You're Studying Chinese? Why?!

A good question... A very good question, and one that I was sure I knew the answer to only two years ago. It's the same question everyone I meet asks me after finding out I'm at Uni.
"Oh, so where do you go? Edinburgh, that's good! So what do you study...?Chinese!! But...Why?"
Usually followed by any number of the following (and more besides): "Isn't that really hard? Doesn't it have like 3 alphabets? What made you do that?" Yes. No. I don't know. I used to know - or I used to think I did. Because I wanted to challenge myself - I'd always enjoyed languages (not French, I hate French. My mum's fluent and she never lets me live it down), because I was diligent at school, because it was different.
After my first year at uni, my reason changed to "Because I refuse to be defeated by this language!" and has now evolved into "Because I wish to master the Chinese language then use my knowledge to destroy China."


If you're currently half-heartedly considering doing Mandarin Chinese at University, I truly, from the bottom of my heart, suggest that you don't. Seriously. I'm not really used to giving out negative advice, but unless you're willing to work until your brain feels like it will fall out of your ears, or [if you're a crier] cry yourself to sleep because you just don't get it, then I suggest you don't even start.
On a less dire note, Chinese is hard. Really hard. Easily the hardest thing I've ever done and probably will ever do. Even those people who had lived in China with mummy and daddy for 8 years found second year Chinese really hard (the reading and writing at any rate). First year was a walk in the park so to speak - if you're focused and used to working almost constantly and enjoy doing work then you'll probably do really well; even those who relied on what little previous knowledge they had breezed through. You don't even have to be good at languages, anyone can do Chinese. But that's the thing - not EVERYONE can do Chinese. My best friend (very much used to breezing through languages whilst doing very little work, if any at all) dropped out of Chinese because she knew she would not cope. And she was probably right to do so. The only thing that stopped me from swapping over to my life-long love Japanese was pure stubborn determination. If this language thinks I'm giving up that easily, it is sooooo wrong.


But don't just take my word from it, hey, I've only been learning it for 2 years. I found an article by a guy who's been learning it for the better part of 6 years and still struggles (http://pinyin.info/readings/texts/moser.html#_ftnref11). Again - it's not the speaking that gets you down: you struggle with the tones at first [there are four and every word has them in different combinations] but everyone does unless their first language is tonal. It's the reading and writing, the constant battle to memorise and stuff as many characters into your head as possible and keep them there whilst trying to learn how to read and write more again. I constantly forget how to write 谢谢 (xiè xiè, thank you), which is like the most basic word and something you learn in oh....week two?


But if you have chosen to persevere anyway - congratulations! You're one of the chosen few and I sincerely wish you the best in your studies. Just be aware that studying Mandarin may come at a price (if you've been reading carefully so far, you may have guessed that mine was my sanity).


But it's too late for me now because next week my very-limited-knowledge-of-China-and-Chinese and myself are darting off to the beautiful coastal city of Dalian in Northeast China for my compulsory year abroad. People keep asking me if I'm 'afraid' or 'nervous' or 'excited', but the truth is I can't really muster any of those emotions. Maybe it's because I've know I was gonna go for so long or maybe it won't hit me till I get there, but I've never really been a very emotionally expressive person(?). I've never been to China before, so I guess I could say I'm interested....but I'm most definitely looking forward to it!


I'm not really sure how I'm meant to sign off one of these things...Just look out for my posts on things I used for studying, my preparation for China and [eventually] my Journey to the East!


TTFN...ta ta for now!(does that work? I think I'm gonna have to find something else....Oh! How about comments and question?) x