The main reason that I was rushing to get the new blog up and running this week is that next week I start one of the hardest Chinese language programs in existence: the International Chinese Language Program at Taida (National Unversity).
My Chinese has taken two steps forward and one step back many times since I’ve been in Taiwan. Sometimes I feel it takes two steps back! But no matter what I do or where I study, I seem to always stay at about the book 3 level.
The reason for that is that the first couple of books cover all the high-frequency words very well. Think of all the simple words in this blog post. “The,” “and,” “that,” etc., etc., and the simple nouns and verbs aren’t all that difficult to pick up. The problem comes when you’ve learned all that simple stuff, but you don’t have the vocabulary to express more difficult and complex material.
I’ve been stuck at that level for a long time.
Most of the schools here haven’t been able to help me because most foreigners don’t stay here and study long enough to take advanced level classes. So the schools don’t offer many high level classes, therefore the teachers have no experience teaching at that level. It’s a vicious cycle that I’m happy to be out of.
So my only option was the hardest (and most expensive, ugh) Chinese language program in Taiwan. I start on Monday.
The reasons to do this are many, some of those reasons are realted to MA:
1. I’m getting into more advanced IMA material so I need to be able to listen and understand at a higher level than before.
2. I need to be able to read the Chinese books on IMA. Simply put, there’s a wealth of information that has never been and will never be translated into English. Reading that in the original language is the ONLY way to get access to it.
3. If I want to translate books and articles on IMA, I need something that can get me “over the hump” from everyday Chinese to more literate Chinese. I’m also not really willing to try to do it on my own over the next ten years!
These are just the resons related to IMA. There are many others related to my living here and being married, etc. So from all angles, this is really the way to go for me.
Needless to say, I will be talking about Chinese language studies (much as my blogging buddy Repulsive Monkey does) in addition to normal IMA related material. I hope you enjoy these posts as much as the IMA related ones. Reading these can give you insight into the language and the culture behind IMA. That’s a VERY important consideration that’s too often glossed over.
BTW, wish me luck. I just found out that I tested one level higher than I thought I would. Yikes!
5 responses so far ↓
1 Shang Lee // Sep 22, 2006 at 4:05 am
Hey! Congratulations on your new site! Looking forward to plenty more articles from you. If you are looking for translation, I could help with some Chinese to English, but my Chinese is a bit rusty to do it the other way round.
Good luck in the new course!
2 Casey // Sep 22, 2006 at 11:09 am
Good luck. Is it the program where you take four hours of class a day? I have a friend here in the history department who studied at Taida, probably in that same program for three years before coming to Yale. She hadn’t studied any Chinese prior to that and now she can read literary Chinese pretty well–very good for only three total years of study.
I’m reading a huge amount of literary Chinese these days, which I’m very happy about. I wonder if my speaking ability won’t go downhill, though, since 2 of my 3 classes are held in English. I guess I can always work on it more later. My teacher for Literary Chinese independent reading is making me memorize all these famous poems because that’s the traditional Chinese way of becoming educated. I actually kind of enjoy it. It gives you all these phrases and constructions in your mind that you know the Chinese will LOVE because it’s from Su Shi, Du Fu, et. al.
Apparently when the Harvard poetry students take their oral examinations in their third year they’re expected to have memorized something like 700 poems! Yale fortunately doesn’t have such an extreme requirement, but it’s just really cool to me that people still do that kind of thing at all anymore.
Good luck in the Chinese studies. It will definitely be worth your while. I know it’s easy once your language ability gets to a level where you can do all your daily activities without a problem to then let it kind of stagnate. However, I’ve been reading some martial arts books I bought at Sanmin-shuju by Huang Hanxun, Chen Xin, etc. and they are written in a relatively difficult, semi-literary style, as are almost all books written by masters of past generations. So, it will definitely come in handy to be able to read literary Chinese if you want to research IMA.
I can mostly read the books by Huang Hanxun, Zhang Xiangsan, et. al, but I have to be honest and say I really cannot read Chen Xin’s Chen-shi Taiji-quan Tujie, which Zhou recommends as THE book on Chen Taiji. It has no punctuation, is written in a very literary, obtuse style, and is full of charts regarding how Taiji relates to the Yijing and whatnot. If we keep up our studies maybe we’ll both be able to read and understand that one in a couple of years…
3 chessman71 // Sep 23, 2006 at 4:56 pm
Shang,
Thanks for the offer, but I’ll be doing my own translations here on the web next year assuming my schooling goes as plans.
Casey,
Yes, this is the 4-hour a day program. Three hours a day are group classes, and one hour is a private lesson. The pace is very rapid and the classes are designed to reinforce each other. The teachers know what other books you’re studying and take that into account when they speak to you so they help you reinforce the vocab.
Chen Xin’s book would be at the top of my list as far as books I want to translate. But that one will take a few years for me to build up to. I’m still at the reading comic book stage, although Taiwan DOES have quite a few good comics. Haha.
4 tim fong // Sep 25, 2006 at 2:05 am
Great blog you have here.
I feel you on the need for Chinese language skills as an adjunct to IMA study. My Chinese is…pretty poor but I get by using Wenlin to read stuff I download.
Good luck with that Taida program!
5 chessman71 // Sep 25, 2006 at 8:02 pm
Tim,
Thanks for the compliment. I hope you can join us here regularly for discussion. We’d love to have you.
Wenlin is a pretty cool program but it doesn’t help me at the banquet table when I need to talk with my in-laws.
And, yeah, I’ll need all the luck I can get! Thanks!
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