The Key to Mastering a 'Difficult' Foreign Language 學外語成功的要訣

After organizing all of my posts, I realize that I haven't discussed learning Chinese in a long time, probably because I have been busy with other things. So, tonights lesson boys and girls is liking the people who speak the language.

If you are out there and you want to learn Chinese, you have to want to communicate with Chinese people 喜歡跟當地人有溝通. If you don't, don't waste your time because you won't learn it fluently. It's easy for language learners to forget that languages are spoken by real people who use it as their sole means of communication, not only by figures in paintings or by those use a smattering of words to show their breeding as happens with the French language in Western cultures. I had a friend who studied 4 years of Russian, a rich language, only to discover after living in Moscow for a while that he didn't like Russians. What a waste of time浪費時間!

Make a friend, or if you are in an area where there aren't many native Chinese speakers, then buy a modern day soap opera 連續劇 and watch it. You may not understand that much but at least you make some sense if you like the modern society as it is enough to put in a couple of years into mastering the language. Then practice, practice, practice. But most importantly, enjoy it.

This photo is of one of my daughter's story books. Unlike the Tang poetry 唐 詩 book I posted about earlier, which we are reading to her, she can enjoys reading this book pretty much by herself. We got it in a bookstore nearby.