The Evasive Secrets of Language 
By Evelyn Ruth Harker
 

Have you ever heard the phrase “It’s Chinese to me?” As an American, it is a cliché statement for something you don’t understand.  But if someone from another country didn’t understand something, would their sentence be more like “It’s English to me?”

                  All around the world, people are learning different languages. There are over 6900 languages studied in the world today, the top three languages being Mandarin Chinese, Hindi, and English. With so many different languages being learned around the world, it is impossible for everyone to learn a second language the exact same way. Here at St. Paul American School in Beijing, our students speak Korean, English, Russian, Japanese, Swahili, French, Thai, Mongolian, Filipino, Tongan, Portuguese, and Cantonese. With so many languages spoken, how can the Chinese teachers teach everyone together? The simple answer is they don’t. The students’ native languages and cultures play a huge role in the way they learn Chinese, and the study techniques they utilize.

                  The three critical parts of any language are grammar, speaking, and writing. If your native language has any similarities to any of these components of the language, you can expect that it will be easier for you to learn the language. Mr. Cheng, a Chinese teacher at St. Paul American School, noted that Korean and Japanese are the languages most similar to Chinese, and that English is the most different from Chinese. Mr. Cheng teaches students from Korea, the USA, Brazil, Kazakhstan, Japan, Tanzania, and Thailand. Depending upon their native language, he has them practice different things. He requires students with European and African languages such as English, Russian, and Swahili to practice the characters more, as their languages are based on the western alphabet. For those who are native speakers of Asian languages such as Korean and Japanese, he works with them more on speaking, and very little work is done with writing. Because Koreans and Japanese have languages much more similar to Chinese, they can learn much faster.

                  For both groups, the least amount of time is spent on grammar. It is not especially critical for the European based language speakers because their grammar systems are extremely complex, so the simple Chinese grammar system is much easier comprehend. It is also not very necessary for the Asian languages to spend much time on grammar because their grammar system is very similar to Chinese. Despite these differences, Mr. Cheng says “the best way to learn a language is to practice it in your daily life. It is important to use it, not just memorize it.” All three components are necessary to learn Chinese, but the amount of time spent on each one varies from student to student.

                  Another major part of how someone learns Chinese is their culture and background. Since our school is located in Beijing, China, we are all somewhat influenced by Chinese culture, but our main influence is the culture we grew up in. Our culture influences everything we do, and that includes our study habits. In Asian culture, families traditionally put a great value on filial piety and hard work, while in other cultures such as the USA, life is much more liberalized. This translates directly to how people study. If their home culture greatly values studying hard as Asians do, they will be much more motivated to practice and learn. In a less strict culture, it is much more difficult to discipline oneself to study hard, as they are involved in more extracurricular activities such as sports, drama, or art. Asians are also much more into structure and memorization, while some students prefer games and songs. No matter where you’re from or what language you speak, here are some study tips from Mr. Cheng that will aid with long term memorization of Chinese:

1.       Practice the sounds to memorize the movement of the mouth.

2.       Use the language in your daily life, not just in class.

3.       Use Microsoft Word and write the character in size 72 font. This way you can see the strokes very clearly, and it will help you to practice typing in Chinese.

4.       Study the language every day outside of class.

5.       Think of sentences in your native language and try to translate them into Chinese.

Learning a second language is not a quick or simple task. It will take a lot of time (Usually a few years), money, and effort to become good in another language. By learning another language, you can open up many doors for yourself, as there are many careers that require people to be bilingual. Mandarin Chinese has the most speakers in the entire world. Our school presents a very unique opportunity to learn both English and Chinese. With the demand for English and Chinese speakers growing larger and larger, you can expect that you can do quite well if you can speak both English and Chinese.