Why learning Chinese is easier in Year of the Ox_其他

Why learning Chinese is easier in Year of the Ox

Britney Spears wants to stop biting her nails, Cameron Diaz wants to stop smoking and start wearing a bra, and I want to speak Chinese. We all have different New Year's resolutions and maybe in 2009 there's a few expats who will share my wish.

If any expat is planning to stay around for a while, then they must seriously consider having a go at learning the local lingo. But it's a 2-3-year commitment, and if you don't plan to hang around, a 3-month burst of enthusiasm isn't enough.

At the start, the Chinese language beginner spends most of the time in the dark and this is very frustrating. A teacher told me it took about 800 hours of concentrated listening for the brain to become familiar with the sound of the Chinese language, with the intonations and tones. This effort did not include all the memorizing and speaking work. All up, it takes about 2,000 hours of hard study - that's 15 hours a week for 3 years.

Learning putonghua is a long winding road, and I've trudged down this bumpy path a fair bit over the past 18 months, but I reckon 2009, the Year of the Ox, is the year the miracle will happen. This year is the perfect time to learn the world's most difficult language because the Ox is the sign of prosperity through fortitude and hard work.

I've been living in China for two and half years and unlike many of my Mandarin-mad mates, who hit the books and flashed the flash cards immediately on arrival, I was a late starter. For the first year, I was just happy to be here.