Thoughts on advanced-intermediate Mandarin language learning

At the end of August, my wife and I moved from San Francisco to Taiwan. This was something that we had been talking about for years, and it feels amazing to finally do it “for real”. Of all the new and exciting challenges of living abroad, I think that adapting to a new language (Mandarin) is the most difficult, urgent, and rewarding. In this post, I want to share a little bit about my experience inside and outside of the classroom, my challenges, successes, and strategies for continuing to improve my language skills.

Mandarin is not a new language for me. I studied for three years in college, and recently took a one-semester class at the Community College of San Francisco to brush up before our move. If I were to grade my level using the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) scale, I’d say my Mandarin was at ~B1 before moving, and is now closer to ~B2/C1.

Now in Taiwan, I’m taking nine months of classes at the Mandarin Training Center of National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU, or 臺灣師範大國語教誨中心). I have 2-3 hours of class per day, plus homework, so it feels like being a full-time university student again. Last quarter, I attended an “intensive” class (3 hours/day, 100 words/week), but I felt like the heavy course load kept me inside doing flashcards and writing homework instead of participating in Taiwanese society. For the remaining six months of the program, I’ll be taking the “normal” class (2 hours/day, ~50 new words/week), and focusing on the learning opportunities outside of the classroom.

What do I mean by “learning opportunities outside of the classroom”? Classes are great for feeding me new vocabulary in a structured way, and providing feedback on my language use. However, language classes in general don’t simulate how you’ll use the language in the real world. The teacher tailors her speech for our level, and the scope is limited to the topics in the current chapter of the textbook. Real fluency means being able to communicate in a variety of contexts, registers, and scenarios that go far beyond what you could learn in a few years of classroom study. Taking classes is just one part of the language learning process. To really get the most out of it, you have to take what you learn into the real world.

I also signed up for a speaking competition that was held last month. When I did the speaking portion of the placement interview at NTNU, the teacher interviewing me suggested I put my name in. I was initially hesitant, but she added that the school would provide free, weekly 1:1 classes to help me prepare. This was too good a deal to turn down, so I signed up.

It turned out that writing a speech in Chinese was much harder than English. It took a full month for me to get a draft together, and another month working with the teacher to polish it up. The last month was spent memorizing, drilling pronunciation, and practicing my delivery. All the hard work paid off, and I ended up getting second place (out of sixty!) at the competition. I’m very grateful for the help from my teacher, and I think the 1:1 lessons helped a lot with my speaking and listening skills.

Here’s a video of my speech:

My Mandarin is still far from perfect, but every day I have more and more small successes that encourage me that I’m headed in the right direction. A while back I went to dinner with my wife and our friend. We spoke in Mandarin the entire time, and while I missed a word here or there, I could follow the conversation and confidently contribute my own thoughts. This would have been unthinkable before studying in Taiwan.

I can also feel myself becoming more confident and independent in society. I’ve successfully navigated a bunch of challenging interactions like opening a bank account, signing up for a cellphone contract, getting a health check-up, all in Mandarin. This is the first time in Taiwan where I feel like I don’t have to depend on my wife or our friends to help me with day-to-day tasks.

Of course, it’s not all smooth sailing. In class, I learned a bunch of fancy words for talking about criminal justice or energy policy, but that doesn’t mean much if I can’t understand the delivery guy over the crackly intercom asking me to come to the door. Using Mandarin in the real world is a roller coaster, and sometimes I get thrown off by a minor accent variation, slang term, or synonym that I haven’t studied.

As an example, I previously learned two words:

• 付 (fù, to pay) and
• 現金 (xiànjīn, cash).

To ask someone if they want to use cash, you might as “付現金嗎？” (fùxiànjīnma, literally “pay cash question”). The other day at the store, the clerk asked me: 付現嗎？ (fùxiànma). It’s exactly the same, just using xiàn instead of xiànjīn for cash, but I had absolutely no idea what she was saying. As an English equivalent, this is like someone saying “credit” instead of “credit card”. To a native speaker, it’s completely obvious, but for me, it was just enough of a difference to confuse me.

However, one big improvement I noticed is that my Mandarin is now good enough to clear up these types of misunderstandings, and that the misunderstanding themselves are infrequent enough that I don’t feel bad stopping the conversation and clarifying. In the example above, the clerk just had to say the full word xiànjīn, and the confusion was instantly resolved.

I’m also figuring out what makes new vocab stick. For example, I’ve noticed that when a word or phrase is associated with an emotion, I’m much more likely to remember it. This is one of the biggest reasons why I think languages can’t be learned exclusively in the classroom, rather you need to go out and make mistakes and experience success to truly make it stick. My “pay cash” confusion above was accompanied by some light embarrassment, so it really stuck with me, even months later. Similarly, when I can use a new word or phrase to successfully navigate a social situation, it gives a feeling of success that reinforces later recall. Telling a joke that gets a few laughs or seeing someone understand your point of view generates positive emotions that all help to strengthen those new connections in ways that can’t be achieved with flashcards or in a sterile classroom environment.

The combination of daily classes + immersion environment really works. In class, we learn 50-100 new words per week, plus some interesting grammar structures and some speaking practice. Outside of class, I’m constantly reading signs, menus, newspapers, anything I see around me. I’m chatting with friends and shopkeepers, with varying success, so the things I learn in class are constantly being reinforced. I also have great systems in place now for studying and reviewing (see Tools for Mandarin study). Because of this, my retention is insanely high. Looking back at lessons I did three months ago, I still remember all of it.

If I keep up this rate of learning, I’ll grow my vocabulary by over 1500 words in these nine months of classes. Vocabulary is only one component of language proficiency, but at this level it’s usually my biggest issue in communication.

So what’s next? Recently, a friend (native speaker) asked me what my learning goals are, to which I replied “I want to speak as well as you do”. She laughed, but I’m completely serious. I’ll continue taking classes at NTNU until June 2025, while also using the language in my daily life. I’ll improve my vocabulary, listening, and speaking, until language “skill” is no longer a challenge for me while living in Taiwan. It’s not a fast or easy process, but when I look at the progress I’ve already made since I got here, “fluency” finally feels within reach.