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I disagree with this article (and I've spent 8 years learning Mandarin part-time). English is far more valuable in business and scientific contexts, and the cos
by KerrickStaley 8y ago
I disagree with this article (and I've spent 8 years learning Mandarin part-time). English is far more valuable in business and scientific contexts, and the cost of becoming proficient in Mandarin is considerable (1000s of hours before it's useful in a non-trivial way). And I expect things to remain that way within the next 100 years.
Mandarin + English is not a very distinctive skillset: you're competing with millions of native Chinese who also speak English, plus millions of Chinese diaspora who learn Mandarin as a second language from a young age either through their parents or in a Chinese school.
Also, "fun point" 1 in the article is wrong. Chinese is hard. The hardest parts (for me) are memorizing characters and understanding colloquial speech (colloquial speech is very informal and different from written Chinese). Remembering tones is also hard for me, and some people also have trouble pronouncing tones and consonants (but I got that part pretty easily).
As an aside, why do I learn Mandarin, then? A few reasons:
- I think it's intellectually stimulating.
- I have a personal goal of learning a foreign language and I think Mandarin is one of the best to learn.
- It allows you to travel and experience Taiwan and China in a way that you otherwise couldn't.
- I might live abroad in Taiwan or China some day.
- Maybe I'm completely wrong and it will actually be economically valuable to me in some significant way in the future. It has been valuable in some ways since my company partners with Taiwanese and Chinese companies and I've used the language in to help me navigate business trips and also (very) occasionally for technical communication. But I think I could have been almost equally successful without knowing any Chinese.
- jason_slack 8y agoI have been learning Chinese for 4 years now. I can read and write well but my speaking always sounds awkward. I traveled to Xiamen for 2 months and knowing Chinese made things a lot easier. There was still struggles because often times colloquial speech was difficult for me to understand right away and also locals didn't always understand my speaking because they weren't used to someone speaking and it not sounding correct. My friends explains that to them I am speaking jibberish if my tones aren't perfect. They aren't taking the time to step back and think about what I meant to say. I love learning Chinese. I learn something new every day.
- KerrickStaley 8y agoDownload Pimsleur's Mandarin III and spend time going through that. Pay close attention to how you sound vs how the recorded speaker sounds.
- jason_slack 8y agoThank you!
- InGodsName 8y agoHaha Chinese is my second language. With Vietnamese or Chinese, you need "absolute pitch" to be able to speak it like natives when learning as an adult. China/Vietnam have higher proportion of people with absolute pitch. It has to do with the number of phonemes in a language. There is also a genetic aspect of it. Mandarin speakers will have higher IQ than normal population.
- bbody 8y agoI have learnt Mandarin for a similar amount of time, passed the HSK6 exam. I have also found it marginally useful in my professional life.
- KerrickStaley 8y agoNice! I've only passed HSK4 although I think I'm most of the way to HSK5 now. What techniques did you use to study?
- bbody 8y agoJust reading study guides and doing practice tests I bought off Taobao. The 6 months leading up I almost exclusively did Chinese classes (level around HSK5) and the 6 weeks leading up to the exam studied HSK couple of hours a day. I was a university student then and had a lot of spare time. A nice trick I learnt is, don't spend too much time on the grammar section (if they still have it). It is incredibly hard and you will struggle to find native speakers that can explain the concepts to you. Instead randomly select answers and use the saved time on other parts.