Adam over at Brainy Smurf has an interesting post about learning Chinese. He's got a link to an article there by some guy named Moser who launches into an involved tirade about how unnecessarily difficult it is for Westerners to learn Chinese. Moser's being semi-facetious, I know, but you come away with the feeling he's actually blaming the language for his own difficulty in learning it!

I don't know anything about Moser, but my guess is that he's in the generation of Western academics who did not have the option of living in China due to Cold War politics. These are the guys I call the 'China Hands'. As a result the language skills of that generation generally leave a lot to be desired. For the life of me I don't know why more of them didn't go to Taiwan. Even after the Mainland opened up, Chinese instruction in Taiwan was vastly superior until quite recently, and I'm not saying that just because Taiwan is the place I learned Mandarin (if you want to debate this point, feel free to fire away in the comments). I've had many professors of that age group, and while they are positively brilliant in their chosen fields, they couldn't talk themselves out of a wet paper sack in Chinese. A professor I had in grad school is a prime example. He's a specialist in classical Chinese poetry. This man has forgotten more Chinese characters than most Chinese college grads will ever learn. I'm utterly serious. But my second-year students in my Chinese classes had better speaking/listening skills than he did.

Not all China Hands are like that, of course. Some used their heads, did what they had to do, and went to Taiwan. I guess probably everyone has a role model they seek to emulate when they learn Chinese; for me it is Howard Goldblatt. He's the man who sparked my interest in Chinese literature. In my Army days I would often sneak away (figuratively!) to the post library and it was there I first ran across his translations of Xiao Hong ���. He's the reason I went to CU-Boulder for grad school. His command of Chinese literature is beyond reproach, as he is probably the most eminent translator of modern Chinese literature, but his ability in spoken Chinese just blows me away. I did not think it was possible for a Westerner for whom Chinese is a second language to learn it so well, with all its nuances. He's done it. I am incredibly fortunate to have studied under him; he is still an inspiration to me and has my undying respect. The only comparable persons I've run across are Perry Link of Princeton University and Wendy Larson at the University of Oregon. What makes them all the more amazing is that they are of Moser's generation. But instead of writing a 12-page article whinging about how impossible Chinese is to learn, they went and kicked its ass. Give me this kind of person any day of the week.

One small regret I have is that I did not focus more on the written language when I began studying Chinese. For me it was all about speaking and listening. I devoted about 80% of my efforts to those skills. As a result I can't pull out impressive parlor tricks at mixers, like reciting obscure Tang poems verbatim. And my lack of knowledge regarding chengyu (idioms) ���� is positively embarrassing. I'm trying to correct that deficiency now, and last summer while interning at a law firm in Beijing I bought several chengyu resources. A pretty good one I picked up is �������Ӣ��ʵ� from �������ճ���� (Hanyu chengyu yingyi cidian; published by Beifang Wenyi Publishers). It's almost pocket-sized and thorough. I'd like to hear from other Chinese learners/Chinese readers if they think it is beneficial to be adept with chengyu. Are they really that common? Maybe it's one of those things that once you know them you tend to hear people using them. Thoughts? And if anyone's interested, Professor Goldblatt wrote for the Washington Post a very good article on translation which you may read here.

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- posted by Prince Roy @ 11:45 PM| |