If you really want to learn, you can get some chinese-teaching textbooks which are used in chinese schools. There's really no end to how much you can learn so there's no time limit.
Agree with you here. So that's what the entire Chinese school environment is non-learning, non-stimulating. Almost all the students speak English, and then some of the teachers end up speaking English (as many of them are eager to practice their own English... they are international students). Chinese school was basically a big playground where we could meet other CBCs/ABCs, and that gave us some sense of 'cultural identity'. Going to Chinese school for 9 years helpd somewhat, but alot of the characters were forgotten because I only saw these characters once a week for 2.5 hours. I also only did homework the night before, or the morning of Chinese school. I believe that in order to master the characters, one must read/write on a regular basis, say at least every second day. Now that I have left Chinese (because of school and work commitments), I learn Chinese on my own - I learn because I actually want to be able to read/write proficiently. I have a refueled passion to learn because most of my friends are HKers. And honestly, I felt like I have learned more in the past 3 years on my own, than in the 9 years of Chinese school. On my own would be reading material (not from those useless textbooks, but from magazines/newspapers/websites/forums), speaking as much Chinese as possible, asking questions to my friends when I don't know something... etc.
I've never gone to Chinese school before when I was young. My parents didn't want to add extra burden for me to attend Chinese school since I was already stressing over my regular schoolwork. So up till my freshman year of college, I didn't know how to read or write Chinese. But when I enrolled in one college semester of Mandarin a year ago, I began learning how to speak as well as write Chinese. And after finishing my studies that semester, I continued learning on my own so that I could continue to improve. I'm actually interested in picking up Mandarin as well, but more so Cantonese since that's my family's main dialect, and as an ABC, my Cantonese was not that good; so recently, I've started to practice a lot on my own. In my situation, I've only taken half a year of formal Chinese education, and I agree with the both of you regarding the situation that people often learn a lot of their own if they have the self-motivation to achieve because they are much more dedicated and devoting to their learning. I've been practicing for over 3/4 of a year, and my parents have told me that I've improved a lot on my Cantonese. I'm also using Sheik's Cantodict website to help me learn as well - I'm continually picking up new characters as time progresses. So if I go to a HK-based forum, I can generally read the threads/posts, as long as they're posting in informal Cantonese, haha. Even though reading Chinese in magazines and books is a bit difficult, I sometimes try anyway, and I can at least pick up a few of what the sentences are saying, lol. -^_^
i'm speaking fluently cantonese and i can read or write a few chinese words. I have gone to chinese school 10 years ago, but i'm forgotten al the chinese words that i have learn. I don't like chinese school at all, to much homework. hehee
Even though many chinese people who grew up overseas can read and write chinese, there are still many elements in the chinese language which they can't compare with people studying in HK. Many of the 4-word proverbs, chinese poems, and slangs are not used as commonly overseas as in HK. I think an observant third person can easily differentiate between a chinese who grew up overseas and a chinese who grew up in HK when they speak or write.
quite a lot of chinese can be picked up from constantly listening and watching chinese....it's helps somewhat....
Read manga with Chinese translation with your friends who knows how to read and write =P Well, if you're still a high school student, I believe you can enrol into some foreign class. If you are not a student anymore, you can go find some Chinese school outside.
I have the same situation but I'm taking mandarin classes at school right now and it doesn't help without a but of self discipline.
it's hard cause same here... most likely your spoken isn't that great either but listening to music, chinese radio/news etc helps
yeah...chinese school really doesn't help that much. it's much easier to be born in HK and it just gets embedded into your blood =) basically impossible to learn to write chinese fully in Canada. took chinese school for at least 7 years and i've only got the basics down to this very day. Very limited, though some can be put to use at CERTAIN times. =_= but at least i can speak canto very fluently for someone born in Canada =)
i'm kinda like that. i can speak fluent cantonese but i can't really read and write chinese...i can only read/write simple ones.
can speak canto- ie understand it aswell.. as for mnderin i can understand sum of it cause of the films, so i try speak it with my mom but she tells me im useless and so to give up haha
i can speak fluent english n fluent canto buh can't read or write....i can read realli realli basic characters n of course at i least i can write my own chinese name buh dats abt it....*sigh*
i'm exactly like you... where i live the mandarin language is taking over the whole city by storm.... 10 yrs ago it was more canto, now it's like mandarin and mainland dialects!!! uughh..
I went to chinese school but i've finished aggess ago and now if you ask me to write something in Chinese - I will have to wait a long time for me to write! Reading... I would say 70%, I can read most of the words but some words I can't read. Speaking - 100 %. No problem with speaking,
