Balance

It's just occurred to me that as much as this blog is meant to be about my experiences in China, it's been a long time since I've written about actual Chinese. Inspired by my upcoming midterms and the opportunity to participate in a speech contest, I though I'd take the chance to update my avid readers on my developments. If you're not so avid a reader, feel free to skip this post. This is gonna be a serious ramble.

Every term our University holds a speech competition for international students. Aware that even the bravest of students would really rather not talk in front of however many hundred [or thousand] people, our teacher informed us today that our class would be holding a mini elimination competition in which everyone would have to participate. I don't really want to do it. I'm not exactly lost for ideas, in fact I already know what I'm going to talk about, and I'm certainly not afraid of losing, in fact I'd rather I did! It's that age old fear of getting it wrong that's holding me back. Obviously, it's not so easy to hang on to when you're in a country where you don't speak the language, and I'm slowly beating this ridiculous fear out of myself, but I find that the more I learn the more I'm afraid to practice [seriously, you can't get me to shut up in a language I don't speak] and of course the less I practice the worse I get.

So, essentially, upon hearing the news we were all in horror  - especially the Koreans for some reason. But, in what I expect was a Chinese attempt at a morale boost, my teacher said two interesting things to us. She told us that those students who had participated in previous competitions had developed a completely different attitude towards studying Chinese. It wasn't just that their level had increased, or that they were more confident [although both those things did occur], but more like they had had their outlook changed. I guess it's something like how a magic trick doesn't make sense until the magician reveals how it's done, and that was what intrigued me. I had thought about doing the competition before, but obviously if I had been given the chance I would have turned it down. Like an Agoraphobic, I know that all I have to do is step outside to know whether or not I can do this - it's just taking that first step that's the hardest. Now I'm being pushed out the door, I'm kind of interested to see whether or not I can overcome my fear of saying a fourth tone instead of a first.

The other thing my teacher said was that we needed a better balance when studying Chinese. Obviously this competition would involve us speaking out [with confidence I might add] what we had written, but the key is that we would first have to sit, think about and then write out what we wanted to say. "Being in China you get to practice speaking a lot" she said, "but there's not a lot of essay writing. The grammar, tone and formality you use when making a speech is the same that you use for writing an essay. This competition will certainly be beneficial to all of you." [Sorry, that's a direct translation from Chinese, I'm losing the ability to speak English]. I found that quite ironic actually, as the same teacher had commented on the fact that all Edinburgh students preferred to write down what they wanted to say before saying it, which was absolutely right.

In Edinburgh, as with most educational facilities in the UK, you're really only taught how to do one thing - pass exams. I'm an excellent rote learner - I once took an English exam about Pride and Prejudice and managed to quote entire passages without even opening my book. I never understood science, but in every test I managed to get an A*. In Religious Studies I got the highest mark in my year and it was not because I was the brightest pupil - not by a mile. It's because in school you're not taught about the subject, you're taught the answers to the questions on the test that's going to be about that subject, and I got that very quickly. That's why when I started learning Chinese and found that what they really wanted was for you to memorise a certain grammar point [much like you would learn a maths formula] and learn how to read and write a specific list of characters [the same as memorising a bunch of history facts], I thought it was going to be a cake walk. I never went out of my way to practice my Chinese with the abundance of Taiwanese people at my Uni because I knew what I was doing was enough for where I was. I could write everything that I needed to know and get an A on every test. In two years of studying Chinese, I probably spoke Chinese for about an hour altogether. This is where the balance aspect comes into it, and probably why they hand you over to the East for a year - to make you realise that you can get 100% on a language test and not be able to speak, read or understand a word.

We also did a lot of translating into English which, unless you're going straight from 2 years of study to interpreter, was next to useless in preparing us for  our year abroad.

If you're actually planning on learning to communicate in Chinese, you absolutely must go to China/ Taiwan at some point, and for a good stretch of time. Learning in your home country [especially if it's the UK] just ain't gonna cut it. In Edinburgh, we have the luxury of having several actual Chinese people as our teachers. Having native Mandarin teachers is an excellent resource, one that most people would be so envious of, and yet they never spoke to us in Chinese. One teacher started, but gave up after two lessons when we just didn't get it, neglecting to mention that when we got to China all lessons would be in Chinese. Also, we never spoke a word of Chinese outside of our oral exam, and even then we could prepare in advance what we wanted to say. People here are genuinely shocked at my level when I tell them I've been studying for two years, to the extent that I'm embarrassed and feel like I've wasted two years having 300 characters and 10 grammar points drilled into my skull.

It's not all bad though. I once had a long conversation with Eric about how learning from textbooks gives you absolutely zero communication skill. He swears by Podcasts [which are actually really good if you're interested: Popup Chinese] and meeting real Chinese people and talking to them. I agree, of course, as do most people - I hate going through every page of my textbook, going through every example sentence and new word, only for exact replicas of them to appear on my test. But you can't knock them off completely. My one saving grace when coming to study in Dalian was that although the majority of students in my class had only been studying for, on average, about a year, my grammar and comprehension was quite a lot better than theirs. I found I could understand everything much quicker, despite not necessarily having all the vocabulary, and had studied all the grammar points before, whereas they struggled to get the meaning after several explanations. AND [this happened to me just today] it turns out that sometimes real life situations that don't include talking about the weather come straight from the textbook. If you're familiar with NPCR, you may have studied the lesson about going to the bank: NPCR Book 2 Lesson 15. This situation actually happened to me - part one, about LiNa going to 用英镑换人民币 [yong yingbang huan renminbi, exchange Pounds for Chinese monies] . Using the vocab and grammar points from this lesson [not to mention correct intonation] the clerk not only understood what I wanted but was actually impressed with my fluency. I have no Chinese fluency. NPCR are the greatest textbooks ever[?]. 

I try not to be confined by my textbooks though, even though I'm seriously lazy and tend to just learn everything off by heart [see above example. I take other people's textbooks [people in a higher class obviously], I try and talk to my friends in Chinese, as a way of breaking myself out of my 害羞 【haixiu, shy] shell. Learning a language is as much the teaching as what you do for yourself. You can ignore your teachers telling you to go home and 复习 [fuxi, revise], but they're right. If you want to get it perfect you have to give 100% [I was gonna say 110% but that just sounds American and lame]. I hope my cousin who's just started learning Chinese this year reads these words of wisdom and remembers that, though NPCR is hilarious and useful, you should not rely on learning a language through reading without communication, and you won't get far reading or writing [or even speaking] Chinese if you never learn your grammar points and 生词 [shengci, new words]. I guess that applies to anyone reading this actually, no matter what you're studying; all forms of study need balance.

Speaking of words of wisdom, I'm gonna go off and revise for my midterm exams. Wish me luck!...Wow this was a really serious post - I'm really sorry if you have no interest in Chinese and sat through this whole thing waiting for something interesting to happen...

Comments & Questions    :-)   Xx