Skip to main content

Small victories youll encounter in your Chinese Journey

Your language journey

Everybody has its own path when it comes to language learning, they are all beautiful but completely different, but there are some victories that will happen in most people's language journey. It's important to care about these victories and appreciate it them because these will help you to stay motivated.

My experience

Up to this point I have been studying Chinese for more than 2 years and a half and I honestly love this language, but I have had my rough patch, mainly when I first started to learn Chinese. I remember that there was a moment I really wanted to quit and this happened on my third module, which was around my 4th month studying Chinese, I was feeling quite frustrated because I was not able to understand a lot of things and I felt like I was not as good as my classmates and to be honest I was not enjoying it; but one on these small victories helped me to stay motivated, and I'm so glad that I was able to keep going, because now Chinese language is such a big part of my life. 

Reading victories

One day you'll be walking down the street, and you'll see a Chinese restaurant, suddenly you'll realize that you are able to understand the name of it or at least what they are selling.
One day you will buy Chinese takeout and whether it's the packaging of the chopsticks or the bag of the takeout you'll see some Chinese characters and will probably find at least one character you know.
One day walking down the street or in a store you'll see someone wearing a shirt that has Chinese characters, and you'll see some interesting characters, there's this one time when I was downtown, and I saw a man that was wearing a shirt with the characters 壞人 which means bad person but more in the context of criminals.
One day you'll see someone with a Chinese tattoo you might not understand it because people tend to get idioms as tattoos, but you'll recognize at least of one character, but who knows maybe you'll be able to understand the whole tattoo.
One day while you scroll down on Instagram you'll find a Chinese meme, and you'll be able to understand it, this is one of my favorites victories, something about being able to understand a meme feels so special.
Finally, one day you'll accomplish something as big as being able to read a book in Chinese. I'm not there yet, but I'm so hopeful that ill get there.

Listening victories 

One day when you are watching a c-drama you'll be able to understand phrases, the first phrase I ever identified in a Drama was 真的吗? 
One day you'll be in a department store or something of that sort, and you'll recognize someone talking in Chinese, and you'll be able to understand what they are saying, the first time I was able to understand someone talking in Chinese was in a Banana Republic, they were a family and the mother was talking about a shirt.
One day you'll be able to understand a song just by listening to it.
One day you'll be able to understand a Chinese podcast without struggling and a whole new world will open up to you. 
One day you'll be able to watch C-dramas without subtitles, I'm not there yet, but I can't wait to get there 

Finally, there are so many more victories that you are going to achieve and these will make your journey a bit easier, and you'll start to like every step of the road, and hopefully this will help you stay motivated 
加油.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The key to remember characters

Chinese Characters Chinese language has something quite especial about it; you are probably already thinking about its main difference from other languages, and it's one of the differences that make Chinese quite different from western languages. This difference I'm mentioning is the fact that it doesn't have an alphabet; instead it has characters. There is not an exact quantity of Chinese characters, it's belief that there are around 7000 different characters. But in reality only 2500 to 3500 characters are used, which is still a lot, but there's no reason to fear them, because they are actually quite interesting and filled with history. How to remember characters  The following tips come from my own experience which might work for you, but it's important to mention that everybody is different, in my case I have a good memory which has really helped me, but as I move through the intermediate level I'm starting to need more study hours. Immersion, the reason...

有面子什麼意思?

 The meaning of "Have face"  You probably have heard the question 你有沒有面子? or some variation of it. This expression is really popular, and it's often used in TV shows, videos, movies, etc. The direct translations of 面子 is face, but in most cases that's not the meaning that they are referring to. In most cases this expression refers to someone's reputation, honor or pride. But depending on the situation, the meaning can slightly change.  Common Phrases  To care about your reputation / have a reputation   - 有面子 : To have a reputation. This reputation has been giving to you because of the power you hold or your place in society.  -面子很大 : To be well respected by people (have a big reputation). Usually this expression refers to someone that's famous, rich or simply someone that's perceived positively by people. -愛面子 : Someone who really cares about their reputation and they are constantly trying to protect it.  -要面子 : Someone who is constantly protecting th...

Understanding a Native's Handwriting

 Chinese Native's Speakers Handwriting Everyone's handwriting is different, even in your first language you probably have encountered someone how wrote in such a strange way that you simply were not able to understand it. When it comes to Chinese writing, things are a bit more complicated, because we need to remember characters, which is not an easy task. Some people also know both traditional and simplified characters, which is also hard, but to all of that there's one more factor to add which is: deciphering someone's handwriting and in my experience this  can be quite tricky. Why is it so hard to understand a Native's Handwriting ?  The answer is quite simple, as we all know Chinese characters are complex. The main reason why learners are not able to understand someone's handwriting are strokes, a lot of learners (including me) don't know them all, so when a Native speak who knows all the strokes for most characters write their characters usually look dif...