Growing up in New Zealand, I learned to speak Mandarin Chinese first. It was difficult to maintain interest as a child when my classmates, friends, and teachers were speaking English. I remember once I started going to school my Chinese regressed. I’d go to Saturday Chinese classes unable to recognize the words on the whiteboard and struggling to understand what the teacher was saying.
Fortunately, my parents insisted my sister and I must speak Chinese at home, otherwise, I imagine I would’ve forgotten a significant amount of the language. It was in my later teens I felt a desire to improve my Chinese. I wanted to feel a deeper connection with my culture as well as the ability to communicate with more fluency with my family.
1) It’s fun! Learning or improving any language can be a fun task. You can be met with challenges and amusing experiences. When I was a child, my father was reading to me in the library, and a young boy came up to him to ask “What are you speaking?”. My Dad replied “Mandarin”. The boy replied “I speak pineapple!”
2) It helps you understand your culture and identity. There is a greater respect for one’s culture when you understand the language. When you retain your mother tongue you are maintaining your cultural identity and you have a more deeper connection with it.
3) It’s the most spoken language in the world. There are over a billion native speakers in Chinese in the world. By improving your Chinese you can expand your opportunities internationally, or engage with more people and open your world view and perspective.
4) It helps you improve your English skills. Understanding your mother tongue well helps you in learning English. Research points to how incomplete or inadequate skills in the first language make learning another language difficult for the child.
5) It improves cognition. Learning and improving a language enhances brain plasticity, as every time you learn something, you promote neuroplasticity. Studies have shown that people who are bilingual tend to have better cognitive skills than those who only speak one language.
Photography by Sun Jun
Tien-Jen 