Travel Blog 4: When Weaknesses Shine Through

About my weekend in Kaohsiung

This weekend was a reminder of how far I have left to go before reaching my goals in Mandarin.

Aside from wanting to work on my Mandarin, another reason I’ve come to Taiwan is to visit friends. One of my friends lives in Kaohsiung, so I went there last weekend to see him.

I spent a total of 11 hours with my friend over two days. We spoke in Mandarin basically the whole time.

The longer you spend with one person, the more topics you end up discussing. In my case, my friend and I discussed topics ranging from funny personal anecdotes to the state of global economics. I had to look quite a few words up in a dictionary or online translator. It was draining to converse in Mandarin for so long and transition between topics so many times. It helped me see just how many weaknesses I still have in Mandarin.

The weakness that stands out the most is that I need to remind myself to slow down when I speak. There’s no need to rush through sentences. When I do, I end up stumbling over my words and stuttering.

I have frequently hung out for long periods of time with a single native speaker of my target language as a way to accelerate my progress. I find that it works wonders.

Give it a try yourself! You can do this by:

• Meeting up with a friend for a long hangout

• Scheduling an intensive 1-2 days with a private tutor instead of just taking a 1-hour lesson

• Binge-watching or listening to comprehensible input. This is a little different than speaking with another person, but is still remarkably helpful

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