optimism

I have been learning Mandarin for over three years now. It may be more accurate to say that I have been learning to learn Mandarin, because I am still not very good at writing or speaking or interacting in Mandarin, but I have learned a lot about subject verb object order and count words and tones and how to make an action past tense.

It’s not easy to learn Mandarin, but no language is easy to learn. Learning a language as an adult has extra challenges. In childhood we have people around us that will correct our every mistake to help us improve. Everyone offers encouragement. Not so in adulthood. People just let it go, or outright laugh at you. I enjoy making people laugh, but not in this way.

Mandarin is rich in the ability to express thoughts and feelings not possible to express in English. Just by being different it allows for wonderful perspective on how we express our thoughts and culture in the English language. I enjoy my classes and my efforts tremendously.

No one would be surprised if I gave up, I am old they would say, would have been better to learn in childhood. But I cannot go back to childhood, and I am determined to keep trying. 我决心要学习.

When I shared with my Mandarin teacher (Quentin at CLI in Guilin, China; https://studycli.org) that I was worried about ever being able to master writing the characters (instead of using pinyin) he said “oh, don’t worry, you just keep writing them and maybe it will take 10 times, maybe 100, maybe 1000, but eventually you will remember.”  His face and words were full of smiles and genuine optimism. I was just so impressed with his optimism.  There was no doubt at all. All confidence. I have so much more to learn.

I am still learning optimism, and Mandarin, from Quentin.

David