learn chinese

I am interested in learning Chinese but I just don’t think it’s my main focus right now. I’ve got so many other interests at the moment that are more important for my immediate future, that this is just being left on the backburner. I’m not going to be ready to take any qualification in this without hard work and since I’m busy on other projects, I don’t think I’ll be getting anywhere. I will reinstate this goal when I’m ready to, but I’m putting it off for a year or so, or downsizing my goal to something more easily attainable.

This goal is not going as well as hoped :( I need to get back on track with this, as I tend to think something’s a good idea but not maintain regular practice. I think I need to start small and build up once I can prove to myself that I can stick to a schedule.

I’ve now started on this goal and don’t want to slip back into not studying regularly. I’ve decided to concentrate on pronunciation as my first step, to familiarise myself with the sounds of the language. So this means learning the initials, the finals and being able to both produce and differentiate the different tones. I think the tones are going to be quite difficult, so I will allow myself plenty of time to fully absorb these until I can use them confidently. All of this before learning any actual words! :)

Learning a language in 2 years is nigh on impossible if you’re not living in an environment where that language is spoken all the time. However, my challenge isn’t so much to learn the whole of the Chinese language, which would take many years, but to get to a level where I can take GCSE Chinese, or if I’m devoted enough A-Level Chinese!! Basically, I want to be able to get a qualification from this challenge and then go from there. Once this is complete, I will add this goal again to progress to a more advanced level in Chinese.

As a side-note, this challenge includes being able to write what I know in Chinese in characters as well as pinyin.