奇速英语

In the fall of 2022, my husband got a chance to spend three years in Nanjing teaching international law. When we got to China, I began to study Chinese. It was really hard for me to speak putonghua.

For me, it wasn’t the grammar. “I want to buy this book” is pretty straightforward: “我想买这本书”. And I could memorize lots of Chinese characters (hanzi). However, many words sound alike but mean something different. Take the sound “jiàn” for example, it always leaves me guessing-the warship (舰) or the arrow (箭), to meet (见) or to build (建)?

Then, somewhere along the way, I started talking to people around me in Chinese. I tried to communicate with the women in the markets about how to cook vegetables. Sometimes I talked to taxi drivers about the songs on the radio. Gradually I could listen to songs and understand the lyrics without looking them up. I finally reached the point where I could enjoy living in China without using a dictionary.

Now, as our year is up and we pack up to leave, I'm finding my Chinese has improved. I search Baidu maps in Chinese, keep my mobile phone Contacts in Chinese, and send WeChat messages to Chinese friends in Chinese. But mostly, I don’t worry about my performance anymore and enjoy every experience to speak Chinese. Every language is different. For me, finally, I’ve learned that the key to learning Chinese is to enjoy living in China.