Learning Chinese halfway

[dayhell]

It's been my dream to learn Chinese for many years now, but I'm too depressed to keep at it. Every time I feel motivation to study, it's gone in the blink of an eye and I give up because it all feels so pointless. Today I realized that I could try putting in half the effort for half the result and be half as happy as I am without it.
The biggest obstacle is my location, which leaves me with two bad options: either self-study using online resources or online lessons. The first one doesn't work because I've been trying for years and I simply don't have it in me to keep putting in the effort. And even if I did, I'm worried about pronounciation and tones without a teacher to give feedback and guide me. The second one doesn't work because I have a fear of talking through devices and instead of achieving anything, I'd just shit myself from anxiety and cry. I can feel my throat tighten right now just thinking about the possibility.
So I thought that in the end it's still better to learn it badly than not learn anything at all. I don't have to learn to speak, or even write if that's too hard for me. I can just study the characters and grammar and learn to read. I want to learn because I'm genuinely interested in the language, not because I want to show off how well I can speak Chinese to the people around me. No one has to know about it, I can just study for myself and read and play games and feel a little better. Not as good as I could feel if I could actually attend classes, but at least not as miserable as I am now because the only thing I'm not indifferent about is out of my reach.

 

[lamy's sacred sleep]

i hope you manage.
my dream has been to learn japanese, no speaking, no writing
just listening and reading

Table of Contents / All Japanese All The Time Dot Com: How to learn Japanese. On your own, having fun and to fluency.

[CHRONOLOGICAL ARCHIVE(S?)] -1. For Starters Foreword About Overview 0. Mental Tools 0.1 For the Start of the Journey Advice On How To Take Advice (Including Mine) How To Accomplish Great Things: S…

web.archive.org

it might be about japanese but it applies to all languages

Refold Mandarin - Mandarin Guide | Notion

Beginner's guide to learning Mandarin Chinese via immersion learning and media from the Refold Mandarin Community

zenith-raincoat-5cf.notion.site

AJATT, MIA, Refold - all great resources when you search them up on youtube

 

[fallendevil]

Personally, I think you should take it slow. It's hard on your body to jump from living like a gooner to full on discipline. Start with 10-20 minutes a day, and slowly work your way up. It's going to take years however, decades even if you want to reach a borderline native level, so patience and being gentle with yourself is key.

You should probably invest in taking a Chinese class as well, in this economy it will be pricy but if this is really something meaningful to you (especially since, yk, we're on SaSu) it could be a worthy investment. Having support with depression and getting back up is crucial.

 

[kiti0711]

Umm (#－.－), at our age we've long passed the optimal window for learning a second language, so motivation is low and studying is hard. Learning Chinese is even tougher—despite being a native speaker, there are many characters I can't spell, and sometimes I know which character it is but can't write it.

I've been meaning to learn English for ages, but I still haven't reached even a junior-high level. I just want to learn basic literacy , and I only had a little exposure to English when I was a child, so I'm not sure about your background.

But learning Cantonese was pretty easy for me, because I heard it every day as a kid and already had some foundation.