Chinese Learner Interview Series: Alex Luo
This week on our Chinese Learner Interview Series, we feature Alex Luo! In her own words:
Hey! My name is Alex Luo. I'm 23, and have roots in New York, Boston, and Seattle. I just recently moved to Shanghai last week and am in that wonderful stage of life, namely, job-searching. I graduated from college in 2011 with a degree in International Studies, and immediately after packed up and left to teach English to classes of 50 screaming middle school-ers in Shenzhen for a year. And now I'm back, because I just can't seem to stay away from China. I have mixed Chinese and Caucasian heritage, which has informed the way I've learned and related to the Chinese language throughout my life.
How long have you been studying Chinese? In what context? For what purpose?
You could say I've been studying on and off since I was born – my first real words were in Chinese – "没有" ("nothing"). My parents were too busy to speak to me and my twin sister in Chinese, so we grew up with a smattering of words but no real language ability. When my parents realized their mistake, they tried to rectify it by sending us to a series of unremarkable Saturday school classes. We attended like good little Chinese girls because we had to, but had limited interest in and patience for a language that didn't fit into our world of Beanie Babies, Tomagachis and American Barbies.
In high school I began to be interested in and proud of my Chinese heritage, but it really wasn't until college that I began to get serious about it. My most effective periods of language learning occurred while studying abroad in China, where I did an intensive summer course in Beijing one year and then a whole semester in junior year. The courses were designed as total-immersion learning experiences, complete with language pledges that only allowed us to speak Chinese. This is hands-down the best way to study Chinese.
Do you have a certain philosophy for how you approach learning Chinese? Do you have any grand 想法s about it all?
Not really. I used to swear by my old philosophy of writing characters hundreds of times over until my hand would cramp up, but I've realized a lot of that was wasteful. Somewhere around ten times is much more reasonable and works just as well. It is important that you put your pen to paper because the physical-to-visual association helps imprint the characters in your brain.
Also, recognizing basic patterns in characters is extremely helpful, and will save you significant time learning new words. You'll get a feeling for overall meanings of unknown words and memorize them more quickly.
What aspects of studying Chinese do you enjoy the most?
I love the feeling that comes from studying with other people as we mutually conquer a piece of
grammar or have an "aha!" moment together. I get a similar satisfaction from noting my fellow
students' benchmarks and being able to relish how far we've come.
I like polishing a phrase or sentence to perfection until I can to carry it around in my back pocket and toss it out at will.
I like the beauty of studying a language that carries so much emotion; and, I like studying the history behind characters and phrases.
What mistakes do you see other language learners make? What should people NOT do when studying Chinese?
It really bugs me when I hear deliberate lazy pronunciation. Despite some people having a better
ear for language and subtleties than others, and being able to get by on sub-par Chinese
pronunciation you can definitely tell when there is no effort put in. Language is the heart of culture, and pronunciation is the heart of language; there's no point in learning a language if you're not going to do it well, especially one as precise as Chinese. By making a joke out of the sounds, these people mostly just come off like they're trying to act "cooler" than the culture of the language they're trying to learn. Make pronunciation a priority from the start.
Don't try to speak too fast with too many twirly adjectives just to show off. It's better and you'll come off more proficient by using appropriate vocabulary that you know and speaking more slowly and thoughtfully.
Any favorite words or phrases?
"哭笑不得", or the idiom that roughly translates as "can neither cry nor laugh," has been one of
my favorites for a while.
I like the harshness of using "到底", translating to "finally" or "after all", as in "你到底在哪里?!",
or "where were you after all?!"
Funny stories from your experience? Embarrassing language mistakes, misunderstandings, surreal moments etc.
So many failures that I can't remember. I think I remember confusing a storekeeper by asking for
toilet paper instead of vitamins. I also spent five minutes on the phone telling friend after friend to come "bump into" my door later, after which I was informed that I probably meant to say "knock on."
My saddest moment was probably one night last year in Shenzhen. I stopped by my favorite local restaurant to ask for an eggplant dish that I had ordered numerous times already. I confidently requested the dish in what I thought was a correct Chinese sentence. Without even blinking, the waiter returned with a monotone "Sorry, I don't speak English" – in English. I was so taken aback and embarrassed that he thought I'd been speaking English that I couldn't even bring myself to repeat my order! I just ordered a noodle dish that I didn't even want and got out of there as fast as I possibly could. What an 'epic fail' moment if there was any.
Any memorable milestones? Any, "Aha!", or eureka moments?
Yes – in Beijing in 2008, I woke up with swollen red bites all over my legs, rushed myself to the Chinese hospital in the neighborhood, and somehow managed to make it through alive using the little Chinese I had.
I also relish those moments when you've been hearing the same senseless babble every day, maybe during the subway announcements or passing advertisements from a shop, and one day that babble suddenly becomes intelligible.
How do you keep yourself motivated while studying Chinese?
I tell myself that the vocabulary or grammar I'm learning at the moment will come in handy later. Once you learn words they have that strange quality of popping up everywhere around you, so I motivate myself with the knowledge that I'm NOT wasting my time.
Absolute, hands down, favorite Chinese dish?
Oh man, this is an impossible question…any sort of eggplant dish and mapo tofu.
Do you have one last tip for something that our readers can do TODAY to improve their Chinese?
I think everyone you ask will tell you this, but don't be afraid to get out there and make mistakes. That's the only way you'll learn. Cheers! And good luck!
Thanks Alex, some great advice and funny stories! I definitely agree with the pronunciation and importance of tones in Chinese. I can't say how many times I've had no idea what someone was saying to me because of their pronunciation. It does matter.
If you too want to be interviewed as a featured Chinese learner email me at Christina@fluentu.com!
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