Learning any language is very difficult and often frustrating for many people. Foreign students or English second language students (ESL) who come to an American or European university to study often find it difficult to learn English. However, it's not only foreign students who find it difficult to learn new languages, but American students studying other languages besides English also find it just as difficult, particularly Chinese second language students (CSL).
In most American high schools, students are required to take two consistent years of the same language, so each student must carefully choose which language he/she would like to study during those two years. Many schools offer a selection of different languages including Spanish, Japanese, Chinese and occasionally, Hawaiian as well as many other languages. In the high school that I attended, in particular, I decided to study Mandarin Chinese because I wanted to learn more about their culture, customs and language. I didn't know what to expect on the first day of class and I came to find out that studying Mandarin Chinese was even harder than I thought it would be. At first, I felt frustrated learning the language because it was so different from English-- the sentence structure wasn't straight forward, the pinyin and tone marks made everything more confusing and writing the characters was extremely time-consuming. However, I constantly studied and went around my house trying to name every item in Chinese. "Pencil. Bi 毛笔... Book. Shu 书..." Besides doing this, I also had to come up with a fun studying method to make it easier to remember all the characters and how to pronounce them. For instance, take the word "外头 wai tou" which in English means outside. In Chinese, "wai tou" sounds like "wide toad", so imagine how massive this toad would be if you had it as an indoor pet. The toad is too wide to live inside, so it has to live "outside".
The more and more I kept making up these fun ways to learn Chinese, learning the language was not only more fun, but it also grew on me and I ended up studying beyond the two year high school requirement and then, eventually studying it at the university.
Although Chinese can be somewhat difficult at times, learning it as well as learning any new language can be an enriching experience and it's an experience that I highly recommend. Learning a new language will not only help you in your professional career, but it will also help you to see the world from a different perspective. You will also meet a diversity of people who are willing to learn and teach; and it will open a door to new opportunities to study abroad and travel with other students with similar interests.
