A Californian Learner’s Five-Year Journey with Mandarin Chinese: S2E5

Send us Fan Mail

This week we talk to Von, an American who grew up around Mandarin Chinese via martial arts and later intentionally slid into learning to read the language as well. Von thought the first 4 of the 5 years he studied Chinese were easy because he viewed it similar to the frequent practice of any new skill. But then the grammatical difficulty, script changes, and genre differences kicked in and the “brain burn” began.​But that has not stopped his progress at all. He studies usually in intensive two week increments of about 6 hours a day and then pauses until the desire to learn returns (usually a few weeks later). 

His patience, persistence and contextualization of the language are ideal characteristics for what I wish were called the “Slow Language Learning Movement.” In a world where people strive to learn a language in 30 days, his views are refreshing and his approach is inspiring. Come along and listen to how he wants to use language to “speak the story of what he wants to say."

Original publication date: December 27, 2018

More: https://linktr.ee/stephfuccio