I've done it...I had to give myself the almost impossible challenge...of the many things I've learn so far for leisure, this is by far the toughest...It first started with swimming...(yes, I started swimming at quite a late age, but we'll go to that later)...then it was charcoal drawing...followed by cross-stitching, etc...but now, I've just topped it...by choosing to conquer reading and writing in Mandarin once and for all...why, learning HTMLs to build a website now sounds way easier!!! (though I've yet to master that at all...gave up learning the codes after awhile...found that it didn't really interest me that much)...(Note : Yes, so now you know I am a complete 'banana'...A Chinese living on a white skin...Am I to be held responsible that my parents would decide to send me to a national school, which deprived me from learning my mother tongue??...And so what if my mum did offer to teach me conversational Mandarin after I graduated from high school?...I was happy with the way I was then...So I refused...besides it was a complete struggle, trying to string a sentence and cracking my head open to do so...and it doesn't help when your friends are entertaining themselves at your expense...I just want to be able to converse, without rambling and feeling foolish... furthermore, I was proud...and rebellious...and stupid...there I said it, you happy??)
What I have learn so far :
1. The writing system is completely HOPELESS...
I've seen many of my friends pen down strokes after strokes of Mandarin words...and when they wrote their names using the calligraphy brushes, it is pure ecstasy...The Chinese characters, originated by images are both intriguing and fascinating...Hence, I've decided that I won't be happy learning just conversational Mandarin alone...I would have to learn to read and write as well...
It is said that one has to learn at least 2,000 words for basic literacy (reading Chinese newspaper, etc)...I've learned 10 words so far...10 out of 2,000...that makes it 0.005% of my target...all adjectives...definitely not enough to function literally...not even the Mandarin translation of 'Peter and Jane' books...And to think that to form ONE word, one has got to learn 26 freakin' strokes...and having to write them from top to bottom, left first to the right...Why won't my Chinese ancestors just stick to normal basic alphabets???...A-Z comprises of 26 alphabets...mix them together...and voila!!!...you can write a thesis on it...but Chinese characters??...just understanding the strokes would make my eyes cross...let alone form a word...
2. Trying to pronounce the Mandarin phonetics is a joke...
Every vowel, consist of 4 distinctive sounds...With all the classes of ear training that I had to go through during my music college years, you would have thought that differentiating the vowels would be a piece of cake...But the first pronunciation and the fourth sounds almost the same to me...and I am still unable to tell the difference between the second and the third one as well...
3. Looking up the dictionary for a Mandarin word, is pure torture...
While using an Oxford English dictionary is completely user-friendly, looking up a word in the Chinese dictionary is definitely what I would term as 'user-hostile'...in fact, wading for high elusive characters in a welter of unfriendly lexicons would only be for individuals with exceptional stamina, fortitude, determination and other classical disciplines...
Usually, a dictionary would be arranged alphabetically...but in Mandarin, one has got to figure out the radical character of the word...then you will have to go through the homonyms to find the right character with the right meaning...to make sure it is the right word, you will have to count the number of written strokes required and radical identification...which of course, is beyond my comprehension...man, this way it will take me a much longer time, than if I were to learn...Braille and the Dewy decimal system altogether!!...
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So learning Mandarin has yet to make a mark on me...*sigh*...but I am determined to hang on tight...this issue has been lugging in my head long enough...its high time I either sit on it...or I move on...
My mission is to be able to read the proper Three Romantic Kingdoms (that would require knowing 4,000-5,000 Chinese characters, mind you)...not the one with comics and English dialogues...that's just pure baloney...I also want to be able to appreciate the beauty of Chinese poetry...I have heard it many times before...and even though I never understood it, it was music to my ears...and last, I want to be able to read Confucius' original writings...but, that is another task to breakthrough...
I'll have to save that for later...
This state of affairs have been disheartening to me so far...especially for me who is impatient to devour the vast riches of Chinese literature...so far, it has been nothing but boring and bland diet of pre-school books,(which I can't even make out the instructions, let alone understand the exercises), textbooks and carefully edited kiddy books...it certainly looks like I'll be bound to this for the few years to come...I feel as if I am being on a weight diet...painful...and depressing...
No comments:
Post a Comment