6 Things I Learned About Learning a New Language
I feel like I sound like a broken record at this point, but for those who don’t know, I went to Taiwan this summer for 2 months. I learned a lot about my family in Taiwan, culture, and my own personal cultural identity. Nevertheless, these learning lessons were not the main reason why I came to Taiwan. The real reason I came to Taiwan on my own? To learn my language.
Long story short — my parents never really taught me Mandarin growing up. They spoke it to me but never forced me to speak with them. I only went to 1 year of Chinese school and also didn’t have those stereotypical Chinese speaking grandparents around. In reality, almost everyone in my life had pretty proficient English. Mandarin was never a necessity — at least until I made it one this past summer. Here are some of my takeaways from learning a somewhat unfamiliar language at the ripe age of 20.
#1. Taking Language for Granted
I think as someone who’s lived in an English speaking country for my whole life, language is something I’ve grown to take for granted. I never had to question whether the person next to me knew how to speak English or not; it was almost a given.
But when I got to Taiwan, I really grew to appreciate the simple nature of language. I still remember the first day I got to Taiwan and I had to get a bus ticket to Taipei. Without sharing a proficiency in a common language, it was a S T R U G G L E ordering a ticket. The guy’s coworker ended up having to help me so that I could get a ticket (embarassing!!).
Without a common language, I had little to no means of communication with everything around me. Just think of language as the thread that strings a culture & country together. Without it, what do you have? You lose a means of basic communication, culture, and identity.
#2 “Getting Exposed”
I think this idea of “getting exposed” is very specific to me as an ABC (American-born Chinese). As a child of two native Taiwanese parents, I always felt very “Asian” by nature. But when I got to Taiwan, I think my definition of “Asian” really changed.
I felt like I was an imposter among all the “real” Asians around me. Most of all, I was scared of getting exposed as a non-Mandarin speaker. Personally, I think this was more of pride issue for me. I felt ashamed that I didn’t know my own culture’s language, and I was scared of someone calling me out on it. The idea of someone coming up to me and asking for something in Mandarin frightened me (to an extent) because I had really low self-esteem in relation to my speaking ability.
#3 FRUSTRATING AND TIME-CONSUMING!!!
I think this one is probably one of the more obvious ones on the list; it’s hard to mention language learning without mentioning the time-commitment and learning curve. Although traveling for 2 months was undoubtedly fun, there was definitely rough patches.
Even though I was learning a lot, taking class, and practicing with my relatives, it often times felt futile. It was frustrating that I would spend so much time on learning a language yet still have trouble communicating simple phrases or ideas to street vendors or waiters/waitresses.
I think a big thing with languages is “trusting the process”. Trust that the work you are putting in has value and don’t feel discouraged or frustrated when you struggle because struggle is inevitable.
#4 IMMERSING YOURSELF !!!
This is one of the tips that I saw when I Googled “how to learn a language fast”. Obviously, I had already done a lot to immerse myself in the language I was trying to learn; I traveled across the world for 2 months. But what I could do better was immersing myself fully in the culture.
And while this may sound very time-consuming and exhaustive, it really wasn’t. Essentially, I changed the language of my habits. For example, I started watching Taiwanese movies (mostly romance, drama), Taiwanese Youtubers (hmu for recommendations honestly LOL), and listening to music in Mandarin.
It was honestly really fun and above all else, super helpful. I probably increased my exposure to Mandarin by ~100% by simply using time watching/listening in Mandarin instead of English.
#5 humble yourself in the presence of god
OK this one is pretty hard to explain; it doesn’t have any actual religious meaning, it’s more of a mindset. For the longest time in Taiwan, I was anxious about speaking Mandarin because, as mentioned before, I had pretty low self-confidence (and my Mandarin really wasn’t that good).
But there was one day I realized, why do I care about speaking poorly? Why do I care about what all these other people think about my language ability? There was no reason to be ashamed because it wasn’t my fault. Nobody taught me the language.
I realized that I should humble myself because, in the eyes of the all-knowing, there is no reason I should be ashamed.
#6 “is this why I went to Taiwan?” moment
This is one of the happiest learning lessons I had. After my Taiwan trip, I got back to Cupertino and a week-in my friends wanted to try a new restaurant. We ended up going to a restaurant where there happened to be mostly Mandarin-speaking waiters/waitresses. And while my Mandarin was still IFFY at best, I utilized it to communicate our order. And while I didn’t think much about it in the moment, it kind of crystallized for me later that night.
“Is this the reason I went to Taiwan?”
Something that used to be so foreign to me became so natural to me. That was the simple beauty of it. Two months before, I would hesitate before speaking a single word of Chinese. But here I was, speaking “Chinglish” with relative comfort. For me, this experience summarized my 2 months and I couldn’t be happier or prouder.
