When deciding how I‘d go about learning Mandarin I thought about trying to learn it by myself at the start, at least the basics. I read online of people who learnt entirely by doing going through Anki and others that picked stuff up purely by immersion, watching and listening to Chinese content online. I played around with the idea of doing the same and put together a sort of plan that covered off speaking, reading, listening and a bit of writing. It looked robust and with beginners motivation everything looks easy.

I then stumbled across a blog from Jaap Grolleman that really resonated with me. Anyone who has entered the rabbit hole of internet Chinese language learning will be familiar with the author but for me it all just made sense. He didn‘t offer any shortcuts which straightaway for me was a good sign, he simply laid out how he went about learning and what worked for him. At the base of all his learning was classes with qualified teachers. Writing this now, it seems very logical but in a time sensationalist YouTube videos and 18 year old medical students claiming to have learnt one of the world‘s most complicated languages in six months, I‘d seemed to somehow overlook this very simple and obvious medium of learning.

Jaap‘s situation was quite different from mine, he was in China and we can say perhaps had more immediate reason to pick up the language but his learning curve seemed steep but attainable with regular study. I also liked how he laid out where he over time. This is motivating and will also act as a reference for my own learning, although I will try not to compare our situations to closely given the differences in circumstances.

The main point therefore is that I decided to have my learning shaped by real teaching. For lack of knowing any better, I also opted to go for GoEast online private teaching. Having read many positive reviews, I booked a trial lesson to see how the set-up was. The first 30 minutes was quick and I wasn‘t really expecting a lesson given the time limit but we actually went through quite a bit mostly on classic greetings and immediately focussing on tones. This, I suspect, will be much of the focus of the first six months to come. It was unnoticeable during the class but it hindsight it was clear that there was a structure that covered vocab, speaking and grammar, all within a short 30 minutes. When it was done I had a chance to speak with an organizer of the course and run through my options.

To begin with then I opted for 50 hours of one-to-one teaching, which I will split into two one-hour lessons per week. This is accompanied by loads of material on their platform online. I started briefly on the first of the lessons and the videos are well laid out and flashcard system also seems logical. My plan is to try and dedicate three to four hours to each lesson preparation and at the beginning focus a fair bit on improving vocabulary and learning pinyin. My first proper lesson is this week.

This option is not the cheapest, but given the resources they provide and the fact that the teachers from GoEast are all qualified teachers it is neither expensive in my opinion. Cost isn’t a main priority for me at this point and I have 50 hours of teaching to decide if I will continue on. Putting it bluntly, if now someone was to propose me that I could achieve HSK1 level, be able to order food in Mandarin and have a basic conversation with someone for 1800$ I would take it. It’s now to prove whether this is reality at the end of the year or not.

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.