Chinese is Really Hard!

Dave has been working hard to build his Mandarin skills for the past six months or so. He's been meeting with a tutor for an hour probably four times a week for the past 2 months, and she thinks the possibility exists that he will actually pass the Mandarin test. I'll remind you that Dave's ranking in the Foreign Service hiring list is just shy of getting an invitation to join, but that the points from testing proficient in a foreign language would guarantee a call. Dave will take that test on Dec. 1, at 9am DC time. Mark your calendars so you can remember him in your prayers.

While diligently studying late one recent evening, he came across an essay titled Why Chinese Is So Damn Hard. It may be funnier to those of us who have studied the language, but I think anyone interested in Mandarin would find it a good read. No joke - Chinese is a really difficult language. We have plenty of foreign friends who are proficient in many languages, entirely fluent in 3 or 4. Very few of these people speak more than taxi Mandarin - that is, just enough to get by.

I don't know anyone who speaks Mandarin well, unless they grew up with it. And according to this essay, even the Chinese think its hard! Our friend Yen (mainland Chinese citizen, and native speaker of Mandarin) confirmed this last night - he agrees that pronunciation can be a challenge, that the characters make it hard to read, and that there are loads of words (and therefore characters) that the average Chinese person does not know.

Remember, when an English reader doesn't know an English word, they can read it phonetically and then figure it out. When you come across a Chinese character you don't know, there will be no figuring it out - no matter how long you stare at it. They do have dictionaries, but these are organized by brush strokes and then by root characters; or by the pinyin pronunciation of the word. Figuring out the word is a process, and requires some prior knowledge.

So, pat Dave on the back for as much Mandarin as he has learned so far. And remember him on Wednesday. We're praying for God's plan through this - if He wants us back in China through the foreign service, Dave could pass the test. If He wants us following a different path, none of us would be surprised if Dave failed the test.

Will post the results as soon as we know.