A first language to 921.5 million people, Mandarin Chinese has more native speakers than any other language. And it is not just spoken in China, but also Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Brunei, Philippines, and Mongolia, as well as by many immigrants and visitors to Western countries. Therefore, in terms of practicality, learning Chinese is a no brainer. However, there are many other reasons to learn Chinese.
Learning Chinese is fun and interesting
A few years ago, a Chinese class was being offered at the Buddhist temple I attend. A couple other friends were enrolling, so I thought, Why not? Let’s try something new!
Enrolling in that class turned out to one of the best decisions I have made in recent years. Initially, it was just fun; my classmates and I laughed so much as we tried making new sounds and listened to ourselves. But it soon became more than that. Learning and practicing characters appealed to my artistic side, and fitting characters into words and words into sentences appealed to my logical side, like solving puzzles. The more I’ve learned, the more I’ve grown to appreciate Chinese in a poetic sense. Each character can have multiple meanings, and there is much emphasis on nature, grace, and beauty. Gradually, learning Chinese become my biggest hobby.
Learning Chinese can create opportunities
Learning Chinese began to open up new worlds for me as it increased my geographical and cultural knowledge and as I made new friends. I started watching and really appreciating Chinese TV dramas. I listened to Chinese songs. I even learned some traditional Chinese folk dance. I even began regularly chatting with people in China who like me were learning a second language, only for them it was English, and we learned from each other about our respective cultures and became friends.
Not only did I learn more about the rest of the world, but learning Chinese created new opportunities and ways for me to relate to people I otherwise would have not been able to relate to.
By one example, a couple bought the building next to my office. They knocked on my door and began asking about bushes between the properties, which they wanted to remove. At first, they seemed adversarial and even annoyed. Maybe they thought I did not want them touching any of the shrubbery. I noticed they seemed Chinese, so I asked, “你们说中文吗?” (“Do you speak Chinese?”) Both their faces lit up and they got very excited. What seemed to me to be a previously adversarial stance suddenly turned to warm friendliness, and we became friends. I was amazed at what just a few words of language could do.
In another situation, I had mentioned in the bio in my law firm’s website that in my spare time, I studied Mandarin. Another law firm was looking to hire someone in my practice area and was selecting between me and another similarly experienced attorney. However, because that firm had special contacts with Taiwan, the partner was was so impressed by the fact that I had been studying Mandarin that that little bit stood out enough for him to select me over others.
But isn’t Chinese hard?
The first thing most people usually do when I tell them I am learning Chinese is to comment on how hard it must be, as if that is enough to discourage them from considering learning.
Admittedly, Chinese is challenging because it’s so different from English. Essentially, instead of learning one language, you’re learning what almost amounts to two languages: the spoken language and the written language (characters).
The spoken language is difficult because it is tonal; each vowel can have five different tones, which change meanings to words. It takes time for English speakers to get used to hearing and recognizing the tones, and get used to speaking them.
The written language is different because it uses characters to represent words instead of phonetical sounds. Instead of 26 letters in the American alphabet, Chinese has something like 50,000 characters. However, a native speaker will usually only know about 8000 characters, and a dictionary will rarely list more than 20,000. At first, these characters seem daunting, but soon you learn that each character is composed of components called radicals, and there are only 214 radicals. Learn the radicals makes learning the characters much easier.
Grammar-wise, however, Chinese is not so difficult. It has no verb conjugations or issues with subject/verb agreement, nor does it have gendered nouns like Romance languages. It’s pretty straightforward, consistent, and logical, and the grammar patterns are easy to learn.
After almost three years of study, I still am not close to fluency, and my biggest challenges are memorizing thousands of vocabulary words and distinguishing sounds by ear. Unlike a full-time student or someone who immerse themself in the language, I can only study in my spare time, However, I study at least a little every day and continue to improve. Moreover, I continue to have fun with the language and look forward to using it in my travels.
Should you learn Chinese?
If you would like to learn something new that exercises your brain, affords new challenges, and helps you learn about other cultures, I recommend studying Chinese. Nowadays, there are so many resources available. While it is best to enroll in a class, apps like Memrise, Drops, Hello Chinese, and DuoLingo bring education to anyone with a smart phone.
