I decided to learn Mandarin and every source I read online suggests that I should first determine why I want to learn Mandarin. So this, I guess, is my why.
Firstly, I should admit that of all the languages I was interested in learning, Mandarin until recently never featured. I have always had a fascination with Japanese and to a lesser extent Russian but have never put any real concerted effort into learning either. As a product of an English native tongue, educated within the Scottish education system, I unfortunately was not bilingual at the age of 16. I could hardly even order a beer in German after five years of so called study of the language. Fortunately, the opportunity to pursue my graduate studies in France was available and, despite having no particular interest in France as a country, I moved to Grenoble mostly as an excuse to ski and learn French.
I picked up French frustratingly slowly at the start. I remember all my other foreign classmates, of all nationalities, picking the basics up with such ease whilst I struggled trying to directly translate the English equivalent in my head. I had no concept of grammar rules, having never studied the mechanics of tenses and subjunctives in English, and despite rules being somewhat similar across English and French I was floundering to begin with. What I did have though was a good ear and a good memory for individual words. I took a few months to rewire my thinking and by Christmas time, three months after I moved to France, I was having my first decent conversations. From that point on, I stopped taking lessons and just learnt by living in a house of six native tongues. By the one-year mark I was by no means perfect, but could hold my own in most situations.
Four years later, Spanish came along even easier. Helped somewhat by the fact it is my wife’s native tongue, I had an incentive to learn. When I joined a Spanish company and the reality of day to day work is that without Spanish I would be lost, the learning curve became extremely steep. Within six months I was reasonably fluent and my pronunciation was good. Eight years later, without a single formal lesson, and I am approaching bilingual level in Spanish. I am at a slightly lower but overall similar level in French.
All this to is to say, that despite a slow start to learning languages I have a reasonable ability. Grammatical correctness is without doubt my weakness, but that has never been my goal. The sounds of the language seem to resonate with me and I pick up the speed and the nuance easily. Will this translate to Mandarin, I hope so.
This short prelude takes me back to the why and the main motivation is the challenge itself. I have struggled over the last year to find a stimulating, long-term intellectual challenge for myself. The thoughts of going back to school again and studying business are there, but the costs involved are substantial and I am not sure I really resonate with all the values that business schools teach. This is not to say never, but just not at the moment. Learning Mandarin, is something I can do at my own pace, injecting as much or as little time as I want and if I fail, I comparatively lose very little. The difficulty of learning Mandarin as opposed to Spanish or French is not lost on me. Even with dedicated daily time spent studying, I do not expect this to be a 12 month project, rather a five or six year endeavor. But it is this challenge in itself that is the main reason for starting.
China itself also fascinates me and is completely misunderstood by the west. Anti-China sentiment has risen significantly over the past two or three years and just as the occidental world tries to shut China out I believe is the time when it is most important to try and understand the culture better. A language unlocks the thinking patterns of a culture and I believe is the perfect vessel for getting inside this society that can seem insular and impenetrable. I became acutely aware of this when seeing this played out in reverse by my Chinese colleague who I will call Aidan (as he likes to be known himself). He is one of my main inspirations.
Lastly, China is already now the second pole of global influence and will only continue to grow in this respect. To ignore it, is only to highlight one‘s own ignorance. My curiosity of the what the orient is thinking with respect to the world order and ideologies other than those presumed to be correct in the west is too strong. Speaking Mandarin, even if at a lowly level, will help me unlock the country and once unlocked who knows what may come of it.