Even though I’ve only just finished three weeks of class, my Chinese has improved a ton! I think I can now safely say that I’m… still pretty terrible at Chinese.
Classes so far have very much been a grind. A quick overview of my courses: since I’ve been placed into the lowest-level classes ICLP offers (oops, pretty fair assessment tho) I don’t get to take cool classes like my other friends where you get to read philosophical texts or discuss current political issues. Instead, all four of my daily classes simply focus on building vocabulary, grammar, and spoken fluency. This includes two “core” classes that focus on our main textbook’s content and grammar, one “auxiliary” class which focuses on easier texts and grammar but is more fast-paced, and a one-on-one session where we practice more “practical” and conversational Chinese. Each class is 50-minutes long and capped at a tiny four students each.
One thing I was not expecting was everything to be so utterly exhausting. Since classes are so small, you can’t really get away with zoning out for even a second. If you’re not responding a question yourself, you have to be actively listening and ready to either immediately repeat back what a classmate just said or answer a follow-up question. ICLP classes also don’t even let you take out any notes or dictionaries during class, so you need to have all the material studied and memorized before every class.
On top of that, the daily workload is l a r g e. For the first week or so, I think I was doing more homework per day (about 6+ hours) than I would normally be doing at school, although this is probably because I’m not the swiftest (or most efficient) worker. Fortunately, I’ve adjusted a bit since then and have been able reduce my work to about 4-5 hours a night.
As if ten hours of Chinese a day wasn’t enough, ICLP (like many other Chinese programs) also makes you sign a “language contract,” which means that speaking English is strictly forbidden while inside the building. According to the contract, if you’re caught speaking English three or so times you’ll be kicked out and sent home, although it seems like most students respect and want to abide by the rule anyway. It’s as if the environment they're creating is just like you’re in a country where everyone just speaks Chinese! Pretty sweet
With all these factors combined, I will say that ICLP does an excellent job of obliterating any last bit of confidence you have in your Chinese. Especially for someone who hasn’t even studied for a full year yet, it can be pretty frustrating to be constantly reminded of how little Chinese you actually know, and that the Chinese that you thought you knew is probably wrong. Even more frustrating is just hanging around your friends at ICLP – most of whom are at a much higher level than you – and not being able to participate in conversations simply because you straight up can’t understand what they’re saying.
About a week ago, I was hitting a bit of a slump and my frustration was starting to get to me, even though I knew my Chinese was definitely improving. Despite throwing all my strength and effort into my work every night, I still felt utterly incompetent all the time. At ICLP, I would see students who have studied Chinese for years and years or have been speaking since they were little, yet still learning and struggling with even more new material than I was (how is there so much Chinese?!). Outside of class, if someone on the street asked me a simple question or if a restaurant worker tried explaining to me how to order food, I’d have no clue what they were saying at least 75% of the time. I still spend at least 10 to 15 minutes just drawing Chinese characters into Pleco trying to decode every restaurant menu.
So classes haven’t been quite as “j chillin” as my two-week vacation period. If the past few weeks have taught me anything besides how to cram and retain 50 new words a night (which, if you’re wondering how, definitely check out Anki or any other SRS flashcard system (thanks Viera!). big time game-changer), it’s that I probably need to change some of my expectations. Quite honestly, at this rate I don’t think I’ll be nearly as “fluent” as I thought I might be by the end of the summer, simply because I severely underestimated how difficult learning Chinese is.
So now that I have a better idea of where I’m at, I have to rethink some questions I thought I knew the answers to. What am I looking to get out of this summer? I thought it was to get my Chinese to “conversational,” but that seems unlikely and I’m not sure what that even means anyway. How do I do that? Will churning out flashcards and trying to just absorb all the Chinese around me be enough, or is there more I should do? And lastly, what do I want to do going forward? How much Chinese is enough? I can’t just keep on learning Chinese forever! (or can I?)
Any thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated (and I truly do mean it!)
