beginner language students, but the second is more ultimately accurate for people who want to live and work in another language and culture.
This reminds me of the underwear
gnomes episode from South Park.
1. Study Chinese a loooong time
2. ???
3. Fluency! (or in the spirit of
South Park, make money!)
Totally agree that it takes that
long to get to real fluency as
you’ve defined it here and
elsewhere, Joel.
Dear all,
claiming that learning Chinese is the same as learning some other western language…well, that is surely crap to me. However, I must say I learned more Chinese in a 6 weeks course in Beijing than in a 3 years course in Italy, at university level. Now, maybe I am exaggerating things a bit, but still. I am saying this because living in China for a while is absolutely necessary in order to learn a decent Chinese. That’s it.
I’d be really interested to hear what your Chinese language level is now. It’s too years since you wrote this post. Are you fluent or can you get about an have basic conversations?
Do tell. We need a follow up from two years of experience.
Do you still agree with what you believed 2 years ago about Mandarin aquistion?
I don’t think we’re fluent in any meaningful sense of the word. How accurate that chart is to someone’s experience depends a lot on the student. We aren’t among those specially-gifted language geniuses, but we’re self-motivated and put in the study time. The chart fits us, though Jessica’s Chinese is noticeably better than mine (everyone says so, without hesitation; they’ll tell me every single time we’re out together speaking Chinese).
The better students in our school kept pace with the chart; the lazy and/or less gifted students didn’t. Plus, the chart’s categories are a little mushy: “daily living” vs. “minimum work”? A guy with English that matches my Chinese could get a job in Vancouver, but not a good one, not one that centered on communication.
At the end of two years we could spend a day out or an evening all in Chinese. It also helped that our friends and neighbours were more used to us, our accents, and the need to simplify their vocabulary. We had enough grammar that we could start to spend more mental energy on ideas and incorporating new vocab, instead of worrying about how to put the sentences together.
I could work somewhere that only required me to have basic Chinese. And we’re talking oral communication here, not reading and writing. I type Chinese e-mails to friends, but character recognition (typing pinyin and selecting characters from a list) isn’t the same as character recall (handwriting). My Chinese e-mails are several paragraphs long, but I know there’s bad grammar and word choice involved, plus I consult dictionary software a lot.
After two years I feel we’ve got something significant to work with, and that there’s potential for the future. The road ahead still looks endlessly long, but there’s some significant mileage behind us.