0:01

This is the You Can Learn Chinese

0:03

podcast. For everyone who's trying to

0:05

learn Chinese or reaching for the

0:08

next level, you came to the

0:10

right place. I am your host,

0:12

Jared Turner, and I started taking

0:14

an ADHD test, but I lost

0:16

interest. My co-host is John Pazden,

0:19

and he's a big fan of

0:21

sidewalks, because they've been keeping the

0:23

people off the streets for years.

0:25

Let's get to it! Hey

0:29

guys, this is Jared Turner joining

0:31

you from Utah here in the

0:33

United States. Hey, I'm John

0:35

Pazden I am in Shanghai

0:37

China and happy our Ling

0:39

our Wu Nyan everybody. Yes,

0:41

happy year of 2025 We've made

0:43

it John almost would have

0:46

never would have thought after that

0:48

year of 2020 and now we

0:50

are also staring down the barrel

0:52

of the Chinese New Year. What's

0:54

this year been? It's been the

0:57

year of the Very memorable year.

0:59

Believe it or not, the Chinese

1:01

Zodiac does not play a significant

1:03

role in my life these days.

1:05

You're the snake next year. You're

1:08

of the snake. So I do know that

1:10

for whatever reason. Okay, so

1:12

anyway, it is January, it is

1:14

a new year, and you know, a lot of

1:16

people every year, they say, this is

1:18

the year, I'm going to finally learn

1:21

Chinese. And since this is the

1:23

you can learn Chinese podcast, It

1:25

feels like a good time to

1:27

address this question because Jared, you

1:29

know, some of these people who

1:31

promised themselves they will finally

1:34

learn Chinese this year, they don't

1:36

actually make it. That's right. I

1:38

mean, you can buy, you know, you

1:40

subscribe to the different apps and

1:42

download everything, but oftentimes by March,

1:45

you know, you find like you've

1:47

fallen off or maybe you don't

1:49

even make it to March. And

1:51

so, why does this happen? How

1:53

can this year be different? So

1:55

today we are going to talk

1:57

about how you can finally

1:59

make this year of you learning Chinese and

2:01

how to stick with it and figure it

2:03

all out for yourself. Yeah, so we're going

2:06

to cover this issue from a

2:08

number of different angles and hopefully

2:10

some of them will resonate with you

2:12

and you'll get some advice that will

2:14

help you to finally make progress this

2:16

year. So I think a great place

2:18

to start here John is to first

2:20

talk about why do New Year's resolutions

2:23

often fail? Well I think sometimes we're too

2:25

ambitious. I mean it's similar to like the

2:27

whole gym thing like you start off. going

2:29

to the gym for two hours every day,

2:31

you know, that's not going to

2:33

last. And similarly, your Chinese studies

2:36

might be a bit overambitious. Maybe you're

2:38

trying to do an hour every day

2:40

or something like that, and it might

2:42

just be too much too soon. And

2:44

I think another important thing is like

2:46

this lack of clarity. So you might

2:48

say, okay, this is the year I'm

2:50

going to learn Chinese. Well, what does

2:52

that mean? I mean, I kind of

2:54

feel like, hey, you learn Chinese. Do

2:56

you speak Chinese? Yeah, you know, but

2:59

how are you going to measure that?

3:01

Like, what is that actual, like, goal?

3:03

Because just saying you're going to learn

3:05

Chinese, it's too vague. And so you're

3:07

not even sure what success looks like.

3:10

And so it's really kind of hard

3:12

to track progress and to kind of

3:14

feel, you know, some accomplishment or motivation

3:16

along the way. And speaking of motivation,

3:18

you might feel super motivated in the

3:20

beginning of the year, but can you

3:23

rely on that? Is that really going

3:25

to take you through the whole year

3:27

and last while your Chinese improves?

3:29

And not only that, but if your

3:31

motivation does flag, are you going to

3:33

go into a guilt spiral? That's right.

3:36

You're like, I'm garbage, I'm

3:38

not learning. So those feelings

3:40

and thoughts can be very

3:42

demotivating along the way, and

3:44

then you kind of get this

3:46

burden of shame and learning Chinese

3:49

becomes more of a drag and

3:51

a burden and can really weigh

3:53

you down. So how can we avoid

3:55

these traps? Well, I think the

3:57

first step in this is first. to

4:00

make sure you are framing up your resolution properly. in

4:02

doing that you need to make sure that you are

4:04

clear about like why you are learning Chinese. If you've

4:06

been listening to this podcast any length of time you've

4:08

heard John and I talking about this you need to

4:10

understand why you are learning Chinese and there are a

4:12

variety of reasons that you could learn Chinese and they're

4:14

all fine they can all work for you but you

4:16

need to make sure you find what is your reason

4:18

why you're learning Chinese and if you don't have a

4:20

good reason then you know, chances are you're probably not

4:22

going to get very far in your studies. And you

4:24

need to be more specific about it. It's not just

4:26

learn Chinese, but like what really are you focusing on?

4:28

Because you know, it's not learn 10,000 characters and master

4:30

all the tones and have a 10,000 word vocabulary. You

4:32

know, it's got to be... something smaller than that, right?

4:34

Yeah, I think that's, you know, achievable goals, like setting

4:36

very specific things. And I guess John Good also talk

4:38

about that, we're talking about specific goals, well, I'm talking

4:40

about specific reasons, you know, that might be like, oh,

4:42

well, hey, I want to be able to, you know,

4:44

enjoy this show in Chinese, or I really want to

4:46

be able to have a conversation with this person, or

4:48

there's this person, I really admire, you know, I want

4:50

to be like them, and... you know, they've kind of

4:52

inspired me and so that's one of my motivations for

4:54

learning Chinese or maybe I just enjoy the language. It's

4:56

just learning a new language. It's something very interesting to

4:58

me. So those can all be kind of your purposes,

5:00

kind of your underlying reasons to really learn, but you

5:02

kind of need to have something like that. Yeah, but

5:04

what I'm saying is I think the specifics of your

5:06

goals, they should line up with your motivation. So for

5:08

example, if your goals are related to you know human

5:10

communication and human connections then maybe you can cut yourself

5:12

some slack on the character learning but you know conversely

5:14

if you really want to be able to read a

5:16

book like maybe don't hit the listening practice so hard

5:18

if you actually hate it, you

5:20

know, that kind of thing.

5:22

Absolutely. So make sure that

5:24

those goals are tailored around

5:26

your reasons for learning. Like,

5:28

maybe I'm going to try

5:30

to have, by the end

5:32

of this year, I want

5:34

to be able to have

5:36

like, you know, a five

5:38

or 10 minute conversation in

5:40

Chinese. You know, hey, that's

5:42

a pretty cool goal, but

5:44

you need to have some

5:46

smaller ones along the way,

5:48

of course. Okay. So then

5:50

after you figure that out,

5:52

I think one thing that

5:54

you should do is focus

5:56

more on the process and

5:58

not just on outcomes. So,

6:00

you know, learn Chinese is

6:02

obviously not very specific outcome,

6:04

but also that's the outcome

6:06

instead of the process. And

6:08

the process is what you're

6:11

actually going to do. So

6:13

maybe you're just going to

6:15

study for 10 minutes every

6:17

day. Maybe you're going to,

6:19

you know, do dual -lingual every

6:21

day, or maybe you're going

6:23

to read something every day,

6:25

but you want to form

6:27

a habit. And if you

6:29

can form that habit, then

6:31

you're focusing on the growth,

6:33

right, this growth mindset, and

6:35

not just, I have to,

6:37

you know, achieve this one

6:39

thing. Absolutely. So it can

6:41

be doing different learning activities

6:43

at specific times or during

6:45

specific activities. Maybe you are

6:47

running a couple of miles

6:49

every day on the treadmill

6:51

or outside. Well, maybe that's

6:53

your time to listen to

6:55

some Chinese podcasts like this.

6:57

But there's other podcasts out

6:59

there, of course, you know,

7:01

about actually learning, you know,

7:03

you're going to get some

7:05

language exposure. Or, John, I

7:07

remember one big thing for

7:09

me was when I was

7:11

writing the subway, commuting to

7:13

work in the morning, I

7:15

would read graded readers in

7:17

Chinese. And that was a

7:19

dedicated study time for me.

7:21

Yeah. And one thing I've

7:23

been doing is every single

7:25

day on the subway on

7:27

the way to work, I

7:29

use dual -lingual. And I

7:31

study a little bit of

7:33

Italian every day and also

7:35

on the weekends. John, you

7:37

went to Italy for some

7:39

conference recently, right? Yeah, I

7:41

did. Related to the Chinese

7:43

grammar weekie, that was a

7:45

really awesome trip. And it

7:47

really motivated me. I want

7:49

to talk about that more

7:51

when we talk more about

7:53

specific types of motivation. But

7:55

definitely a trip to the

7:57

country can really be motivating. and

8:00

also about you know setting some of these

8:02

goals you need to think long term not

8:04

just you know even the 12 months or

8:06

just a month by month or 12 months so

8:08

learning a language it can be a lifetime

8:10

journey so you may not be fluent by

8:12

June but imagine where you're gonna be by

8:14

the end of the year if you just

8:16

keep going there's this quote that kind of

8:18

comes to mind in that gosh I'm having

8:20

trouble remembering exactly the quote I'm gonna butcher

8:23

it but the idea behind it is that

8:25

sometimes you might want to give up but

8:27

if you look at like where you are

8:29

right now and then compare that to like

8:31

a year ago a year ago you probably

8:33

would have never you would have given up

8:35

a whole bunch to be where you are

8:37

right now and so it's like hey you

8:39

may not be totally to that end stage

8:41

of fluency the F word right where you'd

8:43

want to be but you've made progress

8:45

and if you were starting out today

8:47

the progress you've already made and what

8:50

you've learned it's still a good

8:52

level of accomplishment compared to someone

8:54

just starting it from zero. And

8:56

you've probably heard this before, but you

8:58

know, people tend to overestimate what they

9:00

can achieve in the short term and

9:03

underestimate what they can achieve in the

9:05

long term. So rather than, you know,

9:07

hoping to pass HSK3 in the first

9:09

three months of the year, you should

9:11

just be happy to like, you know,

9:13

make decent progress this year because

9:16

if you can keep doing that year

9:18

over year, then in less time than

9:20

you think you'll actually be fairly

9:22

fluent. And the key thing is

9:24

to just be somewhat consistent and

9:27

have progress rather than having this

9:29

crazy steeply climbing graph of

9:31

progress. You just need some progress

9:33

and keep at it. Boards of

9:35

wisdom. Okay, so on that note, remember,

9:38

you want to start fairly small.

9:40

You don't want to give yourself

9:42

like this giant, you know, task that

9:44

you have to do every day

9:46

or some quota that's just super

9:48

intimidating every week. You want to get

9:51

into a habit. Something that you enjoy

9:53

but that if you are kind of busy

9:55

or don't feel like doing it that much

9:58

one day you can still get a done.

10:00

You know, this is really important

10:02

because most people are not in

10:04

an immersive environment. Some people are.

10:06

And you may be super motivated

10:08

and maybe you're starting some immersion

10:11

program in some small town in

10:13

China, Taiwan for the next year.

10:15

Okay, great. You probably are going

10:17

to be spending, you know, five,

10:19

six hours a day in an

10:21

immersive, you know, Chinese learning environment.

10:23

But most of people are not.

10:26

So you do need to start

10:28

small. We do have lives, you have

10:30

relationships and work, all sorts of things

10:32

going on. So being consistent in small

10:34

ways can get you a lot further

10:37

than just binging on learning sessions, you

10:39

know, once a week or maybe a

10:41

couple times a month. Yeah, and to

10:43

use my dual lingo example, like

10:45

there are some days when I'm

10:47

feeling motivated and I'll do a

10:50

couple lessons, maybe I'll do 20 or 30

10:52

minutes, like first thing in the in the

10:54

morning. But there are other times when

10:56

I really don't feel like it. I don't

10:58

not do it, I just do the minimum

11:00

amount, which for me is to just review

11:02

the flashcards. And you know, then I have

11:05

to listen to the audio, I have to

11:07

read the words and you know, think about

11:09

them a little bit. And so I'm doing

11:11

review and I'm not forgetting, I'm

11:13

maybe not making great progress, but

11:15

I'm not forgetting and I'm staying

11:17

in that habit. It's also important

11:20

to create some sort of accountability. And

11:22

now there's a lot of ways to

11:24

go about doing this. It's something that

11:26

works for me, John, is I have

11:28

a regular session with a tutor every

11:31

week. And that helps me at least

11:33

stay on track. It's a standing appointment

11:35

on my calendar, and I always know

11:38

it's going to be happening. But you

11:40

can find a language partner. You can join

11:42

a class. You can get a tutor.

11:44

Also, a lot of people do like

11:46

study grams, a lot of people do

11:48

this on Instagram, so they're kind of

11:50

tracking, they're studying, or they may vlog

11:52

about that and create videos. So there's

11:54

a whole lot of ways to create

11:57

some sort of accountability with others and

11:59

sharing your progress. learning together and

12:01

having different tutors. Yeah, what I

12:03

do is my son and I, we

12:05

both use dual angle, we're studying different

12:07

things and we just kind of keep

12:09

each other going, remind each other, and

12:11

sometimes he encourages me to try

12:14

to make a certain rank and you

12:16

know, that competition stuff is kind of

12:18

annoying. It doesn't really drive me,

12:20

but he gets into it and because

12:23

he's pushing me, it actually does work.

12:25

So, you know. That's great. That's great.

12:27

You know, that's kind of cool because

12:30

you're creating some sort of competition,

12:32

right? And you can also make like

12:34

real world milestones. You may book a

12:36

trip to China, or maybe not to

12:39

China. You could book a trip to

12:41

China, you could book a trip to

12:43

China, if there's one in your area

12:45

or somewhere close by. And so, you

12:48

know, you got something you're working

12:50

towards. And hopefully you're also

12:52

making stuff on TV. and

12:54

YouTube or even Tiktok, you

12:56

know, you can maybe be

12:58

playing some kind of games, doing

13:00

music, and as long as you're

13:02

engaged in it and you're

13:05

actually listening and paying attention,

13:07

then you're making progress. And

13:09

speaking of progress, track your progress. So

13:12

there are a lot of ways you

13:14

can go about this, like if you're

13:16

reading, that's an easy way to track

13:18

progress. You can say, hey, how many

13:21

pages have I read? How many books

13:23

have I read? How much time have

13:25

I spent reading? You can also track,

13:27

you know, how many words you're reading

13:29

per minute, or is our characters per

13:32

minute? Those are all really good indicators

13:34

and ways to track some progress in

13:36

relation to reading. Yeah, I've had real

13:38

success with progress tracking. Like, one of

13:40

the things I do is I weigh

13:42

myself every weekday morning, which, you know,

13:45

is kind of boring and maybe depressing,

13:47

but if I don't do that, then

13:49

I know, I'll just slowly just start

13:51

to gain weight. Like week over week

13:53

and so I'm not too like

13:56

Stracked about diet and exercise

13:58

like I do try to

14:00

do it but if I weigh myself

14:02

then I always have like in the

14:05

back of my mind like I know

14:07

where I'm at and it helps me

14:09

stay on track and I know some

14:11

people they like they track their progress

14:14

and something that's like visible like a

14:16

piece of paper on a wall you

14:18

know they put an X on the

14:21

calendar when they do their workout or

14:23

they practice their Chinese or whatever I

14:25

find that those kinds of really visual

14:27

like physical progress tracking can be super

14:30

useful. Yeah, that's why we do sticker

14:32

charge for kids. But hey, you can

14:34

have a sticker charge for adults. Whatever

14:36

stickers you want. That's right. You get

14:39

Chinese stickers. It's all good. Or just

14:41

red circles, doesn't matter. But there's so

14:43

many different ways to track your progress.

14:45

There's apps for tracking those. And when

14:48

we're talking about like tracking progress, it

14:50

doesn't necessarily have to be like, you

14:52

know, filling out a, you know, one

14:55

of those trees on Duolingo. There are

14:57

just apps for tracking habits. You can

14:59

say, hey, did I do this today?

15:01

And so if you have these small

15:04

goals, or you have daily goals or

15:06

weekly goals, track those, see how you're

15:08

doing. you know, every day. It's just,

15:10

you kind of get an idea of

15:13

where you're at. And you can also

15:15

look back and say, hey, you know,

15:17

I put in pretty good effort this

15:19

month or this week or this year

15:22

even. And if you don't have that,

15:24

it's kind of hard to go back

15:26

and really evaluate your efforts against how

15:28

things are turning out for you. And

15:31

on this topic, I want to point

15:33

something out because I think I made

15:35

a difference for me. And so, you

15:38

know, super simple that I have the

15:40

data. But what I found was when

15:42

it saves it to my phone, I

15:44

couldn't do anything with that data. It

15:47

wasn't easy to export it. And I

15:49

didn't like the stats that it gave

15:51

me. And so eventually I just switched

15:53

over to recording my own numbers in

15:56

an Excel spreadsheet because when I had

15:58

in the spreadsheet I could do whatever

16:00

I wanted with the data and I

16:02

could you know create graphs and like

16:05

all this stuff you know I wanted

16:07

to have like a 10 day running

16:09

average and track that and stuff like

16:11

that if you're into that and your

16:13

app doesn't let you do it well

16:15

then don't let the app like ruin

16:17

the effects of the progress tracking that

16:20

you could be getting that's pretty

16:22

cool that's a good insight and I

16:24

wouldn't call it cool Jared but you

16:26

know it works for me And along

16:28

the way, you gotta celebrate these small

16:30

wins that you encounter. So, you know,

16:32

something good happens, that's great. You know,

16:35

and you can track that as well.

16:37

But along this path, you are gonna

16:39

have some setbacks. So you need to

16:41

give yourself a little bit of room,

16:43

some grace, if you will, if things

16:46

don't totally turn out the way that

16:48

you're hoping or plan. Yeah, like to

16:50

use the weight tracking example, once

16:52

again, I sometimes just stop

16:54

tracking my weight on vacation

16:57

on vacation. and come back 10

16:59

pounds heavier. Yeah there's always that

17:01

risk and I never come back

17:03

lighter let me tell you but

17:05

I just don't need the additional

17:07

stress and like I know I'm

17:09

gonna enjoy food a little bit

17:12

more than usual over the holidays

17:14

and so I expect to work

17:16

a little bit more after the

17:18

holiday but you know you gotta enjoy

17:20

life too and I don't think

17:22

anyone is gonna enjoy a habit

17:24

if they're just pushes them to the

17:26

limits of austerity, you know, just for the sake

17:29

of this goal. Exactly. And so you're going to

17:31

miss some days once in a while and you

17:33

need to give yourself a little room for that.

17:35

And John, for me, later this last year, I

17:37

just had a lot of stress. I had a

17:39

lot of things going in my life. And if

17:42

you remember, I just had to shelve my tutor

17:44

sessions for a month. I think it was six

17:46

weeks even. And it just became, it was going

17:48

to be a bit of a drag, a bit

17:50

of a burden at that time, and not as

17:53

enjoyable. And so I'm like, look, I just needed

17:55

to sort some stuff out. It was just going

17:57

on. And so I did, and now I'm back

17:59

at it. and I'm feeling much better. So

18:01

you may need to even take a

18:04

little bit of break and then come

18:06

back at it. And because life can

18:08

be hard. Stress creeps up on you

18:10

and things change. And you've got to

18:12

roll with that. You've got to adapt

18:14

with it, but you know, take the

18:17

time you need, sort things out, sort

18:19

yourself out, and then get back in

18:21

it. Yeah, I was doing pretty well

18:23

going to the gym and making progress

18:25

in my strength training goals. but then

18:28

work got too busy and I just

18:30

couldn't make it to the gym and

18:32

I knew that it wasn't going to

18:34

change for a little bit and rather

18:36

than stressing out about that because I

18:38

do, I really didn't want to lose

18:41

that progress. Rather than stressing out about

18:43

it I just switched to like a

18:45

home calisthenics program and I don't like

18:47

it as much but you know it

18:49

was something and I just had to

18:51

be flexible. That's right. So roll with

18:54

the punches. Give yourself a little grace

18:56

and some people might say, hey, no,

18:58

no, I don't want to do anything

19:00

like that because, you know, if I

19:02

stop, then I'll never get going again.

19:05

Well, the main point behind this is

19:07

that you want this to be something

19:09

that's energy creating and not something that's

19:11

draining for you. And if you find

19:13

that your studies are dragging you down

19:15

and it's creating a source of stress

19:18

and anxiety for you, well, that's probably

19:20

a good indication that you might need

19:22

to change things things up. Or you

19:24

need to take a little break and

19:26

regroup. And so this is the whole

19:28

thing about planning for setbacks. Life changes,

19:31

your circumstance changes, your motivations may change

19:33

as well. And so you need to

19:35

be always reassessing those and to figure

19:37

out what's going to work for you

19:39

moving forward. Yeah, and trying to always

19:42

make it a binary thing, like I'm

19:44

going to do it. Oh, no, I

19:46

have to quit. It's not that binary.

19:48

Stay flexible. So how can we keep

19:50

ourselves motivated throughout the year? So there

19:52

are a lot of ways to approach

19:55

this. And John, first off, even talking

19:57

about motivation, I think there's some of

19:59

the things talking about... motivation out there

20:01

and discipline is better than motivation and

20:03

I think that that is actually a

20:06

good point because motivation can come and

20:08

go but that doesn't mean that

20:10

motivation isn't important because

20:12

being motivated definitely helps us

20:14

to get started and it can help us

20:16

develop some of these happens. Yeah it's a

20:18

little bit of a chicken and egg thing

20:20

right like why do you need to have

20:23

discipline if you're not motivated to do it right?

20:25

Exactly. So here are a few

20:27

ideas for all of you guys figuring

20:29

out how to get motivated and how

20:31

to get started and maybe even to

20:33

get remotivated throughout the year if things

20:36

start dragging. So one good way is

20:38

to join a challenge. There are lots

20:40

of different organizations out there and groups,

20:42

Chinese learning groups and stuff, where they

20:44

have like maybe a 30-day challenge or

20:46

maybe in a week challenge. So you can go

20:49

out and look for some of those and

20:51

those are great ways to... get involved with

20:53

other people and find some motivation to

20:55

achieve some short-term goal. It's also pretty

20:57

easy to do with a friend. Like

20:59

you can do it with two people

21:01

or three people. It doesn't have to

21:03

be a big group. Where can you

21:05

find these? Well, you know, there's on

21:07

Reddit, there's a Chinese language subreddit, there's

21:09

lots of different we chat groups, discord

21:11

groups, and even know like Ola Linga

21:14

and hacking, he does some frequent

21:16

challenges for Chinese learners, for Chinese

21:18

learners. Yep. Another thing you might

21:20

try. Or maybe not the whole

21:22

day, maybe like this afternoon, I'm

21:24

going to speak only Chinese or

21:26

listen to only Chinese. No English

21:28

allowed. Yeah, you can also have,

21:30

like I said, the only Chinese

21:33

media day, you know, I'm only

21:35

going to listen to Chinese shows

21:37

or watch only Chinese movies or

21:39

sitcoms on this day. You can

21:41

also decide to explore different hobbies

21:43

that might be related to Chinese.

21:45

Maybe you enjoy writing characters and

21:47

you might get involved in some

21:49

calligraphy or maybe kung-foo or something

21:51

like, or I should say kong-foo,

21:54

right? Yeah, yeah. But I gotta say,

21:56

Jared, for me, the most compelling motivation

21:58

is always like a trip. So, to

22:00

get back into that, the example of

22:02

me going to Italy last year, I

22:05

was never that interested in learning Italian.

22:07

My mom learned Italian when she was

22:09

in college, she studied in Rome, I

22:11

didn't care. I worked with some Italians

22:14

at a company, you know, when I

22:16

used to do Chinese pod, there was

22:18

Italian pod, and I worked with those

22:21

people. And I could have learned Italian

22:23

then, like, pretty well, but I wasn't

22:25

that interested. I was busy. And so

22:27

it wasn't until I had this trip

22:30

coming up to Naples, Italy, that I

22:32

was like, you know, I'm gonna be

22:34

in Italy for almost a week. I'm

22:37

gonna have some good food. Why don't

22:39

I just try to learn some Italian

22:41

and like make the most of this

22:43

trip? And so that really motivated me.

22:46

So I was able to study for

22:48

a good solid month, use duolingo, buy

22:50

some phrase books, use chat. GPT to

22:53

help me learn some Italian and it

22:55

turned out pretty well and it really

22:57

motivated me. Wow, that's really cool. I

22:59

think those are wonderful things, you know,

23:02

having some sort of goals and having

23:04

trips I think are a wonderful thing

23:06

to help you keep motivated. But here's

23:09

the thing, like after the trip and

23:11

I came back to Shanghai. You know,

23:13

I didn't have another trip planned. So

23:15

then is my motivation going to just

23:18

fall off a cliff? Because yeah, I

23:20

did have some... good conversations in Italian,

23:22

but I also had plenty of moments

23:25

that made it very real that my

23:27

Italian was very basic. And I decided

23:29

that I really wanted to take my

23:31

family to Italy, you know, they hadn't

23:34

been to Italy, they still haven't been.

23:36

And we came up with a plan,

23:38

and we're going to go back to

23:41

the US this coming summer by going

23:43

through Europe, and we're going to visit

23:45

Rome. And so knowing that I'm going

23:47

back in a couple months... does definitely

23:50

help me stay motivated. Well that's a

23:52

pretty cool story John. I'm very interested

23:54

to see how this all works out

23:57

for you. All right so I hope

23:59

that some of our list can possibly

24:01

revisit this idea of going to China.

24:03

I know China can be like quite

24:06

an ordeal to just you know

24:08

figure out the whole visa thing and

24:10

it's so far away but if you

24:12

can make it it could really

24:15

help your motivation. Now I will put

24:17

a quick side note in on this

24:19

John is that it was just over

24:21

a year ago Shiji Ping announced

24:24

a program to bring about

24:26

50,000 American students to study

24:28

in China over the next

24:30

five years. And if you are

24:32

involved in high school or university,

24:34

Chinese language programs, you may come

24:36

across opportunities to go to China.

24:38

You might have to buy your

24:41

own plane ticket, but in country

24:43

things are heavily subsidized or even

24:45

fully paid for. So I have

24:47

taken my kids on a trip

24:49

like that last year and there

24:51

are many coming out. So that's

24:53

mainly for US citizens and pretty

24:56

much students but they're out there.

24:58

Those things are happening this year. Nice.

25:00

So there's a whole lot of different ways

25:02

to kind of keep your motivation going

25:04

and hopefully this has been helpful to

25:06

you to you know think about how

25:08

to approach some of your New Year's

25:10

resolutions. But John I think what I

25:12

want to kind of end on and

25:14

refocus on is also revisiting like your

25:16

why like why are you learning what

25:18

is the main reason you're learning Chinese

25:20

because this may change throughout your whole journey.

25:23

It may change throughout the year. Could be

25:25

changed throughout the month. I've known people that,

25:27

you know, they originally started learning Chinese just

25:29

because they thought it was going to be

25:31

like, you know, a good challenge, you know,

25:34

and they were up for a challenge. But

25:36

as they got into it, you know, over

25:38

time they made friends and maybe a new

25:40

world opened up to them. from Chinese.

25:42

And so their motivation, the reason to

25:45

learn turned from being like, oh, this

25:47

is a real interesting, a challenging thing

25:49

to, wow, I really enjoy these people,

25:51

these friendships on, you know, maybe even

25:54

they've met special someone, you know, like

25:56

you John, with Chinese. And so their

25:58

whole reason for learning. and continuing to

26:00

learn changes. And that's okay. That's

26:02

totally fine if your reasons change,

26:04

but it's making sure you understand

26:07

that and understanding why that you're

26:09

learning this language is something that

26:11

will sustain you throughout your language

26:13

learning journey. And you're why changing

26:15

and evolving may even be something

26:17

to strive for. I mean, if

26:19

you end up visiting China and

26:21

you make new friends and that

26:23

propels your motivation to a new

26:25

level, I mean, isn't that even

26:27

better? And I think that we

26:29

can all expect changes and they

26:31

might all be good, but your

26:33

why may not always stay what

26:35

it began as. And just reiterating

26:37

that that is okay. It's okay

26:39

for it to change. But the

26:41

key thing though is that you

26:43

need to continue to have that

26:45

reason. And John, I will say

26:47

that for some people, their why

26:49

kind of goes away. It can't

26:51

happen. You know, okay, I started

26:53

learning, maybe I've got to some...

26:55

you know, level of fluency here,

26:57

but now I don't really have

26:59

a reason that's continuing, that's helping

27:01

me to continue to learn Chinese.

27:03

So if that is you and

27:05

you're kind of falling off, well

27:07

you need to find another reason

27:09

if you want to continue in

27:11

your progress. And you definitely can,

27:13

you just got to explore it

27:15

a bit. So go out there,

27:17

make sure you always understand your

27:19

why, you know, surround yourself with

27:21

inspiration, you can build a community

27:23

around yourself and remember language. is

27:25

a tool for communication. I mean,

27:27

some people may be learning just

27:29

purely for intellectual curiosity, you know,

27:31

for academic reasons, but language is

27:33

a tool. It's out there for

27:35

communicating. So build a community and

27:37

use it to connect. And the

27:39

thing about this though is that

27:41

you can learn this language and

27:43

there are a lot of ways

27:45

to keep yourself going, keep yourself

27:47

motivated, and to make this a

27:49

year. Not just for learning Chinese,

27:51

I think it's too general, right?

27:53

But, you know, make this a

27:55

year a goal for something to

27:58

achieve something with your Chinese, to

28:00

make some... sort of measurable progress

28:02

that you can recognize and realize.

28:04

And make learning Chinese a habit,

28:06

something enjoyable, doesn't have to

28:08

be a crazy amount, but bit

28:11

by bit, it's really becoming something

28:13

real. Make it a habit and make it

28:15

a bigger part of your life. And

28:18

there's a classic Chinese saying, I think

28:20

you probably know what it is, John,

28:22

but it said the journey of a

28:24

thousand miles begins with one step. Oh

28:26

yeah, so that would be. Yes, yes,

28:29

of course. But I had to

28:31

look that up very much, but

28:33

I had to look that up

28:35

because I don't use that

28:37

phrase very much. But it's

28:39

true, right? It's true. Well,

28:42

you don't look it up very

28:44

much, but well, you did

28:46

today. Progress. Your first step,

28:48

John. All right, have a

28:51

great year, everybody. You can

28:53

learn Chinese. You can learn

28:55

Chinese. My name is Jared

28:57

Turner, co-founder of the Mandarin

29:00

companion Graded Reader series. My

29:02

co-host is John Pazden, co-founder

29:04

of Manor Companion, founder of

29:07

Allset Learning, the Chinese grammar,

29:09

Wickeen, Sinospice.com. If you love

29:11

listening to this podcast, please

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subscribe, take a moment. Take

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a moment. Take a moment. Take a

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moment. Share.com. If you love listening to

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this podcast, please subscribe. Take a moment.

29:22

Take a moment. Take a minute. Apologies

29:24

to John Sina. We just ran out

29:27

of time. The You Can Learn Chinese

29:29

podcast is produced by myself, Jared Herner,

29:31

and our editor is Jasper Trot. And

29:33

a special thanks to my co-host, the

29:36

man, the myth, the legend, John Pastin.

29:38

See you next time.