On Learning Chinese

"Learning Chinese is a life sentence."

-Daniel Kane, The Chinese Language

Well well. The past week I've been revising what little Chinese I've learnt over the years and started listening to Chinese podcasts.. Motivation? Very, very impure. Unlike English, which I learnt naturally just because I love reading, or French, which I'm learning because it's melodious, my learning Chinese has all to do with bruised pride.

Unlike the major part of my extended family which grew up in a Chinese speaking community, I grew up in such a way that I did not even come into contact with Mandarin until I moved from Java, my birthplace, to Pekanbaru in Sumatra, where my extended family live. Then, the torture began: "Huh? You cannot speak Chinese? But you are Chinese! Such a shame..." "What? You don't know how to call Second-Grand-Uncle or Third-Cousin-in-Law? How could you..." 

Same thing happens when I moved to Singapore, though to be fair people are rather understanding when I tell them I'm from Indonesia and the cruel Suharto regime outlawed speaking Mandarin. Pepper this with stories about unfair treatment of the Chinese in Indonesia and you'll have nods of sympathy and a kind response: "Like that ah.. No wonder lah...." Over the years, various people from various backgrounds has questioned me : "You can't speak Chinese? But you look like Chinese..." which admittedly created a desire to learn Chinese just to stop hearing this kind of comments...

The last straw, though, came not long ago when a lao wai / ang moh / kuai lo / bule friend of mine sms-ed me using Chinese characters... AAAAAAHHHH! That was when the feeling of, "It's now or never.. Either I learn or I lose!" started..

And... it's been pretty fun so far, actually.. The weird thing was that I didn't even realize how much I already know until I started paying attention to people's conversations, TV programmes, podcasts etc.. It's like taking the same bus everyday and never pay attention to the scenery so you don't remember anything consciously.. but when you start trying to recall, then you realize you have actually noticed quite some things..

According to the US language training department for diplomats, though, to attain the minimum diplomatic proficiency level for Western European languages like French or German, one needs 520 hours, while the same level in Chinese needs 2400 hours..

. . . . . . . . 

My life sentence starts now...