Background: Foreign teacher/White Monkey living in China for about 1 year now. I live in Nanjing. I came to China knowing zero Chinese, just a basic understanding of pinyin. This obviously made my initial move here a lot harder and presented lots of challenges. I didn't even start attempting to seriously learn/take lessons/study until October 2018. This post is just a collection of random observations I've made so far about learning Chinese from 0 in, well, China itself.
Chinese is HARD: This language is not easy to learn from 0 in a native speaker environment. It is really difficult still for me to understand what anyone is saying to me. I cannot read most signs. I cannot make extended conversation yet. Daily life is baseline mildly stressful.
Chinese people love it when you try: Chinese people are highly encouraging with their language. They get excited when you say anything, especially some funny, popular phrase from Douyin or some local slang. I've made my office burst out in cheers when I said some fucking trendy thing from Douyin.
You will not just "pick up" Chinese: Immersion is literally worthless without doing something with it. You have to put in some modicum of effort to take advantage of the constant listening/speaking opportunities. I know foreigners who have been living in China for 5+ years who can't even pronounce pinyin correctly.
Use what you know: If I learn something basic like "I am out front, let's go" I will use the Chinese phrase to my colleagues instead of the English. They will appreciate your efforts and gets you into the habit of using what you know, even if it's just baby talk.
Natives will not slow down for you: Natives seem to assume that foreigner=0000 Chinese. When I do use a single chinese phrase with them, they seem to assume I speak HSK God tier Chinese and begin to speak in rapid fire, complex, lazily pronounced sentences.
Yes, Grammar is easy: I will say that picking up grammar patterns in the A1-A2 range is very easy. There's lots of them to learn but once you do, they are ingrained right away.
Text/Wechat with natives: This will drastically increase the rate at which you learn characters and read. I have some Chinese friends and a Chinese girlfriend. I try to type as much as I can to them.
Holy mother of accents Batman: If I speak/listen to anyone over ~40, they speak with some kind of accent. I live in Nanjing and a lot of older working class people-at a minimum-do not speak with standard pronunciation. For example, the shopkeeper next to my apartment pronounces the pinyin sounds SH, ZH and X as a kind of "ts" sound. Shaokao is pronunced "tsao kao." This threw me off as a noobie and led me to make some mistakes early on. Then when I hear dialects, I honestly can't tell which planet these people are from.
Tones aren't super vital for survival: If I spit out a correctly pronounced basic phrase and get lazy about my tones, the native listener can usually understand my meaning, even if I accidentally say the word shit.
Dont slow down or draw out your tones: I made this mistake early on and natives had a hard time understanding me. Then, I started to speak with a faster, more native like pace and didn't worry as much about nailing the tones precisely, They started to get my meaning better.
Get a good teacher: Chinese is nuanced and complicated. I can safely say that the only reason I know any Chinese now and feel any sort of comfort with the language is because of my awesome teacher. She gives me word lists, homework assignments, practice quizzes etc. The rest I sort of learn through use, translation and flashcards.
I just wanted to share my thoughts and observations. This has been a difficult experience for me but I hope to keep on improving my Chinese skills. I would love any sort of input or advice. Cheers.
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