Language Learning, a 神話

As a complement to the "It's impossible to learn Chinese" myth I wrote about previously, I am reminded of the other fairy tale about languages in America. It's the "learn a very difficult foreign language in no time" myth. It's around, try it yourself. Do a web search on Learn 'Expert' Chinese or Arabic in (pick your silly time period). "Talk rings around native speakers." Not! 廢話!

Language learning, especially a language that is much different from your native language, requires a long time period of steady work. It doesn't mean it isn't fun, but it's not something that's going to happen in a day, a week or a month. I think someone described the process of learning golf, something that I have personally never done except for that professional sport of miniature golf but sounds like fun. To become really good at it, requires steady practice. There are no real shortcuts to becoming a good golfer. The same is true with language.

I would describe the process like this. At first everything is exciting and new. Everyone is all gung ho and studying hard. Then, after a couple of weeks the honeymoon is over and people start slacking off. Most people drop off at this point. Either they quit entirely or they just start putting in a minimal effort for maybe as long as another year or two, not learning very much. An example of 會的不難, 難的不會.

It is only a very few that continue the momentum to the next stage. I would say that some time after about six months or so of intensive work, the pleasure of communicating with people exceeds the difficulty of the effort put out. It is when this happens that people can really start to appreciate why they are learning that language.

Having finished this rant, here's a nice site on everything related to the Chinese language that just about anybody will like.