Benny Lewis' 3-month quest to become fluent in Mandarin

[OneEye]

By the way, has anyone here used the Peco app?

I'm the one that recommended you try it. You're welcome. Of course, you never said thank you, unless "make sure and send me any interesting blog posts" is supposed to be a "thank you".

You'll find that the OCR module can be a bit finicky, especially if the character is stylized in any way. In those cases, the handwriting recognition is better. In fact, I very rarely use the OCR anymore, because of the loading time and battery drain. It's usually more efficient to just write it on the screen.

Anyway, have fun. I believe I'll commence cackling.

[imron]

To me, the big plus of Pleco is that everything is tied to a dictionary, with automatic flashcard creation. It means you can look something up quickly to get the meaning, but then not worry that you'll forget it quickly also, because you can easily add it to a flashcard list for later revision. I don't use OCR because by the time that feature came out I didn't need to use it, plus my phone is too old and doesn't support it anyway, so the issue was moot.

It's not his impeccable Chinese I'll be criticising.

The reason I mentioned his Chinese level, is that some people have misinterpreted that article as a rant by someone who couldn't learn Chinese after years of trying, rather than seeing it as a light-hearted article pointing out some of the idiosyncracies of learning Chinese, written by someone who has better Chinese than most. If you're planning to write a detailed criticism of the article, you've possibly missed the point. Just sayin'.

[jbradfor]

By the way, has anyone here used the Peco app?

???? Do you mean Pleco? 'cause if that's what you mean, 10 seconds searching here would have answered that question for you.

[leosmith]

I'm not sure where the hell you got this idea that I think pronunciation is a waste of time

* Say the tones correctly enough that people WILL understand me (unlike my first days), although my vocab is weak because I've been focusing so much on pronunciation.

Stop whining about other aspects of your learning being negatively affected, and accept the fact that without a large effort in pronunciation you will get nowhere in conversation.

The teacher I saw said I've made the fastest progress she's ever seen with pronunciation.

Don't believe that for one minute, or use it as an excuse to back off.

Please ease off a bit

I speak my mind, just like you.

natives say it's totally understandable and the majority of tones were very close, even if it could obviously be improved. I really am not interested in the super high standards you are asking of me after just one or two weeks! My priority is to be understood

It took me 3 listens to fully understand your short, simple video. I haven't met a learner or native yet who understood it the first time through. And that was after several takes on your part. If you say that means your pronunciation is understandable, then you must have some pretty low standards. I hate to think of what you are going to consider B1 to be for your Mandarin effort.

Also, please see Silent's interesting reply above that confirms my suspicions about this "harder/easier" argument. In a purely academic environment, yes it will take much longer to learn Chinese. Things are way more complex than that. I'm done arguing this point until I bring it up deeper into my mission.

It's pretty well established that Mandarin takes 3-4 times as much time to learn as languages like French an Spanish, so I glad you're conceding that point. I noticed that you tried to make it sound like difficulty was not related to time it takes to learn a language in your blog. I guess that made it possible for a nice rant against the evil language learning community, but still, it was quite illogical. I am glad you admitted that your blog is really only suited for novices, or those who lack confidence conversing. A little honesty is always appreciated.

[renzhe]

I'll give Benny another piece of advice here:

Without any loopholes and shortcuts, it takes 10 years to be really fluent in Chinese.

With loopholes and shortcuts, it takes at least 20.

Save valuable time and start the hard work asap. There are things that will help you optimise your learning: Anki, podcasts, jukuu, nciku, skritter, pleco, CC-CEDICT, etc. But there are no shortcuts.

[imron]

I always liked one of John Scalzi's guidelines for posting on his site.

A good rule of thumb is to comment as if the person to whom you are commenting is standing in front of you, is built like a linebacker, and has both a short temper and excellent legal representation.

That's a pretty good rule of thumb I think. Please try and keep it in mind when you are posting.

[Shelley]

I have to put my 2cents in here because of this comment of Benny's

"* Write whatever you want me to in traditional Chinese, if I know how it's pronounced with tones and vaguely recall what the symbol looks like to confirm I'm not picking the wrong one. This is so easy to do on a computer and phone, it can be explained to you in 2 minutes. I don't use pen and paper; this is the 21st century ;)"

Does this make sense to anybody or have I missed the point.

Does he mean any of the 50,000 approx chinese characters that are out there or what?

i don't think even a native speaker of a high acedemic leval could perform this feat.

He keeps on about not using pen and paper, this the 21st centuary, using computers etc, I have no objections to all these methids to help, but there is no substitute for practicing writing the characters out over and over to memorise them and learn them properly.

If you don't learn radicals and stroke order you will have trouble looking things up in a paper dictionary, this is one of the things my exam included, the ability to look things up in a paper dictionary.

Benny's intial claim to "fluency" in 3 months is the problem. IMHO NO one can be fluent in any language in 3 months.

Fluent:- ready in the use of words, voluble; marked by copiousness; smooth, easy, graceful. This is the dictonary definiton (Chambers english dictionary)

I think that fluent in Mandarin chinese includes reading and writing, speaking with out hesitation, repetition and understanding any chinese spoken at any speed, with any accent. Just like i am fluent in my mother tongue English. Even in english, my mother tongue,I don't know all the words in the dictionary but i do know how to look it up.

I think this whole disscusion really is about what is considered fluent. I think that most people here have a much higher opinion of what is fluet than Benny and this is what is cuasing so much fuss.

As I said before if he pulls it off, i will eat my hat (but I won't be reaching for the sauce anytime soon:)

I think Benny now feels that he has stirred up a real hornets nest and not wanting to back down is going to try and prove to us he has succeded. As discussed earlier the proof will be hard to come by and this is why Benny thinks he will succed in proveing it to himself and has no real interest weather or not any of us here believe him.

IMO this is something to do with the commercial side of Benny's claim.

I am so confident that he will not reach MY standard of fluencey that i will take the advice given earlier, and sit back, put my feet up and laugh quietly to my self, and i will also muttter under my breath in between laughing, he will never do it:)

Shelley

I don't want this to be taken in any derogatory way, I just feel very strongly that the whole thing hinges on the definition of the word fluent. I think he may regret choosing this particular word to describe his intentions.

I would like to offer him all the best of luck in his endeavours, and not to feel too "got at"

Shelley

[realmayo]

I'm wondering if it's natural to underestimate the difficulty of tasks we have ahead of us. I read a review of a book called The Optimism Bias suggesting that people are naturally optimistic. Some details here.

Also, because I've just started studying Korean, I was today reading on another website someome talking about how he was giving up Korean because it was too hard, more difficult than other languages he'd studied including French, Japanese, Chinese ...... and he got this reply:

... yes that was a very nice whine. And I have never studied Korean, not even a single word. But I'm going to go out on a limb here and say it's not more difficult than Mandarin or Japanese for the average native English speaker. I think your difficulty could be one of several things.

[imron]

Does this make sense to anybody or have I missed the point.

Note the qualifier:

"* Write whatever you want me to in traditional Chinese, if I know how it's pronounced with tones and vaguely recall what the symbol looks like

In the following sentence we then have:

I can see a symbol, and tell you what it means AND how to say it, if it's among those 50, and I can pick it from a list from recognising it well if I have to produce it.

So at that point it would seem he has come to grips with how Chinese is input on a phone/computer, and is able to use such a method to type any word he knows, which at that point in time was limited to about 50 chars.

I just feel very strongly that the whole thing hinges on the definition of the word fluent

Which he defines in his youtube video.

[skylee]

Have there been any native speakers on this thread yet? Am I the first one? [PS - I now know that I was not. haha]

I really like the idea of 鏘鏘三人行 at #58. I met one of the hosts today and he told us a funny story (in English). If Benny could understand 鏘鏘三人行 after three months of studying the Chinese language I would be impressed.

[imron]

I met one of the hosts today

If you have the opportunity to meet him again, ask them if they'd be interested in having Benny on the show!

[irishpolyglot]

Leosmith, please stop trolling me! You have been ample negative and misleading in other threads online, and I'd appreciate if you didn't hijack this thread too. You are misquoting me or suggesting far too much out of context and greatly exaggerating. Your own quotation here proves how much you are stretching my words to be suggestive, since I clearly did not say that pronunciation is a waste of time!

My Thai was very bad, but natives did understand me in that video, both while I was recording it (as you can clearly see) and afterwards for my introduction for all natives I've shown it to. I don't know who you are finding that you are coaching or telling to maintain high enough standards to make me totally uncomprehensible. But please don't expand on the point.

Here is the video for those curious

. I made this after one weekend of spoken work and a few weeks of an hour here or there learning the writing system (I said from the start of the mission that I was being a typical tourist in Thailand, not having an immersion experience, and Leosmith continues to drag this holiday I had with a little dabbling up with me all across the Internet). I've edited out all the parts that make me look like a stumbling fool, and I won't be doing any such editing with my Chinese.

Your critiques of my Thai mission have been done to death, please don't bring that dead horse up here. I was aiming to literally get by enough to buy food and ask prices and I achieved it in a weekend and couldn't put more time into the mission because I was in great financial troubles. Nothing compared to what I want in Chinese and the opportunities I have now.

You've spoken your mind plenty, but I've argued with you and gotten nowhere many times before. It really is quite tedious to read your complaints over and over again. You've stated your point and "revealed me for who I am" with your obsession with my holiday in Thailand from 24 months ago. Now lay off.

A good rule of thumb is to comment as if the person to whom you are commenting is standing in front of you, is built like a linebacker, and has both a short temper and excellent legal representation.

I'd kindly request people try to follow this suggestion.

Save valuable time and start the hard work asap.

If people think I'm suggesting that I'm going to learn Chinese in my sleep or by getting laid all the time or whatever' date=' then let me clarify that I am expecting a lot of work, as I've had in all my language projects. But this is work that some people are too afraid of, like looking like a fool way more than the average learner by speaking way more frequently before I'm "ready". This hard work [b']is avoided by many people[/b] until much later.

Sitting in an armchair for a few hours with a book is the easy part. But yes, I am doing lots of this.

@Oneye, I'm using this app based on recommendations I got from twitter. Sorry if you said it first, but they are the ones who actually convinced me.

Really starting to get annoyed with this thread, thanks to a voicy minority, and think I'll stick to other ones. Appreciate imron's and others less confrontational tone. Anyway, writing up my week one summary with details of what I can do and what I've learned so far.

[Shelley]

Okay i understand, from the 50 he knows, I am not happy that he uses the word symbol and not character, this may sem picky but I feel he may not understand that as far as i am concerned this shows he has not grasped the important difference. Chinese characters are not an alphabet nor is it symbols. I feel that he is going to gloss over all the things that makes chinese so different to other languages. i suppose i feel put out because i learn chinese because i love it and feel all the things that make up chinese are important and not just be able to have a conversation but to understand the origins, etomology of the characters and above all the beauty of the characters and the culture.

The fact that it is his definition (as on youtube) is my point. This is the sticking point, i don't agree with his definition. I think he probably shouldn't have choosen the word fluent.

Anyway, all this is just my opinion.

I don't profess to be fluent and I have been learning for 20 years approx,

Shelley

[renzhe]

I think that everybody's positions are very clear at this point, and that it serves no further purpose to go on with the discussion especially if turns personal.

I'd like to appeal to everyone to leave this thread for Benny's status updates and comments on his progress. His questions can go into relevant threads.

I've said all I had to say in this post. We'll see in 3 months. Other than that: Go, Benny, go!

[skylee]

I am not happy that he uses the word symbol and not character, this may sem picky but I feel he may not understand that as far as i am concerned this shows he has not grasped the important difference.

Thanks for this. Same here. And Benny, if you ever learn to write those symbols please remember not to use the word "draw" to describe it (but you would not learn writing I suppose?)

And I agree with renzhe's #114.

[irishpolyglot]

+1 for renzhe's 114! And sorry for using misleading terminology as I start off with the language. Will try to avoid it.

[c_redman]

And I notice he doesn't bring the grammar point up at all, dismissing it quickly, which is rather convenient for a post comparing languages.

The idea that Chinese is easy because the grammar is so basic (or that there is "no grammar") is a common notion, especially from people with little or no experience with Chinese. John Pasden from the Sinosplice blog created a great graph comparing Chinese and Japanese difficulty over time. It's pretty close to my own experience with languages. The more "grammar" a language has, the more you need to learn initially, but after consuming it all you're armed to express anything you can think of. In a language with "few grammar rules", You can make basic sentences, but to express more complex sentences that sound natural means matching common usage and collocations of native speakers and writers. And that means large amounts of exposure that takes years. I bet most Chinese learners have had the experience of being told their expressions are "not elegant Chinese" or "not the way we say it", somehow abnormal but no explanation why. I'm interested in your experience after 3 months, of how Chinese compares with other languages in that respect.

[irishpolyglot]

http://www.fluentin3...chinese-week-1/

Here you go everyone! Loooong-ass post - conciseness isn't my forte! But hopefully explains why I continue to stay upbeat and confident!

Thanks for any constructive thoughts on it here or in comments on my blog.

@c_redmen I'm not suggesting Chinese grammar is basic at all. I'm in no position to make any such a suggestion with my current experience. My issue is with those who dismiss the grammar issue as irrelevant when discussing complexities of other languages. It's just as wrong as dismissing Chinese as "easy" based on grammar alone and ignoring other challenging aspects of it.

I'm not at all interested in claiming Chinese is "easy". Only that it's easier than you think, for anyone (not just me) to learn it quicker, as that is a helpful argument.

But I'll keep your "harder work initially, less work later" idea in mind.

[jkhsu]

I'm not at all interested in claiming Chinese is "easy". Only that it's easier than you think, for anyone (not just me) to learn it quicker, as that is a helpful argument.

I think this is the problem. You really won't know how hard it is until you get into learning it. The people who think it's hard are people who know a lot of Chinese and know what you don't know.

There's a saying that goes something like this:

1. There are things that you don't know.

2. There are things that you know you don't know.

3. There are things that you don't know that you don't know.

#3 is what I'm talking about.

[renzhe]

My advice is to quantify your progress. This is especially important if you have goals and deadlines.

You need approx. 3000 words to take part in the old HSK Basic exam. It is probably a minimum if you want to be conversational for longer than 5 minutes. If this is your goal, you need to learn 250 words each week. If you don't know 250 words, you're already behind schedule. Use a program like Anki to keep track of them. I found that memorising (boring flashcards) and then using things in context (reading, speaking, listening) was the best way to hammer in a large vocabulary in a short amount of time.

Overall, I have found that the things that work best for Chinese tend to be the mindnumbing brain-exploding things that I hate doing.

In general, I don't see much studying in your blog. You mentioned a few hours with ChinesePod and Michael Thomas for pronunciation practice, but nothing else. Are you simply not mentioning it because it's not interesting to write about it, or is your learning going to be mostly based on chatting with people in shops and yoga class?