Making a Case for Going Beyond Your English Music bubble

Native English speakers, ask yourself this question: when was the last time you listened to a song that was not in English? (And no, Despacito does not count.)

In nearly every country I have travelled to, from Slovakia to Malaysia, I have marvelled in the cultural differences, the diverse scenery, and the unique food. But one thing that always strikes me when I travel is how much of the world listens mostly to music in English—mostly from the US.

This chart that I stole from Business Insider was intended to contrast sales of American vs non-American music. But even the “non-American” music is all British. Not only are the top 15 best-selling musical artists all in English, but they are all from two countries.

This chart will unlikely take anyone by surprise, but it’s worth taking a moment to reflect on this unchallenged global dominance.

For native English speakers, it is very possible that there are simply no non-English songs in their Spotify playlists, and even many non-native English speakers often listen primarily to English music—perhaps with some local music sprinkled in. Some countries even have quotas regarding how much local vs foreign (i.e. American) content can be played on the radio.

And in 2016, the Québecois rap group Dead Obies lost their $18,000 grant from the government for having more than 30% of their lyrics in English. Clearly, preserving one’s local culture is no laughing matter.

I was recently in Hong Kong. Feeling a little when-in-Rome-y, I thought I’d listen to some local music in Cantonese while I was there. Having a very limited knowledge of Hong Kongese music, naturally, I decided to listen to the “Hong Kong Top 50″ chart on Spotify. There was almost no Cantonese music whatsoever.

At the time of writing, of the top 50 tracks in Hong Kong, there are still only eight songs in Chinese—the other 42 are in English. And on Spotify’s “Global Top 50” chart, four of them are in a language other than English (all four are in Spanish, in case you’re wondering).

And yes, I know what you’re thinking: Hong Kong is a former British colony and most people speak English quite well.

Even looking at Japan, a country whose proficiency is classified as “low” according to Education First’s EF English Proficiency Index, almost half of the top 50 are in English, with one or two songs in Korean.

And no, this is not just because of Spotify and the internet.

I recently wandered into a record shop in Taipei. As I was browsing, I was surprised at how many of the records I could recognize. In fact, I grew up (in Canada) listening to my dad play many of those records.

And the kicker? They were almost all imported from Japan.

Just let that sink in.

A record shop in Taiwan with its records imported from Japan were all… American? Not Taiwanese, not Japanese, but American.

Of course, Spotify chart rankings and a record shop in Taiwan aren’t necessarily indications that the global music industry will hopelessly and irreversibly be engulfed by English music, but it’s perhaps a reminder that it’s worth taking a couple minutes to shop around and go beyond the bread-and-butter American and British artists you’ve become so accustomed to.

Why not let your ears take a little trip around the world?

Here are a few songs to get you started:

Taiwan / Mandarin

Easy Shen (沈簡單)— Our Story (石頭記)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opM61VEC16c?rel=0&controls=0&showinfo=0

Greenland / Greenlandic

Frederik Elsner F — Nukiit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaqCjxYMj9w?rel=0&controls=0&showinfo=0

China / Mandarin

Cheng Bi (程璧 ) — I want to waste time with you (我想和你虚度时光)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REHTXKVQ2Z8?rel=0&controls=0&showinfo=0

Germany / German

AnnenMayKantereit — Barefoot at the Piano (Barfuß Am Klavier)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tERRFWuYG48?rel=0&controls=0&showinfo=0

Quebec, Canada / French

Malajube — Porté Disparu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JD6hdj5-u9s?rel=0&controls=0&showinfo=0

Thailand / Thai

The Parkinson — เพื่อนรัก (Dear Friend)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPZfaGPP3cA?rel=0&controls=0&showinfo=0

Korea / Korean

1415 — Draw The Line (선을 그어 주던가 )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlvcZ4StPRM?rel=0&controls=0&showinfo=0

What are you thoughts? Should people bother listening to music from other parts of the world—or even their own part of the world? And which of the above tracks did you like best? And of course, if you have any other music recommendations, please share them!

Peace and love,
Sam

4 Common Mistakes Chinese Learners Make (and How to Avoid them)

Hello, my Mandarin-learning comrades! As I’m sure you have realized, Mandarin can sometimes be a bit of a doozy, and you may sometimes find yourself wondering, “Is this the right way to be learning this?” This article will hopefully answer some of your questions and give some general guidance.

The “mistakes” discussed in this article do not refer to grammatical mistakes or improper word usage, but rather the conscious decisions made by learners in an attempt to speed up or simplify the learning process. And as Mandarin is a challenging language, these shortcuts can be very tempting! However, from my experience, in the long run, these shortcuts really do much more harm than good.

“Don’t take shortcuts when learning Chinese, ’cause, it’s like, not a good idea.” (Source: made up Sun Zu quote)

Mistake #1: Neglecting the tones

This may sound obvious, but skipping over the tones is a bad idea! Yes, the tones are confusing and hard to differentiate at first, but completely essential if you ever plan on actually communicating in Mandarin.

But Saaaam, I hate the tones!

I know, I know. They are frustrating, but to put it simply, if you skip the tones, people won’t understand you. I have met people who quickly decided that the tones were too difficult, so they insisted on just sounding out the pinyin and essentially inventing the tones along the way. This would be just like skipping over certain English letters because you found them too difficult to pronounce, which is clearly not the best course of action (okay you could probably skip “Q” and still get by but that’s not the point).

Those who have not learned a tonal language before may have the misconception that the tones are somehow “optional,” or “extra.” This is not the case. If you change the tone, you change the whole word. To give a very intuitive but overused example, the words “boiled dumplings” (水餃 shuǐjiǎo) and “sleep” (睡覺 shuìjiào) have the same pronunciation with the exception of the tones, as demonstrated in the beginning of this fun lil’ music video.

The tones will certainly seem daunting at first, but they will slowly start to tune themselves through deliberate practice and lots of listening to native speakers. Save yourself the embarrassment down the road, and drill those tones! Here’s a good place to start!

Mistake #2: Skipping the measure words

Why do paper, picture, and table use the same measure word? Why do guitar, knife, and chair use the same measure word? Why do noodle, dog, and road use the same measure word?

Measure words may seem illogical and superfluous at first, but they really aren’t as bad as you think. In fact, we have something quite similar in English! A sheet of paper, a blade of grass, a school of fish, and so on. This is very similar to how measure words function in Mandarin.

The first measure word you will likely learn is 個/个 [gè], as it applies to many different nouns. So why not just use it for everything? Well, I suppose you could, and you will likely be understood for the most part, but it could cause confusion, and really doesn’t sound great. Would you recommend that someone say “a grass” or “a wood”?

So how can one learn them? One useful trick is to always take note of the measure word each time you come across a new noun and make a habit of reviewing the two together. For example, if you made a flashcard for the word “book,” instead of just writing 書 / 书 [shū] on the back, write 一本書 / 一本书 [yī běn shū], or note the measure word somewhere. Eventually, it will simply “sound wrong” when you hear something like “a sheet of pen” or “a flock of bananas.”

Mistake #3: Not learning characters

If you take anything away from this article, it is that the characters are worth your time. Chinese characters are undeniably one of the most — if not the most — difficult part of the language. Yet, I always strongly recommend against “just learning pinyin.” Deciding to not learn characters is deciding to learn how to be illiterate in Chinese. Doesn’t sound so great now, does it?

Don’t get me wrong, pinyin is a useful tool when it comes to learning pronunciation and typing on your phone or computer, but pinyin is not Chinese. There are no newspapers published in pinyin, restaurant menus will not be written in pinyin, and your Chinese or Taiwanese friends won’t text you in pinyin (and even if they did, it would be really hard to understand!).

Yeah, but still, they’re super hard… and dumb I hate them I don’t want to learn them shut up Sam I hate you!

People often ask me, “Do I really need to learn the characters?”, and are always disappointed with my answer. While characters are one of the hardest parts of the language, they’re also one of the most fun. Start doing your to-do lists in Chinese, write out some characters when you’re bored, or review flash cards while you’re waiting for your friend who always comes late to your coffee dates (ugh, typical Cheryl). Before you know it, you’ll start to recognize patterns, and those pesky characters will eventually start to stick!

Mistake #4: Choosing simplified characters just because they’re “simpler”

Now that I’ve (hopefully) convinced you to learn characters, please let me make a case for at least considering to learn traditional characters.

Shut up Sam I’m still mad at you.

Many of you may have already chosen to learn simplified characters, and there is nothing wrong with that. Simplified characters are used all over China, some other areas in Southeast Asia, and by overseas Chinese people, so you will definitely not be short of language exchange partners or learning resources. However, I typically recommend against choosing simplified characters just because they’re simplified.

Why? Well, many will argue that you “lose” a lot of the language if you learn simplified characters. This is a claim that is often slightly exaggerated by traditional character enthusiasts, but it does have some truth to it. I won’t go into detail in this article, but if you’re curious, there’s a surprisingly comprehensive Wikipedia article dedicated to this debate.

I should also mention that although traditional characters have more strokes, this difference in strokes is not proportionate to the difference in difficulty (i.e. a character with ten strokes is not necessarily twice as hard as one with five).

The decision of whether to learn simplified or traditional characters will ultimately come down to individual circumstances, but generally speaking, my recommendations can be summed up as follows:

Learn simplified if you:

Plan to mostly speak with Chinese people, read books written in simplified characters, etc.
Plan to or currently live in China
Really want the pick of the litter when it come to Chinese-learning resources (although there are still plenty that offer both simplified and traditional characters)

Learn traditional if you:

Plan to mostly speak with Taiwanese people, read books written in traditional characters, etc.
Plan to or currently live in Taiwan (or Hong Kong or Macau)
Are interested in ancient Chinese literature
Are a linguist or are interested in Chinese for nerdy language reasons
Plan to eventually learn both traditional and simplified

Of course, it’s still possible to start with simplified and later learn traditional, but it’s a bit more challenging. I personally began with simplified because it was all my university offered, and I was preparing for an exchange to China at the time. I have since then swapped over to traditional characters and have not starved yet here in Taiwan. So far so good.

And that’s it! Mandarin is not an easy language, but that should not deter those who are truly interested in it. It is a long journey, and there will be many tempting shortcuts to take along the way, but skipping the tougher aspects of the language will really hinder your proficiency down the line. But why listen to me?

Sam is smart and you should listen to him (Source: Confucius, probably)

Thanks for reading! What do you think about all of this? Are these shortcuts worth it? Feel free to share your thoughts, experiences, questions, credit card numbers, etc.

Peace and love,
Sam

Quick and Dirty Guide to Choosing a Chinese Name

If you have begun the long but rewarding journey of learning Chinese, you have probably thought about also adopting a Chinese name. Here are a few things that should help you choose the right Chinese name for you.

Difference between Chinese names and English (or German, or French…) names

To provide an enormous oversimplification, Chinese names have a meaning, whereas English names are just names. This isn’t to say that Chinese names are literally interpreted when people refer to each other, but it means that there’s more to picking a Chinese name than just the sound and spelling.

When Chinese names are translated into English names, they essentially lose the characters, the tones, and the meaning—just like an English name. When you create a Chinese name, you are essentially doing the opposite. Sort of.

What kind of Chinese name do you want?

Chinese doesn’t have the luxury of an alphabet which allows you to customize an array of sounds in a way that accurately fits your name. Instead, you have to pick characters to represent your name. The trick is finding characters that have a good meaning, and maybe sound something like your name.

Basically, there are two kinds:

1. Translated names

This is the kind where you pick characters that sound kind of like your actual name pronounced weird. For example, if your name was Alexandra, you could pick something like 亞歷山德拉 yàlìshāndélā (sounds somewhat like “Alexandra”).

Sure, technically if you translated it, it would mean “inferior calendar mountain morality pull,” but that obviously isn’t what people will think when you introduce yourself. In such a case, these characters are obviously being used for phonetic reasons, and isn’t really considered to have a “meaning.”

They’re sometimes long (especially if you translate your last name), and sound very “foreign,” but they will likely be more similar to your birth name.

2. Made-up names

(Can you tell I’m inventing these terms as I go?) And this is the kind that sounds like a Chinese name, but probably less like your English name. This one is more a matter of coming up with a new name rather than translating your current one. This will typically be two or three characters, including your family name (which will be one character).

In terms of coming up with characters, the best source by far is — you guessed it — native Chinese speakers! There are some websites that will help you “convert” your English name, but they sound like what they are—a Chinese name generated from a Chinese name generator website.

Also, if you decide to go with this route, I would recommend picking your family name (which comes first in Chinese names) from this list, as it will make your name more recognizable as a name rather than a random mix of characters. I would also recommend choosing one that sounds like your current family name, or at least the first syllable. Don’t worry too much about the meaning when choosing a family name.

When in doubt, take inspiration from existing names

Some characters just “work” in names, whereas others aren’t really “name characters.” Sort of like how you wouldn’t name your child “Sawdust” or “Puddle” (or maybe you would).

Also, while this may sound obvious, when drawing inspiration from friends’ suggestions or other sources, you may want to take note of which characters are typically associated with women and which with men. Just like English names, Chinese names tend to be associated with being more masculine or feminine.

Ask friends, or look at lists of names and research their meanings. However, I’d be careful with picking names of celebrities. I accidentally chose the name of a famous Taiwanese songwriter and now I hear about it every time I introduce myself. “Yes, I’ve heard of 方文山, and no, I don’t write songs for Jay Chou.”

Ask around!

Make sure to ask several Chinese-speaking friends to get opinions on your new name. You will probably be able to judge how good/bad/weird/normal your name is based on their first reactions.

Also, remember, this is your name! Make sure you like the way it looks in simplified and/or traditional characters, the way it sounds, and its meaning.

How I chose my Chinese name

I had a Taiwanese friend help me come up with my name. We were just chatting about how I didn’t have a Chinese name yet (although I was considering 山老虎 aka “Mountain Tiger” because it’s awesome) and then we came up with my name together.

My Chinese name is 童文山 [tóng wén shān].

童 [tóng] because it starts with the same “T” sound as my last name (Tersigni). It means “child,” but it’s not really like I have the meaning of “child” in my name. Family names don’t tend to be associated with a meaning the way given names are (trust me, it’s a thing).

山 [shān] because it sounds like Sam, and because I like the character. It means mountain. I like mountains.

文 [wén] because I needed a third character, and because it means literature, language, etc. I like that stuff.

Of course, the definition of a “good” Chinese name is subjective, and for that reason, I have laid out what I see as the two main options for you to choose from. Find a balance of something you like and something that is perhaps somewhat socially acceptable. Or not.

Peace and love~
❤ 山老虎 ❤

Super Awesome Learn Mandarin Guide

Edit: this article was originally written for my classmates, but it is also useful for anyone interested in learning Mandarin. It does not cover all of the details, as there are many to cover, but it should give you a good overview of what resources are available, as well as some tips for learning Mandarin—which I highly recommend doing. 🙂

Quick introduction to the language…

Mandarin is spoken throughout Mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore, as well as parts of the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, and other southeast Asian countries. What makes Mandarin hard? What makes Mandarin easy. Let’s start with the bad news first.

Mandarin is a tonal language. There are four tones (and a neutral tone), numbered one through four. They all have a pitch and a direction. This will be a difficult concept for people who do not already speak a tonal language. However, with some practice and careful attention, it is very doable.

Mandarin uses Chinese characters. There are a lot of them. However, there is a general pattern that will often give insight into the meaning and/or pronunciation of a character. They are composed of “radicals” (pieces of characters) that will make memorization significantly easier (relatively speaking).

And the good news?

Mandarin has no tenses, cases, conjugations, or gendered nouns (why couldn’t German be that simple?). Everything is implied from context, and it is just lovely. There’s also no weird names for days of the week, months, etc.

Pretty nice, eh? 🙂

Resources (podcasts, apps, websites, etc.)

Pleco (app) — literally the most important thing ever when you’re learning Mandarin. I can’t recommend it more. Use it, make it your bible. You can search with pinyin, characters, English, anything. Don’t use Google Translate. Use Pleco. Download all of the free dictionaries, free add-ons, and I also think the basic add-on bundle is worth the money if you really want to learn the language long-term. I use it as a dictionary, and I also create flashcards. It also has downloadable dictionaries in other languages, some of which are free. If you take anything from this list of tips and resources, it’s Pleco. I beg of you.
ChinesePod (podcast) — hands down the best learning Mandarin podcast. Really good lessons with vocab lists, good dialogue, good teachers. Super super good. You need a monthly subscription, but if you don’t wanna pay (it’s kinda expensive but very good). There’s also a lesson pdf bundled with the dialogue, vocabulary, with pinyin and characters. Lessons are divided by level, and they go from super super beginner to super advanced, with progressively more and more Mandarin spoken by the hosts. I owe lots of my vocabulary and pronunciation progress to ChinesePod.
ChineseSkill (app) — it’s the Duolingo of Mandarin. I wish it existed when I started learning Mandarin (or maybe it did and I just didn’t know). Really good, check it out.
Skritter (app) — I’ll be honest, I’ve never actually used Skritter myself (because it requires a paid monthly subscription and I’m poor), but I’ve heard really good things and it appears to be a really useful tool for learning characters.
Decipher Chinese (app) — really good app to practice reading. Has tons of articles that are categorized by level, can toggle simplified/traditional characters, hide/show pinyin, and has tap to show definition built in. Really useful app to make use of the 5 minutes you normally spend wasting waiting for the bus.
YouTube channels (ChinesePod, Fiona Tian, etc.) — Fiona Tian eventually got hired by ChinesePod, but she did Mandarin lessons independently. They’re fun and light videos that have really good stuff! There’s also tons more by lots of other really good stuff on YouTube so give that stuff a look. Links to Fiona Tian, ChinesePod TV, ChineseClass 101, Easy Taiwanese Mandarin.
Glossika Mandarin (audio course) — another paid resource, but also super, super worth it, in my opinion. I’ve bought Glossika in several languages already. It combines spaced-repetition (what’s that?) with tons of language structures that help you learn grammar and vocabulary intuitively without really directly studying them (crazy, right?).
Memrise (app/website) — tons of courses that are already made for Mandarin (and a million other languages, too). Flashcards with spaced-repetition, gamification, and lots of super good stuff. Website and app, highly recommended.
HackingChinese (blog/website) — super good blog. Full of tips and resources for all levels if you’re ever stuck and looking for new resources and/or inspiration. The guy knows his stuff.
Lang-8 (website) — really good website for practicing writing stuff. You can write little posts and then have native speakers correct your writing (and you give back by correcting theirs). Love it, I use it all the time.
italki (website) — also has a writing component, but I recommend it particularly for finding language exchange partners if you want to find native speakers to chat with.
Pen and paper — revolutionary! It is by writing Chinese that one learns to write Chinese. Try to write every day. It’s not only a good idea, it’s also really fun. 🙂
Music — believe it or not, also a really excellent resource. Here’s a playlist of some of my favourite Mandarin songs.
Poetry — most poetry will be too difficult at this stage, but I will recommend 顾城 (pron. Gù Chéng) as his poems are beautiful and beautifully simple.

Most importantly, use resources that you enjoy! The best resources are the ones that you will use.

General Advice

Tones — do not neglect the tones. Fiona Tian has a good video about tones where she talks about how they’re super good to learn in pairs (link to really good article about that). Try to over exaggerate the tones at first. Also, remember that the tones have not only direction, but also pitch. I strongly recommend listening to tons of audio resources and practice in order to master these little buggers.

Radicals — try to slowly take note of the meanings of the radicals. Really helps to understand the intuition behind the characters, and remember them that way. Also another piece of advice I wish I had heard earlier in my learning, but I’ve found that studying the radicals is very helpful with remembering and understanding characters.

Repetition — repeat stuff. A lot. For example, pick two or three ChinesePod lessons that you like, and listen to them. A lot. Listen to them 10+ times each. You will learn. 🙂

Pinyin — use pinyin as little as possible. When reading, cover up the pinyin (if it’s written above/underneath). Your brain will naturally try to read the pinyin because it’s easier, but always avoid reading texts with pinyin. Look up the pinyin of a word to find the pronunciation, but pinyin is not the real language, so always practice reading characters.

Measure words — just how you need to learn the gender and articles of words for French or German, try to learn the measure word of nouns as you learn them. There is some logic to the measure words, so while it may seem like an annoying concept at first, it really isn’t so bad.

Practice—start practicing with your classmates! Speak with them when you can, and download a Chinese keyboard on your phone. For Android, I recommend the Google Pinyin keyboard (from the Google Play store), and for iPhone users, you can add new keyboards through your settings. When doing so, make sure to add both the QWERTY pinyin and handwriting inputs when you install the keyboard.

Anticipated FAQ’s

Q: Sam! My Pleco iPhone app doesn’t let me write characters by hand! What do I dooooo?

A: Did you follow the instructions I gave you? The iPhone Pleco app requires that you pay for handwriting as an add-on, but the iPhone handwriting keyboard works (almost) just as well. If you accidentally added the pinyin keyboard only, remove it and re-add it with the handwriting one at the same time.

Q: My textbook is in simplified characters, but I heard that Taiwan uses traditional characters! Am I going to understand any writing when I get there? Also, what kind of shampoo do you use?

A: I’m sure your Mandarin teacher will go more in depth with this, but the difference between simplified and traditional is enough to be a little bit annoying, but not a complete deal-breaker (i.e. you are not wasting your time by learning simplified characters). Personally, I would take note of the equivalent traditional character when I learn a simplified character, but I wouldn’t stress too much about learning how to write it. Maybe learn it once or twice, and just be familiar with the appearance of it to help you recognize it down the road. Also, Head & Shoulders.

Q: Sam! Should I learn traditional or simplified characters?

A: There is huge debate regarding whether one should learn simplified or traditional characters. Mainland China and Singapore use simplified, while Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau use traditional. In a very small nutshell, traditional characters have more strokes and are more similar to the ancient written language. My recommendation: if you are going to learn both, learn traditional first. If you are going to learn one, learn the one that aligns with your learning goals (i.e. if you are going to work in China, learn simplified, but if you are interested in Taiwanese variety shows, learn traditional).

Q: But Sam, I’ve been using Google Translate for so long, and it’s served me well in every other language. I’m not going to use your stupid Pleco app!

A: Please. Do this for me. Just use Pleco.

Q: But Chinese is so haaaaard! It’s going to take me ages to learn, even with your super awesome guide! Your guide is super awesome, by the way.

A: You may surprise yourself. With a little bit of hard work and persistence, you’ll be making progress, and maybe even ordering beers and directing cab drivers before you know it. And thank you, that’s so nice of you to say.

That should be enough to get you going. Mandarin is a difficult but rewarding language. I have benefited from countless experiences as a result of learning Mandarin, and with a little bit of motivation and effort, you can too. Good luck, much love, and 加油

Sam
文山