SPEAKER_04

You know what, I couldn't say the chapter, but I could explain why bamboo is good for society.

SPEAKER_02

Hey there, this is Stephanie from Stefffuccio.com, where we have globally minded podcasts and podcasting services. I am very happy to share with you another episode of Geopath's Language, where we explore our relationship to the languages that touch our lives through conversations with our guests from around the world. In this episode, we are back in Shanghai, China, where I personally lived from 2017 to 2020. This is a conversation that was recorded in November of 2019 and that I shared with you in tiny bits on the Napod Pomo portion of Geopats. Napod Pomo is National Podcast Posting Month. Napod Pomo is an event that happens every November. I initially published this interview in three parts for Napod Pomo, National Podcast Posting Month, which is the month of November every year where a bunch of crazy podcasters like myself post an episode every day for a month. It is as stressful and as wonderful as you think. And Ryan and I talked for so long, and there were definitely three distinct sections of the conversation. And so I thought that fit in perfectly with the shorter episodes that I was experimenting with during Napod Pomo. So I posted it there. But honestly, I think it belongs also on the Geopaths Language Podcast. So I've pieced the three parts together, and um they're here. And I've taken out the Napod Pomo intro, because I'm doing it here just once for you. So there's three parts. In the first part, we talk about Ryan's experience with languages before he started learning Mandarin Chinese and why his experiences in China really, really changed him from a defeated language learner to being the lead interpreter of the Beijing Olympics in 2018. In part two, we dig more into the things he knows about Mandarin Chinese, the things he's learned by digging deep into the language and using the language as much as possible. And we also talk heaps about his views on fluency versus accuracy of a language. Finally, in part three, Brian and I talk about reading a newspaper, typing a message, and what the goal of learning a language really is and how to stay on task to reach your own personal goals. And it is so terribly personal. And I really, really thank Ryan for really opening up about his language experiences, both the failures before he started learning Chinese in China, and his successes after that, and his continued struggles with the language, because I've said it before and I'll say it again. Mandarin Chinese is not an easy language to learn, and there's a lot of various learning curves that you hit along the way. So thank you, Ryan, for being such an open and willing guest to share your language learning story with us. Without further ado, here are the three parts of this conversation. Hey Ryan, thank you for joining us.

SPEAKER_04

Hey, great. Great to be here. Thanks.

SPEAKER_02

Can you tell our listeners a hair about yourself?

SPEAKER_04

Uh I am a um uh enthusiast for startups and exploring the world and diving into what I don't know, I think is the best way to say it.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, that is a good way to say it. So curiosity is a strong element in what you do. Excellent. Well that feeds in well to the language story that we're gonna dive into today. Why did you come to China? And you don't have to answer that if you want to.

SPEAKER_04

No, it's easy and it's short, unlike other people usually because I do ask that question a lot and it gets very long. I came to China simply because it was the one place in the world I knew the least about. That's it.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. So when did you start learning Mandarin Chinese? Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.

SPEAKER_04

I started learning Mandarin Chinese when I came to China uh for the very first time 15 years ago in 2004. And I discovered something that I could do here that I could never do anywhere else in the world. Which is I could leave the classroom and go learn Chinese on my own in the villages. And that turned everything around for me.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, where were you living?

SPEAKER_04

So I was living in Shanghai. I I I would basically, I was very nice to my professors and my teachers, and I would explain to them in the best broken English that I could and Chinese that, you know, I'm gonna go learn also on these trips. I would then, because back then there were no smartphones, I'd use my uh German Chinese, my it was a German company, but it was an English-Chinese dictionary. I would ask someone on the street, I'd say, excuse me, sir, excuse me, ma'am, if you could go on vacation right now, where would you go in China? And they'd be like, Oh, I'd go to this town. Right. And then I'd be great, thanks, and then I'd go there. That was how I would figure out what I want to go and do, and I'd spend the week there. I'd get back for my class. I hadn't gone over the course material, but I had gotten in trouble, I had gotten in situations, I had had the moments where I needed to learn Chinese or it felt like life or death. And that had prepared me and helped me learn faster and more Chinese than anyone else in my class. You know, I couldn't say the chapter, but I could explain why bamboo is good for society and how it relates to this because I had been at a tea house the the week before with someone explaining to me in Chinese and them expecting me to respond and me shifting through the book, you know, having people stare at me and having to perform life or death at that moment. And that's how I learned in the field. You know, getting into bad situations and really being there, I absorbed so much. And I actually I picked up the language.

SPEAKER_02

Right, right, right. Okay, let's let's slow down and kind of zoom in on those on those real life situations. You keep saying bad situations. Were you actually in danger?

SPEAKER_04

I was never in danger, but I would say I learned I would put myself in bad situations. And I can give an example.

unknown

Okay.

SPEAKER_04

And I'll try to make this one short.

unknown

No.

SPEAKER_04

So I'm traveling in the south of China, and I'm going through these small uh uh towns that are near the uh Gui Lin, which are the uh mountains that are like the they s they stick out like pencils out of the earth and the mountains and the the the clouds go around them and then the rivers between them. They're very crouching tiger head and dragon-esque. And I am walking through this one town and I see this beautiful old tea house. It look it's a two-story Chinese tea house, looks like from the movies. And I'm like, I'm gonna go in there and get some tea. And I get in there and I get some tea, and then I just decide, okay, well, what could I do to to to make today a learning day? So I go into my dictionary and I look up the word mahjong. And I look up the word how to say I want to play mahjong. And I open my book and I say, you know, waiter, please come over here. Waitress comes over and I say, Whoa, it's me, and I turn the next page. Want yow, turn the next page, uh, and then it's play, so da, and then mahjong. And then I'm like, Whoa yao da mahjong. And she looks at me like nyo da mahjong, and then she starts going, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah and then everything she says, I go, sh, ha. Yes. I basically say in translation, yes, of course, yes. And then she goes, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. And I'm like, yes, of course. And I have no idea what she's saying. And I'm just like, Well yao da mahjong, just over and over again, I want to play mahjong. And because I see kind of like in the corner a mahjong set. And I've never played mahjong in my life. And she's like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's like, keep on talking to me, keep on talking. I just keep on going, how? Yes, yes, of course, yes. All of a sudden, she walks away and they shut down the entire tea house. They start closing all of the doors around me. Everything starts to close, and she starts yelling, like that something's going on. And I'm like sitting there, like, oh my God. And all of a sudden, a giant group, two tiers of people just like turn their seats to look at me, and I'm sitting kind of in the middle of the courtyard, and I'm like, I don't know what's going on. And they bring out this mahjong set. And then all of a sudden the door, the front doors open up, and these old Shanghainese styles-esque um uh women with this super tall hair that's colored and and jade jewelry, they're the owners of the tea house. And they're the owners of the tea house across. I had just challenged the owners of the tea house to a mahjong competition.

unknown

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_04

And I had no, I'm in this small town, one of the only foreigners to ever walk through, and I just challenged all of them to mahjong. I don't know any Chinese except for, hi, how are you? What's the weather like? And I'm sitting like, all right, I'm gonna learn mahjong, I'm gonna do this. And that's that's the that's not a life-threatening, but I am feeling on, I gotta perform, this is pressure. What happens is that, you know, I'm getting through with saying, yes, of course, absolutely, all the times, what everyone asks me, and they're like, you know, and and then following up with Megalan, American. You know, like, what's a megalan? You know, like just the most simple Chinese trying to say that. And and they are just, you know, these titans of Mahjong sitting next to me. They're moving. I don't even know how to organize it. I'm just randomly organizing, I'm pulling, they're pulling tiles, I'm pulling tiles, they're lining it up, I line it up, and they're like look, someone comes around my corner, like starts helping me move things around and make sure I'm ready because they realize like one person catches on, like, wait, he doesn't know what's going on. Then you're dead. Yeah. And then we start playing, and I have a strategy. And I'm just like, okay, whatever the person across from me says or does, I will copy. And then after that, whatever the person to my left does or says, I will also copy. And then the person on my right, then I'll just keep on copying and circle and see how long it takes for them to pick up. And so the person next to me starts and she goes, Pung, throw something in there. And I'm like, oh, pung. That's the that's one of the words. And then the person over across from me goes, ch and grabs one of the tiles. And I'm like, oh, I'm gonna say ch and I'm gonna grab a tile. And this person over there says, ch, grab the tile, and I go, ch, and I grab a tile. And everyone's like, ooh, he knows how to play. This is it. He's this guy knows what he's doing.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

And then I kid the other person goes pung and throws one away. And I go pung, I just grab a random one. I throw a tile. And they're like, oh. And then they I start doing this and I start throwing away all the correct tiles, all the things that I need to win. It's like having um an assassin at the table, because I have no idea what I'm screwing everyone else's game. And they suddenly realize that I'm just copying everyone. And the women look at me and start laughing, cracking up. Everyone starts just making fun and just laughing so much because now I'm just throwing things out, I'm saying ch or pung or whatever anyone else is saying. Everyone's laughing at me, and then everyone start calling me si chow chow. And I'm like, everyone's like, oh, si chao chow. And I'm like, I don't know what that word is, I don't know what's going on. I hear all this stuff. And then, you know, the whole village is basically there. And so now for the next, you know, I lose. Um, I I try my best to be generous and say thank you for your time. You know, they buy me an extra cup of tea. Everyone's laughing, everyone has a good time. I learned something about Mahjong, I learned some more Chinese, and then everyone's yelling at me, hey, Si Chow Chow, hey, how are you doing? Si Chow Chow. They all have a nickname now in the whole village. And they're all like coming up to me, hanging out with me, saying that. And then later I go home and I figure out Si Chao Chow means roadkill. So my nickname at that village was Roadkill because I got totally killed by ever all the other Mahjong people. But I learned that, and then I was able to tell that story in Chinese when I came back from my from my um you know to my teacher and everything. So I was learning at an accelerated pace, but I wasn't learning the right material. So then I would have to go back and then restudy the books so I could pass the test. But it was so much easier for me because then I could put it into context, I could put it into something else, and all of a sudden everything started clicking. And I'd like to say this happened very quickly, but no, it still was a lot of work. But I was learning, like you said, for fluency. Struggling all my life in language as I was, finishing high school, going into college, and then realizing I wanted to go to China before and first. I was actually given exemption from language studies. I was proven to struggle so much in languages, they wrote me a special note to make me exempt for my life to study languages as a requirement.

SPEAKER_02

Wait, wait, wait. Are you talking about high school, university? After high school.

SPEAKER_04

So after high school, my professors and my uh advisors actually came together because they knew I worked so hard. There was evidence of me working hard. They said, listen, we maybe you're just not built for language. And and they gave me an exemption. So any school that I went to, I had a written letter saying, hey, this this one doesn't need to do language studies.

SPEAKER_01

Whoa.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, which really just really was sad.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

You know, I felt like I really failed out of the game. You know, I failed to a point where it was, okay, so that also kind of drove, like, I'm gonna go to China where the language is the hardest place in the world as well. I'm gonna see what happens. All of my classmates were, even in China, they were acing the test. But if you put them out, you took them out of the classroom in China, they couldn't order food, they couldn't talk to anyone. And I would sit on the side of the road, have a 10-minute conversation with someone with barely any Chinese. So I was high fluency with very little ability.

SPEAKER_02

In the middle of these situations, how did you remember what was being said? Was it just the pressure that that helped you keep those words?

SPEAKER_04

Pressure helps you keep words definitely because it's related to an action. You know, when I was studying something and someone would say, if you were studying mahjong, and someone would say, Oh, ch means to take a pile to to eat, and pang means to throw it away. And you know, I'd just be like, okay, that's just a point of data. I'm not good at remembering points of data. But if I remember this old lady with very tall red hair looking at me with way too much lipstick on her mouth, saying, ch and throwing it out or grabbing it, and then I'm gonna remember that forever. It's part of a more complex frame of reference for me, which allows me to memorize much better. It it instantly is now locked away, and I'm able to recall it more confidently. That confident feeling is my fluency. You know, I've been in those situations. I've gotten in trouble where I had to like talk my way out of stuff in Chinese. I've, you know, done hitchhiking in the mountains of China where, you know, it's like, well, if I'm gonna get to this location, I have to convince this person in broken Chinese to put me in the back of their truck. Or something bad could happen to me. I don't know. I I don't even want to know what's gonna happen. So I putting myself in bad situations was the missing element. In the classroom, I could never do it.

SPEAKER_02

Very few people do. I mean, like there'll be thematic chapters in a lot of language textbooks. And I'm not just talking about Chinese, just in general. In language textbooks, there'll be like, oh, this is the grocery store chapter, this is the going on vacation chapter, that kind of thing. But you don't actually physically do the things. And I think that's missing for a lot of people, is definitely missing for me too. And I did a lot of role plays and stuff when I was a teacher. I would make people like get up and go to the other side of a door and like open things and hand things and like make and that students are like, uh, and I'm like, yeah, but you're gonna remember this. Yes, you are. Because there's a physical response to the words that you're doing. But it's very hard to do that in big classrooms. Oh, it's very, very hard to do that. Big classrooms you're yeah, yeah. And with different different people at different times and so much it's so complex. So, okay, so you had those circumstances where you're learning the language in context, you're using them, there's a physicalness to the actions, and then you come back, but you're still taking the classes. How did you combine those two language worlds?

SPEAKER_04

Aaron Powell I basically didn't, you know. Um I would learn my language out of the classroom, and then I would come to the classroom to try to share it, you know, and then I would have to, you know, cram uh a bunch of words and things like that that I was learning. But that was also good because then I was not afraid of talking to the taxi driver. So I had some rules for myself to learn Chinese faster because I knew that, you know, so if it takes, on average, a normal person to learn Chinese, let's say, I don't know, 20 hours of studying, I had to put in 40. That's just what I I figured out for myself. I had to put in double. And I need hacks, I need rules so I can put in double and get more out. So one of them was every single cab driver that I took, I had to talk to them, I had to have a full conversation with them in Chinese, and I had to use the new material that I learned. That was one of my rules. The other rules were everything in my life had to be in a Chinese language. My phone, my uh computer. Everything that I interacted with had to be in Chinese. Yes, it's gonna take me 30 minutes to figure out where the delete button is, but I'm gonna remember it after that 30 minutes.

SPEAKER_02

Right, you are because yeah, especially if there's something there waiting for you and you got a notification, you're like, I need to get to well not if you're looking for the delete button, you want to get rid of something, but still there's a lot of everything had to be there. You struggling with language and people telling you basically don't worry about it, you can't do language. And then you come to China and you're doing these workarounds and making these rules and basically building a beautiful language learning structure for yourself.

SPEAKER_04

Yes.

SPEAKER_02

What was the bridge to make you realize you wanted to or could do that?

SPEAKER_04

If you're not interested, if you don't have a passion behind it, you're not going to. For me, I traveled, I I went to the countryside and I saw these hard-working, very kind people that were just so kind. They didn't speak my language at all, and they were helping make sure I was safe. They were helping make sure I was taken care of, they weren't taking advantage of me. The people were so kind and nice to me, like Midwestern nice, you know, not normal nice, like Midwestern, bring you into your house, share some of the fruit from your own, you know, back garden trees, and and just make sure you're taken care of, like you feel like you belong. And I didn't speak a word. Yeah. I could barely say anything, and that's without yet that's knowing that I couldn't give them anything in return. And I wanted to know their story. But what drove me was I decided that I needed to know what their story was. I needed to connect with them. I wanted to understand China. And one of the things about China is that you can't understand China or its culture without its language. They're in they're intuitively tied. Culture and language in China are are are very, very similar, almost undistinguishable because it's a such it's the you know, from the history of the pictograph and how they set it up to what it is today. Um, you know, I was dedicated and I said, no, I'm gonna learn Chinese culture. I'm gonna learn why this ticks, how this ticks. And I want to know that person's story. And that was my constant driver to do these things where I didn't have that contextual context before. You know, I was learning because I wanted to get an A. That's not that was never enough for me. And so when I when I had that drive, I said, I'm doing this because I want to learn about China because I still know nothing. And that drove me to the next and next and next step, eventually being the head translator for the Beijing Olympics.

SPEAKER_02

The head translator for the Beijing Olympics.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, there was a few. So I was one of the head translators for the Beijing Olympics for the US team.

SPEAKER_02

How long did that take you?

SPEAKER_04

Uh that took me eight years. That seemed like a short time because I will still say that my Chinese was not good enough. And the thing was is everyone was faster than me. You know, people were studying that were just better at languages. And they were in yeah, three or four years they were studying Chinese poetry and literature. And I was still just trying to get my HSKs, trying to get everything, but I just never stopped. I kept on adding rules for myself. So it was, you know, only um talk to every person around you, cab drivers were a rule. And then it was extended to more people talking in Chinese, have as many Chinese conversations as possible. Everything in my life had to be in Chinese. Um, to only listen to Chinese music, Chinese things, everything that you enjoy has to now be in Chinese, then to, okay, you're gonna read a Chinese article every day on the newspaper to now you're gonna be doing, you know, little steps to get more and more fluency and more comfortable. And to be honest, people underrate fluency because they uh can only measure what is tested. And so they give weight to that. And I totally get it, and I understand. You give weight to what you can measure. You can either, you know, here's HSK, how high you're gonna get, and that's a that's how good you are, because that's a measurable method. But fluency is what you really need. And I still to this day, I don't know all the words. I I I I'm not the most literate in terms of Chinese, but I am very fluent.

SPEAKER_02

But native speakers of most languages, uh if not all, don't know all the words of the language. Like we're constantly learning stuff in our own in a language that we grew up with anyway. But and and the thing that is least stressed in a lot of language classrooms is the negotiation of language. Even native speaker to native speaker, which by the way, does not mean skillful, it just means you grew up with that language. You're still navigating back and forth. What do you mean by that? Did you say this or that? Like there's still a lot of back and forth with one bit of information with communication be happening.

SPEAKER_04

So that is something that fluency of going back and forth, that's the key. Because if you think you're saying something, language is uh I mean it's ethereal. What I think this is and what you think this is. Language is maybe the lowest common denominator of actually what we think this is. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02

Exactly. Because language is just one part. Then you've got the thought processes, you've got the past experiences of the person or the the motivation of the person that they're trying to do this versus that. There's so many things that are not language related with communication. That's so true.

SPEAKER_04

Aaron Ross Powell And and I mean I think that's why I got that that one job because my it was I you know my whole interview was about fluency, about what I could do, how I could do, and and the proof that I could do these things. And and uh and the constant struggle. Like I have one other I have more struggle stories. Like I feel like my entire journey on Chinese was struggle city. How could it not be?

SPEAKER_01

Have you seen the of course you have, but listeners, have you seen this language?

SPEAKER_04

But don't give up because there's so much that you gain from being able to communicate and understand the Culture. You know, it it's it's the easiest hack to understand the Chinese culture is to understand the language.

SPEAKER_02

Could you tell us something about the Chinese language that you learned only because you got to a certain point?

SPEAKER_04

Chinese numerology is amazing. The the culture and their perspective is very much related to numbers. And they have number games, they have word games with numbers, things sound like it. S, s, sush, sis, si, si, uh. Like that's one of the uh that's one of the uh word games you say. Sush sish shu. Like 44 is 40, 44 is 40, but not 44 uh not 14. 44, yeah, it's it's like it's it's the it's crazy, uh and I can slow it down. Um so you say s sh, shh, s sh, push, shh, s.

SPEAKER_02

That's only nine words. It seemed like more than nine. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

And so when you're saying something like that, um, you know, you're basically just saying numbers like uh, you know the 40 and 44 is not 14 or or however you I forget, actually, I'm probably butchering the thing right now. Yeah, I think I am. But uh they love number games and they love the the fact that things sound different, and and so like uh in my WeChat, one of my favorite number games is um uh like I love the number 1797. 1797 is my favorite number. Only Chinese people will get it. They look at the number, they go, oh, 1797, that's hilarious. So if I said that in Chinese, I would say Yao Chu. Which sounds like Yao Chu Jiu Chu, which is a word play on if you're hungry, go ahead and eat. Yao chu che.

SPEAKER_01

I gotcha.

SPEAKER_04

So it's if you want to eat, yao cheo ch go ahead and eat. And so it's a way of like being like, I'm fat, I love food, this is amazing, food's my best friend, or just like playing around and having fun with that, or calling yourself a foodie. So 1797 is another way of saying I'm a foodie.

SPEAKER_02

Why do you think numbers?

SPEAKER_04

Why why are numbers why is it that numbers are so we don't have uh you know, there was something that we never had in or I never experienced very much of it in uh in America, in learning English. And there are so many number games, and there's so many uh sounds like and playoff and idioms and everything about numbers, and then they believe the power of numbers, and so there are uh, you know, s for sounds like death. There's been studies all over China at all the hospitals. And on the fourth month, on the fourth day, at four o'clock, at four forty-four, there are a disproportionate amount of deaths. People give up. People believe that four is s and it's the maximum amount of death is that moment. And so there's a bell curve of in China of that, and there's actual power. People give power to these numbers. Whether these numbers have power or not, that's up to quantum physics. But people believe in it, that's a different thing. And so there's a lot of belief and there's a lot of cultural respect that you can get in China by knowing the numbers, knowing what things mean. There's a lot of websites that are like Leo Woba. It's like let's go by. You know, like like like is you know, or let's go for good luck. It's like things sound similar, they use numbers and all that. So, like, yeah, you know, one of the ways to say like good luck is lio leo leo lio lio. Uh six six six good luck, you know? Or yeah, yeah, yeah. So they're like eight is good fortune as well, and also bye-bye. But if I want to say like go, you can do it, it's lio leo.

SPEAKER_02

Because you said th there's a lot of struggle, struggle, struggle. When did you finally feel that you could step back from the struggle and have a little bit of fun with it like that?

SPEAKER_04

I I don't know when I could have fun with it, but I remember the moment that I could hear Chinese. It took me two years. Okay. And I remember I was I was in a cab and on the radio was on, and the radio was talking about an event that was happening later that day. Um, that with like a concert or something. And I looked at my friend and I was like, oh, there's a concert going on, you know, later this day. They just said it on the radio, and then I stopped. It's like, oh I understood the radio. That's insane. I heard this. What? It was on the radio and then it was in my brain. Oh my God. And I freaked out because I'd never had that happen in any language in my life. And I studied languages for years, for like 15 years I've been studying languages, and it's never clicked. The moment that I could just hear the radio and then know what it said instead of, you know, a constructed, it has to be someone saying, How are you? Where are you from? repeating back. You know, that how oh man, that was an amazing moment.

SPEAKER_02

Aaron Powell So it sounds like the moment where you're just hearing content and then you're not realizing what language it is until Yes.

SPEAKER_04

And then all of a sudden it just came in and I was like, oh my God, I understand everything. That's so amazing. I mean, not everything. Yeah. But I actually understand how little I understand.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

I got 20% of that. Great. But that's a mi- it's a huge improve. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02

But you got the meaning of what they were saying in the bit, even if you didn't know every word. That's beautiful.

SPEAKER_04

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: And I will point out that my struggle probably helped me be more confident in my fluency because I never could remember the right words. And so I never sat on my chair, my high chair of the right words. I'm saying the right thing. Why aren't you understanding me? Trevor Burrus, Jr. I've always had uh speaking issues or not not a lisp, but I would say things wrong. And I've gone through like uh when I was growing up, slow reader, slow one to pick up on a lot of like the language expectations. And so always kind of struggling with English. Even to this day, I'm I'm terrible at spelling.

SPEAKER_02

Aaron Powell Okay, that makes me wonder what languages were around you. Were there other language distractions?

SPEAKER_04

Aaron Powell No, it was it was basically I mean California, southern California there's a lot of Spanish. And so uh you you pick up a lot of Spanish just by being around there, but it's not uh it's not as um prevalent as maybe living in Europe as would be and you know, you'd be learning German and Austin and like French and all these things. But no, it's just uh, you know, I I definitely struggled a lot with languages growing up.

SPEAKER_02

Aaron Ross Powell Do you remember when you became aware of it being like obstructing meaning being I think I'm, you know, that was my my family became aware of it that it was obstructing before.

SPEAKER_04

Because I was pretty young and I was definitely put into a uh class, special classes. I used to say the word stuperman instead of super, it was stupor man. A lot of things that I just I couldn't actually say the vowels or the consonants correctly. And I hadn't learned a way to say them that needed to be corrected.

SPEAKER_02

Aaron Powell Some of the most successful and intelligent people I've met had language problems as a kid. I'm just saying. I I okay, I'm gonna include my husband and I in that grammatics, but also a range of other people that I have heard speak. They've all had like language struggles, communication struggles as a kid. And I wonder if that makes us more introspective about how we communicate later on.

SPEAKER_04

Aaron Powell Maybe that's a good point. Um growing up, I was told language it was not something for me. And so uh as I went past then, you know, I was always told, Ryan, you're gonna have difficulties. Ryan, it's gonna be harder for you. Yeah. And so uh it's one of those self-sulfilling, fulfilling prophecies where it does become harder for you. You you were always in your head. So as I was growing up, I studied Latin and I studied French. And I would study five hours, uh, I would study 10 hours, 15 hours, I had tutors, no matter what I would put in in terms of effort and work, and I would take the practice test, ace them. I'd go in for the real test and get an F every single time. I'd get zeros. I I just could not perform. And it might have been the uh subconscious thinking of, I'm not good at this, I can't do it. But whenever it would come to taking the test, actually doing it, the graded work on any language, I would barely pass or fail.

SPEAKER_02

Did you have any chance to use the language? No.

SPEAKER_04

I I've never so in that situation, I was someone who never had to use it except for testing. So the only engagement that I've ever had with language up to high school was you're learning this to be tested on it.

SPEAKER_02

Trevor Burrus, Jr. You know, all too often people assume that language abilities equate with like intelligence and it's just not true. Learning languages and how we learn languages is such a complex issue, complex skill and really, really different from person to person.

SPEAKER_04

And how we do it is very different.

SPEAKER_02

Very different.

SPEAKER_04

So I developed techniques to go around and explain things so people could easily and and hopefully, without a doubt, know what I meant. And so I'll give you an example. When we were at the Olympics, uh there was a circuit box that power went out and we needed to bring back electricity to the circuit box. So I was looking for a circuit box. I don't know how to say circuit box. It's not a normal thing. I don't know what to do with it. I know how I know now how to say it, but back then, uh usually I do like, I gotta go research, I gotta look it up. Nope. All I did was I ran around and I found someone I said, okay, I'm looking for a box. And I was like, it's about this big, you know, about the size of your face, and inside of it is electricity.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

And if I punched it, I would die. And they looked at me like, I know what you mean. It's over there. That's beautiful because your negotiation skills were just like it's like, listen, it's a box, there's power going in and out of this box, still not there, and if I punched it, I would be I die. Right. And they were like, got it. No what you mean, it's over there. And that was it. And I was and you know, I didn't research, I figured it out later. But that was that was how I did my fluency. Right. My fluency was about describing the situation, what it was, how I would use things, how things would interact with me. Do you get it? And with only a few data points, people would totally get it. They'd understand it even better than me using the real word sometimes. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02

I imagine that would especially go over well in China where there's where it's such a gigantic country and linguistically it's so diverse from region to region that I imagine they're probably doing that a lot with themselves, with the the native quote-unquote native speakers.

SPEAKER_04

Uh 255 dialects that are uh recognized.

SPEAKER_02

So when they're speaking the common language, they're speaking Puranqua to each other, they're probably doing that anyway. Because I mean you wouldn't necessarily But even even in English, we do that. We're like, oh, what is that thing called? You know, the blah blah blah blah blah.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, the the thing that well, I don't know what it's called, but it it will kill you if you punch it.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I mean we do that all the time anyway. So to be able to do that in another language have people understand you and to keep whatever action is happening happen.

SPEAKER_04

Yes, and then facilitating it and it's just going forward and never I never got stuck on the word. I always pushed through to the meaning. And that was my rule is that push through to the meaning of what you're trying to say, but not the word.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

The first word to come up would usually be a Chinese word. And then I'd be like, oh, it's that thing. I know it in Chinese, but I totally forgot what it is in English. And I used to say that a lot, but now my brains are my brains, my Chinese and English brain are are working more in unison now.

SPEAKER_02

Because mostly we've been talking about speaking so far. Do you read in Chinese?

SPEAKER_04

I used to read every day when I was trying to do the Chinese newspaper, and my writing is exclusively on a keyboard or a uh, you know, computers on my phone. It's all pinying. I can no longer write calligraphy. It looks like a uh four-year-old has written. I just don't have the motor skills to draw the proper uh dien and hong and all that stuff. I I can't do that clean, so it looks like a four-year-old and I but I can type as almost as fast as I can do in English in Chinese because it's just pining. It's it's the uh you know, romanization.

SPEAKER_02

And that is useful. That is incredibly useful to be able to do. See, I have to ask you a question about newspapers. How difficult was it for you to read newspapers?

SPEAKER_04

Aaron Powell Uh everything was difficult, so it was pretty average in terms of difficult.

SPEAKER_02

Did you find it much more difficult or formal than other things you were reading?

SPEAKER_04

Um so I found uh a workaround. I used um Yahoo, which has a good uh Chinese newspapers, and then I had an add-on that if I didn't know a word, I could hover over it, add it to my cards, and then move on.

SPEAKER_02

Your cards, your flashcards. What were you using? What program?

SPEAKER_04

Uh I was using something that was a Japanese company. I can't really remember the name, but and in any language, it really does help. My suggestion is read something that you wouldn't normally read. Right. So I read the military section of the newspaper, and that was everything was new. Everything, you know, what's a warship? Then all of a sudden you pick up the language, it's the same stuff over. You realize, because if you jump into a newspaper article with a lot of words that you already know, and then you just feel like it's a normal test. Right. Jump into the science section, the philosophy section, and then all of a sudden everything's new. And then slowly and a lot faster than you expect, all of a sudden you start reading. Oh, I know what that is. Oh, I know what that is. And everything starts to make sense.

SPEAKER_02

Aaron Powell, it sounds like it wasn't so different than other writings that it was.

SPEAKER_04

No, it wasn't that bad. It was just it was interesting. I had something to talk to my cab drivers about every day because I read the newspaper or one article. It was about 200 to 350 words, and I would time bound it to only be around 30 minutes of my day. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02

You would read that in 30 minutes and understand it.

SPEAKER_04

It was time-bound. I mean, I would force myself to only do 30 minutes. And so it's time-bound. So it's like, oh, I didn't finish it this time, but I'm going to get it next time. And so you know it's like I got it's some pressure. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02

Very clever. So more about the frequency of doing it than it's not about understanding.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah. Trevor Burrus, When you're reading a newspaper, it's again, it's not about understanding. It's about frequency. It's about showing up to the game, practicing your swing every day. And that's all that it's about. Read Chinese for 30 minutes every day and then walk away. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02

I fell off of studying, studying, learning, using, thinking about Chinese for like six months after my HSK three. Just my brain fell out. Have a new graded reader. The first week I had it, I just listened to chapter one and I was just following along. And every day, even without looking at the words, not reviewing the words that I knew from HSK 1, 2, and 3, every day, something in there made more sense just from listening and watch and watching. I'm very visual, so for me to see the characters really helps. It's a little fast for me, to be fair. I have issues with reading in any language, so even English ones, I have to put kind of big and like pause sometimes and rewind. No, what I'm saying is the speed of language, reading in any language is slow for me. So I would have to like slow down the speaking.

SPEAKER_04

But you're picking up other things. So you're not actually trying to get 100% accuracy. You're picking up on how people call each other. That's true. You'll pick up on little things that are more like, you know, ever have a friend that learned their English from the TV show friends.

SPEAKER_02

Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

And the way they speak is just like Ross. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02

There are so many people that learned off of friends and big bang theory and like all- Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: And the way they talk is exactly like that TV show. And you're like, whoa.

SPEAKER_02

I so wish I was that person. I mean I it's definitely in the mix. It it does to a degree. Like I said, I'm I'm ridiculously visual, so for me, I need kind of slower, very frequent stuff over and over and over. I feel like I'm getting closer to that. I feel like after a few of these graded readers, I'll be much closer.

SPEAKER_03

Nice.

SPEAKER_02

But right now I'm just like, I'm just amazed, just the first week again, not studying anything, just letting the the the visual of the characters and hearing it has brought back what I knew and it has me figuring out because it's context and it's characters talking to each other, I'm able to work out some of the words that I don't know. And I'm like, that's that's what I like. I like focusing on on reading and and there being a reason why the language is being used. I see you've already translated for the pageing. What's in store for you for the future with Mandarin? Do you have any future language goals?

SPEAKER_04

Uh yeah, I I would like to, you know, increase my uh knowledge of Chinese language. I don't consider myself uh completely fluent. I don't consider myself, you know, even where even near, like 50% near I want where I want to be for Chinese. Uh it's more studying, it's getting back to the HSK. Um there's a lot of things that I lack describing. So if you gave me like a painting and you said describe this painting in Chinese, I lack a lot of those terms. I need that, and also you know, in work and in business in China, um it's really important to know all the words related to that. And so studying and researching those kind of words, those kind of conversations that I'll be getting in in my line of work and then more words. Like it's it's it just you always need more. You do. It's just it's unbelievable. You need more context, you need more words, and the studying time. Yeah. So I I I do it on my phone. I study on my phone um uh almost every day.

SPEAKER_02

Like speaking-wise, do you find that most of your day is in English and Chinese or a a balance between the two?

SPEAKER_04

Mine is right now in English mostly. I I in the past I had uh 50-50 split. I know lots of people who have 80% Chinese and their Chinese is killer. Like, you know, if you can find a job where you need to speak Chinese, do it. Or just go into a small village and donate your time in a place where no one speaks English at all. It's also a good hack. But working and making a living off of speaking Chinese is is a fantastic way.

SPEAKER_02

Have you lost any of your language of your English language when you learned Mandarin? Is there anything that you were like, I used to know this word, this phrase, or how to say this? Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_04

The first word to come up would usually be a Chinese word. And then I'd be like, oh, it's that thing. I know it in Chinese, but I totally forgot what it is in English. And I used to say that a lot, but now my brains are my brains, my Chinese and English brain are are working more in in unison now. But yeah, definitely that happens.

SPEAKER_02

I had a previous guest that was asking about Tanya Crossman, she was asking about the the emotional language within a language. She started learning um Chinese when she was like twelve or thirteen and has used it a lot throughout her life. And so she's like, she wants to to hear more about people's like when they learn to be emotional in language, when they learn to express either happiness or sadness or any sort of emotional struggle. Have you had in whatever you're comfortable sharing?

SPEAKER_04

Oh no, so for me, that was day one. That was me going into the cities. And that's what I learned right away. I learned fluency on an emotional level and on a uh like you know, have to survive level.

SPEAKER_02

But talking about language.

SPEAKER_04

Uh well I would have to say thank you. And you know, this is makes me really happy and that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_02

Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_04

But like uh talking emotionally and language in Chinese, I just practice. You know, at this point I don't think there was outside of really trying to connect and talk to people, uh because that's my goal. My goal is to connect, I have to emotionally drive that conversation. And so I I I was able to pick that up very early. I kind of crossed that bridge first and then learn the language.

SPEAKER_02

But does English and Chinese feel like different parts of your brain are being worked?

SPEAKER_04

I would say in the beginning, yes. Yeah. Uh but now it's not. Because you when you're learning a new language, you burn uh more calories. The biggest muscle in your body is your brain. And so you will, you know, you need to feed it. You're gonna burn a lot of calories, your head's gonna hurt, you're gonna feel you can actually get headaches from learning. And that's what it felt like. But then once it starts to get into um your uh type two memory set, and then you're you're pretty much good. Your neurons know what to do after that.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. So then it just feels like the same. Any other than um just keep going and keep doing things. Do you have any advice to folks who are just starting or at their first big do I keep going or do I stop decision point with Mandarin Chinese?

SPEAKER_04

Uh come to China. Test it out. Do it in the field. So if you think you're gonna stop or you think you're gonna start, just find a reason, come to China, go to some place where you the only thing you can do to survive is talk and speak that language. And I would say this for any language. Anything you want to learn uh Hindi, you wanna learn French, you know, you wanna learn English. Like just go to that place and feel like what it is because uh very few people are true polygoths that love the learning of a language, love the science of it, the the physics of it, the the the way in which language modifies and grows. Like I don't that's not me. But I found my why and I drove towards it, and my why was bigger than the the things that were were difficult for me. And you and I would have never found that unless I would have came.

SPEAKER_02

Do you think people should come when they're an absolute beginner at Chinese, or do you think they should get some basics first and then come?

SPEAKER_04

Absolute beginner.

unknown

Absolute beginner.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah. And when you come and you join, don't join level one.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

Join level two. Level one is China.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

So if you know you're here and you're like, oh, I'm just learning Chinese, I'm joining level one, you're wasting your time. Join level two, join level three.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

Because you're gonna that that because just being in China, everyone says, nihao, how are you? And that's level one.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

You're gonna spend your entire trip here learning learn reinforcing something that is already permeating into you. Instead, go for level two, go for level three, go go go higher. Learn level one anywhere else you go. But in China, your job is to push yourself. Yeah. That's it.

SPEAKER_02

Do you think people can learn the language that way if they're if they come here to work and we're l and are learning it on the side?

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, totally. It's much easier. Absolutely. You can learn it on yeah, it's better to learn China, Chinese in China.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04

Because then you have a relationship for Or you understand what things are and why. And you can play with it.

SPEAKER_02

Final question. Do you have any special phrases that you really like that exist in Chinese that don't exist in English?

SPEAKER_04

Okay. That don't exist in English?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Or that just sound better or more concise or that you just like.

SPEAKER_04

So the one thing that uh I like to say a lot in Chinese we have the phrase, but we never use it. So in America, if there is a a sports competition, you know, sport ball. No, if there's a football or baseball, you know, we have like a cheer.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

You know, it's like go team go or hoorah, you know, like or something like that. Uh in China, and usually, usually if it's an international one, we know Americans always know what to say. USA, USA, okay? But that doesn't apply. I wouldn't go to my colleague and say USA, USA. Uh maybe I should, that's a good idea. But uh what you do in China is you say jayo, which means add oil. Which means go get it. Go get it, go get it, you know, like go get it. And in China, you just say ja yo for everything.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

It's like have a good day, ja yo. You know? Your team's behind, you want to score, ja yo, ja yo, ja yo. You know, China's going for the Olympics, ja yo, ja yo. You know, you had a bad day, you need to push through, ja yo.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

And it's this idea of pushing through, and I always say ja yo at oil. And I chant it like to everyone I know because I love the phrase. Yeah. And it's just this great, like, optimistic fight for yourself, keep on pushing through phrase, and you know, ja yo. Everybody out there, if you're trying to start letting learn Chinese and you want to get into it, just no matter what happens, ja yo. Ja some yo.

SPEAKER_02

Shishani to Ryan for being such a wonderful guest during this conversation. We actually also recorded this in his studio in Shanghai, China. If if you are a podcaster in Shanghai, China and need a place to record, I'd be thrilled to connect you to Red Door Studio. So go ahead and message me and I will connect you over to Ryan. This podcast is brought to you by Stephfuccio.com where I offer podcasting services like podcasting workshops, podcast editing, and more and more all the time. You can find the full show notes, links, etc., to this episode at Steph Fuccio, S T E P H F U C C I O.com forward slash geopaths language forward slash 23.

SPEAKER_00

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