On trying to learn Chinese...part 2...

What a difference a few months can make. I was just looking at my original post about learning Chinese and I feel like my relationship with the language has completely changed. To that end, I would like to extend credit to the two people who have made the biggest difference. The first would be my Chinese tutor Patrick (his English name, of course, come to think of it, I don't actually know his Chinese name, dammit), and the other would be my wonderfully ambitious wife. The first wouldn't exist as a part of our lives without the prodding enthusiasm of the other, so to that, I say "謝謝, Andrea!"

Back in November, Andrea had barely made it back from her trip to Chengdu, and pretty much the first point of order was how we needed to find a tutor and really begin working on learning Chinese. By this point, I had already been in Taiwan for three months, and my DIY learning ambitions had yielded little in the way of results.  So after a "Tutor Wanted" post on the very useful Tealit website and a couple emails later, we were off to a nearby coffee shop to begin the first real step towards learning Chinese.

The last time I began learning a new language was middle school, and it's funny to think how my goals with learning a language have changed between now and then. When a mere 13 years old, figuring out how to swear in another language brings all sorts of excitement; indeed the joy of learning how to be proficiently profane in a non-English vernacular carried well into my European adventure oh so long ago. These days, however, I'm more concerned with learning key phrases for classroom management and how to ask where the nearest Thai restaurant is.

Though I am happy with the progress I am making, I feel like every new door I open into an understanding of the language drops me off into a hallway with ten more doors that I have yet to explore. It feels like an enormous task, and I am lucky to have Andrea preventing me from slipping into my often procrastinating habits. I have also discovered that I really love writing Chinese characters. I am pretty sure that character writing is going to be the motivating factor in pushing myself to learn Chinese. There have already been several days where I've found myself content to spend a morning writing the same characters over and over again, trying to make sure I get the stroke order correct (yes, each character has a recommended stroke order to maximize writing efficiency), and making it look as close to the book example as possible. I am not an artist in any sense of the word, so practicing character writing is a good exercise in feeling like I can draw something that actually looks interesting. Here is the end result of one of my practice sessions:

 

Any sort of real comfort listening to and speaking Chinese is still a ways off, but with our current multi-tiered approach to learning, I feel really good about the direction our language acquisition is heading.