Learning Mandarin is Like Having Sex

I write a lot about Mandarin language studies and I often need to use some kind of analogy to illustrate my point. Over the years many have come to my mind. In the end, one of the strangest ones that I have ever thought of is also one that fits almost perfectly. Learning Mandarin is like having sex. That statement might seem strange, but the life cycle of a mandarin student and that of really good coitus is remarkably similar. There is a period of foreplay, then there is a period repetition and at the of a person’s studies there is a big price to be had. But, let’s start with the beginning.

When you first start studying Mandarin you should really be in China. This is not a matter of debate. Trying to learn a language like Mandarin by just reading about it in a book in your home country is like trying to win the Olympic gold for swimming, by chilling out in the kiddy pool in your parent’s backyard.  You will be comfortable in the pool, you might even enjoy it for a few afternoons but to reach for the top you will need to climb out and go to place where you are initially a bit out of your depth. Your first time in China will be exiting. There is an immense wealth of cultural differences to be explored. Baozi to eat. Alleys bike to down. Sights to be seen, and a million other facets of a very strange society to be lived. This first honeymoon period is for some people the best part of studying Mandarin, but those people have rarely experienced the pleasures of proficiency.

Between proficiency and the initial grace period does however lay a stretch of repetition. Some people will tell you that this period is boring and even some people may even say that it is unpleasant, but those people are only saying that because they are doing it wrong. You can be sure that they have failed in the first step, and have remained in the kiddy pool in their home country, or they have arrived in China, but failed to explore the country. Learning Mandarin should be more than trying to copy the entire content of a dictionary into the brain, it should be about experiencing China on China’s terms. By that I mean this: speaking, speaking and speaking. There simply is no better way to learn something than doing it. For languages this means going out into the world and immediately putting the classroom-acquired knowledge to applied use. I spoke before about the wrong way of learning Mandarin. Like with sex, the wrong way is just repeating the same mechanical stuff over and over.

Instead, the right way is to learn the things that feel good to you. Everyone has hobbies and professional ambitions. Every hobby and profession has jargon and terminology for you to learn – focus on this! Get a private tutor or study with a private language academy that has personal content. As soon as you have this stuff below your belt you can get down with natural communication in the setting where you will have most use of speaking experience.

Lastly, to conclude the use of the sex analogy, once it is all said and done, you will have a new skill. I will always remember the first time I dreamt in Mandarin. I was high the next morning. The road to get there was interesting but long. I remembered when I first arrived in China and my tongue was trying to wrap itself around the alien pronunciation.  I remembered when I was fumbling with my characters and when they first started to make sense.  But most of all, today, I remember the feeling of having conquered something that people had rapidly condemned as too hard. I felt like a winner of an Olympic race. Golden.