subject: How Do We Learn Mandarin? [print this page] The fact about language studies that determine if you are going to succeed or not is without a doubt the proportion of time you spend learning the language you spend with books as opposed to actually trying to speak it. Learning a language takes a lot of time. The complicated aspect of it - such as grammar and conjugation and what not, probably makes up no more than a percentage of the whole task. The main thing is to learn a lot of new word. Learning a language by sitting down with a book is so dreadfully boring that most people's brain give out when they try. I suspect that brain implosion is actually the most common cause of death of foreigners in China. When I think about trying to learn Mandarin by only using a textbook my thoughts immediately go off into the first book of the Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy series. The Vorlons, or whatever they are called, are about to read some poetry to the unsuspecting main character and his partner in crime. The author then jumps into the narrative and explains what usually happens when people are subjugated to Vorlon poetry. The most benign outcome of a reading is when the persons intestines actually jump out of the body of the readee and strangles them to death.
I cannot think of anything more soul destroying, that is not banned by the Geneva convention, than sitting down for like 3 years and learning Mandarin by studying it only. If ways to bore people was somehow weaponised by evil scientists (like the world funniest joke is in Monty Python's world) Mandarin language studies mainly pursued with books would be banned by several international treaties overnight.
The thing about it that so agitates me is that some schools try to hammer the language into the minds of students using this way when there are so many much better options. Especially in the light of the fact that most people that try this way, never actually learn the language. The best way that a school can help a student learn a language is by helping them to a point where they can speak Mandarin outside of class as soon as possible. However people that I know in China who speaks the best Mandarin has spent very little time in class rooms, they have learned Mandarin by pursuing the language outside of school. The way that schools helped them was combining personal content (the stuff they needed professionally and in hobbies) with the basic glue they needed to put the sentences together. The rest these students sorted out themselves.
