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Breathe in the culture to fully understand Chinese

I ARRIVED IN Taiwan following an exhausting 20-hour flight across the Pacific Ocean. The year was 1971, and mainland China was still off limits to all but a tiny number of Americans - usually left-leaning scholars and journalists that were considered 'safe' - those sympathetic to New China.

After checking in at a modest-looking hotel I was surprised to discover there was no toilet paper in the bathroom. I went to the front desk. Not knowing the Chinese word for toilet paper, I used the English word, which nobody understood. So I tried using the Chinese word for paper and was handed a note pad. I drew a picture of a toilet on it. Through a combination of broken Chinese - I had only been studying the language for one year - and pantomime I was able to get my meaning across. The proof came when a woman knocked on my door a few minutes later, handing me a sheaf of toilet paper.

The experience taught me two things. First, what you learn in the classroom is not necessarily what you need in real life. Second, the need to communicate is a key aspect of successful language acquisition.

This is why it is important for people to be in a position where they cannot fall back on their own language. Despite the popularity of what language teachers call 'the communicative approach' in recent years, this cannot be created artificially in the classroom through games and exercises.

People have to communicate in the target language and that means dealing with people that do not speak your language. This creates a psychological urgency that cannot be artificially induced.

A few days after my arrival in Taiwan, I signed up for private lessons at a language centre. My teacher, Ms Liang, said I had an excellent foundation in the language - better than that of many students who had been studying it much longer than I.

I was surprised, then, when she suggested we started with lesson five of a first-year textbook. I then reached my third conclusion about second-language acquisition: language learning is over-learning. Ms Liang did not seem to care if I understood what she was talking about. She simply drilled me until I could respond mechanically to her prompts without thinking. The assumption was that I could practise communicating outside class.

Ms Liang's lessons were straightforward. She had me repeat after her until I could recite the textbook dialogue smoothly and fluently. Then she led me through pyramid drills, transformation drills, and substitution drills. The approach, which borrowed heavily from the audio-lingual method, had been largely discredited in recent years, but - as an experienced language teacher - I have never understood why.

I made far more progress during the three weeks I studied with Ms Liang than I made using any other approach. So much so that when I returned to my own university in the autumn I was asked to tutor first year Chinese language students, and I was competing against a few dozen native speakers that also wanted the part-time post.

People often ask for my advice in learning Chinese. For English-speaking adults, I advise starting with an English-speaking linguist who can explain Chinese pronunciation, intonation and grammar in English. Your first teacher does not have to speak the language perfectly. It is more important to understand intellectually how Chinese differs from English.

Take Chinese intonation, which is the biggest obstacle for most English-speaking students. Tones are difficult, but not impossible. The key is to understand how they operate and then practise, practise, practise. Nobody gets it right the first or even the second time around.

It is fun to learn a few characters at the onset, but I recommend putting off serious character study until you have covered the basic sentence structures of the language, which can easily be done in about a year - less time, if you take an accelerated course.

You can learn to speak Chinese in about a quarter of the time - and can acquire a much better accent - if you put off character acquisition until you are reasonably proficient in the spoken language. Mastery of pinyin, the phonetic alphabet used to teach Putonghua, is crucial. With it, you can do what I did - learn to speak, read, and write Chinese without the help of a teacher.

While rote learning has clearly gone out of fashion, I think memorisation can play a useful role in second language acquisition. Memorising word lists is a waste of time if you do not know how to use the words in context. But memorising useful phrases and short dialogue can be helpful on the long road to fluency. Concentrate on memorising things about yourself, your friends, and your community. And do not forget about the topics you will be most likely to talk about.

After covering the basics, find a programme with teachers who do not speak English and steer clear of university campuses. Otherwise you might find yourself surrounded by English groupies wanting to practise their English and you will have no chance to practise your Chinese. Try to immerse yourself in the language and the culture as much as possible. Try to make friends with other second language learners - especially those who do not speak English.

I spent many happy hours practicing my Chinese with classmates from Japan. We had a common goal - learning Chinese.

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