Glad to be of service! 🙂

I have also taught English to Taiwanese over the same period, so I have a lot of detailed observations about the contrasts between the languages.

Recently I have gotten back into Mandarin Grammar Books and find the grammars a bit imperfect. But the truth is that even the best of English grammars are equally imperfect. Oxford put out a tome that is about 1400 pages and more than a foot thick by Quirk, Greenbaub, and others — but I actually teach material that has never been discovered by those Brits.

Grammar is all about the link between semantics and syntax. Native users of the language discover these without a grammar and just know them. So the results are you have to discover from native users what is acceptable. The published tomes are only so useful, and at some point all are questionable.

In Taiwan, young Mormon missionaries study their Chinese and Taiwanese before arriving here and do quite well with just a few years of study.

I suspect it is entirely phonological group study.

And yet, I can’t express enough about how frustrating it is to get verbal directions from somebody when you know nothing about characters. Street signs with the names of roads and so on are very important to navigating in Taiwan and China. Bus routes are often just a list of stops without any map.

And it is always nice to be able to identify what kind of shop is nearby by the signage.

I travelled Mexico alone when I was about 21 and the language barrier or Chinese is more monumental. It takes longer to locate a word in a dictionary and the characters may be easily confused when you are in a rush.

“…for the Westerner novice that is studying Asian languages, the work load of visual association of characters to sound and meaning can added a burden that is not really appropriate.”

So, true

Added to that is the situation where even first language children take years to master pronunciation and listening BEFORE they engage in reading and writing; and it becomes obvious that speaking and listening are a higher priority.

And for the Westerner novice that is studying Asian languages, the work load of visual association of characters to sound and meaning can added a burden that is not really appropriate.

The early Chinese language course by Tewkesbury was strictly phonological. And US government courses for foreign service staff are also strictly phonologic.

While I deeply appreciate being able to recognize street signs and items on a restaurant menu, learning to communicate with other people in real time is the heart of any normal career as a language learner.

Keep up the great work, sir.

– From Washington, D.C.

😀