'Learning Chinese' is an oxymoron
By Jeff Walsh(China Daily)
Updated: 2006-06-23 07:10
What do the terms
"jumbo shrimp," "mournful optimist" and a "deafening
silence" have in common? They are all oxymorons.
Dictionary.com defines an
oxymoron as two or more contradictory or incongruous terms combined. Oxymoron
comes from two contradictory Greek words "oxus"
meaning "sharp" and "moros"
meaning "dull." For me, an English teacher in Changchun of Northeast
China's
Having little or no prior
knowledge of Chinese before arriving on the Chinese mainland, I planned to enrol in some sort of crash course covering the basics of
conversational Chinese.
Thumbing through
"China Expat" magazine, I ran across all
kinds of glossy ads making glittering promises: "Learn Chinese in 100
hours in 4 weeks," "Fast, Effective and Conversational Chinese,"
"Professional Mandarin Training Servicing the Fortune 500 Companies,"
and "Chinese Language and Cultural Awareness Training."
Having neither
time, money, nor energy to expend on a traditional classroom instruction,
I decided to forgo the classroom setting and set my sights a little bit lower.
For starters, I just want
to be able to hail a taxi, ask "how much?" at an open market, order
dumplings at a restaurant and inquire where the restroom or "loo" is.
My initial humorous
attempts to tackle this difficult language were a dismal failure, to say the
least. I never thought it would be an easy task but rather a long drawn out
process and my experience thus far proves me right.
To me, learning Chinese is
actually four times harder then learning English. Take the word "da," for example. The word "da"
has four meanings in Chinese depending on your inflection and pronunciation.
"Da" can mean "to answer" and
"to hit" and "to hang onto something" or just
"big."
In my hometown of
If I had to put my initial
efforts at conquering Mandarin Chinese into a book, I would title it "101
Ways Not to Learn Chinese by Jeff Walsh." Here are five specific ways I
tried unsuccessfully:
The Osmosis Method: My
original thinking was if I lived in a large Chinese city with native Chinese
speakers who mostly speak Chinese, I should just be able to absorb the language
by being around them. I can keep my television set on the Chinese channels
thinking if I watch and listen to Chinese long enough, I will master the
language. Not so.
The Tabbed Dictionary
Method: Carrying around a Chinese-English dictionary with tabs marking the
pages is simply a crutch and a copout, not a learning tool. Looking up the
words and pointing to them in a dictionary for store merchants does not build a
Chinese vocabulary at all.
The Translator Machine
Method: My translator translates 29 languages including Chinese. I have been
told the machine is not that accurate maybe it is a combination of both
Mandarin and Cantonese words? I don't know. I think if I had to get a new
translator machine, I would get a "Talking Translator Machine" so I
can pronounce words like "
The Charades Method:
Charades is a popular parlour game in the
For example, to communicate
the word "running," the player can jog in place and the other players
can guess at clues. In
The Denial Method: Denial
is not just a river in
To me, Chinese characters
look like Egyptian hieroglyphics, Sanskrit or some kind of secret Da Vinci Code that I need to decipher. If I look at a full
page of Chinese characters, it looks like a Chinese Eye Chart (Cover your left
eye what do you see? I see Chinese characters that I can't read. Cover your
left eye what do you see? More Chinese characters I can't read.)
As an English teacher of
preschool, kindergarten and primary school students, I found the best way to
learn Chinese is similar to the way I teach my students: One or two words at a
time, big pictures and bright colours. The only
drawback of learning this way is that my vocabulary is similar to a 6-year-old.
Words like caterpillar (mao mao chong), ladybug (piao chong) and butterfly (hu die) will not help me when I am grocery shopping or
ordering food in a restaurant.
My 6-year-old niece and I
will learn Chinese together, and I am sending her a book on learning Chinese to
the
Yet, to fully be open to
learning Chinese, I have to want to change. Like the old joke, "How many
psychologists does it take to change a light bulb? None.
The light bulb has to want to change itself."
I need to learn the
language. I want to learn the language. I want to know more about the
I am surrounded by
translators, Chinese friends, teachers, colleagues and other well-wishers who
want to pass on their knowledge of Mandarin Chinese and the local Chinese
culture.
Give me another six months
and I will be like the bright light bulb illuminated with a complete
conversational Chinese vocabulary. With the help of those around me,
"learning Chinese" will soon no longer be an oxymoron.