Make Mistakes! Make Mistakes!

As a good rule of thumb, you need to know 1000 characters to carry a basic conversation, 2000 to read a newspaper, and 3000 to write decent Chinese.

Aside from quantity, you must have the heart to study Chinese.  As good ole' beef jerky lover said:

"學而時習之不亦樂乎？"

When practicing learning, is there not joy?

(Analects 1.1)

Mandarin literally translates to “speech of the official."  Because every region had their own local dialect, there needed to be a standard so that everyone could understand each other.  When the Chinese Communist Party was in its infancy deliberating between Cantonese and Mandarin as the national language, Cantonese lost by one vote!  (I'm pretty sure I read this in Jonathan Spence's "In Search of Modern China."  This little quip in history always stirs controversy between my Mandarin and Cantonese speaking friends.)

My first Chinese teacher used to be a former radio broadcaster in Taiwan.  Her pronunciation is immaculate.  Every year the students in our class would attempt to do a poetry recital contest.  I became very aware of my vocal inflections and intonations, but I also became overly self-conscious about speaking.  Looking back, the kitchiness of these competitions make my flesh crawl.

I remember sitting in my language classes in college being utterly helpless as everyone around me was talking their heads off while I sat like a shy sheep at the corner.  I speak Teo Chew at home, so although I could hear understand everyone clearly, I was too self-conscious to respond.

And there's an unspoken rule that the Asian students should be better than the non-Asian students.  I had this prejudice when I first entered class, but I was quickly put into place.  My non-Asian classmates were able to argue about the death penalty in Mandarin.  I could barely keep up in English!

Hey, everyone's a little bit racist!

Non-Chinese speaking people learning Chinese have a huge advantage when learning Chinese: it's more socially acceptable to make mistakes.  If a Chinese person makes a mistake speaking Chinese, you're seen as "uneducated" and of a lower rung of society.  If you're non-Chinese, then it's okay because your family doesn't speak Chinese.

But then you start to get reverse racism.  A common segment on variety shows in China is to have a non-Asian person speaking Chinese。  This segment is equivalent to a Chinese person singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" on American television.

I asked my Chinese professor if there was a magic pill, or Chinese-speaking steroids or something.  She only said one thing:

"Read!  Read everyday you can, any moment you can!"

I had to unlearn some of my conditioned guilt.  First by talking to myself while reading text, and slowly contributing in class.  The fear of making mistakes is slowly fading.

Sometimes it's best to lower your expectations and go for it!