Ex Oriente Lux

I told myself at the start of summer that June 1st would mark the day that I put into effect several important changes in my life. I started this blog, began studying for the GREs (more on that and the graduate school application process in another post), and tonight, I started learning Mandarin Chinese. My first exposure to this language took place many years ago, when in typical concerted cultivation style, my parents sent me to Chinese classes on Saturday mornings. I did not attend these classes for long and remember very little, though now I wish I had stayed. Having a girlfriend of Chinese descent offers a fairly large incentive to learn the language, and I gave it another try during the summer before college. However, it was difficult to keep it up when school started. Much like writing, learning Chinese became a dream deferred (like a raisin in the sun and all that).

A few weeks ago, I decided that there is no time like the present to learn a new language. I took Latin in high school, and while I greatly enjoyed it, I did not come out of that experience with the ability to communicate verbally in a different tongue. I have always felt crippled by my mono-lingualism, and am always very frustrated by language barriers. There are many reasons, personal and otherwise, to learn Chinese, so why not start now?

My wonderful girlfriend was more than happy to video chat with me from the city where she is doing an internship. She also wants to brush up on reading Chinese characters (whereas I am focusing solely on reading pinyin). We found a website containing easy stories with translations, and set to work.

This was easily some of the most challenging mental gymnastics I have done in a while. Learning a language is different from doing a physics problem set or writing a paper. I don’t think that any other learning experience has made me feel so helplessly incompetent. I have renewed appreciation for the ability of infants to not only invent the concept of language, but then pick it up from the barrage of sounds coming at them. In one day, I’ve filled about a page of a notebook with a column of new words and phrases and their translations. This single page seems like a difficult amount of information to master, especially when considering the layers of complexity added by the different tonal properties and grammar structure of Chinese, and yet it represents but a tiny fraction of the language.

It is a daunting task that lies ahead of me if I want to be anywhere near conversational in Chinese by the end of the summer. But when I consider the rewards, it seems well worth the struggle. The language has both personal significance to me as well as immense global importance. I could wax philosophical about my attraction to learning a language (dear God, I love Wittgenstein), but suffice it to say that I think I have finally gathered the willpower to commit myself. I am excited to see where this commitment leads.

Bonus for those who have made it to the end: I have listened to the album “Jackrabbit” by San Fermin while writing this post. They are one of my favorite bands, and the album is absolutely phenomenal. Look them up and check it out!