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

0:07

next level, you came to the

0:10

right place. I am your host,

0:12

Jared Turner, and never trust Adams.

0:14

They make up everything. My co-host

0:16

is John Passon, who's out this

0:18

week, but he told me that

0:20

five out of four people have

0:22

problems with fractions and statistics. In

0:25

this episode, we have a guest

0:27

interview with Joseph Vincent. Let's get

0:29

to it. My name is Joseph Vincent.

0:31

I am a Chinese and Spanish

0:33

teacher at the web schools

0:36

in Claremont, California. I've been

0:38

teaching here for six years,

0:40

and before that, I lived in

0:42

mainland China and Taiwan for

0:44

about five years, and yeah, worked

0:46

in experiential education,

0:48

college study abroad,

0:50

before moving here to

0:53

California to teach. All right,

0:55

Joseph, why did you start learning

0:57

Chinese? Why did I start learning

0:59

Chinese? So... When I was growing up,

1:02

my cousins were living abroad

1:04

in France. Their parents had

1:06

jobs in Paris. And when I

1:08

was in sixth grade, I went

1:10

to visit them. Wow. Because I

1:13

grew up in rural Ohio. I

1:15

didn't hear a lot of other

1:17

languages growing up. So when I

1:19

went to France and I saw my

1:21

cousins... and I heard them speaking like

1:24

perfect French, I got super jealous. I

1:26

was like, wow, that just sounds so

1:28

cool, like, I don't know, it just

1:31

sounded like a like secret language to

1:33

me. And you, I guess, sixth grades,

1:35

who were probably at 11, 12

1:37

at this time? Yeah, 11 or 12. So

1:39

we went to Paris to visit them and

1:42

just hearing them speak French, I

1:44

was like, I want to learn

1:46

another language. And my uncle who

1:48

was living in France at the time,

1:50

he was like, you know, Maybe that's something

1:52

you could check out if you really want

1:54

to learn another language. So, you know, I

1:57

had to wait a couple years, but I did keep

1:59

it in my mind. I was like, I

2:01

want to do that, because I

2:03

was just really so impressed with

2:05

my cousins. Really? So I applied

2:07

to be an exchange student

2:10

in high school through

2:12

Rotary International. I don't

2:14

know if you've heard of them.

2:16

My in-laws are Rotary Members. Oh,

2:18

cool. Yeah. My in-laws are Rotary

2:20

Members. Oh, cool. Yeah. So I

2:23

applied to be an exchange student.

2:25

My neighbors at the time were

2:27

Chinese. Wow. So I was like,

2:29

okay. That sounds awesome. Helped me

2:31

narrow down my options. And so

2:33

I decided to go to Taiwan. And

2:36

I ended up living there for a

2:38

year of high school and learning Chinese.

2:40

Really? What year of high school was

2:42

this? It was my junior year. Okay,

2:45

wow. Yeah. So for anyone not familiar

2:47

with the U.S. educational system, would that

2:49

be 11th grade, right? And so I

2:51

guess you were 16-17 at the time?

2:53

I was 16, yeah. It was in

2:55

2007 that I went. Yeah, it was

2:58

amazing. I went to a Taiwanese high

3:00

school, a public school. I lived with

3:02

a Taiwanese host family who they spoke

3:04

a little bit of English, but not

3:07

much. So I was totally immersed and I

3:09

learned pretty quickly. I'm very curious to

3:11

hear about this because I've talked a

3:13

lot of people their stories and you

3:15

know they're like oh they've studied Chinese

3:17

for years and now they go to

3:19

China the first time and they're like

3:21

oh this is crazy you know I'm

3:23

assuming you had very very basic Chinese

3:26

at the time and now you're going

3:28

to a Taiwanese public high school I'm assuming

3:30

it's all in Chinese was there any English

3:32

I mean tell me about this yeah it

3:34

was all in Chinese what was really nice

3:36

was the teachers were super flexible with

3:38

me because they knew that I didn't

3:40

understand much So most of my...

3:42

Much, much might be generous, right?

3:45

Yeah, yeah, that's true. I understood

3:47

pretty much nothing. So yeah, my

3:49

schedule was basically a lot of

3:51

PE, a lot of drawing classes.

3:53

I went to a couple

3:55

English classes and I would

3:57

help out the teacher a little bit.

3:59

But yeah, it was mostly PE and drawing.

4:02

I assume you learned how to play

4:04

badminton very well. Yeah. Well, I was

4:06

pretty good at baseball. Yeah, I got

4:09

pretty good at sports. But those classes

4:11

were really helpful to me because

4:13

I got to just practice speaking

4:15

a lot. So in my drawing classes,

4:17

a lot of the time was, it was

4:20

free time. So we would just sit there

4:22

and kind of draw and we would chat.

4:24

Those were my Chinese classes, really. I

4:26

mean, they were drawing classes, but

4:28

I just talked. and that's really where

4:30

I learned how to speak Chinese. Wow, tell me

4:33

a little bit more about this process and

4:35

like how long did they kind of take

4:37

you before you felt like hey maybe I

4:39

can start to understand a little bit what's

4:41

going on and yeah maybe you could

4:43

talk about this. Yeah I have a

4:46

memory of my my mom and my

4:48

uncle visited me in Taiwan over Lunar

4:50

New Year which was in February and

4:52

I remember by then I was like

4:54

translating for them I could get around

4:56

pretty well so that would have been

4:59

like six months in. But yeah, I

5:01

guess my learning process with like, so

5:03

Rotary also set us up with language

5:05

classes. Gotcha. And then my, my host

5:07

family was also very generous, like spending

5:09

a lot of time with me practicing

5:12

and helping me to understand

5:14

things. My classmates were amazing.

5:17

I mean, just looking back,

5:19

because I also had my,

5:21

like, my homeroom class. And. They

5:23

helped me so much, like if I

5:25

was reading like a little children's book

5:27

and I didn't understand a word, like

5:29

they would always help me and they

5:31

really made me part of the class, it

5:34

was really cool. So Taiwan is just such

5:36

a friendly place and so there were a

5:38

lot of really kind people who came together

5:40

to help me out. Imagine also during

5:42

this period, there were probably struggles

5:44

and you know, and trying to

5:47

communicate what you need. And I

5:49

mean, were there some times where you felt like

5:51

maybe it was just... overwhelming or maybe too much

5:53

or you thought about you know I want to

5:55

go home or anything like that. There were definitely

5:57

times that I wanted to go home I would

5:59

say the second half of the year I loved

6:01

it. The first couple of months were really

6:03

hard. I had a, at the time it

6:06

was like, I forget even what it was,

6:08

the blog, it was like Zanga or like

6:10

live journal or something where I was blogging

6:12

about my experience. And at a

6:14

certain point I was kind of complaining

6:17

a lot because, well I wasn't put

6:19

into the art classes until a

6:21

couple months in. Oh, okay. Before that

6:23

I had a totally pretty much

6:25

normal, like I just followed my

6:28

class. Yeah. So it was like

6:30

math, Chinese literature, really tough stuff.

6:32

And at my school, we

6:34

went from, it was called

6:36

Jingwen Gaojiang, Jingwen High School

6:39

in Mujah, Taipei. And so I

6:41

believe the schedule was something like, I

6:43

took my bus at like six or

6:45

seven, we got there at 7, 30,

6:48

or eight. And then we stayed at

6:50

the school until, I think, eight or

6:52

nine at night. Oh, wow. So it

6:54

was really long. Because after class, everybody

6:57

stayed together for the Bushiban, like the

6:59

Kram School. Yeah. The Kram School was

7:01

held at my school. Oh man. So

7:03

it was pretty brutal for me. Like

7:06

I just waking up so early and

7:08

then not understanding things. There was a

7:10

tough situation. And that was the first

7:12

year that my school had ever had

7:15

like a non-Chinese speaking student. before so

7:17

I just think that there was a

7:19

like everybody came together in the

7:21

end and I'm incredibly grateful to all of

7:23

my teachers who helped me but at the

7:25

beginning at what you know there was a

7:27

steep learning curve for sure for everyone. They

7:30

were sort of trying to figure out how

7:32

do we help you how do we make

7:34

this work right? Yeah so what got you

7:36

through some of those really difficult times?

7:38

I would say Taiwan just has so much

7:41

beauty like when I was stressed I would

7:43

go like for hikes in the mountains. I

7:45

got really into hot springs when

7:47

I was in Taiwan, so I

7:49

would go like most weekends

7:51

up to this neighborhood called

7:53

Shinbeito in Taipei. Yeah,

7:55

it's one of my favorite places

7:58

in the world. And then... Yeah,

8:00

I would say hiking, hot springs,

8:02

just exploring Taiwan. That's kind of

8:04

what got me through, because it's

8:06

an amazing place. I don't think

8:09

it's on a lot of people's

8:11

travel radar, or at least in

8:13

my friend circle. It's not on

8:15

a lot of people's travel radar,

8:17

or at least in my friend

8:20

circle. It's not on a lot

8:22

of people's bucket list, but for

8:24

me, it's just really bucket list,

8:26

but for me, it's just really,

8:29

I can do this. You know,

8:31

this is a very random story,

8:33

but I remember one of my

8:35

classmates saying to me, well, may you,

8:37

well, may you, like I asked

8:39

her if she had something, I forget,

8:41

maybe it was like, do you

8:44

have a computer or something? And

8:46

then she said, well, may you,

8:48

like, my sister has it. And

8:51

I actually understood that she was

8:53

saying that her sister had it rather than,

8:55

well, may, you know. Yeah, she just said may,

8:57

like it's a may, may, may, no. Yeah, yeah.

9:00

Okay, I see. So that was a moment where

9:02

I was like, oh, like for so long

9:04

I didn't take tone seriously or I

9:06

didn't, I didn't really care about them.

9:08

And at that moment I realized, oh, wow,

9:10

like if she had said this a

9:12

different way, it would have meant something

9:15

very different. And I was proud to

9:17

have kind of understood that distinction. Wow,

9:19

well you got me there because it's

9:21

mayo or mayo, right? Well, may, well,

9:23

mayo, yeah. So I don't know, that

9:26

is such a random memory, but it

9:28

stuck with me of like the moment

9:30

that I kind of realized the importance

9:32

of tones. So I think for

9:34

a long time I was like,

9:37

oh, they're just being difficult. Like,

9:39

tones won't actually matter, but they

9:41

do. Yeah, they really do. The

9:43

difference between you don't have or

9:45

your sister has. Big difference. That's

9:47

really cool. So after this study

9:49

abroad, you came home after a

9:52

year? I came home after a year.

9:54

Yeah, I was there from August

9:56

until July. Went back for a

9:58

year. I finished high school. And

10:00

then I took a year off

10:02

before college. I got accepted into

10:04

college and then I took a

10:07

gap year. On the year off, part

10:09

of my time was I got hired

10:11

to teach English at a summer camp

10:13

in Taiwan. So that was really cool

10:15

to go back. Now were you looking

10:17

for an opportunity to go back or

10:20

just find you? I mean, what happened

10:22

here? I was applying. When I went

10:24

back to Ohio, I wanted to keep

10:26

up with my Chinese. So I found

10:28

a local university, Kent State. I'm from

10:30

New York, Kent State, and Northeast Ohio.

10:33

And there's like a big cohort

10:35

of Taiwanese students there. And so

10:37

my friend who was an exchange student,

10:39

who was now studying at Kent, told

10:41

me about... her friend who is from

10:43

Taiwan and how she had a lot

10:45

of Taiwanese friends. So that kind of

10:47

became like my friend group. I went up

10:50

all the time and hung out with them

10:52

and you know kept practicing my Chinese

10:54

and everything. And then they told me

10:57

about this program called World Passport to

10:59

teach English and Taiwan. So that was

11:01

my second time going to Taiwan and

11:03

it was really fun to go back

11:06

like making a little money so that

11:08

I could be a little more free and

11:10

kind of, you know, just enjoy. traveling and

11:12

not having to go to school every day.

11:14

Yeah. No, that's pretty neat. But what was it

11:16

then that kind of drew you back? I

11:19

mean, obviously your path ultimately did take

11:21

you back to China for a longer period

11:23

of time, but at this stage, I mean,

11:25

I know there might been some people that

11:27

went through, you know, this exchange program and

11:29

yeah, you learned some Chinese, but maybe that

11:31

was enough, right? What brought you back and

11:33

decided, hey, I want to go back and

11:36

I want to do this? I think it

11:38

was the warmth of the people and also

11:40

just like the beauty of the place like

11:42

I was saying earlier like so I grew

11:44

up in Northeast Ohio it's very flat.

11:46

I grew up in Illinois I know

11:48

what you mean. So for me like

11:50

I remember the first time that I

11:52

went to Toronto Gorge which is it's

11:54

an eastern Taiwan Thai luco. It's called

11:56

in Chinese. Yeah so it's this national

11:59

park like near the coast of eastern

12:01

Taiwan and it's just gorgeous. It's

12:03

like these beautiful marble caves everywhere

12:05

and like these this amazing gorge

12:08

with this river running through it that's

12:10

like blue water and I had never

12:12

seen anything like that before and it

12:14

just kind of blew my mind and then

12:16

my mind was already blown just by

12:19

the scenery and then all of a sudden

12:21

I'm like my friend takes me to this,

12:23

we're on this hike and then we're hiking

12:25

down into this river and there's this

12:27

cave with hot spring water like

12:30

dripping down the mountain. Wow. And

12:32

there's all these like nuns from

12:34

a Buddhist monastery sitting in this

12:36

hot spring like hanging out and

12:38

like laughing and to me it just

12:40

felt like another world that I had

12:42

never like imagined places like that

12:44

really existed like outside of the

12:46

movies. I think experiences

12:49

like that just being really like having

12:51

this sense of awe so many times

12:53

like when I you know everywhere that

12:55

I traveled in Taiwan and then Yeah,

12:57

just the hospitality of the people. So

12:59

much of this has to do with

13:01

my kind of, my background is like,

13:03

you know, I don't look like I'm

13:05

from Taiwan and so... No, you don't.

13:07

And so, you know, people are, they

13:09

want to show you their home. I

13:11

think that there's this sense in Taiwan,

13:13

like, oh, not many people know about

13:15

Taiwan, so we want to show them, like,

13:18

how proud we are of where we're from.

13:20

I remember one time I was at a

13:22

night market, I was at a night market,

13:24

This lady came up to me and she

13:26

was like hey like you seem like a

13:28

nice person and you're good at Chinese like

13:30

We're going on a trip this weekend

13:32

to the mountains. Do you want to

13:34

come like and her kids were there

13:36

really? It was just like so random,

13:39

but then we ended up like getting

13:41

there. I actually did. Yeah, so she was

13:43

like how about you teach my kids English

13:45

for an hour and then we'll like you

13:47

can get to know them and then we'll

13:49

and then we'll go on this trip and

13:51

I just had Yeah, just so many experiences

13:53

like that where people were so warm and

13:56

so kind and I really enjoyed it. So

13:58

yeah, it showed me just the goodness

14:00

of people, like when people are

14:02

so open to strangers and being

14:04

kind to them and sharing their values

14:07

and their culture with them, it

14:09

was really special. Wow, that's really neat.

14:11

That's a fun story as well. Of

14:13

course, she did want to see her

14:15

kids English, you know, that's pretty normal

14:17

though, right? Yeah, well, I think, yeah,

14:20

I don't, anyway, yeah, she was very

14:22

sweet, her family was very sweet. That's

14:24

a neat story, that's really neat. I'm

14:26

also interested to know. Like what did

14:28

your family think about this? Obviously when

14:30

you were in high school to do

14:32

that study abroad you needed your parents

14:35

support and everything to make that happen

14:37

but how do they feel about all

14:39

this? Yeah my parents were very supportive.

14:41

I remember at first when my uncle

14:43

who was living in France told me

14:45

the possibility of studying abroad I was

14:47

really excited and I told my parents

14:49

and they were like absolutely not like

14:51

that there's no way that's happening. But

14:54

then you know I waited like two

14:56

or three more years and then I

14:58

just I had never forgot. And I

15:00

just kept every year. I was like,

15:02

okay, only two more years, only one

15:04

more year. Okay, I'm going to apply

15:06

next year. And I finally did

15:08

it. And when I did, I

15:10

think that they, yeah, they were

15:12

very supportive. It was interesting because

15:15

at the time, one of my dad's

15:17

friends kind of had to sit down

15:19

with him and he was like, I

15:21

can't believe you're letting your son do

15:24

this. This seems so dangerous. Yeah. found,

15:26

or I don't know, I'm just grateful

15:28

that my parents were open because

15:30

I grew up in a pretty more

15:33

like rural slash suburban area. Yeah, yeah.

15:35

A lot of people hadn't really like

15:37

traveled a lot so they didn't know

15:40

about things like experiences like that. So

15:42

I'm really grateful that my parents were,

15:44

yeah, they were just open and supportive

15:47

and I'm very grateful for that.

15:49

That's great. I find that oftentimes

15:51

that perception still exists.

15:53

I went on a trip this last

15:55

year with a bunch of kids to

15:58

China, my boys were with me. And

16:00

there were a lot of parents who were

16:02

concerned. Is it safe? And I'm like, it's

16:04

very safe. So you're probably going to

16:07

be much safer than we would be

16:09

if we're in the States, frankly. Oh,

16:11

totally. Yeah, I mean, I remember being

16:13

in Taipei, like you could walk around

16:15

at any time of night and almost

16:17

any neighborhood and you feel pretty safe.

16:19

I mean, I'm sure that there's like

16:22

one or two exceptions, but. Yeah,

16:24

not many. Yeah, not many. I mean,

16:26

I tell you, I could be have

16:28

like, you know, money falling out of

16:30

my pocket walking down the darkest alley,

16:32

you know, with dudes hanging around and

16:34

I'm fine. Yeah, totally. So. Well, what

16:36

came next for you because it sounds

16:38

like you made some sort of turn

16:41

where it's kind of like, hey, Chinese

16:43

is important to me. And I'm also

16:45

curious to know how other languages fit

16:47

into this, because I know you speak

16:49

Spanish. And you learn French as

16:51

well. So it looks like there's

16:53

something lingering for there from your

16:55

experience and going to France and visiting

16:58

your cousins. So how did this all

17:00

come together for you? Yeah, so in

17:02

middle school and high school, I took French.

17:04

I took up to AP French in

17:06

high school. Oh. Yeah, got a

17:08

five. My private accomplishment. Congratulations. That's

17:10

pretty serious. That's solved though. Yeah,

17:13

I really enjoyed learning languages.

17:15

I'll date myself here, but my

17:17

first AIM. AOL instant messenger name

17:19

was Linguistical Joe. Because I kind

17:21

of identified as a language geek

17:23

even starting learning French in 8th

17:25

grade. I got really into it.

17:27

Gotcha. I'm guessing that's now your

17:29

discord and read it in a

17:31

username. We won't disclose it on

17:33

the podcast though, keep going. Yeah, I

17:36

studied French through high school and then,

17:38

yeah, I went to Taiwan and learned

17:40

Chinese, my junior year. I got accepted

17:42

into college and I took a gap

17:44

year. My goal for that year was

17:46

I wanted to like make it

17:48

a year about languages. And so

17:50

I did this program called Woof.

17:53

W-O-O-O-F worldwide organization of

17:55

organic farming. Oh, interesting.

17:57

Tell me about this.

17:59

Yeah, I was in Quebec Canada,

18:01

because I didn't have a lot

18:03

of money. I noticed you said

18:06

it the proper way, Quebec. This man

18:08

speaks French. Yeah, so I took

18:10

a flight up to Montreal and

18:12

then I took a bus to

18:14

this little town called Sherbrooke. Anyway,

18:16

I was working on this farm

18:18

and it was outside of this

18:20

town called Sherbrooke. Woof is a

18:23

really cool organization. It's a

18:25

way to... You volunteer at a

18:27

farm in exchange for lodging and

18:29

food. So for an 18-year-old with no

18:31

money, I had enough money to buy the

18:33

plane ticket, but not much else. Cheap

18:36

labor program, but yeah. Yeah, so. But

18:38

you got an experience out of this.

18:40

What do you think you learned or

18:42

what was kind of that experience

18:44

like for you? Oh my gosh, I loved it.

18:46

You know, I thought about doing it again

18:48

in my old age, but now I think

18:51

I might rather just pay for... a room

18:53

rather than work for, I don't know, maybe

18:55

one day I'll go back, but I really

18:57

enjoyed it. It was a really cool

18:59

way to kind of get off the

19:01

beaten path and not just do the

19:03

touristy things in Quebec and be

19:05

able to like really, like I

19:07

worked on three different farms.

19:09

They stayed with each family for

19:12

like two-ish weeks, two to three

19:14

weeks, so I spent like two or

19:16

so months, and it was really cool.

19:18

Yeah, I learned how to plant onions.

19:20

I did a lot of weeding, I

19:22

helped babysit, the kids when the farmers

19:24

were out working, like the parents were

19:26

out working, all of it was great

19:29

because I specifically found farms where

19:31

they said like French only at the

19:33

bottom. Oh yeah, yeah. So that was

19:35

really cool because after taking it in

19:38

high school, like I had never really

19:40

had experience of using French, so it

19:42

was great to just be immersed and

19:44

they said like, yeah, we don't do

19:46

English here, so we're gonna speak French

19:48

and so. It was really good for

19:51

language learning and yeah, it's really

19:53

cool. Wow. Where did Spanish come

19:55

into the mix? So my first summer

19:57

of my year off I was in

19:59

Quebec. with the farming program.

20:02

The second summer I was

20:04

in Taiwan teaching English and then

20:06

the time in between I did

20:08

a Spanish immersion program in Mexico.

20:10

Wow. So I lived with a

20:12

Mexican host family and I went

20:15

to university classes to learn Spanish.

20:17

Wow. So I think after learning

20:19

Chinese I kind of. caught the

20:21

language and the travel bug. It

20:23

sounds like it. Yeah, so maybe

20:26

at some points to almost like

20:28

an unhealthy extent, but it's been

20:30

a fun journey for sure. I

20:32

have one other question about your experience

20:34

there on your study abroad when you're

20:37

in high school in Taiwan. How did

20:39

you learn characters through all of this?

20:41

I mean, I can totally get, you

20:43

know, speaking, and I also know that a

20:45

lot... They used the Bobo Mofo and they have

20:47

the jooing which is a little bit from the

20:50

opinion right? How did you approach characters and did

20:52

you learn much during there? Maybe you could talk

20:54

about that. I was able to get to the

20:56

point where I could read most of what I

20:58

could say I think by the end of the

21:00

year. Wow. This was 2007 and what was really

21:02

popular at the time

21:05

was

21:08

the

21:11

dienzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

21:14

Palm pilot thing, right? I was going

21:16

to say Palm Pilot. Yeah, I couldn't

21:18

think of the word like a Palm

21:20

Pilot. That's a dictionary for all you

21:22

Gen Alpha whoever you don't know that

21:24

those were like the predecessors to smartphones.

21:26

It was kind of like a smartphone,

21:28

but not no phone in it. So

21:30

I bought one of those a couple

21:32

like that was a big deal for

21:34

me because Before that I had to,

21:37

I just remember sitting in my high school

21:39

library when I was trying to, like my

21:41

teachers would give me like their old children's

21:43

books that their kids read. Which actually,

21:45

side note, I mean, children's books can

21:48

be really hard to read because they

21:50

have a lot of really random vocabulary

21:52

that's not that helpful. But at the

21:54

time, that's all I had to work

21:56

with was like these children's books that

21:58

had, sometimes on the side. they would

22:00

have the Bapamofo, like the

22:02

joo-in, the phonetic spelling in, yeah,

22:05

that's used in Taiwan. So I

22:07

would either look, if I had a

22:09

book that had that, that was

22:11

great, because then I could look

22:13

up the word in the dictionary,

22:15

a paper dictionary, using the phonetic

22:17

spelling. If they didn't have that,

22:19

then I would go in and

22:21

I would look at how many

22:23

strokes each character had, and I

22:25

would figure out what the word was.

22:27

Or if I had somebody, like the librarian

22:30

was very good to me and she,

22:32

I mean, I felt bad because I

22:34

think every like three minutes I was

22:36

going up and asking her a new

22:38

word. Just a shamah? Yeah, just all

22:40

the time. But I mean, that saved

22:42

me a ton of time because otherwise

22:44

each word took me like three minutes

22:46

to read. I mean to be able

22:48

to find, like if you didn't know

22:50

a word, it took a long

22:52

time. So it was definitely

22:54

like getting that electronic dictionary.

22:56

It's a big deal in my life. So

22:59

I'm guessing that that was really something

23:01

that really helped you get your characters

23:03

down. It did, it did. So, but at that

23:05

time, I mean, I feel like the only resources

23:08

that I had to really read were

23:10

children's books. That's what everybody told me

23:12

to do. But then I found that

23:14

those were actually quite hard. And

23:16

then there was this thing called

23:19

in Taiwan called like Apple Daily

23:21

News Pingu jirbao. It's like a

23:24

children's newspaper. And that was actually...

23:26

Sometimes easier than the children's books

23:28

because it's telling like real life

23:31

stories So it just felt more

23:33

like words that were more important

23:36

than like children's books that are

23:38

like more fantastical Yeah, where there's

23:40

a lot of more natural Yeah,

23:43

yeah, so interesting anyway Well,

23:45

why did you decide to get into

23:47

teaching? And it sounds like I know

23:49

you've worked at some other jobs and

23:51

doing experiential study abroad trips and things

23:53

like that. What made that shift for

23:56

you saying, hey, I want to teach

23:58

this language? So in undergrad. I

24:00

went to college in Portland, Oregon at

24:02

Reed College, and I was a Chinese

24:04

literature major, which I decided my junior year.

24:06

I actually didn't want to major in Chinese

24:09

at first. I felt like I had kind

24:11

of been there, done that, and I wanted

24:13

to try something new, but then I ended

24:15

up really loving the classes. And I

24:17

really enjoyed learning about Chinese philosophy,

24:20

Chinese literature. I remember my freshman year

24:22

of college, I took a class where

24:24

we read Huangz. who is a philosopher that

24:27

I still really love and I like

24:29

go back to you know his stuff. So

24:31

that kind of started me out

24:33

like yeah that's kind of where

24:35

I found out that oh with

24:37

Chinese there's more than just language

24:40

there's also like this whole like

24:42

thousands of years of literature and

24:44

thought and philosophy. So I got into

24:46

that and that's when I

24:48

started pursuing Chinese in a more

24:51

like academic way. I did

24:53

my master's in Chinese literature in

24:55

Taiwan right after college, so I

24:57

moved to Taiwan after college and

24:59

lived there for a couple

25:02

years. I thought I was going to

25:04

do a doctorate in Chinese, but

25:06

then I started working and

25:08

study abroad and I realized

25:10

just how much I liked

25:12

working with high school students.

25:15

I got a little tired of

25:17

like being cooped up in a

25:19

library, like reading old stuff. like

25:21

Ming dynasty and Qing dynasty

25:24

literature and I I wanted

25:26

to like have more contact with

25:28

the world I would say living

25:30

people with living to put it

25:32

briefly living people yeah I started

25:35

teaching when I was working in

25:37

the study abroad company and took

25:39

my first teaching job six years

25:41

ago now and I I really

25:43

enjoy it I really enjoy you know,

25:45

seeing my students learn Chinese and then be

25:47

able to like use it in their daily

25:49

life. Where I teach in California, there's a

25:51

lot of like a lot of students at

25:54

my school speak Chinese at home, but they

25:56

don't know how to read. So it's really cool for

25:58

me to see them over the years. like grow

26:00

as readers and be able to

26:02

read the words that they're able

26:04

to say and that they've been

26:06

able to say for a long time. That

26:08

makes sense. From your perspective, you

26:11

know, Joseph, you speak a

26:13

number of languages and you're teaching

26:15

Spanish and Chinese right now, why

26:17

do you think it's important for

26:20

people to learn languages?

26:22

Yeah. Well, I think it's important. Yeah,

26:24

I hope it's important because I've spent

26:26

so much. By his opinion, maybe. No,

26:28

I've spent so much of my life

26:30

doing it. I have to believe it's

26:32

important or else what have I been doing.

26:34

But I think for me, you know,

26:36

it's about connections and relationships. I think that

26:38

there's something to be said for people who

26:41

put in the time to learn a different

26:43

way of like seeing the world and thinking

26:45

about the world. To me, that's often what

26:47

a language is. It's like a way

26:49

of... talking about the world, like there's

26:51

so many expressions in each language

26:54

that kind of hold a worldview. And

26:56

to me, when you learn them, you kind of

26:58

gain an access a little bit to that way

27:00

of seeing the world or thinking about the world.

27:02

And I think that when people see that

27:04

you've put in the time to learn about

27:06

like a different way of thinking or

27:09

seeing the world, they appreciate that and

27:11

it creates an opening for like building

27:13

a relationship and getting to know someone.

27:15

Well, there are a lot of languages

27:17

out there someone could choose to learn.

27:19

Why do you think it's in learning

27:22

Chinese is important? I think

27:24

China is, I mean, kind of like

27:26

I talked about earlier, Taiwan is a

27:28

beautiful place, China is a beautiful place.

27:30

For me, learning Chinese has taken

27:32

me so many places. I just

27:34

feel like there's so much diversity in

27:37

the Chinese speaking world. Like, I speak

27:39

Chinese all the time where I live

27:41

in LA. There's tons of Chinese

27:43

speakers here. I've met a lot of

27:46

friends, like through speaking Chinese, like

27:48

people that I wouldn't have really

27:50

necessarily talked too much otherwise or

27:52

gotten to know. We had that

27:54

connection from speaking that same language.

27:57

I had spent five years in Taiwan

27:59

before I ever went to mainland

28:01

China for the first time. And

28:03

so my first time going to

28:05

mainland China is when I realized

28:08

like, oh wow, Chinese is really

28:10

cool because it can open up

28:12

this whole almost continent of a

28:14

country of things that you can

28:17

see. Yeah, just going, yeah, like

28:19

in the far western China, like

28:21

in Unan and Sichuan province,

28:24

where it's just so different

28:26

from what I knew in Taipei. But

28:28

yet the same language can still

28:30

be used to communicate. I think that

28:32

was really cool to me, just like

28:34

the sheer vastness of like space, the

28:36

places that you can go and use

28:39

Chinese to get around. Yeah, I'll even

28:41

add to that. I find that anywhere

28:43

you go, you're typically going to find

28:45

Chinese restaurants run by Chinese people in

28:47

almost every country. It is true. Yeah,

28:49

I mean, when I was living in

28:52

Mexico, there was a Chinese restaurant near

28:54

where I lived and I became really

28:56

good friends with them. Really, I feel like

28:58

you can use Chinese in a way

29:00

that I don't think can be said

29:02

about many other languages. Yeah, I was

29:05

in Mexico over this Christmas break and

29:07

went to some boa tea shop and

29:09

lo and behold, run by Chinese. Yeah.

29:11

So yeah, I remember a couple years

29:13

ago I was in Indonesia, which I

29:15

guess is pretty, it's not that far

29:17

from China, but just talking to people

29:20

in Chinese there. It's also like a

29:22

way to make friends and wherever you

29:24

go, really, kind of like you said.

29:26

Yeah. Joseph, I want to tap

29:28

into some of your experience

29:30

and perspective as a teacher,

29:32

as a learner. What are

29:34

some less effective and more

29:37

effective ways to learn Chinese or

29:39

even a language in general?

29:41

I think a key that comes up

29:43

for me over and over as a

29:46

language teacher is you want to stick

29:48

to the basics and you want

29:50

to stick to the high

29:52

frequency words before you move

29:54

on to the really fancy

29:56

grammar and the fancy

29:59

words. So I feel like there's kind

30:01

of like this gamification that can

30:03

happen of language learning, which is

30:05

great, like I love games, but like

30:08

I have students where they're like, I

30:10

learn, I know this many words, that

30:12

is great, but I think that high

30:14

frequency words are like 20 times more important

30:16

than any other. And just really

30:19

being able to use those

30:21

words confidently and understand like

30:23

the basic structures before you're

30:25

just like off memorizing really

30:27

complex stuff. The thing that I see

30:29

time and time again. I usually define

30:31

those as like knowledge versus proficiency. You

30:34

know this characters or this many words?

30:36

Okay, can you actually use them? Are

30:38

you proficient in them? Right. And that's

30:40

usually often a little different. Yeah, and

30:42

using words in context. So, you know,

30:44

what is this word often used with?

30:46

I think it's helpful to teach students

30:48

like short phrases rather than just one-off

30:51

vocabulary words. Because a lot of times

30:53

you can't use the word in the same

30:55

way that you would in English. Yeah, that's

30:57

a very good point. I would say that's

30:59

my biggest thing is like, I don't want

31:02

to say review the basics because the review

31:04

means that you've already mastered it, but like

31:06

really master the basics. Like in my Spanish

31:08

class, we do this thing, I teach Spanish

31:11

one, we do the same exercises almost all

31:13

year and students, I think it

31:15

is helpful to just keep practicing

31:17

the basics because if you don't

31:20

get it in, I would say hundreds

31:22

of times, you're going to forget it.

31:24

And I think people underestimate how many

31:26

times you have to repeat a

31:28

word to be able to really know

31:30

it. Yeah. And not forget it. Some

31:32

of the research I've seen is

31:34

that, you know, they say 10

31:37

to 20 times before a word

31:39

is learned, quote unquote learned, but

31:41

that doesn't account for all the

31:43

different, you know, word pairs, contextual

31:45

uses, and that can take hundreds

31:47

and thousands and then thousands, you know,

31:49

depending on the word and the

31:51

situations, which. Sounds about right to

31:53

me. Yeah, even students who, like,

31:55

if, well, for instance, I mean,

31:57

I guess I'll plug Mandarin companion,

31:59

but... Hey, hey, hey. You know, the breakthrough readers, I have

32:01

a lot of students who say, like, Mr. Vincent, I know every

32:03

single word in this book, but I don't know what this

32:05

sentence means. And to me, that's really kind of exciting, because

32:08

that means, like, you're almost there, and, like, it's gonna be

32:10

so awesome, like, once it finally clicks. Yeah, I know exactly what

32:12

you're talking about. I've worked with readers, you know, learners on that

32:14

too, like, like, like, I don't know, I don't know what I don't

32:16

know what it, I don't know what it, I don't know

32:18

what it, I don't know what it says, I don't know

32:20

what it says, I don't know what it says, but I

32:22

don't know what it says, I don't know what it says,

32:24

I don't know what it says, I don't know what it

32:27

says, I don't know what it says, I don't know what

32:29

it says, I don Yeah, right. You keep going. It'll start

32:31

clicking, I promise. For sure, yeah. Like you've got the tough

32:33

part down learning the characters now, just learn the nuances of

32:35

how it's used in context. Well,

32:37

that's really cool. What are some

32:39

more effective ways that you've seen

32:42

people learn language? And maybe that's,

32:44

you know, can even border between

32:46

stuff that you might be happening

32:48

in a classroom and maybe even

32:50

things that students are doing on

32:53

their own, barring. full immersion in

32:55

the language because we know that can

32:57

be pretty effective. Yeah, I think

32:59

reading things that you can read without

33:01

having to decode. What I often did

33:04

when I was learning Chinese was I

33:06

would like sit down with like a

33:08

newspaper or something and I would try

33:10

to decode every single word and then

33:13

like translate it and I thought that

33:15

that was just going to do wonders

33:17

for my Chinese, but I think that

33:20

it's actually way more effective to just

33:22

read things that are pleasurable. where you

33:24

can understand the story. So again, back

33:27

to Manor and companion, like if I

33:29

have students who can read every character

33:31

in the book, to me that's great,

33:33

because then they'll just keep solidifying

33:36

their foundation and the structures

33:38

will become more natural to them because

33:40

they've seen it more times. So then

33:42

they won't have to memorize a structure, it

33:44

just comes in naturally. I agree with that.

33:47

I mean, of course. It's a little

33:49

on the bias side towards reading, but

33:51

reminds me of this quote from an

33:53

educator from Oxford named Christine Natal. And she

33:55

said, the best way to learn a language is

33:57

to live among the speakers. The next best

33:59

way is to... extensively in the

34:01

language, which is, you know, reading

34:03

at a high level of comprehension. That's

34:06

great. Yeah. I also, I've used

34:08

I-talkie a lot. I really enjoy I-talkie.

34:10

I think it's, I mean, but

34:12

I guess that's kind of part of

34:14

the immersion thing. I mean, I

34:16

guess that's kind of part of the

34:19

immersion thing. Well, I mean, I

34:21

talkie for anyone that's not familiar,

34:23

it's great. I mean, I think at the

34:25

end of the end of the day,

34:27

you know, you know, classes can be

34:30

good. they can also not be as

34:32

good right? But you know typically though

34:34

if having some one-on-one instruction can be

34:36

very effective right? Yeah and I would

34:38

say my last thing is like finding

34:40

a podcast that if you can find

34:42

one that's like at your level that you

34:44

can just where you can just listen

34:46

to it for hours and just without

34:48

it feeling like work that's like the

34:51

gold yeah the gold prize if you

34:53

if you can find that which you

34:55

have to have a certain level for that's

34:57

a great way to really get a

34:59

lot of input and improve quickly.

35:01

Oh, that's great. That's great. Well,

35:03

Joseph, if you could go back

35:05

and change anything or do anything

35:07

differently in your Chinese learning journey,

35:10

what would it be and why? I

35:12

don't know that there's much that I

35:14

would do differently, but I do know

35:16

that if I were learning Chinese now,

35:18

rather than in 2007, it would definitely

35:20

be a lot more efficient. Kind of

35:22

like what I was talking about earlier

35:24

where I would spend like three minutes

35:26

or... more like looking up one

35:29

character just to think that now I

35:31

mean you can just so quickly look

35:33

things up on Plego or you know

35:35

you can just scan the word and

35:37

it immediately comes up optical reader yeah

35:39

optical reader I mean things like that

35:42

are just so helpful so I

35:44

would just say learning Chinese now is

35:46

easier than it's ever been and that's

35:48

like pretty exciting like you can learn

35:50

so much faster than people have ever

35:53

which is really cool. I mean and the

35:55

thing in 2007 it was like at least

35:57

I had my electronic dictionary so that was

35:59

I was still way easier than like, you

36:02

know, 100 years ago when there were just

36:04

very limited resources. So I

36:06

would say it's just getting easier and easier

36:08

and like jump in because you have

36:10

a lot of support. Well, Joseph, thanks

36:13

so much for taking the time

36:15

to, you know, share your story,

36:17

your perspective. This has been a

36:19

great conversation. Thank you. Yeah, it's

36:21

been a pleasure. You have been

36:24

listening to the You Can Learn

36:26

Chinese podcast. My name is Jared

36:28

Turner, co-founder of the Mandarin companion,

36:30

graded reader series. My co-host is

36:32

John Pass and co-founder of Mandarin

36:35

companion founder of all set learning

36:37

the Chinese grammar wiki and Sino

36:39

Splice.com. If you enjoy this, take

36:41

a episode, subscribe.com. If you enjoy

36:43

this episode, subscribe. Take a moment

36:45

to share.com. If you enjoy this

36:47

episode, subscribe. Subscribe.com. Thanks to John

36:50

Sina, we just ran out of

36:52

time. The You Can Learn Chinese

36:54

podcast is produced by myself, Jared

36:56

Turner, and our editor is Jasper

36:58

Trotte. A special thanks to our

37:00

guest, Joseph Finson. And of course,

37:02

thanks to my co-host, Amanda with

37:04

the legend, John Paston. See you next

37:06

time.