PMI - PMBOK® Guide 8th Ed - Guide - Appendix X4 - Procurement

The best time to start learning Chinese might be behind you, but the second best time is now. If you've been surrounded by Mandarin for years and keep putting off learning the language, this guide is for you. Hello and welcome to the Hacking Chinese Podcast. This week's episode is for all the experts out there who might have been living in a Chinese-speaking environment for a long time, but still haven't learned much of the language. How much Chinese you learn is not determined by where you live, but what you do. If you've lived in China for a long time, but still don't speak the language, this is not because you're lazy or stupid, it just means that you've been doing other things. This is not a problem in and of itself. You might have many other reasons for living in a Chinese-speaking environment that aren't related to learning the language, but it could also be that you think it is a problem that you actually want to learn Chinese, but you don't know how or you've been putting it off for so long that it's hard to get started. And so in this week's episode, we're going to talk about what to do as an expert if you want to start learning Mandarin. As the saying goes, the best time to plant a tree was probably 20 years ago, but the second best time is now. The same is true for learning Chinese, so if you would have started learning Chinese five years ago, you might be fluent by now, but this is not very helpful and we can't really influence what has happened in the past, we can only do something about what's in the present. So the second best time to start learning Chinese is now. Try to not focus on what you have done or haven't done, but focus on what you are doing now and want to do in the future. Unless you invent a time machine, you can't really do much about what you did or didn't do in the past, so it makes little sense to agonize over it too much. Try to look forward instead. I have talked to many experts who have lived in China for years and don't know more than basic phrases and some of words, so I know that this can be difficult, but try not to feel too bad about the situation. If you haven't invested a lot of time and energy into learning Mandarin, you haven't really failed at learning the language you just haven't gotten started yet. It's important to realize that learning Mandarin as a native speaker of English is not easy. Learning a language close to our own, say if a speaker of German moved to my native Sweden, or a native speaker of Spanish moved to Italy, they might absorb the language simply by immersing in it. However, when learning Chinese, which has almost no overlap with English when it comes to vocabulary, you won't learn much just by hearing or seeing the language around you. This is because we learn languages when we are able to make form meaning connections, so essentially when we hear something and we can connect it to what that means, or when we see something written down and we can relate it to the object that it refers to. In other words, we need comprehensible input, not just input. So hearing things that have no meaning to you won't help you learn a language, and likewise, seeing Chinese characters without being able to connect them to any kind of meaning, even if you're surrounded by them every day, will not teach you much. For more about the importance of comprehensible input when learning Mandarin, please check out episode 264. As usual, I will also put links to related or useful articles in the show notes to this episode. The point is that when learning a closely related language, such as if I go to Germany, I can start making sense of things even without studying German. I will understand some things people say, and if I see a sign, I might be able to guess the meaning of some of the words, just relying on my Swedish. This even works in more distant languages sometimes, so if I go to Italy, I can understand some things even though I have never studied Italian. Simply because I know French, but also partly because I know other in the European languages. This understanding is very important because it is a gateway to further learning. By picking some things up, I will gradually learn them, which will in turn enable me to learn even more. One way to look at it is to say that there is a threshold for comprehension, and when you reach that threshold, you can then keep going on your own. You can listen and read more, understand some, and just keep learning. But before you reach that threshold, this is really hard because you don't understand anything of what people say. So as an expat, or if you're considering moving to China, simply being in an environment where people use the language in speaking and writing, will not guarantee that you learn anything. But if you invest some time to get up to that threshold, and that time then is probably a lot longer than if you were learning Spanish or French, you will then keep learning by engaging with the language. So your main goal should be to get started and reach this threshold, because when you do, you will benefit enormously from living in a Chinese-speaking environment. Instead of thinking how awesome your Chinese would have been if you did this five years ago, you should think about how to get started now. This start will probably not be awesome, but what matters is that you get moving and build some momentum. Building habits that involve Chinese in some way is extremely important, and to begin with, it doesn't really matter how much you do of each activity, so the intensity of the activity is not important, but the frequency is. So make sure you do something every day related to learning Chinese, no matter how small it is. Expanding a habit of learning Chinese for five minutes a day to learning 10, 15 or 20 minutes per day is not that hard, but establishing the habit of studying Chinese in the first place is hard, so that's where you should start. Habits are not only about the things that you do, they are also about the things you don't do, or things that you do that prevent you from learning Mandarin. For example, you might go to that shop where you know someone speaks English or you hang out mostly with other expats, or you avoid buying things at the market because you know there is a little chance of using English there. So pick something that you do often, perhaps almost every day, and try to gradually convert this activity into Chinese. In a tea shop you often go to, learn the name of your favorite drink, but wait with all the details such as how much sugar you want if there should be milk and what kind of milk, etc. Just do one thing at a time. If you buy things, select one thing and try to get that done in Chinese. This might sound almost too easy because we're talking about just single words here essentially, but expanding from here will be much easier once you have the habit in place, and that will gradually also allow you to do more in Chinese. If you feel deeply anxious about using Chinese yourself in your daily life with real people, there is nothing wrong with focusing on listening and reading first. Having lived in a Chinese speaking environment for many years might also have taught you more words than you realize, and this will come in handy. While there is a debate to be had about how much you can rely on input alone, so that would be listening and reading, everybody agrees that input is essential. Nobody gets anywhere in a language without lots of listening and reading. As we discussed earlier, listening and reading will be hard before you reach that comprehension threshold and start being able to pick things up on your own, but it will get easier, believe me. The key point here is that you need to invest effort and energy into listening. If it were the case that adults could just live in China and then absorb spoken Mandarin by being immersed in it, you would already be fluent and you presumably wouldn't be listening to this episode. The way to go is graded listening and reading content for beginners, and I have you covered there because there are two giant articles on hacking Chinese, collecting the best free Chinese listening and reading resources, and as usual then I'll put links in the show notes. I also have two articles focusing more on the how to side, one about reading and one about listening for beginners, and again I'll put the links in the show notes. Next I want to encourage you to unplug your ears and unglue your eyes. Even though you might not understand a lot of what's going on around you yet, it is important that you pay attention. So put your earphones away when on public transport and listen to what people say, and unglue your eyes from your phone, see if you can't spot a familiar character around you on billboards or signs. Next up I would like to urge you to not learn Chinese on your own. One of the biggest advantages of living in China is that you have a billion Chinese speakers around you. Not all of them will be interested in helping you of course, but then again you don't need a billion people to help you either, you just need a few. If you have Chinese friends you might have been speaking English with them, but tell them that you've committed to learning Chinese and ask if they are willing to help. At least to begin with this will be very limited, they are probably not teachers and you shouldn't expect them to teach you Chinese, you should just let them know that you have committed to learning the language. See how they react and take it from there, some of them might not care all that much, and some of them might be friendlier or more helpful than you think. As you learn more you can use more Chinese when talking or texting with your friends, and of course it's perfectly fine to switch to English whenever you want. I've written more about this in an article called "You shouldn't walk the road to Chinese fluency alone" and I'll put a link in the show notes. Even if you have a few friends who are willing to occasionally speak Chinese with you, I would still recommend hiring a private tutor for conversation practice. In particular you want to find someone who can speak Chinese to you on your level and make sure you still understand without relying on English. You do not want someone who teaches you Chinese in English and explains Chinese words and grammar to you in English, you just want a conversation on your level in Chinese. And yes in the beginning this will be very limited, but it's awesome how much you can do with limited Chinese if you know what you're doing. And if you have no idea what I'm talking about here, check out my article about the best listening resources and check out the zero beginner recommendations and see what those teachers do. They are for literally people who know no Chinese at all and they can still do it only in Chinese. Finding a good tutor is not easy though and most teachers don't use the approach. that I just mentioned, but for more about how to find a tutor, what to do with a tutor, etc. you can check out a series of articles that I wrote about this. On the podcast, it's episode 254, 255, and 258. Another factor to consider is long-term motivation. If you're still listening, I think you are at least somewhat interested in learning Mandarin right now, but learning a language is not something you do in days, weeks, or even months, so maintaining your motivation long-term can be an issue. You feel motivated right now, but when you realize how far you have to go, you might feel demotivated. This is something I have discussed extensively on the podcast before, so I suggest you check out episode 188 about how to learn Chinese in the long-term with intrinsic motivation. In that episode, we discuss self-determination theory and psychological needs and how you can use those to your advantage. The three psychological needs are autonomy, competence, and relatedness. When it comes to autonomy, you have a lot of that because you're an adult and you've chosen to learn Mandarin. You don't really have a curriculum, you have to follow because somebody else told you to do it, and you do mostly what you want to do. Competence is a harder need to satisfy as a beginner, especially if you feel inadequate in the first place and regret not starting learning Chinese earlier. When you do start speaking or listening and reading, you will feel that your level is too low and that everything is really hard. But try to find things that you can listen to and read and understand and build your competence that way. Competence here is not about how good you are objectively, but how well you're able to perform the tasks that you set for yourself. So you can be very competent reading a graded reader, while picking up a newspaper is still out of reach. The third psychological need is relatedness, so this is about connecting with other people or finding meaning through social interaction, etc. and this is of course at the heart of language learning. This can be with a teacher, it can be with friends, or even other people who learn Chinese. In fact, most experts I've talked to who start learning Chinese after living in China for a while cite this as their main reason. It is to fit in socially and to be able to function in society, and this is of course a form of relatedness. There are other useful takes on motivations such as Zoldan Dernier's L2 Motivational Self System that I talked about in episode 292. And this involves visualizing yourself as a successful learner of Chinese in the future, a kind of ideal Mandarin self, and then comparing that with your current state and then figuring out how to get from one to the other. To do this, you need to be clear about what you want to achieve and then see which steps you need to take to get from where you are now to where you want to be. As I said earlier, when doing this, don't do it on your own, it's great to find role models who have done what you want to do. If you can, avoid picking role models like me who started learning Chinese full-time from day one, or people who moved to China with the only goal of learning Mandarin. You might be able to learn things from these people, including from me, hopefully, but if you can, find people who did start learning Chinese later, and this doesn't need to be people online, it could just be someone you know. Finally, I want to talk about the forking path or how to learn Chinese one small decision at a time. As I said initially in this episode, the only time you can start learning Chinese is now. If you think about it, the past only exists as memories in your brain, and you certainly can't change anything about what's already happened without a time machine. The future hasn't happened yet, so you can't do anything there either, and that only leaves the present. The only time you can start learning Chinese is now. So from now on, when you have a choice, choose something that involves Chinese. Choose to turn off your English podcast and listen to what people say around you instead, and put your phone away so you have a chance to see all the Chinese characters around you. These microchoises might seem insignificant on their own, and perhaps they are, but they will get the board rolling and you will build momentum. Months or years from now, you will be happy that you stopped post-poning learning and got started learning Mandarin.