5 Reasons to Learn Chinese in the New Year

I’m going to say right off the bat that I don’t really make New Year’s resolutions – they don’t work for me because I resent the past version of myself for imposing such onerous demands on the future version of myself, but that’s really neither here nor there.

If you are, in fact, the type to make resolutions each year, and even follow through on some of them, more power to you!

I’m here to help with the top five reasons to seriously learn Chinese next year for real this time guys; like, for real for real.

This is the case to some extent in all places, but people in China and Taiwan will literally be throwing buckets of respect and praise at you if you’ve made the effort to learn Mandarin, in part because of how difficult it can be for Westerners and how closely tied the language is to Chinese culture.  

Even basic skills will make you a legend in the eyes of many locals, but consider the case of Dashan (大山/dàshān)  , a Canadian actor and TV presenter in China who speaks flawless Mandarin (by my estimation, at least).

If you live in China this is sort of a no-brainer, as there’s never a time your quick-recall Chinese skills will be tested quite like a high-stress emergency situation.

Have you been to China or Taiwan? Do you want to go? You should – they’re freakin' really awesome places to visit.

4. Billions and Billions of speakers 

While there are arguably more people on earth that speak English mildly well than there are decent Mandarin speakers, the vast majority of China’s population (like America’s) is monolingual, so if you want to talk to a Chinese person, odds are you’ll need to have your putonghua down pat.

This is immensely helpful in the business sphere, but I prefer to look at it this way: if you speak Mandarin, that’s 1.4 billion more people you can chat with, including some 600 million more men/women (or whatever you’re into), many of whom are very nice and charming and good-looking. You gotta love those odds!

5. Confidence and Cajones

I’m not going to beat around the bush here: Chinese is a tough language to learn for us native English speakers. The tones, the characters, etc, it’s just tricky.

BUT, in a way, that’s the best part of learning Chinese: the confidence and satisfaction you can derive from something as simple as using a word you’ve just learned smoothly in casual conversation is hard to match.

The other day I was getting into the elevator in my building and a woman rushed on with her motorbike in tow and got off on the 3rd floor (of a 30 story building), profusely apologizing for the inconvenience. “Méi shì (没事)  ,” I told her, “Zhè ge bù néng suí shēn dài ba (这个不能随身带吧)!”  

“It’s OK, you can’t really carry that with you!” I’d just learned the term "Suíshēn dài" (随身带) that week, and to have been able to slip it into a conversation and, for once in my life, actually make someone laugh in Chinese?!

Forget about it, I was on cloud nine the rest of the day. That’s the sort of high you can get from a challenge like learning a new language, and for my money, Mandarin is one of the most challenging and rewarding languages to tackle, as well as the one with possibly the most practice opportunities.