So I'm learning Mandarin

Introducing a new newsletter section where I will share how I'm trying to improve my Mandarin as a "heritage" speaker.

Photo by 五玄土 ORIENTO on Unsplash

In language-learning circles, I'm considered a Mandarin "heritage speaker".

Heritage speakers have "learned a language informally by being exposed to it at home as opposed to having learned it formally in a school setting." (What is a Heritage Speaker?)

Technically, I don't fit the label because my real heritage language (mother tongue) is Hokkien, an 8-tone Chinese language that is considered one of the oldest in China. And I learned Mandarin in a school setting!

Basically, I was thrown into Mandarin classes during my primary school years. But I was a terrible student who spent most of my time copying homework and doodling instead of paying attention to the teacher. 

I mean, could you blame me? Classes consisted of us repeating the four tones over and over again and writing characters, you guessed it, over and over again.

But because I also lived in a Malaysian state where the main Chinese language is Mandarin, I managed to still soak in Mandarin, mostly so that I could fit in with my classmates whose mother tongue was Mandarin.

Also, speaking the complicated 8-tone Hokkien language gave me an advantage, especially when it came to tones. Basically, all I have to do is "hear" a word and pronounce it in the right tone without much of a problem.

I don't envy total newbie learners who had to grapple with the complexities of a tonal language for the first time. Especially those who have never spoken a tonal language! Many have told me that despite listening intensively, they still could not replicate the right tones. For the life of me, I have no idea how I do it.

However, my Mandarin-speaking friends say they can hear an accent. To quote a friend, "You still sound like a banana." Can't win, I guess!

Due to my unique background, I'm an outlier in my family - the only one who can speak and understand Mandarin and Hokkien (Penang, Northern version). My siblings can't speak a jot of Mandarin and only a little bit of Hokkien. 

However, as I don't get to practice my Mandarin with my family and because my circle of friends speak mostly English, a kindergartener speaks better Mandarin than I do!

Which is odd, because I have intermediate-level listening skills. Meaning, I can understand about 70 to 80% of what is being said in a modern Chinese drama without subtitles. I can understand so much yet speak so little, but apparently, this is a common problem with heritage speakers.

After decades of having a "half past six" command of a language, yet possessing an accent good enough to fool native speakers, I want to rectify this.

I tried learning Mandarin around 2011, when apps like Pleco was a distant dream and we had to learn Chinese radicals so that we could find the right characters in a paper Chinese-English dictionary. 

I took a traditional classroom Mandarin class, which I quickly learned was the wrong route for me, especially since it was there to prepare me for the HSK 1, a language exam. I didn't want to sit for an exam, I just wanted to speak better. And I was bored out of my mind because HSK 1 was far too basic for me.

So, I knew I had to approach language learning differently because most curriculums are designed for total newbies, not heritage speakers. 

The new Mandarin category of this newsletter will detail the strategy I'm using to master Chinese, my progress and the fun things I learned about the Chinese language.

I did wonder if I should create another newsletter to share my language-learning journey at first. However, I barely have enough bandwidth to maintain *one* newsletter, let alone three. (I have a fiction Substack called Distant Stars that I barely update - guilty grin.)

Besides, learning Mandarin is part of culture, and what better subject to include in a Substack about Malaysian and Chinese culture?

Even if you are not interested in learning Mandarin, I hope that my little monthly or fortnightly issues about Mandarin will entertain you, because I sure was tickled by some of the discoveries I made about the Chinese language!

Who knows, maybe you'll end up learning Mandarin!

Other articles

I have written a few articles about Mandarin learning in my blog. Have a read of my Mandarin learning posts on my website if you want to know more nerdy language stuff.

ℹ️ Technically, I'm learning how to speak Mandarin but am learning how to read and write Chinese.

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