At the recent 13th Swimming World Championship in August 2009, the U.S. “Flying Fish” Phelps won the championship easily in the 200-meter butterfly, shaving more than half a second off the world record. Phelps, who won eight gold medals in the 2008 Olympic Games, is also learning Chinese . He started learning Chinese before the 2008 Olympics, mainly through multi-media computer learning software, and he thinks that learning Chinese is not easy.
Or is it?
“Chinese and English are very different, ” said Todd Williams, a graphic designer from Pennsylvania, “when I started to learn Chinese , I had some difficulties and wanted to give up. But through persistence, I have found that it’s not that difficult to learn Chinese .” Juliet Page from Denver said: “The most important thing for learning a language is to use the right methods and practice persistently. Many people find it difficult because they are using the wrong methods. As long as you use the right method, it’s actually easy to learn Chinese .” Perhaps, for foreigners who are learning Chinese , difficulties always exist at the beginning, but as long as you know the rules of Chinese and use a scientific approach, you can find that it might not be that hard and could even be fun to learn Chinese.
We interviewed Fred Rao, founder and CEO of eChineselearning.com, online Mandarin Chinese school. He said: “scientific learning methods are crucial for learning languages. You can overcome all the difficulties if you are interested in it and use the proper methods. With the development of technology, many learners think learning with software is a good way, but they ignore one problem: language is for communicating. Teachers are necessary, for they not only teach students but also communicate with them. Since it’s impossible for all the foreigners who are studying Chinese to come to China, a distance learning language school is a good choice. With guidance from and interaction with professional Chinese teachers, you can make significant progress.”
Jack McDaniel, a thirteen-year-old student from Menlo Park, California who has studied with eChineselearning.com for two years now, said: “I don’t think Chinese is difficult. With the help of professional teachers in Beijing, learning Chineseis easy and fun. In classes, the teachers teach me to sing songs, practice with tongue-twisters, jokes and body language. I’m very happy because I like China, which is a nice country, and I will go to China in the future.”
Perhaps getting gold medals belongs to Phelps, but the success of learning Chinese can belong to you as long as you use the right methods and work hard.