#and i have recongised how far i have come holy shit

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my chinese improvements and what I learned about immersion

so so so so I was at a summer camp in China for a month then did a month of travel and just got home again. Before that I had learnt Chinese by myself for a year and was a beginner. Plus balancing 3 other languages and surviving final year of uni lolol. I did like 4 informal lessons on italki with a teacher, mostly to practice basics like buying things and transport. I learned a lot while at the camp about myself, but I want to reflect on some language related things!

Learning language reflection 

I make sentences so so so so much faster now. I can only make basic sentences still but it’s easier without too much hesitation!!  

my pronunciation improved after a few weeks of trying so hard for my Chinese friends at the camp to understand me and listening to their corrections. My chinese tones were baaaad as I taught myself for a year. Now I’m better and can be understood!!~

being around a lot of mandarin chinese speaking all the time was so good for immersion. Like sitting in boring camp meetings and trying to just get any idea about what they were all talking about and trying to recognise words 

Having native speaker friends there to ask questions and learn a new word in context is so good for memorisation. I learned the word for cupping quickly after seeing the marks on someones back. I learned the word for custard steamed bun while eating one and wishing I could order it myself

I fear making mistakes less. The Chinese friends didn’t laugh at me when I made mistakes, if they laughed, it was out of endearment. I learned a lot by making mistakes and because it was humorous, I learned fast. I learned some slang or bad words by making mistakes. For example, once instead of saying let’s take a nap, I said let’s sleep with each other x.x it was embarrassing, but it’s stuck in my memory forever and I wont make the mistake again

I was totally alone for like a total of 15 days of my trip. I could survive, order food by either saying dishes I knew or recognised the characters of on the menu or pointing to the picture. It became easy and natural to ask the price of things and getting the basic gist of what was happening around me. Surviving alone was great for my confidence, especially when I could ask questions when I needed something without getting flustered like ‘is this dish chicken or fish?’ ‘can I have a spoon?’ ‘where’s the toilet?’

Nothing beats first hand observation and interaction for learning culture, honestly. And lovely friends who are happy and kind to explain! I’ve always loved having conversations with people from other countries about cultural differences and similarities, I had some gooood conversations while in china

I made very very good friends with Chinese native speakers! I can practice Chinese with them and stay in contact~ I can help them with English too as many of them study it at university. In the past, I have made language exchange friends online, but always fall out of contact ;--; I think I know my friends deeper by being physically with them for a month straight at the summer camp and exploring the city with them after the camp

Chinese characters are less intimidating. I was surrounded with them constantly, when I see them now, my brain goes into reading mode not panic mode. I had this feeling with Korean a few years ago too! I wonder if this is a universal feeling with foreign scripts lolol

I have the motivation to keep learning Chinese!! I have friends I wanna talk to in Chinese, I want to return to China, I want to learn more about the culture!!!!!!

I learned a lot about myself and how I personally learn languages. I learned about the value of being brave to practice speaking, even when I was a beginner, and the benefits it has. For the first time, I was in the country of the target language, immersed and with the pressing need to use the language every day. I know the benefits of it now, which decreases my previous fear of it, and I would love to do it again -u-