In this blogpost I will recount my latest achievement in my quest to master the Chinese language. Some background information will be helpful. For foreigners studying Chinese, there is an elaborate system characterized by 9 levels which go by the name of “HSK”; for example, HSK1 is absolute beginner, while HSK9 is the most advanced, and HSK4 to HSK5 are lower to upper intermediate. To better understand what this means concretely, at the beginner level one can express simple words and perhaps basic sentences (“I like,” “I want,” “I will,” etc), at the intermediate one can engage in conversation about daily life and even about more complex subjects related to culture, history, and economics, while at the most advanced level, one has the capacity to produce a scholarly work in standard Chinese.
I recently completed HSK 4 and began HSK 5, which squarely places me in the intermediate stage. I can now easily converse in Chinese if the topic is work, leisure, hobbies, food, family, friends, travel, in sum, the stuff of everyday life. I can also now have conversations about more complex themes such as the state of the economy, war and peace, religion and spirituality, although here, I sometimes lack the vocabulary to fully express my thoughts. But, importantly, when I stumble because I hear something unfamiliar or am unable to form the proper sentence, I can easily say in Chinese what exactly is unclear and difficult while asking the interlocuter to explain in a different way. This usually does the trick to keep the conversation flowing in Chinese.
I am now experiencing the fruits of this progress. A few weeks ago, for example, I needed to change my cell phone data plan, which was unsuitable for my needs. This required going to the mobile phone store and explain that the current plan is insufficient, and that I require a new one at a reasonable price. I did this entirely in Chinese; the conversation on this topic lasted about 20 minutes, and only a few times the saleswoman’s words were unclear. Another example: recently as I was on the high-speed train, I happened to sit down beside an attractive woman, and given that I am single, I was inclined to speak with her, which I did. We ended up conversing—mostly in Chinese, as she spoke a little bit of English—for almost 1 hour, and even exchanged contact information. Although in the end it did not lead to anything other than this impromptu introduction and a few text messages, it was the first time that I connected with a complete stranger of the opposite sex almost completely in Chinese.
I can now also watch and understand Chinese news, especially on topics I am familiar with, such as the US-China relations, or the war in Ukraine. This has led to the discovery that Chinese political commentary is actually quite nuanced and diverse, and often more neutral and hence objective than that found on many Western channels. This may be a big surprise to Westerners who likely have an image of the country’s political communication as stifled, top down and homogenous.
I have been studying the language for just over two years now, and at this pace, I should reach HSK6—which is the beginning of advanced—in 1 year or 18 months. The sense of accomplishment is profound in part because of the difficulty of learning the language, especially the writing system. I have memorized hundreds of characters, a drop in the bucket considering there are over 50 thousand, but enough to read and write simple sentences.
As ever, such an extraordinary experience has sparked reflections about the nature of life, and especially the weird process by which something that, at one time is fantastical or imbued with awe and amazement, becomes part of daily reality and banal. I can still remember the first time visiting the country in early 2023. I was on a plane from Vienna to Shanghai, and almost all the passengers were Chinese. Of course, I could not understand a word they were saying despite my attempts to discern meaning from other cues, such as body language and facial expression. The befuddlement continued the subsequent weeks, as I struggled to communicate with locals I interacted with, for example at the hotel, in the taxi, or the supermarket. By then, I had started learning Chinese on the language learning app Pimsleur, and knew some basic sentences, but I naively believed that this, plus being fully immersed, would allow me to quickly pick up the meanings of words and sentences, as occurred when I was a beginner in French and Spanish.
Learning Chinese is a whole different experience. My knowledge of Italian plus shared cultural reference points allowed me to learn the former two languages relatively quickly; in both French and Spanish I became proficient, or advanced, after 2 years. Not so with Chinese, in part because of the wide gap which separates it with European languages. This renders the learning of the language very difficult and slow for Westerners, which is one reason why so many abandon the enterprise. Of course, this was not an option for me, as despite the difficulty, the more I learned, the more fascinated I became with it, and the more I was driven to proceed. And so I continued my learning schedule of two private, 1 hour lessons, plus 4 or 5 language practices, per week with conversation exchange partners.
Two years ago, the thought of being able to converse in Chinese, know enough characters to read and type simple sentences, and use the language in regular interaction with locals, was alien and fantastical. As ever, the mind tends to exaggerate the unknown, fill it with wonder and amazement, similar to the feeling one has about important life moments not yet experienced—travelling, making love, completing a PhD, owning a house. Then these things occur, and often become banal, just part of ordinary existence. Learning Chinese has been a bit like that. At moments I have a sense of amazement from the knowledge of this language, but for the most part, it has become rather normalized, like other parts of my routine. This tendency of the brain to refashion experiences from extraordinary to banal perhaps is an evolutionary adaption to help us move on to learn and discover new things.
It also reveals how the drive to succeed at an endeavour can produce a deep sense of accomplishment and yet it also leaves a feeling of dissatisfaction. Given that I am at the inter-mediate phase, I am still not completely satisfied, and this frustration is one of the reasons I am motivated to learn more and reach an advanced level. Of course, other factors are driving me to continue, including the fascination with Mandarin, which, like other languages or other social phenomenon, is the product of thousands of years of evolution and reflects a unique people, culture, and history characterized with distinctive characteristics, quirks, patterns, and anomalies. It opens a window into this ancient civilization, which for some reason developed a language that, unlike European tongues, conveys meaning with tone and context rather, or more than, with pronunciation and vocabulary. This in itself evokes wonder and deepens my drive to continue learning.
Mandarin is my fifth language, and the others are English, Italian, French, and Spanish. When adding the numbers of people who speech each language (respectively, 1.3 billion, 1.35 billion, 63 million, 321 million, 595 million) the total is around 3.7 billion people, which means I can now communicated with just under 50% of people around the world.
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