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In this episode I reflect on my immersive learning approach, surrounding myself by the language and using the language in a lot of different environments. Immersion made a big difference to my learning, it helped me ‘see’ myself as a part of the language community, partaking in everyday life in Chinese, without being in China. What types of immersion are there, and does immersion ultimately mean ‘conforming’, fitting into the society the language is spoken in? In this episode I’m going beyond the mere acquisition, looking at the cultural and other considerations related to language learning.

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When looking at language acquisition and learning, we rarely consider the other side of the coin: language attrition. This means a language is disappearing, the speaker can’t speak it as well as before. The speech becomes slow and less complex. Attrition happens, and when a language, even a first language, is spoken less, there are small sign of attrition right from the start. It’s frustrating, especially when one has put in a lot of effort learning a language, for it then to disappear. But: is attrition reversible? What was my experience, especially as I was so immersed in Chinese that I spent less time speaking Danish, Spanish and other languages I used to work in?

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During the first few months of learning Chinese, I wanted to turn my learning into an experiment: how much Chinese would I be able to learn in a year? This motivated me greatly, but of course I did not stop after a year. But where was I, a year into studying Chinese in a highly immersed way? I was able to speak quite a lot, more than I initially thought I would, but there were also many aspects of the language that I had only just started exploring and I was making a lot of mistakes. Yet, these mistakes helped me learn more. I would rarely make the same mistake twice! So, a year in, did I think Chinese was difficult to learn?

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A hot topic in second language learning and teaching circles, artificial intelligence proved to be a game-changer for my learning of Chinese. I suddenly had that ‘friend’ who would happily correct my writing. The results were not always perfect, but usually passable. Then, I realised that I could ask questions about expressions I had only half understood and AI would usually give me good suggestions. It would help me put together examples of grammatical structures I was learning, or help with slang and more formal language. Even the freely accessible AI developed quickly, helping me in ways I had never imagined would be possible.

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In this episode I’m looking at accent and dialect. Many learners have a distinct foreign accent. Is that inevitable, or are their ways to work on your accent (and if so, is it necessary)? I’m talking about various techniques, such as shadowing and working on individual sounds, as well as how sounds that initially seem familiar may be the ‘problem areas’ where an accent persists, just because the learner does not realise that the pronunciation is slightly different, while totally different sounds may, eventually, be easier to produce. As my pronunciation was getting better, I had to choose whether to copy my teachers’ northern accents, or include other dialectal features in my speech.

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My spoken Chinese was getting more and more ‘fluent’, in that I could have uninterrupted conversations in real life, using my online conversation lessons with teachers to iron out any issues in my pronunciation and expression. All of a sudden, Chinese just ‘clicked’. I could watch a video and would suddenly understand everything that was said. My approach to learning changed, and I explored new materials. I now also enjoyed speaking Chinese more frequently with people I didn’t know, watching their reactions.

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This episode is about me, finally, finding teachers to Chinese. At first I was learning in a vacuum at home, building confidence in understanding the language, but now that I had taken the plunge and had started to speak to others, I wanted to work on my conversation skills, because… well, they needed quite a lot of work. Working with online Chinese teachers really helped to boost my confidence, talk through topics I wanted to discuss in a safe environment, while learning a lot about some of the things my teachers were interested in. But how do you even find a suitable Chinese teacher?

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In this episode I’m finally taking the plunge, looking for more speakers of Chinese to talk to. I’m considering tandem language exchange programmes and finding Chinese friends, eventually finding a group dedicated to learners and speakers of Chinese in my town. Joining the group was fun, especially just relaxing and chatting away in my improving Chinese. Not yet great, but good enough to get started. I also started talking to more Chinese people around me, though I realised quickly that there has to be something in it for the other person to want to speak Chinese with me. What to do?

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