GoGo Lingo Blog

Last week, I went to Washington D.C. for the National Chinese Language Learning Convention.  Unlike the Latin conventions I used to attend in high school (I know how dorky can I get?), the NCLC was an inspiring, eye opening event. Chinese language learning in America is growing like wildfire- from 2004 to 2008 Chinese language learning grew over 10% per year and it is on track to be more popular than German and French. It turns out that the Chinese government has been sending Chinese teachers to America and subsidizing their salaries. Of course, this definitely helps the growth of Chinese but even still we don’t have enough qualified Chinese teachers to keep up with the demand.  I could feel it too.  As I sat through the various sessions of the conference, I couldn’t help but notice that the majority of the attendees were Asian.  In fact, I found myself feeling shocked when I saw a non-Asian there who could speak Chinese.

I realize that perhaps for many of us, there is a psychological barrier to learning Chinese.  It isn’t an alphabetic language and it just feels too foreign.  I’ll admit one of the reasons that I chose to start GoGo Lingo with Spanish instead of Chinese is because deep down I was a little afraid of Chinese.  During the conference, someone was trying to help me practice the 4 tones. After about 20 minutes he goes- “perfect! you got it!” Unfortunately, I didn’t think I was saying anything differently.  I could not even perceive the differences in the tones, so I am sure I couldn’t replicate it. For a perfectionist like me, that’s tough.

But the truth is, that we have got to get over this fear.  China’s position in our world and more importantly, China’s complex and fascinating relationship with the U.S. isn’t going anywhere.  I think about my baby and realize how much more she will be able to accomplish if she can speak Chinese. And what an opportunity I have in my hands to start teaching her now, when she can perceive the different tones and doesn’t know to be afraid of the language. (Actually, some studies suggest that that window for perceiving the sounds may already be closing for Tali.)

Unfortunately, I don’t have the  funding to develop GoGo Lingo Chinese right now. But I am going to start working with Tali to learn Chinese and I will start sharing the resources I find and the experience that we have. So yes, now we will be teaching Tali English, Portuguese, Farsi, Chinese and Spanish. She’ll either love us or hate us when she grows up…I’ll keep you posted.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 30th, 2010 at 11:06 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.