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By David Pendery
After studying for several years, someone might say: 'You can
communicate in Chinese.' But that is by far not the end of the road.
Like most foreigners who live in Taipei, I have spent much time studying
Chinese. I, however, never counted myself one of those who come here to study the
language full time. I arrived in Taipei for different personal and professional reasons,
and did not think about studying Chinese until I had been here a few months. I then
recognized the necessity for practical reasons, with the baffling cacophony of Chinese
language; and also for cultural reasons, with the growing desire to learn more about
the new society I found myself in. I entered my first Chinese class in fall 2000. Little
I am of two minds about my Chinese skills. On the one hand, I often feel
discouraged, far less than fluent, hardly even conversational. During my learning
process, there have been the hurts of sharp rebukes when I mispronounced a word,
using the second instead of the third tone. Or the frustration of navigating through the
赴;吉,即,急。 And there were times when I even asked myself, how do they
On the other hand, I have experienced those joys that make one feel that one is
crossing the Rubicon of second language acquisition. There was the time in Paris,
There was the time I briefly conversed with a Chinese-speaking neighbor during a
visit to my home town, as my old friend gaped in amazement. And then there was
perhaps my high point, when at a recent party a Taiwanese man who I have known
since I moved here observed me speaking Chinese with another friend, and
My Chinese study can be divided into distinct phases. In the first phase, I
gingerly began, studying as regularly as I could given that I had a full-time job. My
problem during this period was that I spent most of my time silently learning new
vocabulary and practicing writing Chinese characters, rather than actually speaking
the language. My speaking ability stalled because of this method. This went on for
about three years, and my progress was halting, but not unnoticeable. I then took a big
for a short time, for immediately after this I was consumed by a number of other
events in my personal life, and had to cease study altogether. This went on for three
years. During this time I continued to observe, learn and practice the language, but I
was not studying diligently—the sine qua non of serious language learning. Finally,
after that third year, I returned to study on my own, for an hour or two every morning.
But once again I focused on vocabulary and writing, which as noted is not a truly
effective approach. People began to notice that I was speaking more, but I still felt
that I struggled. At the end of this year, yet again I had to put away my Chinese
This brings me to the present, and my aim now is to, yet again, return to serious
study in 2009—with those sweet words of my friend at the party inspiring me.
After all I have been through I am truly an old hand at Chinese study. It might be
Taiwanese people. There is even more at work, however, and Chinese has taken on
yet more important roles in my life. For I have found that as I have tunneled deeper
conditioned my interaction with everyone I know. As noted, much of the time I have
been a part-time student of the language, while always striving for full-time results. I
have shed not a few tears because of these sometimes-irrational expectations. As well,
as I have tried to practice Chinese with my friends and family members, something
like a conflict has emerged, pitting Chinese and English (we almost always use a
combination), and I have had the disconcerting feeling of both loving my native
language and resenting it for intruding into and limiting my Chinese expression.
characters, the internal diversity of the language, it's long history and role in Chinese
culture, and the straightforward difficulty of trying to cage this dragon could provide
possibility, which contrasts intriguingly with my native tongue. The very difference of
comparing and counterpoising the two languages and world views—one linear,
and so-Chinese/Asian. In spite of what sometimes feels like a yawning gulf separating
the two languages, I feel that, as they say of the world's religions, we are all treading
paths leading up a mountain, detached and remote from one another as we work our
ways up the foothills and middle altitudes, but coming together with the same goals
Studying Chinese has changed my life, and in spite of a few heartaches on the
way, it has changed me for the better. I could hardly recommend it more highly to my
for although we feel that we have freighted ourselves with a heavy load, we in turn
know there is something more at work, a significance rippling through the personal,
the national, to the universal. At the personal level, studying Chinese offers us an
amazing challenge, with pragmatic rewards. We then find that studying Chinese takes
us ever deeper into a new culture, people and nation—one that contrasts remarkably
with our own homes and mother tongues. And finally, studying this foreign language,