The Flashcard program has been updated to load a lot faster than before. Previously it took a few minutes to load up, whereas this should now be reduced to a few seconds.
Site Issues
It seems that the site has been up and down for much of this weekend. Lately, we’ve been the victim of some massive spam attacks on our Contact Us page, and this weekend it seems that hackers have been trying to wreck havoc with the site in general.
The good thing is that we will be using this opportunity to improve the infrastructure that holds this site together. Please bear with us the next few days as we there may be some more ups and downs. In the end however, I hope to have a faster site with better performance.
Update: The site will be down for an hour on February 20, 2008 from 9:45 to 10:45 a.m. GMT for some hardware updates that will hopefully improve the recent sluggishness.
Recording and other Updates
It seems that this since we moved the site to a new server, the recording tool wasn’t working for the Pronunciation and Exercises. Well I’m happy to say that after some lengthy testing and reinstalling, everything seems to be working again! I’m also happy to say that the user experience should be better than in the past, thanks to the better equipment it is now running on.
We will continue to look for ways to update the site and improve your user experience. Next on the list is to improve our actual course content. We have added a new consultant with over a decade of teaching experience to our team who will be overseeing the material in new lessons. Her work will begin from lesson 195 onwards. Some of our staff are also upgrading their credentials in teaching by taking courses in Mandarin teaching.
I hope to use the added experience from all of us (including me) to edit and / or redo some of the earlier lessons in our course later this year. When we get to that, I will release a separate set of updates so you can see what changes were made.
In the meantime, please continue to send us your ideas and suggestions in all areas. Some of our newer lessons feature content and material suggested by users like yourself, so keep them coming.
All the best to everyone this Chinese New Year – welcoming the year of the rat!
Business Meetings
Arranging and having meetings with Chinese counterparts can be a different process than you might see out West. The process is smoother if you already have a relationship with the people beforehand. If they aren’t familiar with you or your company, it is best to provide as much background information as possible. This allows them to decide whether to have the meeting as well as who should take part.
This is important, since it means the proper decision makers can attend. Unlike Western meetings, it is in your interest to bring up the subject of the meeting and all issues to be discussed beforehand, so that no surprises are brought up during the meeting. Once again, this allows the other party to prepare their own views in advance of the meeting itself. Not following this protocol may result in your proposals being received with silence, as time would then be needed to consider them in private.
You may find that Chinese meetings are often scheduled at the last minute. Even where a meeting is proposed by either side well in advance of a particular date, the details are still not usually confirmed until just before the meeting. This is done to avoid last minute changes or cancellations.
Once the meeting begins, it is best to arrive on time – not too early and certainly not too late. If you do end up late, be sure to apologize profusely to avoid the impression that there was any intent in your tardiness.
When entering a meeting room, it is common for Chinese delegates to follow a rank order with the highest ranking official entering first (especially for meetings involving government officials). Since one on one meetings are usually rare, there may be an entourage of participants. Assume that those not introduced are not part of the decision process, but just present as witnesses or assistants.
Like in Western meetings, it is wise to engage in some small talk in the beginning to build up trust, especially when the parties don’t know each other well. The Chinese prefer to do business with those they know, so it is worthwhile to cultivate this aspect first. You may notice that a few key individuals have been assigned to participate in the meeting, while the rest usually remain silent for the majority of the meeting.
After the initial small talk, the host of the meeting will usually welcome the invitees and either present the topic at hand or invite the proposer of the meeting to do so.
The Chinese usually prefer to be on the defensive or receiving side of matters. This allows them to combine their preparation of the meeting beforehand, with time to react to the proposals brought forward by the other party.
During the meeting, it is common for Chinese to use grunts or nods as signs of acknowledgment of what is being said during the meeting. Don’t mistake this for acceptance, as it is just a tacid acknowledgment and doesn’t necessarily suggest agreement.
Unlike normal conversations, the dialogs in meetings tend to be more structured with each side taking turns. As a result, it is common to let the other party do the talking without interrupting until it is your turn, at which point you can go through their points one by one. During this portion, expect them to take detailed notes that may be referred to on later dates or shared with other parties who may have not attended the meeting.
Like in all interactions with Chinese people, it is of crucial importance never to put them on the spot or allow them to lose face.
Towards the end of the meeting, it is best to summarize your understanding of the situation to make sure both parties are clear where things stand. At this point, you can set up a future meeting. The Chinese party’s response here, will let you gauge their interest in continuing things.
Note: For more detailed descriptions of the points in this article, read “Chinese Business Etiquette” by Scott D. Seligman.
Export Page
As mentioned in the latest podcast update, a new export page has been added. Previously, an export function was added to the flashcard page. However, since this seems to be a popular feature, it has now earned its own separate page. It has also been improved to support multiple formats.
If you have other requests, do let me know.
Cosmetic Touch ups
There is some cosmetic work being done to the site right now, which means some of the menus may be missing for the next day, while we update some aspects. There will be an update here when everything is good to go. (Incidentally, the old menus work from this blog, just not from the main site). Sorry for any inconvenience!
Update: Menus are now working again. There will continue to be some tweaks here and there, but everything should be working. If you notice any disruptions, please let me know.
Differences Between Chinese and Western Thinking
When it comes to etiquette and ways of doing things, there are some key differences between how the Chinese operate versus how Westerners do so. In the latter world, being polite makes you stand out from the crowd. In the Chinese world, politeness is part of a basic set of principles that has to be followed by all. Any deviation from these principles makes you stand out in a negative way. You can see this when you are offered a choice of drink before a meeting or when visiting someone’s house. Even if you politely decline, you will still be offered tea as the default. As the guest, you are allowed to sit through the entire visit without even touching the cup, since the host was just doing his duty by offering it to you, despite your personal preference to decline.
During group meetings, a Westerner is more likely to bring up arguments or disagree with the topic at hand. Chinese values would require the person to keep his opinions to himself in such an environments. Any disagreements he may have with a speaker could be brought up later in a more private forum, giving the speaker face in the process. Understanding this nature within Chinese people is important, since it is easy to otherwise assume that their silence indicates agreement. In some cases, a third party may be used to convey negative news from one side to another, in order to avoid confrontations.
This same situation can also be observed in personal relationships between a Westerner and a Chinese, where the latter’s silence on matters and propensity to not confront, could erroneously suggest to the former that all is well in the relationship, when that might not be the case. (Personal note: I have experienced this first hand, when a former girlfriend broke up with me out of the blue, when I thought all was well. When I asked for more details, she came up with a list of issues that she had never mentioned during the relationship, all out of a desire to not induce confrontation). Not being up front with your opinions and ideas might be considered rude in Western culture, whereas in Chinese culture it is considered polite, since by doing so they are allowing you to save face.
Another big difference in thinking between Chinese and Western societies is the difference between “friends” and “strangers.” Assistance between Chinese parties is only given to those in the “inner circle” which is why the concept of guanxi is so important. This is also why it is so important to keep making contacts in order to enter the circles of others. The flip side of this, is that help is rarely given to strangers or people without any relationship. You rarely see beggars on the streets in Chinese communities, and those you do see are usually seen approaching foreigners, whome they are more likely to get assistance from. It is also common for people to not stop and help others during vehicle accidents, so as not to get involved with people they don’t know.
Where a Chinese person does assist one of his friends (whether directly or indirectly), this assistance is noted by both sides. An equivalent payback of some sorts is then expected in the future. During weddings and occasions where red envelopes are exchanged, the amounts of money given and the donors are duly noted since the same amount would be expected to be paid back at future events. Chinese New Year (which is coming up soon) is useful for clearing “debts” among friends in this manner.
The conclusion from all of this, when comparing Chinese versus their Western counterparts, is that the former are more likely to go out of their way to help friends and people in their circle of influence, whereas the latter are more likely to go out and help strangers. Understanding this culture is very valuable in determining where assistance should be given to others, as well as what is expected of you if you receive it. When rejecting others’ offers or requests of help, it is best to do so with a polite excuse rather than a flat out refusal, in order to maintain the dignity of the relationship.
Learning Chinese through Setting Goals
When I first came to Taiwan, I assumed I would pick up Chinese without much effort. After all, I was constantly exposed to it everywhere I went, so even if I didn’t want to, I would automatically learn, right?
A year later, feeling like I hadn’t learned much, I realized that things didn’t quite work this way. I actually had to put in effort to learn the language. To make things easier on myself, I decided to focus on listening and speaking only. Learning to read and write characters just seemed like too much for me.
Three years later, while I don’t consider myself fluent by any means, I have learned a lot about the learning process, especially through creating the CLO course and communicating with listeners.
Through this process, I have tried to create the tools that would have helped me the most, were I to start learning again from the start. Like anything else you want to accomplish in life, it can be highly beneficial to set goals for yourself when you have a long, arduous task in front of you.
When you begin, it may look like a long road ahead from the start to the day you consider yourself fluent. However, with some due diligence you can find that the goal isn’t as far off as you think.
Many people “want” to learn Chinese, but give up early when they realize how many characters they would have to learn to be literate. Constantly being bombarded with new vocabulary, while easily forgetting old words can also make it easy to give up. What I have found is that having a system of learning greatly reduces the complexity of this process. This system can be broken down into 4 steps.
- Determine where you are
- Determine where you want to be
- Set a time frame to reach your goals
- Allocate the time necessary to reach your goals
So for example, if your goal is to be able to write characters, set a goal of how many characters you want to know.
Looking at our course, you need to know about 500 characters to get through level 1 and level 2. A moderate pace would take you a year to finish two levels (you can adjust this pace for yourself). This means you would need to learn 1.36 characters a day to achieve your goal. All of a sudden that doesn’t sound so hard, does it?
Learning to write characters usually involves writing it over and over again. You can practice using the worksheets we’ve created for you here along with our new character introductions. For me personally, I have a habit of writing 50 characters (half the worksheet) each day. This is a combination of new characters and reviewing old characters.
It is important to note that this process is MUCH harder up front. Of those 500 characters, over a hundred are introduced in the first ten lessons. This means a lot of time will be spent up front where it seems like you aren’t making progress. However, once you’ve made it past those ten lessons, all of a sudden things become much easier.
New characters will be easier to learn since they will mostly be based on characters or elements you already know. Plus you will find yourself spending less time on stroke order since it will now be more natural to you.
A similar process can be used for learning new words with the new memorization mode on our flashcard program. Choose a range of lessons and learn the vocabulary associated with them by logging in once a day.
By dividing up the chore of learning into daily, manageable steps, you will find the process much easier, as you will actually be learning something new each day. The above steps add about 30 minutes to my daily routine, but the results have been much better than the haphazard, plan-less program I was using previously. The way I look at it, another year will pass whether I put in daily effort or not. This way though, I know exactly where I will be a year from now, rather than just hoping I have improved.
Character Introductions
I’m proud to finally unveil our latest feature – New Character Introductions! For each lesson now, in addition to the new words being highlighted in the vocabulary page, there will also be a section in there on new characters. This way, we can distinguish between characters that have already been taught before, and new characters that are features in the new word being taught. All the new characters in a lesson will be highlighted in a separate section (found along the Test Your Pronunciation, Sentence Builder and Exercise tools) with animated stroke order pictures. If you click on a character, it will perform a search in our word bank for all the words and examples that it has been used in in our entire course to give you a better feel for it. Obviously it is in your interest to learn the most commonly used characters first.
Want to practice your writing skills? Use this worksheet for practice. It uses the same box background as in the pictures to keep things consistent. It is also interesting to note how the computer font differs from the more traditional font used in the animated stroke pictures.
It will take us some time to introduce this feature for all lessons, so we will be doing it in phases. Phase one will be adding the characters that have already been introduced as new words. We will then be separating new characters from existing words and introducing them separately.
As expected, earlier lessons feature a lot more newer characters. New words from later lessons frequently use characters that have already been introduced earlier, which should help you better remember them (that is the rationale behind this being a progressive course). In working on this project, it was interesting for me to find that after the first 10 lessons (not including lesson one, since that was just an introduction to tones), more than 100 new characters were taught. However the next 90 lessons taught less than 400 new characters, which means a lot of the initial ones are repeated often.
Please send me feedback on how you use this (and any other features on the site), as well as any suggestions you may have to improve it further. You can try out the first batch of characters here. Click on “New Characters” in the middle of the page. Enjoy!
Update: We have also added a new “Character” type to the word bank. All characters will be classified with this type. This means you can study all the characters introduced lesson by lesson from one main area just by searching for (or clicking on) the “character” type. To see the stroke order, simply click on the lesson a character was introduced and then open the “New Characters” area. Hope this helps!
Vocabulary Page: Update 2
Feedback was given to me that the vocabulary pages for the last few review lessons were taking a long time to load due to all the lines of text and audio that had to be loaded. Since I expect longer dialogues in level 4 and beyond, the vocabulary page for all lessons has now been reorganized to only show 10 lines of dialogue or vocabulary at a time. You can navigate back and forth using the “Previous” and “Next” buttons that have been added where appropriate.
Hopefully this change along with the reorganizing of other elements in the vocabulary page will result in a more effective learning experience for you. Again, please continue to provide me with usability feedback since that is what drives development around here.
A new feature focused around teaching character recognition should be ready for launch in the next week or so. It’s required a lot of work on our side, but I’m sure the results will be well worth it, so stay tuned…
Individual Versus Group
One big difference between Chinese society and Western society is the concept of individualism. While out West, we are encouraged to be our own person, and develop our own ways of thinking, this concept isn’t as pronounced in Chinese culture, which lean towards Confucian principles.
Testing in schools is usually based around exams with only a single, right answer for each question. How students fare in these tests tends to dictate what classroom they might be placed in, what level of school they can attend and possibly what jobs might be available for them when they graduate. As a result, parents tend to encourage their children to excel in subjects that require more linear thinking, as opposed to ones that require creativity.
Interactions between people is often governed by the relationship that defines them. An interaction between a boss and his employee would follow defined principles, as would one between a father and son, husband and wife or two friends. Status is accorded to elders or those with authority. One can build up their status through loyalty and giving face where appropriate. While Western culture might reward qualities such as creativity, innovation and aggression, Chinese society instead promotes modesty, loyalty and conciliation.
The lack of individualism can also be found in the tendency for Chinese people to keep their expressions to themselves and not be emotional in public situations. This is a trait that is taught from when children are young, which is why they often find novelty in the expressive nature of foreigners. People are encouraged to keep their opinions and expressions to themselves and not be too overt. When matters are being discussed in meetings, decisions are usually made by consensus, which have to followed afterwards, regardless of whether personal beliefs differ.
Individuals in China are also used to managing with much less personal space. Much of this is a direct result of living in highly populated areas, as well as in a tropical climate. Doors tend to be left open, even during classes or important meetings. When standing in line, you are expected to lean right up to the person in front of you to maintain your position. When parking a vehicle, a much smaller gap is left between vehicles than you might see out West.
As it is common for multiple generations of family members to live together, there is also much more closeness and interest in each others’ affairs. Neighbors tend to be a lot more “nosier” so expect a keen interest from others on where you happen to be going and coming from each day. Some of this lack of privacy is a direct result of strict government controls in mainland China. Everyone from security personnel and service attendants to the general public is taught to keep an eye out for suspicious activity and report it to the relevant authorities.
While Chinese society is certainly a lot more open in present day than it was in the past, a lot of these characteristics have ingrained themselves as part of culture. The increase in the numbers of foreign companies now operating in China has created more exposure among local Chinese to foreign methods and ways of thinking. However, those wanting to better integrate themselves into Chinese society can do well by understanding the roots and appreciating the values that govern people today.
Things Back to Normal
I apologize for the site issues we’ve been having the last couple of days. I’m happy to say that things seem to be back to normal for now. The PDFs that weren’t accessible for the last few days should also be accessible now. If you notice any other problems, please continue to let me know.
Stay tuned to this page for a slick new feature that should be ready within the next week or so!
Email Troubles
We moved our site to a new (hopefully) faster server over the weekend, which caused some downtime over the last day. During this time, emails sent to us were not received. If you sent an email that was rejected, please send it again, as everything should be working now. Sorry for the inconvenience!
Vocabulary Page Reorganization
You may have noticed that the Vocabulary page for some lessons has a slightly different look to it. As we add new features, the page was starting to get cluttered with the Test your Pronunciation recorder and the Sentence Builder app. To maintain a cleaner look, the Pronunciation tool is now hidden behind a link that lets you swap between the different applications we add to this page. Some pages will also let you listen and reply to exercises directly from within the vocabulary page. As well, expect another new tool to be added here during the holiday break to help you learn character. Stay tuned or more details…
Database Issues
During the holiday break, we will be doing some maintenance and upgrades to the website which may cause some mysterious “database errors” to pop-up (looks like they are here already!). As far as I know, these shouldn’t affect usability – they are just error messages that are displayed at the very bottom of the screen. If you do notice any actual issues affecting usability, please let me know.
When the maintenance is complete however, you should hopefully notice slicker (faster!) premium pages, with even more content! More information on the upgrades will be released as they are introduced, so stay tuned…
Happy Holidays from Chinese Learn Online
For those of you wanting to know more about who we are, we created a short, impromptu video during our last recording session. Since this wasn’t planned, the quality and editing isn’t anything fancy, but hopefully the message still comes across. If there’s demand, we could release more “behind the scenes videos” of what goes on around here. Enjoy!
New Flashcard Program
I’m proud to announce version 2 of our flashcard is now available for you to try out. What’s new you ask?
The program is bigger now, so the initial loading time might be a little longer, so please be patient. It now features 2 modes – multiple choice and memorization. The former is basically version 1 of the program. You choose what lesson you’re at, and the program will create a quiz based on vocabulary from your current lesson as well as a few earlier lessons. You’re given a choice of answers to choose from, and the program will keep track of your score.
The new memorization mode uses a different approach. Here, you can specify a range of lessons, in case you don’t want to start all the way from the beginning. The program will then proceed to test your recognition of all the vocabulary taught in each lesson within the range. The difference though is that you won’t be given any choices. A word will be shown on screen and you have to first determine on your own how well you know it. The answer will then be displayed, at which point you can tell the program how well you knew the answer on a scale of 0 to 4, with 0 being no recognition at all, and 4 being immediate recognition. Based on your answers, the program will either return the card back to the deck or remove it completely. The program will keep track of your performance so that on future sessions, vocabulary you didn’t recognize can be shown again.
Obviously the bigger range of lessons you choose, the more vocabulary there will be to test for. If you decide to go from lesson 1 to the latest lesson, there will be more than 1000 questions! I recommend you choose shorter ranges initially. While you are welcome to go through it at your own pace, I recommend using it once a day so your brain has time to remember what is being taught.
One other feature that has been added to the Memorization mode is an export feature. After choosing your mode and lesson range, you can select the export option which will generate a text file featuring the select content in tab delimited format. Note that this feature seems to work on some browsers and not others. In some cases, a window may popup with the data, whereas in others, a download link is displayed above the flashcard window.
I suspect there may be some glitches with this program. Please send me all your comments so the program can be improved.
Update: Thanks to your feedback, there have been a few improvements, including audio playback of answers, the ability to modify your current testing range and an increase in font size of the question. If you have any other suggestions on how to improve it, do continue to let me know.
Addressing People
While we’ve talked about names in Chinese before, it is important to know how to address people using the proper titles. While Westerners can generally be forgiving for not knowing the local customs, those that are able to follow the proper conventions correctly can receive a big edge when developing relationships.
Unlike English, the Chinese equivalents to “Mr” and “Mrs” – xiānshēng and tàitai follow the person’s last name. These two terms can also be used to refer to one’s husband and wife respectively. In Southern parts of China and Taiwan, these terms can also be used to address service people such as waiters, clerks and taxi drivers. In Northern parts of China, the term shīfu meaning “specialist” is used instead.
Where possible, it is advisable to find the person’s position and use it instead. Addressing someone as Wáng lǎoshī for “Teacher Wang” or Lǐ jīnglǐ for “Manager Li” shows them a lot more respect than a standard “Mr” or “Mrs.” It is also common practice to refer to someone with a definite position in the third person, using just their title and nothing else. If you’re shopping for goods, and are hoping for a good deal from the shop owner, referring to him as lǎobǎn for “boss” may gain you some favors.
Family relationship titles can be quite complicated. Traditionally, it was common for several generations of family members to live together, which meant it was important to accurately address each other. Family members are addressed differently based on whether they are older or younger than you, as well as whether the relationship is a paternal or maternal one. Close friends can also address each other as if they were in the same family. So a friend might refer to another friend as his older brother. This can also extend to a close friend’s family – where you address his relatives as if they were your own. This is similar to Western culture where a couple might affectionately be called Auntie and Uncle by younger generations.
Nicknames are also quite popular in Chinese culture. Two brothers surnamed Chén might be identified among friends as Lǎo Chén and Xiǎo Chén to indicate “younger Chen” and “older Chen” respectively. While in Western culture, it may be considered rude to directly refer to someone as old, in Chinese culture it is considered a sign of respect and refers more to the person’s wisdom and maturity than to their specific age.
While these rules about relationships may seem confusing on the outside, the best way to prepare yourself from uneasy situations is to observe others in action, and see what terms they use to address each other. To ensure that you use the right titles, it is also advisable to ask the opinions of others to make sure that you use the appropriate term.
Initial Chinese Interactions
One of the reasons many Westerners come to Asia, is their inherent curiosity in seeing Chinese people living and working in their native environment. Thankfully, this curiosity is also reciprocated with Chinese people being quite enthusiastic and friendly towards foreigners in general. The interest from locals is easily recognized by the stares you may get for being “foreign.” The farther away from big cities you go, the more attention you tend to get for being foreign.
Unless you happen to run into an outgoing type, the extent of your contact with most locals might be limited to stares. Knowing that there will be a communication gap is enough to keep most people from approaching you, so if you are interested in starting a conversation, being able to blurt out a few words in Chinese is very useful to break the ice and initiate contact.
Those of you who can speak some Chinese, may at times be disheartened to hear people reply to you in English, even when you address them in Chinese. While your initial reaction might be to construe this as a sign that your Chinese isn’t good enough, realize that just as you are using every opportunity you can find to practice what Chinese you know, they are using the same opportunity to practice their English. In general though, unless the situation is quite casual, it is best to stick to the language that allows the conversation to flow the smoothest.
If you do happen to enter a tough crowd, it is helpful to cite some common ground or a common acquaintance to elevate you from “stranger” status. Handshakes are accepted forms of greeting. You may also notice a slight bow of the head when greeting others. Where possible, try and carry business cards with you. When handing out a business card, use both hands to grasp the corners of the card and hand it so that the face can be read as it is being received. Depending on the nature of your business, it may be wise to have a bilingual version of your business card with the Chinese version on one side and the English version on the other.
During the initial small talk, apart from the obligatory “where do you come from?” you are likely to get questions regarding your experiences and impressions of China. This is because most locals within China tend to know very little about the world outside their borders (a phenomenon common in most countries), so their questioning tends to look for common ground with you, which is usually based within China. Because of this, their interest in you tends to be more as a result of your being “foreign” than because of your specific nationality.
During this interaction, it isn’t uncommon to be asked questions that you might deem to be quite personal, such as your age, marital status or even salary! If you choose not to answer these questions, be sure to do so in a way that doesn’t embarrass the person doing the asking. You can use the question topics brought up as a guideline for what questions you are allowed to ask in return. In general, the only major topic that should be avoided is politics, as that tends to be a sensitive issue for many. If you receive praise of any form, it is best to display outright modesty. This same phenomenon can be observed in their response, when you pay a compliment.
The safest way to manage these initial interactions is to spend a lot of time observing what others do, and how others respond. Notice their body language and try to mimic them when appropriate. While as a foreigner, you can be forgiven in most cases for not following traditional Chinese protocol, what efforts you do make to follow local customs can take you a long way towards developing proper contacts and relationships.
Confucian Culture
It is true that China is a much different place than it was a few decades ago. Advancements in communication and infrastructure have drawn China a lot closer to the Western world today, than in the past. As a result, one would expect Chinese people today to be a lot more tolerant towards Western attitudes and ideals, than they might have been in the past. While this is true, there are still patterns in daily Chinese behavior that can be traced back to centuries of ideology, that still form a significant basis in Chinese culture today. Understanding these ideals and perspective can go a long way towards improving your interactions with Chinese people.
Unlike in the West, where there is more of an emphasis towards individuality and creativity in expressing one’s self, in Chinese society there tends to be more emphasis towards conforming to society’s norms and traditions. These behaviors can be traced back to the days of Confucius, whose teachings and philosophy on social behavior have been compiled into written records, that have greatly influenced thought, even in modern times. As a result, since everyone is educated in his teachings which is used in society, there is a general pattern of what is acceptable and what isn’t acceptable behavior when dealing with people.
This is why when traveling and meeting Chinese, you are rarely given choices as a guest. When eating out at a dinner in your honor, expect to see course after course being served on your plate without any regard for what your taste preference might be. Rather than you being treated as an individual, there is more reverence towards your position, which in this case is the guest. Similarly, expect to see designated seating around the table for the persons of most importance, based on their titles and positions within the gathering.
When you have the opportunity, it is worth noting some of the behaviors and habits that follow this philosophy. Introducing people to each other is key, since they form the start of relationships. If you lack a third party introduction, it is helpful to mention a common third party to elevate you from stranger status. Similarly, the questions asked of you during an initial conversation are usually used to form common ground between you. Unlike in Western culture, where people may become on first name basis after an initial meeting, in Chinese, a person’s title is almost always used, based on their relation to you.
In future blog postings, expect to see more examples of such cultural patterns, to better educate you with Chinese society. Being able to recognize and even reproduce this behavior on your own, can take you a long way towards not only forming the relationships you’ll need to make with Chinese people, but also to better equip you to understand why they do the things they do, in order to avoid potential mix ups.
Relationships and Face
When doing business in China, there are a couple of concepts worth noting that are extremely prevalent in Chinese culture. The first is guānxi, which is the art of building relationships. You will find after initially establishing contacts with people, that they will often go out of their way to help and provide you with whatever assistance you may need. This assistance forms a bond between people, which forms the basis for future relationships. Later, when ready to do business, it is common to use the network of relationships created from this process to begin.
These relationships are meant to be of mutual benefit and are useful for generating new business and clients, or as a source of knowledge and expertise. Examples may include one person getting another a job at his company, or a principal allowing someone’s child entrance into a prestigious school. While this concept may seem obvious and isn’t unique to Chinese culture, it’s certainly more prevalent in Chinese society and has ingrained itself as part of daily life. Indeed the expression méi guānxi, which is used to say “That’s okay” in response to an apology, is one of the most common phrases you might hear. The literal meaning can be thought of as meaning “this doesn’t affect our relationship.”
Closely related to guānxi is miànzi which is the concept of “face.” Many business relationships begin by doing personal favors for each other. The person doing the favor gains face or status in the process, while the recipient has an implied obligation to return the favor at some point. Meeting these obligations allows you to build up your network of relationships by gaining face. Choosing not to help when given the opportunity to do so, creates the opposite effect, resulting in your losing face, which should be avoided at all costs.
While it is important to do your best to accumulate as much face and the resulting prestige accorded with it as you can, it is equally important not to put others in positions where they are forced to lose face. Examples of such include trying to embarrass others in public, or putting people in positions where they have no solutions. In such situations, it is best to give the other party a “face saving option” which in turn builds your character for having accorded them that respect. For example, choosing not to accept a dinner invitation should be accompanied with a suitable excuse (along with the requisite apology) that shows your interest in the other party, allowing them to keep face.
Knowledge of these concepts is important not only in business, but also in daily life in China. Unlike the West, where you might make a public scene to get what you want, doing so in China will ostracize you, resulting in the opposite effect. While the Chinese are increasingly more tolerant of Western mannerisms and traditions, respect of local etiquette is a great way to stand out from the crowd, by showing your willingness to do things their way.
General Updates
While it may seem on the outside that we’re on a break, there has been a lot of behind the scenes work going on. Here are some updates on different sections of the site:
- Exercises page – A new batch of questions has been added, bringing the current total to about 30 or so. Eventually, depending on user response, we could have a question there for most lessons. The idea here would be to get you using what you learn in each lesson by having to answer an open ended question on the subject for that lesson. By keeping the questions open ended, we are encouraging you to find and use vocabulary related to your personal life. So if we asked what your job is, you would need to know how to say your particular profession in Chinese. This page has recently been enhanced to allow “conversations” with the teacher, so if you needed extra vocabulary, you could ask for help and the teacher could guide you through your answer. Each time an answer is posted, you will be notified via email. Links have also been added to the lessons that each question was taken from. Thanks to those who have used this feature and provided feedback so far. Update: I have noticed some users submitting answers in numbered Pinyin. I have since updated the interface to convert numbered pinyin into tone marks. This should hopefully improve the usability. Update 2: Another batch of exercises has been added, bringing the total to about 70 questions now.
- PDFs for levels 1 and 2 are currently up to date. Level 3 will take longer as each lesson has 6 to 7 PDFs associated with it. My target is to have PDFs for all lessons available by the end of the year. Update: PDFs are now current for level 3 as well.
- Videos for level 3 were recently added, so almost every dialogue in the course should now have a video associated with it.
- Sentence builder questions have been added for most lessons in level 1 and are currently being added to lessons in level 2 onwards. Update: Sentence builder exercises are now available for every lesson in the course.
We hope to be able to use all these tools to improve the approach used at CLO. When we first began this course, new vocabulary was first introduced and then later reused in future lessons. However, with our word bank currently sitting at over 2000 items, it isn’t practical to solely use future dialogues and lessons as review practice. So the new approach is to continue to use new lessons to introduce new vocabulary. Users can then study the examples used in the lesson in the vocabulary page while practicing their pronunciation. The sentence builder program can then be used to play with the words in other contexts. The podcast review will then reinforce this vocabulary further in more contexts. Finally, the exercise page can be used to test the user’s own understanding by forming responses using this new vocabulary. Later, the flashcard program can be used to test the user’s retention of vocabulary from older lessons.
It is hoped that this process will greatly aid in retention of new vocabulary. Where it’s forgotten, the word bank can hopefully aid in quickly accessing old material. All these tools have been added based directly on user feedback, so keep your comments and emails coming in. Let me know how exactly YOU use these tools and what can be done to improve your learning experince.
Shortcuts to Reading Chinese
Most learners of Chinese try to take shortcuts and I was no exception. Learning to read and write Chinese seemed impossible for me to do in a short time, so at first I didn’t bother. When I eventually did decide to tackle this area, I decided to focus on reading rather than writing. It was one thing for me to be able to recognize a complex character at a glance, but it was another thing for me to actually be able to reproduce it on paper with all its minute nuances. I later found that when learning to read Chinese, there are other shortcuts that I could take to make the learning process seem much quicker than it actually was.
In English, it is possible for learners to read a paragraph of text out aloud without having any clue as to what they are reading. For new words, whose pronunciation isn’t known, it is still possible to try and come up with an approximation of what the word should sound like by phonetically sounding it out, which is usually enough for a native English to understand. In Chinese, this process is of course a lot trickier, since you frequently come across characters that are completely unrecognizable, with no phonetic clues to help you out. Whenever I was at this point, I was usually stumped. No amount of prodding or encouragement from a teacher was going to help me since there were no clues at all on how to proceed.
Well the truth is, there were clues, but they were just in different places. Most words in Chinese are formed from two or more characters, so usually when reading, knowing what one of the characters is, is enough to give you a clue as to what the word is or might be. For example, when looking at a menu, I would look for key characters. 肉 was a good one since by studying the characters around it, I was able to figure out what kind of meat was in the dish. I’d recognize 羊肉 as lamb since the 羊 resembled the horns on a sheep. Beef also featured similar characters. I found that by setting the context this way, I was much further ahead than having to sheepishly stare (pun intended) at the menu with no clue as to where to look. Similarly, I was able to spot 茶, so I knew I was dealing with tea. I also knew that 红 meant “red.” So with that, I knew that I was dealing with a type of red tea. At the end of the day, it was much easier to ask the waiter “what kind of red tea is this?” than to simply ask “what’s on this menu?”
Once you get your brain used to looking for clues in this way, you will find your brain automatically scanning texts for characters you know and figuring out the rest from context. I found myself being able to write tests in Chinese despite not being able to recognize many of the characters on the test paper. Here was a typical scenario:
I would see the following sentence: 冬天很冷,可是夏天很热。 At first glance, the only characters I could pick out were …tiān hěn …, kěshì … tiān hěn … My typical thought process was as follows:
“Hmm, I see two 天s there so we might be talking about days. Jīntian? Míngtiān? Zuótiān? No, I know those ones so it can’t be days, so it must be seasons! There are two seasons there – “one is very… but the other is very…” The 冬 character there looks similar to 多. Duōtiān? That sounds similar to dōngtiān – winter?!? If that’s winter, then perhaps 夏天 is summer. So perhaps we are talking about winter and summer. So winter is very… but summer is very… hot and cold?? I remember the character for hot looks a little like boiling water so that must be 热 which would make 冷 cold. I choose answer B: Winter is cold, but summer is hot. As long as the teacher wasn’t deliberately trying to trick you, it was usually possible to determine the right answer this way.
This technique actually works quite well in Chinese because many vocabulary items tend to be grouped neatly. For example all the seasons end in 天, all transportation on land ends in 车, all meat ends in 肉 and so on. You don’t even have to be perfect with it. For example if you looked at the characters for 年,车 and 牛 individually, it would be very easy to confuse them. But that usually isn’t a problem since the characters are usually shown within some context. I would know that 牛肉 was beef since I was unlikely to see the 牛 mixed up with cars or dates.
Obviously the more characters you are able to recognize, the more accurate this technique becomes. Depending on how you look at it, the result of this and some of the listening techniques I’ve talked about previously is that you can either seem a lot smarter than you really are, or that you can learn a lot quicker than you originally thought.
The Truth About Spoken Chinese
Most people regard “Chinese” as being a single language, as did I while growing up in Canada. My first interest in learning Chinese began about 10 years ago as a result of my having many Chinese associates.
I was very curious about the language they used to speak to each other, so I picked up my first Chinese textbook and tried to practice what I was learning with them. I soon found out that what I was studying and what they were speaking were two different languages.
That was when I learned that the Chinese you hear out West can usually be classified into either Cantonese or Mandarin. At the time, the vast majority of what “Chinese speakers” spoke outside of China was Cantonese. This confused me as I now had to decide whether to learn the official language of China or learn what people on the street were actually speaking.
Fast forward to a few years ago when I first landed in Taiwan and began to seriously learn Chinese. Surely, living in a Chinese speaking country and constantly hearing what I was studying would greatly speed up the learning the process?
I made a new discovery.
While people could understand what I was saying and I could understand them when they were speaking to me, I couldn’t understand them when they were speaking to each other! (Deja vu!)
After more research, I learned that what most people in China learn and speak at home isn’t Mandarin! Every province or region has its own “dialect” that people use to speak to each other, that are as different as English and French or Italian and German. In total there are about 50 distinct dialects across China and overseas Chinese communities, not counting regional variations between them.
This leads to an interesting situation for foreigners learning Chinese and wanting to communicate with Chinese people. A great analogy I heard is to imagine yourself walking into a party dressed up while everyone else is dressed casually. You might hear “Wow, you look great!” or “Nice outfit!” and while it feels great to be complimented, you can’t help feeling left out for being the only “non casual person.”
The prospects aren’t gloomy though. All media is broadcast in Mandarin as that is the official form. Similarly, for business transactions or formal occasions, you can expect Mandarin to be used. It is also the language used when traveling or when strangers meet, so it is definitely the language to learn. The only time local dialects are used is when locals speak with other locals from the same region.
For most learners, I would recommend keeping your focus on the big picture (Mandarin), although you can win yourself some points by learning a few key phrases in the local dialect to show respect.
Exercises Page
As announced in the last post, the exercises page is now ready and has been added to the Premium menu. The Pong Audio forum has subsequently been removed from the Community page.
I expect this feature will take some getting used to, since the idea is to get you from passively studying to actively studying by actually submitting your own input. The questions given for you to answer have purposely been given as audio only. If you’re not sure what a question means, write a text message saying which part you didn’t understand and a teacher will gladly reply.
Each question is a separate entity as we don’t expect you to be able to answer all the questions (not initially anyway). For each question you do answer, the teacher’s feedback will appear below the question after she has had a chance to review your answer. Don’t forget as well that you can answer by recording your voice using the tools on the left side of the page, or by submitting your answer as text (pinyin, simplified, traditional or english if you need more help).
Like the other features on the site, the more you use it and the more input you give me, the more I can improve it, so keep the feedback coming!
Pong Replacement
I’m proud to announce the latest feature to CLO that will soon be replacing the Pong Audio forum. The original premise of Pong was to ask some open ended questions that users could record answers to and submit. Judging from feedback, these were the reasons I found why people weren’t using Pong:
1. System requirements were high – it required a specific version of Java to be installed on your computer, which wouldn’t run on many computers. Also, not everyone had a microphone attached to their computer. Some of those that did had to manually adjust their microphone settings. This was too much to expect the average user to do.
2. Usability wasn’t good – accounts had to manually be entered by the admin, so it wasn’t friendly enough to get right into. As well, there were complaints that the quality of recordings was low.
3. It was public – since most users are still beginning to learn Chinese, they weren’t ready to broadcast their potentially flawed pronunciation to the world.
4. No feedback – there was no way for the user to know whether the answers they submitted were correct.
Solution: I still believe there is merit in a system of this sorts, so I had a new version of this application created in house that attempted to solve the issues noted above. So without further adieu, I’m proud to present (drum roll please…) the new Exercises page!
The premise here is similar. Questions will be asked in audio format. There will be no audio clues however, so you will be forced to use your listening skills. There are references to the lesson that each question is taken from however. To begin with, there are a list of 16 questions – one from each 10 lessons. Go through and see which ones you can figure out. You can then choose whether to respond or not.
Your response can either be in audio format – grab your microphone if you have one and record your answer – or you can type out your answer in any format if you so choose. Then click submit. Your answer will then be sent to a CLO teacher who will then send you feedback. Once the feedback has been sent, your page will be updated with teacher feedback for each of the questions you answered.
Unlike Pong, your answers will not be made public, so don’t be shy! We also encourage creativity in your answers!
This application is still in beta, so I expect there may be some bugs initially. Please send me your feedback on what you like, as well as what we can change to improve the experience further. Enjoy!
UPDATE: It turns out that the audio recordings aren’t working. I’m on it to get that fixed. In the meantime you can still send in text answers. Thanks to those who submitted answers and sent me feedback. Some of your suggestions have already been implemented. UPDATE: Everything is now working smoothly. Please continue to send me your feedback.
Overlapping Meanings
This post could act as a counter to the “Is Chinese Really That Hard?” post. One aspect of Chinese that it took me some time to grasp was that meanings in Chinese and English don’t always exhibit a one to one relationship. In the beginning, each time I came across a new word in Chinese, I would look for the English equivalent. That worked fine for common nouns – boy, girl, China, America, but then I started to discover that some words had overlapping meanings between Chinese and English.
Many words have multiple meanings. I learned early on that yīnggāi means “should.” Simple enough I thought, until one day when someone looked at me and said Nǐ yīnggāi shēngbìng le. “You should be sick”? I thought. Why should I be sick?? That’s when I learned that it also has a meaning of “must” as in “You must be sick.” Ok, easy to fathom – it has multiple meanings, just like many words in English.
I then came across words that describe different levels of intensity than their equivalent English counterparts. One of the first words I learned – hěn was taught to me as meaning “very” in English. So to answer Nǐ hǎo ma? you answer Wǒ hěn hǎo as in “I’m very good.” But what if I wasn’t very good? What if I only wanted to answer “I’m good”? Logically that should be Wǒ hǎo. But that was wrong. You had to have the hěn in there, since it actually is a less intensive “very” than its English counterpart. To really answer “I’m very good” you would say Wǒ fēicháng hǎo. Never mind that the dictionary describes fēicháng as meaning “extremely” since its actual intensity lies somewhere between “very” and “extremely” in English.
This creates an interesting situation where it’s possible to describe situations in different degrees in Chinese than in English. For example many teachers are described as being hěn xiōng. Yet if you look up that word in the dictionary you get a meaning of being “fierce” or “terrible.” Hardly words I would use to describe an ordinary teacher (although there undoubtedly are extreme examples who could fit that category). At first I assumed “strict” or “stern” might be a better definition but there are other words in Chinese to describe those terms, so at some point you have to give up on looking for an exact definition since there isn’t one.
For an exercise in futility, you can skim through words in a Chinese-English dictionary to look at all the extraneous definitions (great way to pass the time). Take a look at the variety of definitions for the following words:
Jiāo – to deliver / to turn over / to make friends / to intersect (lines) / to pay (money)
Dōu – both / all / even / already
Jiù – at once / then / only / to approach / to undertake / already
Dài – band / belt / ribbon / tire / area / zone / region / to wear / to carry / to lead / to look after / to raise
Sòng – to deliver / to carry / to present / to see off / to send
So what is the solution to this mess? Learn new characters within context. Don’t worry about extraneous meanings. Learn to use new words within the context you discovered them and master those current definitions before moving on to other usages. While the English meaning is great for getting your foot in the door, rely on examples in different contexts before being satisfied with a definition.
PDF Mania!
As announced in our October podcast update, we have now begun releasing PDF versions of all the notes on our site. This is a pretty time consuming process however, since in addition to there being 160 lessons worth of material, many of the pages have to be reformatted from the current “pop-up translations format” to one better suited for paper (this is especially time consuming for level 3 on, where most pages are available in 4 different formats). As new PDFs, are released they will be added to the Course Outline.
The release of PDFs allows us to create a new price plan for users who prefer to work away from their computer. They will now be able to subscribe to the podcasts and review podcasts as well as have access to all the PDFs that can be printed out and used offline. Once the PDFs for all current lessons are up to date, I can look into adding them to the Premium feed for future lessons.
UPDATE: The PDFs for Level 1 are now all available. You may have also noticed transcripts in Spanish available for the first few lessons. As time permits, we will be adding more of these for later lessons.
Is Chinese Really That Hard?
Many people regard Chinese as being one of the toughest languages to learn. That in itself might be reason enough to learn it, since many like the challenge that comes with it and relish the looks of amazement that passers by give when they hear that you can speak Chinese! In my personal experience however, I found that many of the reasons given for Chinese being so hard weren’t actually that hard when broken down. This meant that I was learning a language that others thought was very hard, when actually that wasn’t necessarily the case (much better than learning something that others think is easy but actually isn’t!) Here are some of the main obstacles that people encounter when trying to learn Chinese, and my personal solutions to overcoming then.
The Tones
This is the initial challenge that most beginners face. How can mài mean “to sell” while mǎi mean “to buy”? So now, not only do you have to remember that shuì jiào means “sleep”, you better remember that there are two fourth tones there or you risk talking about “dumplings” instead of “sleep.” Surely having to memorize the extra tone element on top of each new vocabulary word would drive any learner crazy?
My solution: This issue here is usually enough to weed out most beginners, which is great for the rest of us (less people to share the stage with!). The trick here is that this is only a problem in the beginning. The more you expose yourself to the language, the more your brain will automatically fuse this element into your language learning until you get to the point where you unconsciously start recognizing the tones for new vocabulary. Compare these two scenarios:
Student: How do you say “United Nations” in Chinese?
Teacher: Lián hé guó
Student: “Lian he guo”, ok. And what tones does that use?
Teacher: Three second tones.
Student: Got it, thanks!
Student: How do you say “United Nations” in Chinese?
Teacher: Lián hé guó
Student: Lián hé guó. Got it, thanks!
In the second scenario the student has automatically learned to associate tones with new vocabulary. If you were to ask him what the tones were, he would have to repeat the words in his mind first and pull the tones out from there, since the tones and the words are already associated together.
A great exercise to get to this level is mindless repetition of sentences from native speakers, so that you start to develop the ebb and flow of the language by yourself. As you listen to the podcasts in this course, use the pauses provided to repeat after the speaker, even with vocabulary you are already familiar with to get yourself in this mode.
The Writing System
This is of course a challenge for many, including native speakers themselves. One of the reasons given for the slowness in progression of Chinese learners is that because reading and writing takes so long to learn, we learners lose out from the experience of learning from reading. In English, if we come across a word we don’t understand we can easily write it down and look it up later. How do we do that in Chinese when you come across a word you don’t know that uses characters that are equally unfamiliar? How do Chinese speakers look up unfamiliar characters in a dictionary?
My solution:There are a couple of separate issues here. If it’s just learning new vocabulary and language usage from reading you are looking for, there are plenty of pinyin resources out there, including on this website. Similarly, if you come across a new word in your learning, it’s easy enough to write it down in pinyin and look it up in a pinyin dictionary. Learning characters of course is another story, and one that has been touched upon in other categories.
Grammar: This is an aspect of Chinese that is often neglected because it actually is much simpler than in other languages. The extra time put in learning to read and write is offset by the time you don’t have to put in learning conjugations of verbs, tenses and other issues present in other languages. This can be a problem in itself since the lack of grammar rules makes Chinese very context sensitive. Sentences can have multiple meanings that may seem to contradict each other with only subtle clues to distinguish between them.
My solution: The answer here is the same as the answer for tones. Fortunately (or unfortunately for some), it’s not something you consciously study or memorize to understand. You learn by getting the feel for the language from experience. Listen to enough podcasts, and get yourself experienced with enough dialogues and you’ll slowly start to gather a “feel” for the language. You’ll find yourself instinctively responding with the right expressions without even knowing how or why.
The road to fluency: When learning any language, you will find some aspects easier than others. This is a result of usage patterns. In my daily life, I find myself listening to a lot more Chinese than I speak. As a result my listening skills are greater than my speaking skills. Similarly my reading skills are more advanced than my writing skills. The nice thing about all of this though is that my fluency matches my level of requirement. My listening skills are greater because I have to do a lot more listening than speaking in my daily life. Similarly I rarely have to physically write anything in my daily routine (especially in this age of computers), whereas reading is more useful for me, so the latter skill is more developed.
There’s no rule that says all skills have to be equal. Focus on the areas of importance for you and improve those areas first. Learning any language (or any skill for that matter) is only as hard as you make it out to be. Take advantage of the many tools available in this course and on the web to focus on your areas of weakness. Then gloat that you are able to do what so many others have failed or given up on doing. Jiāyóu!
Updated Course Outlines
The Course Outline for levels 1 and 2 have been updated to include Chinese character support. Logged in users can use switch between Pinyin, Simplified, Traditional and English modes to view the vocabulary. Non logged in users can sample this functionality for the first four lessons. Enjoy!