Mastering Chinese language
I remembered when I was here in July, I kept my mouth shut most of the time. Not because I didn't want to open it but because I had difficulty understanding and being understood by the Chinese here.
What could easily be understood back home, sounds like a foreign tongue in the benchmark capital of Mandarin. I struggled to pronounce the "zhi chi shi", "zi, ci, si" and so on. I had to consciously enunciate my words and ended up speaking slowly and rather deliberately. Sometimes, I even slip up and use English instead.
That is not all. I could never understand menus that didn't have English descriptions on it. Not that I cannot read, but I was a slow reader, looking at character by character and then piecing the whole phrase together to make sense of it. It was labourious reading Chinese, be in dishes in menus or ads on trains. I didn't like to read and I left all the ordering and all the money handling to my travelling companion.
That is utterly humiliating. For a Chinese to not be able to be understood well in Beijing. And to think that I'm in the media business, serving as a role model for our local Chinese majority audience. I'm ashamed.
Chinese is a difficult language to learn because there does not appear to be a consistent grammatically structure. And words you don't know will remain unknown unless you check it up at the dictionary. Just because you know 爱 is read as "ai" doesn't mean 缓 carries the same hanyu pinyin. Checking up in the dictionary isn't as simple as flipping to page 467 under alphabetical order. You need to first know how the word is formed. Usually there are two parts to the word and you will need to count the number of strokes it takes to write the first part, look it up, go to the relevant page that features all words with the same part. Next you need to count the number of strokes it takes to write the second part, look for the word under the column, before being directed to the actual page where the word is being explained. After knowing how the word is read and it's meaning, one ideally should take a look at how this one single character is paried up with others to form verbs or nouns. There it is a slow and painful process to learn a single new word. For a country like ours, where speed is the prerequisite for everything, it is no wonder people are not interested in the Chinese language.
I can understand why teenagers don't like to read Chinese books, especially if it was a habit not inculcated from young. When you meet so many foreign words in a page, you end up looking up the dictionary (if you do in the first place), which remember, is a very long process (compared to searching a word in English) so often, you lose track of the content. And if you're like me, after knowing how the word is read and what it means, you still need to look word by word and then piece the sentence together to make sense, you'd much rather discard the book and the dictionary along with it.
But unfortunately, this is the only way out to learn Chinese. There's no shortcut to mastering this language because it is precisely the many steps you need to go through that will let the words sink in. In secondary school, we always have plenty of Chinese homework, because for every one story in the textbook, we'll be assigned about 40 words, of which you need to write in an exercise book, the meaning of the word, form a sentence with the word, pair the characters up with others, or even find words that look similar, noting their hanyu pinyin.
All of us had to use those thick hardcover exercise books that the "old school" shophouses use to keep their accounts in check in order not to be carrying many small books around. That was how I learnt Chinese.
Today, as I explore the streets in Beijing, conversing with the Chinese, making notes, I'm glad I had gone through the many hand-breaking nights, growing corns on my middle finger because of excessive writing, to finish my 笔记 which I still keep today。So at least when an uncle tells me his surname, that it is “戴帽子” 的 “戴“，I won't confuse it with "袋鼠" 的 "袋“. Being able to write truly impressed the locals, especially since they do not think Singaporeans speak Mandarin.
I still have trouble understanding and using a lot of Chinese terminology, like how do you refer to megapixel in Mandarin? I still have to pause to think how do you say 10 000 in Mandarin because I have a tendency to say 十千 instead of 一万. And is ５０００万 50 million? I have learnt, from reading the local papers, that "front load washing machines" are called 滚筒洗衣机。And that over here, Aids is “艾滋病” instead of our ”爱之病“.
The stuff I've learnt in school is slowly coming back to me when I am compelled to read and converse in Mandarin. With only Chinese newspapers to read, I am forced to make meaning of the words, and I'm gradually able to read much faster. Most of the time I can understand the words used in the papers, except when they are doing a translation from English, like saying "Manchester" in Mandarin, that I'll take some time to figure where they are talking about. Otherwise, I can still remember a lot of 成语 which is used very widespread in the articles, because they are short and straight to the point hence saving space.
Husband and wife: 伉俪 sounds better than 夫妻
Rest and conserve energy: 养精蓄锐
For me, I'm lucky to have the opportunity to be immersed in a culture that allows me to polish my Mandarin and arouse interest in what used to be a big part in school. Now I only wished I had a chance to do a 笔记 and have all my words corrected by a teacher. Doing all that Chinese homework took up the most time I remember, but at least today, I am proud to say I've not lost all that knowledge. It lies at the last drawer in the bottom file, waiting to be taken out, dusted and used again.
What could easily be understood back home, sounds like a foreign tongue in the benchmark capital of Mandarin. I struggled to pronounce the "zhi chi shi", "zi, ci, si" and so on. I had to consciously enunciate my words and ended up speaking slowly and rather deliberately. Sometimes, I even slip up and use English instead.
That is not all. I could never understand menus that didn't have English descriptions on it. Not that I cannot read, but I was a slow reader, looking at character by character and then piecing the whole phrase together to make sense of it. It was labourious reading Chinese, be in dishes in menus or ads on trains. I didn't like to read and I left all the ordering and all the money handling to my travelling companion.
That is utterly humiliating. For a Chinese to not be able to be understood well in Beijing. And to think that I'm in the media business, serving as a role model for our local Chinese majority audience. I'm ashamed.
Chinese is a difficult language to learn because there does not appear to be a consistent grammatically structure. And words you don't know will remain unknown unless you check it up at the dictionary. Just because you know 爱 is read as "ai" doesn't mean 缓 carries the same hanyu pinyin. Checking up in the dictionary isn't as simple as flipping to page 467 under alphabetical order. You need to first know how the word is formed. Usually there are two parts to the word and you will need to count the number of strokes it takes to write the first part, look it up, go to the relevant page that features all words with the same part. Next you need to count the number of strokes it takes to write the second part, look for the word under the column, before being directed to the actual page where the word is being explained. After knowing how the word is read and it's meaning, one ideally should take a look at how this one single character is paried up with others to form verbs or nouns. There it is a slow and painful process to learn a single new word. For a country like ours, where speed is the prerequisite for everything, it is no wonder people are not interested in the Chinese language.
I can understand why teenagers don't like to read Chinese books, especially if it was a habit not inculcated from young. When you meet so many foreign words in a page, you end up looking up the dictionary (if you do in the first place), which remember, is a very long process (compared to searching a word in English) so often, you lose track of the content. And if you're like me, after knowing how the word is read and what it means, you still need to look word by word and then piece the sentence together to make sense, you'd much rather discard the book and the dictionary along with it.
But unfortunately, this is the only way out to learn Chinese. There's no shortcut to mastering this language because it is precisely the many steps you need to go through that will let the words sink in. In secondary school, we always have plenty of Chinese homework, because for every one story in the textbook, we'll be assigned about 40 words, of which you need to write in an exercise book, the meaning of the word, form a sentence with the word, pair the characters up with others, or even find words that look similar, noting their hanyu pinyin.
All of us had to use those thick hardcover exercise books that the "old school" shophouses use to keep their accounts in check in order not to be carrying many small books around. That was how I learnt Chinese.
Today, as I explore the streets in Beijing, conversing with the Chinese, making notes, I'm glad I had gone through the many hand-breaking nights, growing corns on my middle finger because of excessive writing, to finish my 笔记 which I still keep today。So at least when an uncle tells me his surname, that it is “戴帽子” 的 “戴“，I won't confuse it with "袋鼠" 的 "袋“. Being able to write truly impressed the locals, especially since they do not think Singaporeans speak Mandarin.
I still have trouble understanding and using a lot of Chinese terminology, like how do you refer to megapixel in Mandarin? I still have to pause to think how do you say 10 000 in Mandarin because I have a tendency to say 十千 instead of 一万. And is ５０００万 50 million? I have learnt, from reading the local papers, that "front load washing machines" are called 滚筒洗衣机。And that over here, Aids is “艾滋病” instead of our ”爱之病“.
The stuff I've learnt in school is slowly coming back to me when I am compelled to read and converse in Mandarin. With only Chinese newspapers to read, I am forced to make meaning of the words, and I'm gradually able to read much faster. Most of the time I can understand the words used in the papers, except when they are doing a translation from English, like saying "Manchester" in Mandarin, that I'll take some time to figure where they are talking about. Otherwise, I can still remember a lot of 成语 which is used very widespread in the articles, because they are short and straight to the point hence saving space.
Husband and wife: 伉俪 sounds better than 夫妻
Rest and conserve energy: 养精蓄锐
For me, I'm lucky to have the opportunity to be immersed in a culture that allows me to polish my Mandarin and arouse interest in what used to be a big part in school. Now I only wished I had a chance to do a 笔记 and have all my words corrected by a teacher. Doing all that Chinese homework took up the most time I remember, but at least today, I am proud to say I've not lost all that knowledge. It lies at the last drawer in the bottom file, waiting to be taken out, dusted and used again.
posted by Me at 9:59 am
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home