Hello Steemit! I'm challenging myself yet again and have decided to learn to read, write, listen and speak fluently in Mandarin Chinese.
I'm in the middle of a #steemitsuccess monthly challenge where I need to post every single day for the month of May and follow 10 new Steemians everyday - engaging with other users in hopes of growing my account. I publicly announced my challenge on the 1st of May to hold myself accountable.
Read the full post here and join in with me if you'd like!
What does that have to do with learning Mandarin?
Well...bear with me as I explain!
I've surprised myself by sticking with this challenge so far and the main reason is because posting about the challenge on Steemit has made me hold myself accountable. It has made me sit down and do this every single day this month (even when I really didn't want to). So once again, I'm challenging myself and have decided to learn Mandarin and I'm posting it here for everyone to see. Even if no-one takes notice, I know that it's forever recorded on the blockchain so I have that extra PUSH to stick to this goal.
I have a Chinese heritage but I was born and raised in Australia and my family has become very Westernised. I used to attend Chinese school when I was quite young so I learnt the very basics of speaking, reading and writing. It has been well over 10 years since then so I have forgotten most of what I had ingrained in my brain.
My mum can fluently speak Mandarin and Cantonese and can read and write traditional Chinese. Over the years we have predominantly shifted to speaking English back to my mum and have lost the art of being able to speak fluently in Chinese. While I can still understand basic conversations, my pronunciation is TERRIBLE so these days I simply prefer not to say anything in Chinese out of embarrassment. It's all just a vicious cycle!
What triggered this goal to re-learn Chinese?
It's something that I've wanted to do for a couple years now but I never had the motivation to actually commit to it. The main reason that I wanted to learn Chinese again is pretty stupid but funny at the same time.
If you've been following me on Steemit you probably would have realised that I absolutely LOVE to eat yummy food. Delicious food can completely change my whole day around and can flip my mood. So, as with most things in my life, this choice to learn Mandarin proficiently is related to food.
I wanted to order something on UBER Eats the other day and was craving Vietnamese food badly. The only Vietnamese restaurant that we can get from our house was only average in quality but I really didn't feel like driving out to pick up food (I know I'm lazy). As I was finalising my order they "closed their kitchen" on UBEREats so I couldn't order my food.
There is another food delivery app available in Brisbane that had a much wider range of restaurant options, including a MUCH BETTER QUALITY Vietnamese joint. Now, the only catch is that this other food delivery app is only available in MANDARIN, CHINESE! No English. So I was very disappointed as I couldn't navigate the app to order my food craving 😢.
I know it's a stupid reason but this really made me want to finally commit to re-learning Chinese. I started a few days ago and have been refreshing my mind every single day so far. The basics are coming back to me quickly, which makes me really happy. I'm trying to focus on basic conversational skills first before focusing on reading and writing.
Since it's 2018 now I would also like to be able to type in Chinese as well. There are so many great posts on Steemit that are bilingual. I've always had to skip over the Chinese component but it will be a great learning tool to try and read posts in Chinese as well.
Also, what better way to train your brain than to learn a language fluently!
That's all for my rant today. More of a rant to myself more than anything so that I actually stick to this goal that I've set for myself. If you've managed to get through my rant, I thank you! And even if you didn't, I thank you for clicking on my post anyway!
-Frankie aka @supernovastaffy