“Language is the center of everything I do.” -David Moser. David’s Twitter bio says that he is a Sinologist, Linguist, Jazz Pianist and Author of "A Billion Voices: China's Search for a Common Language" but what it does not say (most likely due to understandable platform space constraints) is the thread of curiosity that permeates everything he does.
That curiosity is infectious and one of the reasons why we are pleased to say that he has agreed to become a repeat guest on the Changing Scripts part of the Geopats Podcast. We need time and space to dig into the linguistic, psychological and motivational topics that we started to cover in this conversation and we are super pleased that he is willing and able to do so.
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In this episode I am pleased to welcome Cameron, Host of the Mandarin By Mistake podcast. Cam is an Australian man learning Mandarin Chinese for business purposes. Cam and I had this conversation a few weeks ago and the video is already available on the Changing Scripts YouTube channel: -YouTube version of this interview on the Changing Scripts YouTube Channel, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOiOPtkD1vM&t=1193s but I also wanted to add it to the Geopats Podcast Changing Scripts show as well, thus this replay of sorts. I have talked about him and his podcast on Changing Scripts before because his approach to language learning and his podcast are unique. As you may guess from his podcast’s name, he focuses on mistakes that he makes when learning Chinese. He even has a section of the podcast dedicated to the mistake of the week. The emphasis by doing this is by practicing a lot and letting go of the idea of perfection.
20: Thom of ThomReads Instagram Fame on Writing and Reading Mandarin Chinese, French, English & More8/8/2019
In this podcast episode, Steph talks with Thom Clairmont, Thomreads on Instagram, a French university student who is studying Sinology in graduate school. Sinology is the study of Chinese language, history, customs and politics. He has studied French, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Russian but it is Chinese that he is the most fascinated with. In fact, he admits to not even liking learning languages until he started learning Chinese the last two years of high school.
What is it about the language that pulled Thom in and kept his attention? I’m afraid that you will have to have a listen to his language story for the details of him studying Mandarin Chinese both in Europe as well as in Asia. What I can tell you is that what Thom puts out into the world about his studies and about his reading experiences outside of Academic texts, is thoughtful, relevant and shared from a place of heartfelt enjoyment.
In this episode, we chat with Angela, a Canadian who went to China for the first time in 2006, which is where she met her husband. She left China and returned, as so many expats do. Lucky for me, she came back to China in 2010 and worked at the same school teaching Academic English to students who were about to study abroad. Angela’s relationship to languages and language learning is the complete opposite to mine: before learning Mandarin Chinese she fluently learned French, Spanish and Finnish, with a strong emphasis on speaking the language. She is now a teacher in Canada and is able to help International students from China and other countries, adapt to their new learning and academic life in a small study group environment as well.
18: Josh of Mandarin Slang Guide Podcast On His Creative Work Way Of Learning Mandarin Chinese5/22/2019
Nine Years Ago Joshua Ogden-Davis left graduate school in Texas, moved to China and taught himself Chinese. He is now a Mandarin Chinese Translator, does audio and video production in multiple languages, and is a Puppeteer. In this Changing Scripts podcast episode we dig into Josh’s fuller language story, including this switch from English to Mandarin Chinese as well as his experiences with Spanish, German and English from his beforetime.
We learn that although Josh was good at and liked learning aspects of grammatical knowledge growing up, it was not until he was able to simultaneously learn and immediately use Mandarin Chinese that he understood the importance of motivation, activation and fluency over accuracy. Josh shares his hilarious Chinese language experiences from taxi rides where he was asked some pretty intimate details about his genitalia AND his own appearance on a local Chinese dating show. He admits that he spends his time in the space in between English and Chinese languages and ponders if that could be called a “third culture language (TCL)”. I say hell yea, let’s do this
In this episode we chat with Lotta, a Finnish college student who lived in Shanghai, China between High School and University. During part of that time she took intensive Chinese language courses. Lotta has continued with her Chinese language learning even after returning to Finland by using TV shows and other media until she can take more language classes at her university.
Lotta shares with us her intensive Mandarin Chinese classroom experience in Shanghai, how she used the language outside of the classroom and how Mandarin Chinese compares to the handful of other languages she has learned and used in her life thus far. Lotta’s mother, Pia, was a guest on the Expat Rewind Podcast last year, where shared her first impressions of Shanghai via a blog post she wrote after moving here from Finland. Hi Pia!
In this episode, we talk to Taylor, an American Marketing Professional who grew up with a strong language learning curiosity. Mandarin Chinese was one of her first language loves and one that she has kept in contact with. I am using people analogies because Taylor used them in the interview and it is simply a brilliant way to see the time, energy and commitment that it takes not only to learn a language but to maintain it over the years as well.
In the Podcast episode, we talked to Tanya Crossman, author of Misunderstood The Impact of Growing Up Overseas in the 21st Century about her experiences learning and using Mandarin Chinese since she was a teenager. Tanya has a deep connection both to Chinese culture and language but her language story does not stop there.
It also includes the languages and dialects she was exposed to growing up in different countries, studying 12 languages thus far, dreaming in “the language that is contextually appropriate” and her love of learning language scripts. Tanya’s insights into the cultural aspects of Mandarin Chinese are as clear as can be, even for someone not familiar with Mandarin Chinese at all.
In this episode we continue our conversation from episode 8 with Eric Olander about his 33 year Mandarin Chinese language learning experience. Eric is a Journalist, Blogger, Media Executive, and Co-Founder and Managing Editor of the China Africa Project which includes the China in Africa Podcast, which he co-hosts weekly with Cobus Van Staden.
This week we talk to Von, an American who grew up around Mandarin Chinese via martial arts and later intentionally slid into learning to read the language as well. Von thought the first 4 of the 5 years he studied Chinese were easy because he viewed it similar to the frequent practice of any new skill. But then the grammatical difficulty, script changes, and genre differences kicked in and the “brain burn” began.
But that has not stopped his progress at all. He studies usually in intensive two week increments of about 6 hours a day and then pauses until the desire to learn returns (usually a few weeks later). His patience, persistence and contextualization of the language are ideal characteristics for what I wish were called the “Slow Language Learning Movement.” In a world where people strive to learn a language in 30 days, his views are refreshing and his approach is inspiring. Come along and listen to how he wants to use language to “speak the story of what he wants to say." |
AuthorSerial expat who loves diving into the communicative messiness of a global life. Archives
June 2021
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