After, a positive experience in learning Mandarin Chinese for three years in high school I wanted to take the language course again. In my third year of university, I did, but with some challenges.
Like I have previously mentioned in one of my previous entries, this time, Japanese interfered with my Mandarin learning.
“You are thinking in Japanese, aren’t you?” my Mandarin instructor said with a grin.
“How could you tell?” I asked.
“Your grammar is not Mandarin.”
I tried again; this time I was told I was using English grammar with my Mandarin Chinese. By the end of the course, I did not get as high a mark as I did in high school, but I still passed and graduated.
Oh, and there was another reason I took Mandarin again in university: I had a teaching opportunity in Mongolia after graduation. Thinking that the Mongolian language shared something with Mandarin Chinese, I took the course. Later, I have learned that, again, the two languages were completely different.
If you’d like to read about how my language learning interfered by another language, please check out the link below:
ReplyDeletehttps://cassisa.blogspot.com/2023/01/languages-i-have-learnedepisode-2-french.html