Articles in the ‘Immersion and integration’ category Page 14
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Achieving the impossible by being inspired
Teaching and inspiring are two closely related things. If you can see all superiors as sources of inspiration and knowledge, you will advance faster than if you view them as rivals or opponents. Similarly, realise that you have your own strong sides that inspire other people. Don’t hesitate to teach others if they want to be taught. Inspiration is cyclic in its nature and should flow freely in all directions.
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Don’t be a tourist if you want to learn Chinese language and culture
A tourist is someone who, when going abroad, takes a small piece of his country with him and stays therein. Learning Chinese as a tourist is very hard and quite inefficient. Being a tourist is not about the stated purpose of your stay, it’s about your attitude, which is why there are people who have lived in China for ages without actually learning Chinese. Stop being a tourist, step outside your comfort zone and learn Chinese!
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How to find more time to practise Chinese listening
Listening is probably the most important skill when learning Chinese, and the more you practise, the better. In order to listen as much as you should, you need to stop thinking about listening as a study activity and start thinking about it as a part of life!
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Growing up in Chinese as a foreign adult
Learning Chinese is in many ways like becoming a child again. That has it’s advantages, but it can also be incredibly frustrating at times. As usual, being aware of the problem is the first step towards solving it. Unfortunately, the only way to handle this particular problem is to adopt a healthy attitude towards it.
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What native speakers know and what they don’t
I’ve come a cross enough examples of people overstating the importance of being a native speaker to lead me to think that it’s a general trend and not an isolated phenomenon. This attitude is so bizarre it left me baffled the first few times, but I’ve come across this so often that it can no longer be dismissed as coincidence: people really seem to think that native speakers know everything, although it’s obvious that they don’t. This also means that most native speakers over-estimate their own language ability.
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The virtues of learning Chinese through language exchange
A language exchange is simply a relationship between two people who want to learn each other’s language. It is useful because it allows you to focus fully on language without having to worry that your ordinary friends think it’s taxing to be with you because you always ask so many questions.
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